Movie Reviews
Titles starting with L
The Lady From Shanghai
One of the oddest movies I’ve ever seen, and now an acknowledged classic by Orson Welles. This is in spite the fact that much of what Rita Hayworth says is whispered so quietly I couldn’t hear it with the sound cranked up to eleven, and much of what Welles has to say is in an unintelligible “Irish” accent, and in spite of the plot, which is incomprehensible. Don’t take my word for it. This ... Read more »
The Lady in the Lake
Raymond Chandler only wrote seven novels. Six of them were made into films, some of them twice. (The only exception, Playback, was pretty bad.) If asked who played the best Philip Marlowe, most people would choose Bogart in The Big Sleep. He was very good, but my personal preference would be Robert Mitchum in Read more »
The Lady in the Van
After reading reviews and input at Metacritic and the IMDb, I realize this will be a minority opinion, but I really didn’t like this film. Won’t go so far as to say I hated it, but it was close. This is not really the fault of the writer or actors. Maggie Smith once more nails it perfectly. No, this has to do with the main character herself. I really disliked ... Read more »
The Lady Vanishes
This was something like the twenty-first film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and the sixth made after he hit the big time in both England and America with The Man Who Knew Too Much. As such, it is from what I think of as his classic period that stretches down to Notorious in 1946. I think it’s one of his best. A frequent theme for Hitch ... Read more »
Lady Vengeance
They say revenge is a dish best served cold. Thirteen years is enough time for it to get very chilly indeed. That’s how long Geum-ja Lee (the intoxicatingly beautiful Yeong-ae Lee) has spent in prison for a horrendous crime which she didn’t … or, wait a minute. Did she commit it? It’s not that simple, and neither is anything else in this movie. If you want to find out all the plot details ... Read more »
Ladybird, Ladybird
This was a movie so unpleasant that I can hardly remember anything about it, except an outstanding performance by Crissy Rock. She is a bad mother and social services has taken her four children (by four fathers). They’re right to do so … but they are so heartless you hate them for it. A tough one to watch.
The Ladykillers
When we set out to view all the Coen Brothers films in order, I had forgotten about The Ladykillers. For their first foray into re-make city, they chose a classic Ealing comedy from 1955, starring Alec Guinness. And they came a cropper. The wonderful old Ealing comedies relied on a peculiarly British sensibility, a sense of black humor with a light touch. ... Read more »
The Ladykillers
I believe this is the only one of the classic Ealing comedies that I hadn’t seen … and boy, am I glad. By that I mean that if I’d seen this first, before seeing the recent remake by the Coen Brothers, I’d have hated the new one instead of merely finding it mildly annoying. Why do they do these things? What is it that leads even ... Read more »
Lakeview Terrace
The husband is white, the wife is black. They move into a very nice neighborhood but they soon find out that the man next door is a racist cop. He’s controlling of his children, his neighborhood … everything around him. He tolerates no differing opinions on any subject. He is the macho sort who is constantly proving his manhood by needling those around him in a way that it’s almost ... Read more »
Lana’s Rain
The writer/producer/director of this very low-budget thriller strikes me as a film school Quentin Tarantino wannabe, but he doesn’t have the chops to pull it off. It gets off to a very nice beginning, but squanders it in a lot of bloody foofaraw. The lead, Oxana Orlenko, is quite good. She starts off as a war-torn waif in Bosnia, goes through incredible degradation, and ends up a real ... Read more »