The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

If Jodie Foster has ever played the part of a ditsy blonde during her career, I’m not aware of it, and I’d expect it to be the worst bit of miscasting in the history of cinema. There is just something about the girl, and then the woman, that radiates smarts. And of course it’s not an illusion; she speaks fluent French and can get by in German, Spanish, and Italian, and took time off from ... Read more »

Little Miss Sunshine

… or JonBenet Ramsey Meets The Griswolds. A dysfunctional family (and what family isn’t?) sets out to take their 10-year-old (or so) daughter to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California. Everything that can break down does break down, including the family van which must be pushed to ... Read more »

The Little Priest

The only previous time I’ve seen Cantinflas (real name: Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes) in a movie was in Around the World in 80 Days, his first English-language film, for which he won a Golden Globe Award. He only made two more in English: Pepe, a giant musical which flopped, and The Great Sex War, which is ... Read more »

A Little Princess

This is the second film by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, who doesn’t make a lot of films, but when he does, they are worth noting. His last three were Children of Men in 2006, Gravity in 2013, and Roma in 2018. What a trio, huh? He’s won five Oscars.

It’s sweet little story ... Read more »

A Little Romance

How you react to this film will depend on your tolerance for sweetness. I’ve got a fairly high sugar index, despite being diabetic. I loved this when it first came out and now, thirty-four years later, though I have in some ways soured on many things, I can still love a sweet little love story. Which is what it is, exactly as the title days. I believe it holds up well.

This was ... Read more »

Little Shop of Horrors

I’m happy to say that Roger Corman, the King of Schlock, is still alive and well at age 91, and still producing Grade D movies. He ran his own unaccredited, street-level, hard-knocks sort of film school, much more interesting than those at USC and UCLA, starting in the 1950s. Students included Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and James Cameron, and actors like Peter Fonda and Jack ... Read more »

Little Shop of Horrors

… twenty-two years later it was turned into an Off-Off-Broadway musical by the team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, who later went on to write the songs for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, before Ashman was taken from us far too soon at the age of 41, one more artistic victim of AIDS.

I won’t say this ... Read more »

Little Voice

Remember the old Andy Kaufman SNL routine where he’s that wide-eyed little guy from some other country, trying to do standup and failing miserably? Then he says he’ll do his impression of Elvis Presley, turns his back on the audience, combs his hair, and when he turns around he is Elvis. Or when Gomer Pyle suddenly begins singing in his Jim Nabors voice? Those ... Read more »

Live Free or Die Hard

Nothing you see here regarding computers and/or telecommunications is real, it’s all bullshit. Everything you see concerning the ability of a human body to recover, or even survive, after impacting the ground at 90 miles per hour or being hit by a speeding car or jumping out of a car travelling at 70 miles per hour is bullshit. (Did you know that landing on the roof of a car after falling ... Read more »