*previously a 75, now a 94*

Fallen angels wandering a smog-infested wonderland. Groovy tunes and mermaids and porn stars and bumblebees are our characters, but The Nice Guys are our heroes, shrieking their way through a world full of fraudulent money deals, colorful ambitions, and broken dreams. If the opening is Shane Black in miniature - desire literally crashing into your world, critically wounded by reality - then its conclusion is the culmination of his ethos; shaggy developments and twists of fate as signs from above, Nixon reaching out. Besides its pacing being tighter and the whole mystery yarn feeling crisper, this rewatch wasn't really a drastic revelation but more of an absorption that The Nice Guys is going to be a bottomless pit of hilarity and enriched, snappy character play for decades to come. I take comfort in that this'll always be around, bumbling and drinking and somehow solving the crime anyway.

Also: Ryan Gosling exclaiming "Jesus!" after his own daughter startles him in the daytime is totally, unequivocally me on every level.