L

We watched 27 movies beginning with the letter L.

Most excellent:

• Life is Beautiful — 1997.

Good:

• The Last Hurrah — 1958. Romanticizes the old-school political boss, which is a bit hard to swallow, but still it’s an excellent film.
• The Last Samurai — 2003. Very good, but should have been great.
• The Last Seduction — 1994. Lots of twists and turns.
• Le Cercle Rouge — 1970. Cool, detached, and strangely compelling given how little we learn about the characters. Lacks an ending, but otherwise excellent.
• The Lavender Hill Mob — 1951. The first half or so is absolutely perfect.
• The Lion in Winter — 1968. Timothy Dalton’s faceoff with Anthony Hopkins was my favorite scene.
• Local Hero — 1983. Subtle and sweet.
• Lost Horizon — 1937. We need more films with utopian themes, like this one.
• Long Day’s Journey Into Night — 1962. Bleak, dark, powerful. And long.
• The Leopard (Original Italian Version) — 1963. High art. Turn on subtitles and commentary track, unless you really know your Italian history, or you’ll be lost.

Not bad:

• Love and Death — 1975. Incredibly silly fun.
• Love at Large — 1990. Quirky and weirdly compelling.
• Love Affair — 1939. Sweet, not to mention romantic. This movie was remade several times.
• Loving — 1970. Starts slow but builds to a good climax.
• The Last Waltz — 1978. The Band is a wee folksy/country for me, but this is a well-made film. If you like their music, you’ll love this.
• Lenny — 1974. Worth seeing to get an idea of who Lenny bruce was and why his life mattered.
• The Life Aquatic — 2004. Similar to The Royal Tenenbaums, but better than The Royal Tenenbaums! Then again, I didn’t like The Royal Tenenbaums, even though everyone else I know loved it. This was just OK. Note to Owen Wilson: People from Kentucky don’t talk like that.
• The Lady Eve — 1941. Starts off slow but picks up steam eventually. Fun.
• Laibach: The Videos — 2004. Uneven. Some of the videos are boring, but the better ones are brilliant. First part of the WAT EPK documentary is essential. But the latter part, which amounts to a song-by-song commentary on their album WAT, is less engaging.
• The Long Good Friday — 1979. British gangster flick.
• The Long Walk Home — 1990. Important and educational civil rights drama; somewhat stiff, but has some powerful moments.

Disappointing:

• Ladyhawke — 1985. Textbook example of how a bad score (by Allan Parsons) can ruin a decent movie.
• The Lathe of Heaven — 1980. Great story, marred by dated production, technical troubles with transfer to DVD…
• Lightning Over Water — 1980. An intriguing experiment which ultimately fails to produce an interesting movie.
• Look Back in Anger — 1959. Thoroughly unpleasant little story about thoroughly unlikeable characters. Good acting, though.

Unwatchable:

• Lola Montes — 1955. Boring.

You may wonder why certain notable movies aren’t here, like L.A. Story or L.A. Confidential or La Dolce Vita or The Last Temptation of Christ or The Last Emperor or The Last Picture Show or Lawrence of Arabia or Lolita or The Long, Hot Summer or Living in Oblivion or Lost in America or Lost in Translation. Well, it’s because I’ve already seen them.