L.A. Confidential (1997)

Police procedural films live and die by their plot twists. It almost isn't worth bothering if the movie's entire world isn't turned upside-down by the time the credits kick up. This tries to be a salacious movie, a kind of what-if scenario by way of taking a 1950s mystery and giving it a modern coating of grit. It starts off as it should with each of the cop archetypes present and accounted for, right down to the Irish-accented police captain. Then, yes, things get complicated. As a novel the story must have been a gripping yarn, but as a film things get out of hand in just the right way to make the plot hard to follow. That doesn't make it any less interesting, but it's hard to invest in the story when you aren't sure who's double-crossing who exactly. The second half of the film is a whirlwind of shake-ups, and while they are excellent moments, there's little here that lingers after its over. For all the star power, and as excellently staged as moments within the story are, there's little here of substance. It's a fantastic quick fix for the genre, but it's a bit hollow.

7 out of 10.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

And here's where it falls apart. After an amazing start, a bit of a stumble, and a triumphant return, it is really sad to see such a grand series go out with such a whimper. It isn't that this is necessarily a bad movie in its own right, either. In fact at worst, taken on its own, it's merely a bog standard, bland summer action film. What makes this effort so sad is that it betrays almost everything that makes Die Hard what it is. Gone is the everycop, gone is plausibility, gone is the workmanship that seems evident in all the previous films. Instead we get a super-slick, damn near family friendly action film attempt at re-branding the series to seem more “modern.” Oh no! The terrorists are after the internets. All of them! And only superhero cop John McClaine, with his invincible bone structure and implausibly great luck, can stop them. I'm not buying it. Neither should you.

3 out of 10.

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

Michael Mann can be a very hit or miss director. For every Heat or Collateral, there's a Last of the Mohicans. It isn't that the film is bad necessarily, just that it's hard to like something that is missing so many parts. Great waves of plot simply wash over you with little to no emotional attachment to spur interest, leaving you with setpiece after impressive setpiece. It's like if someone made a movie of only the good parts, without anything in between to make it mean anything. Sure there's a story in this muddled, schizophrenic tale of trappers and British in Colonial America, but so little time is spent giving it context that it all collapses. This isn't a terrible film, and at times it's a fairly attractive one, but there simply isn't enough weight or heft to make this worth the time.

4 out of 10.

Note: This review is based on the 1999, 2-hour re-edit of the film. Unfortunately, it's the only version available on DVD in the US.

Let the Right One In (2008)

Also known as Låt den rätte komma in.
Vampires have to eat. For all the romantic lilt and sway that this fact has received over the long decades of cinema, the simple fact is that a vampire's imperative is to drain a person of their blood. Perhaps better than any other film on the subject, Let the Right One In understands that this is grim business. Yet it isn't about the gore and spectacle, but rather about the extreme silence and loneliness from being a slave to the night. It's about alienation, and stillness. While it is a film in which people do die in bad ways it is not a horror film but rather a slow-burn drama with thriller elements, building a quietly mounting tension as each somber element falls into place. This really is a remarkable movie, delivered with a starkness and chill to match its snowy Swedish setting. Once you ease in to its atypical sense of momentum, this is an exceptionally engrossing ride.

9 out of 10.

Note: If you have access to Netflix Instant Streaming, it is recommended that you watch it there. Production and release of the film resulted in two different sets of subtitles for the film, and while both are certainly adequete, the more accurate translation is only available on Instant Streaming, or on discs which specificially list "Theatrical Subtitles" which are difficult to find. Again: you can't go wrong either way, but you can do better.

National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (1993)

Were it not for Samuel L. Jackson's uncanny ability to give gravitas to just about everything he says, the vast majority of this film would be a wash. As one of the last legitimately notable National Lampoon films before they sunk into remaking the same sex-comedy over and over again, Loaded Weapon offers up a fair number of laughs. Each little bit of it does it's dead-level best to bring in that same level of Zucker Brothers zaniness, with a lot of whiplash inducing slapstick. Sometimes it works. The casting is laid on nice and thick too, with everyone from Corey Feldman to William Shatner eating some screentime. But it all comes back to Jackson, and his flavor of deadpan that's hard not to mistake for something far more serious. It isn't anything anyone will mistake for a classic, but for a bit of low-rent screwball comedy, you could do much worse.

6 out of 10.

Lord of War (2005)

Gallivanting across the globe, we watch a broke nobody slowly turn his life around on a foundation of gunpowder. Nicholas Cage playing an immigrated arms dealer seems like an easy enough story to buy into, but there's a strange disconnect going on throughout the film that keeps much of any of it from coming alive. Like a lot of lacking movies, though, it sure looks good, with highly stylized environments and some generally appealing camera work. And some of the situations our anti-hero finds himself in are certainly amusing. Yet though there are some good moments, between the odd start-stop pacing and a strangely apathetic performance by Cage himself, you simply wind up with too many missed opportunities.

4 out of 10.

Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)

Also known as Rupan sansei: Kariosutoro no shiro .
Once in a while, you come across a film that is just fun. Not deep, or dark, or tailored to any specific audience. Just fun, and breezy, and breathlessly entertaining. The first feature by legendary director Hayao Miyazaki is one such film, providing a caper of absolutely effortless whimsy, and utter charm. The story here is simple: a group of clever thieves plot to make themselves rich, but get caught up in one man's scheme to imprison a princess and control her fortune. What makes it stand out are some extremely enjoyable characters and a handful of smile-inducing action sequences. In a lot of ways it's the Japanese animation equivalent to Raiders of the Lost Ark with much of the adventure included, even though it predates the iconic film by at least two years. This is simply a wonderful, completely enjoyable film, without pretension, without any sort of edginess. Just pure entertainment, simple as it can be.

