The Legend of Zorro

We’re such determined drive-in goers that we will pop the corn, buy the Subway sandwiches, and tootle off to one of our two local places even if the outlook is bad. It sure was bad last night, but we went anyway … (The second feature was The Fog.)

I had forgotten that Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones had made one of these before, back in ... Read more »

The Legend of Suriyothai

Wow! What an epic! A cast of tens of thousands, hundreds of painted war elephants, beheadings, and enough skullduggery to make Lady MacBeth queasy. This is a history of a critical time in Siam, around the 1500s, and frankly it’s hard to get really involved in the story. It is a glimpse of a life-style so ritualized that it makes the court of Louis the Sun King look like anarchy. It ... Read more »

Legally Blonde 2

I was in a bad mood when we saw the first LB; Lee liked it, I didn’t even watch the whole thing. This one wasn’t an improvement.

Legally Blonde

Most of the people I’ve asked about this one liked it, and so did I, though it’s hard to point out just why. I guess it’s mostly Reese Witherspoon, who is just so out there, all smiles and fashion sense, you just can’t help smiling along with her. If anything is made in pink, she owns one. Her dorm room looks like someone set off a cherry bomb in a vat of ... Read more »

Lebanon

There is a very small sub-genre of what I think of as claustrophobic movies. The granddaddy of them all was Rear Window, which took place entirely in a small apartment. Another stellar entry was Das Boot, which happened mostly aboard a German submarine. I haven’t seen it yet, but 127 Hours sounds like one, in ... Read more »

Leave Her To Heaven

Watching the final courtroom scene in this movie makes it abundantly clear why America needed the Miranda decision. If anyone in the audience in 1945 believed five seconds of this farrago of idiocy, then it’s clear they had absolutely no idea of their civil rights. Looking at a few online reviews, I came ... Read more »

Leap of Faith

Steve Martin used to be one of my favorite comics, and he still can be, if he tries. Trouble is, he hasn’t been trying much lately. From his first film right up to this one, he had an amazing string of critical and financial successes. After this one, his career just seems to peter out, though I guess he’s still making money. This is one of his best. It isn’t a comedy, though there are ... Read more »

A League of Their Own

World War Two was a good time for the Negro Leagues of American baseball. Most of the white stars were in the military (where I believe a lot of them battled Hitler and Tojo by playing ball), so MLB was a shadow of its former self. Black men were drafted, too, but at home many black people had good-paying jobs for the first time in their lives, working in war industries. They had money to ... Read more »

The League of Gentlemen

As I probably say before the review of any movie about a caper or a con game (I’m not going to check them all) I love movies about capers and con games. I find that most of them are labors of love, too. Someone has a clever story to tell, and wants to tell it as fairly as possible, setting it up, starting the caper, and then pulling a reverse or two on your unsuspecting ass. True, there ... Read more »

Le Havre

This film is odd in many ways, not least of which is that it is set in the French port city of Le Havre, is in French, but it was written and directed by someone I at first thought was Japanese. His name is Aki Kaurismäki, and doesn’t that look Japanese? But I didn’t spot the umlaut at first. It turns out he is Finnish! He has a following a bit too large to call him a cult director, but ... Read more »