Movie Reviews
Titles starting with L
The Letter
A dark night on a rubber plantation somewhere near Singapore. Inside the owner’s bungalow a shot rings out. A man staggers out onto the verandah. Bette Davis follows him, and shoots him again. He falls to the ground and Bette shoots him four more times in the back, until the revolver clicks on an empty chamber. He lifts his head and says, “Does this mean the affair is over?”
Well, ... Read more »
Letters From Iwo Jima
The verdict is in: 2006 was a good year for good movies, but not a year for great ones. We have now seen all 5 Oscar-nominated films (and I don’t think I’ve ever done that before the ceremonies), and they’re all good. But none are great. The film I enjoyed the most this year was Dreamgirls, closely followed by Read more »
Leviathan
Kolya is an ordinary Russian (which means, among other things, that he drinks way too much) who is getting fucked over by a corrupt mayor, and corrupt city council, and a corrupt Church. They want his miserable .66 acre and the house he built that stands on it, and they will bring the whole weight of authority down on his head to get it. And guess what? They get ... Read more »
Levity
Possibly the most misleading title of all time, unless they reissue Schindler’s List as Springtime for Hitler Part 2. Billy Bob Thornton is one of the most interesting actors working today, but this was a misbegotten project from the start. I don’t object to depressing movies, if they have something to offer just a little bit beyond ... Read more »
Lies and Alibis
We have been watching and greatly enjoying the new television series “Fargo,” which is not a remake of the Coen Brothers’ masterpiece but a new story that is sort of “inspired” by the movie. What’s the connection here? It was written by Noah Hawley, who also scribed this one. I’ve always had a soft spot for films about con games, and this is a good one. Steve Coogan is a con man who has ... Read more »
Life
The best way to describe this would be Alien Lite. It’s the same basic premise, played out on the International Space Station. A probe returning from Mars has a dormant cell that soon starts to grow when they cultivate it. Sure enough, it gets bigger and bigger and someone makes a stupid mistake, letting it loose in the station. It is adaptable and very fast. It ... Read more »
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
An HBO movie. Biopics are hard. Hollywood used to make them with little regard for actual facts. The subject was usually portrayed as a pure hero, all warts forgotten. He would usually rise in his chosen field, meet a crisis, and then recover at the end. Consider Night and Day or Words and Music, which never mentioned that Cole Porter ... Read more »
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
One reviewer said you’re going to love or hate this movie. I disagree. There’s not enough here to hate, and very little to love. I has a nice look to it, but at 45 minutes we were so uninvolved that we paused it and just didn’t have the enthusiasm to start again. So if the last hour and a quarter was a masterpiece, I guess we missed it … and so what? If you’ve fucked up the first ... Read more »