There's an obscure U2 song called Wild Irish Rose. About halfway through the song, there's a voiceover by Bono:
This is based on a...on the time we spent in a hotel called the Millon Dollar Hotel in Los Angeles, which is downtown Los Angeles. It's like a half-way house hotel for bums and people thrown out of hospitals under the Regean era. And I was being taken through this hotel--I was doing some filming down there--and I noticed that the cheap liquor that all the bums drank was called Wild Irish Rose. So I started with the line, 'The city of Angels/Has brought a devil out in me', and developed it on from there. The Rose in Ireland, as you know, is a sort of romantic image of love, obviously, but it's also an image of Ireland itself. That is an image I thought would be nice to subvert.
It was shortly after I first heard the song that I read in Bill Flanagan's book, U2 at the End of the World, about Bono's plans to make a film called Million Dollar Hotel, which was, no doubt, inspired by his experience in LA. Unfortunately, the project never seemed to get far off the ground. Well, it wasn't until a couple years ago (1999, I believe) that I heard about the film finally being made. It never really made it to American theaters (aside from New York and LA), and I had been waiting and waiting to see it. Well, yesterday, at the video store, there were some copies, so Dave, Emily, and I rented it. Oh. My. God. It was incredible. Here's a short plot summary. I'm not giving away the ending, because I think all of you should see this movie.
The movie opens with Tom Tom (Jeremy Davies) running across the top of a building, waving to someone, and diving off. Then he begins to narrate (from beyond the grave, obviously).
Izzy is dead. He fell off the roof of the Million Dollar Hotel. Izzy's father believes he was murdered, and Detective Skinner (Mel Gibson) i called in to investigate. The Million Dollar Hotel is a halfway house for bums and people thrown out of hospitals. Most of the residents there are mentally handicapped in one way or another. Tom Tom is no exception. He's pretty slow, but he's kind and very curious. Tom Tom is in love with Eloise (Milla Jovovich), but she doesn't know it yet. So Skinner, a real stiff guy in a back brace, is investigates Izzy's death, seeing everyone as a suspect, and generally bullying everyone around. Tom Tom takes a liking to him immediately. He's a real FBI agent. What more could a guy ask for? So, Skinner sort of befriends Tom Tom and asks him to keep an eye out for the killer. In return, Skinner promises Tom Tom a visit from Eloise.
Now, Eloise is an interesting character. She has severe low self-esteem and tends to mentally detach from herself to the point where she believes she doesn't exist. She doesn't associate with anyone at all, and rumour has it she was raped by the late Izzy. Skinner walks in on three guys trying to rape her. He shoots two, and the third gets away. He somehow convinces Eloise to visit Tom Tom.
Skinner believes Tom Tom knows who did it, and he bullies him into fingering Geronimo (Jimmy Smits), so Geronimo is arrested. Geronimo has a little bit of a criminal past. He's kind of on edge and violent, and he likes to paint with tar. With all the publicity about the murder case, the media credits Izzy with the tar paintings. Geronimo and Tom Tom decide that if they sell the paintings, they could make a lot of money because of all the publicity surrounding them. So, and art appraiser comes in and declares them incredible works of art.
Meanwhile, all the residents of the MDH, while excited about making some money off the tar paintings, are concerned about Geronimo's imprisonment. They all think he's innocent, but no one knows who's guilty. They decide the only way to get him out of jail is to have someone else take responsibility. Overcome with the temptation of being on TV, Tom Tom agrees. He videotapes a confession, and the news people air it. Tom Tom escapes the cops with the help of Eloise and Skinner, and Eloise comes up with a plan to get them both out of town. Tom Tom knows the plan will never ever work, and rather than go back to a miserable hospital, or possibly worse, and living without Eliose, Tom Tom decides to die. Eloise races to stop him, but to no avail. Tom Tom plummets to the ground and dies.
There's actually a lot more to it than this, but, like I said, I don't want to give too much away. Everything about this movie was incredible. The dialogue was great. The acting was impeccible. The directing was outstanding, and the soundtrack was incredible. I absolutely love this movie.