9 out of 10.

The Last Samurai (2003)

Now here's a conundrum: do I grade this movie based on how well it's made, or how it makes one feel for watching it. The thing is, the film has a pile of problems as thick as my thigh. It's a painfully predictable affair, flush so full of its big budget mindset that almost all creativity is lost. It's manipulative, dragging you into feeling an emotion without your say in the matter. It chews up history and spits out overly romanticized fiction. The climax, lavish and impressive though it may be, feels more like a plot distraction than a natural progression of the story. And the list goes on. Yet it manages to draw you in bit by bit, letting the slow introduction of ancient Japanese culture play as a driving force to keep you interested, helped along by an utterly superb performance by Ken Watanabe. Also, let's face it, it's hard to be bored watching expert swordsmen do their thing. Even Tom Cruise, as a 19th century American soldier held captive in an enemy samurai village, puts in some of his better work. Before you know it, in spite of everything, you're rooting for the good guys so hard you're ready to learn a new language just so you can turn off the occasional subtitles. Troubled though the movie may be, it simply works. By the end you feel like you've learned a bit about a culture, seen some impressive sights, and spent time with some fascinating characters. It's not a particularly good film, really. But it's a damn effective one.

7 out of 10. (but it's a very solid 7)

The Lives of Others (2006)

Also known as Das Leben der Anderen.
Deeply melancholy, darkly methodical, and effortlessly compelling, this slice of German film craft is a beautiful piece of sympathetic cinema. It's got almost all of the earmarks of a good paranoia spy thriller and political commentary, in this case being critical of 1984 East Germany's policy of radically extensive surveillance of its citizens in order to ferret out dissidents. What unfolds is a brutally slow-paced, but remarkably interesting interplay between a government spy and his completely unwitting target. It works extremely well, in a kind of polite One Hour Photo sort of way. While its painstaking pace can make it at times a chore to follow, the end result is stoically touching, satisfying, remarkably topical, and well worth sinking in to.

8 out of 10.

The Lookout (2007)

Raise your hand if you've seen Brick. For the three of you, all you need to know is that this is just like Brick, but more realistic and with a dash of Memento thrown in. It even stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite under appreciated movie stars. At the surface, there's not much more here than a clever caper film; what sets it apart are the bits when it isn't furthering the conspiracy. Levitt plays a character of beautifully sympathetic vulnerability, turning his side of the film into an examination of how to live and work with a serious disability, while at the same time using that exploitive character trait to overcome the forces out to get him. Mixing a meditation on disability with a scheme flick makes for a damn smart hook, managing to pull you in at the start with surprising tenderness and somber character writing, and use that to build on the twisted narrative. It's not an epic double-cross movie, or a caper classic, but an exceptional example how to take a pair of tired and crusty genres and show there's still a lot of juice there if you know which direction to start from. Levitt needs to be in more movies. And the rest of you should really see Brick.

9 out of 10.

Flags of Our Fathers / Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)

Flags of Our Fathers:
Sadly, this is a mishandled movie about the costs of war, wherein we learn the history of the men who became famous because of the iconic Iwo Jima Flag Raising photograph. While the performances are generally solid, the movie manages to lack character, and appears to have been edited by sledgehammer. The narrative jumps all over the place, from modern day, to the battle of Iwo Jima itself, to the years following the war, to even further after the war, and it does so without any of the grace that good non-linear narrative films have, but rather just decides to spend 15 mintes here, 5 there, and sprinkle in a step-by-step double-flashback anywhere. It's point about the costs of building celebrity on the blood of one's friends is a poignant one, certainly, but the movie is just not up to the task.

6 out of 10.

Letters From Iwo Jima:
Telling the story of the Japanese defenders of the little island off the coast of Japan provides for compelling narrative with some real weight, and for the most part offers wonderful focus. Instead of leaping all over the 20th century like a chihuahua full of jumping beans, the entire movie stays fixed on the Japanese soldiers as they prepare their defenses, stage their battle, and ultimately give their lives. Eastwood has to be commended for creating not only a legitimately original war movie, but doing it in Japanese, and in the process making a movie that even holds to many of the tenets of actual Japanese cinema. It does have a bit of an acquired taste, however. Being an Eastwood movie means it's a slower, more ponderous excercise about the characters and less about the battle itself. Generally an excellent movie.

9 out of 10.


As a pair:
Taking the two together is more difficult than one would expect, given they were both shot at the same time, about the same battle, and even use a few of the same camera shots. In a way, you could say they're about the costs of war, where Flags is about the costs for the living, and Letters the costs for the dying. Or you could say the pair is about sacrifice to one's country and whether or not that's a good thing. The biggest problem, though, is that Flags is only an okay movie, whereas Letters is pretty damn good. My honest opinion is that a person watches Letters first, and either watch Flags only if you desperately feel the need to know more, or just skip it entirely. Letters is worth seeing, but being connected to the disjointed Flags just weighs it down.

Score for the pair: 7 out of 10.

The Last King of Scotland (2006)

A good movie wrapped around an astonishing performance by Forest Whitaker as Ugandan dictator Edi Amin. As much as the rest of the movie is excellent to watch, it's all completely blown out by Whitaker. Even poor Mr. Tumnus from Narnia, here moonlighting as a womanizing doctor, just can't keep his own. The film itself is a fascinating character study of a man many consider among the most evil of our time, portraying the brutality and also the idealism of Amin while adhering to the framework of a slow-burn thriller. It all works wonders to put you in a state of unease and uncertainty. Most everything here ranges from good to great, but it's Whitaker more than anything else that drives this movie.

8 out of 10.

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