Tomato 3.5/4 |
La Vie En Rose (2007) |
"The saucer-eyed Cotillard is convincing and astonishing, and she anchors a film that is less show-biz formulaic and more intriguing than its recent American counterparts, 'Walk the Line' and 'Ray.'" |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3/4 |
Ladder 49 (2004) |
"Arriving just three weeks after the third anniversary of 9/11, this performs the same function as a World War II picture produced in the immediate postwar era..." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato '3/4' |
Ladies in Lavender (2005) |
"The movie recognizes that older women aren't exclusively cute, comical, feisty, eccentric or wise. They also can be petty, morose and sexual.
" |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3/4 |
Lady Chatterley (2006) |
"Full-frontal nudity fights a losing battle for screen time with lingering shots of squirrels, lizards, ferns, moss and other less salacious aspects of the natural world in 'Lady Chatterley,' a movie that is extremely generous toward its characters." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
Lady in the Water (2006) |
"'You are all connected... One act can one day affect all,' says Narf, causing us to wonder if the Blue World's mission will become redundant after enough humans watch 'The Lion King' and 'Jurassic Park.'
" |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Ladykillers (2004) |
"Those carpetbagger auteurs, the Coen Brothers, have descended again on Dixie and brought back a heapin' helpin' of Southern caricature and racial condescension..." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3/4 |
Lakeview Terrace (2008) |
"A polished, self-conscious heir to such unapologetic grindhouse race-baiters as 1977's 'Fight for Your Life'..." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
Land of the Lost (2009) |
"A misbegotten project that immediately alienates kid-toting parents with shameless and incessant product plugs, surprisingly foul language and other inappropriate references..." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato |
The Last American Virgin (1982) |
"A typically crude teen sex comedy that surprises with a downbeat and honest conclusion..." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
Last Chance Harvey (2008) |
"Emma Thompson: easy airport pickup." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Last Holiday (2006) |
"The film proffers both a fantasy of wealth and the reassurance that money isn't what really matters." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
The Last House on the Left (2009) |
"Crafted with such professionalism it might be the story of Gandhi rather than a wallow in rape, murder and the vengeance of the parents (who, true to the domestic associations of the title, dispatch the evildoers with garbage disposal and microwave oven)." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 4/4 |
The Last King of Scotland (2006) |
"Compositions are dense with beautiful and brutal images; and when the camera wobbles and the cuts become frequent, the freneticism is justified by the increased fracturing of Amin's sanity and Garrigan's security." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 1/4 |
The Last Kiss (2006) |
"Watching these privileged young people fret over the the banal soap opera of their protected lives made me want to don a bandana and join a gang of socialist revolutionaries." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Last Mimzy (2007) |
"A sometimes spooky coulda-been classic with a genuine science-fiction premise; it's easy to imagine Professor Quatermass investigating the plot's alien toys instead of the Homeland Security operative played by Michael Clarke Duncan." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2.5/4 |
The Last Samurai (2003) |
"Another Hollywood epic that shows that nobody embodies the nobility of an exotic foreign culture like a visiting white guy..." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Law Abiding Citizen (2009) |
"'It's gonna be biblical,' promises the self-righteous Butler about his vengeance, although moviegoers familiar with the Good Book may wonder how they missed the chapter in which the Philistines were smote with a booby-trapped cell phone." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato '3/4' |
Layer Cake (2005) |
"Scripted by J.J. Connolly from his own novel, which may be why the film emphasizes double-crosses and conspiracies over the old ultraviolence." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2.5/4 |
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) |
"It could be introduced as Exhibit A in the case against digital effects technology..." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
Leatherheads (2008) |
"The flirtatious banter is often clever, but 'Leatherheads' demonstrates that writing alone wasn't responsible for the head-spinning irresistibility of Howard Hawks' 'Twentieth Century' and 'His Girl Friday,' to cite two screwball-masterpiece influences." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde (2003) |
"So chipper it's like reading 'Democracy works!' spelled out on a sheet of posterboard in red-white-and-blue glitter.." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Legend of Suriyothai (2003) |
"'Get the men and arm the elephants!' As that line indicates, 'Suriyothai' is at least unlike any other movie now in theaters..." |
John Beifuss |
Splat '2.5/4' |
The Legend of Zorro (2005) |
"The way Zorro eludes his foes is nothing compared with the slipperiness of the film itself as it tries to be politically 'relevant' yet inoffensive to all consituencies.
" |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) |
"The movie's collapse into winking inconsequentiality is exemplified by a pointless joke cameo by Dustin Hoffman that tells viewers: No real danger here." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato |
Leprechaun - Back 2 tha Hood (2003) |
"He's magically malicious." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 4/4 |
Let the Right One In (2008) |
"The director approaches this potentially sensationalistic material the way a cat creeps up on a live meal: with quiet patience and cunning." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 4/4 |
Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) |
"Whatever profound differences distinguish the current conflict from World War II, a similarity is that the enemy (on every side) is defined by the proponents of war as the 'other.' Part of Eastwood's achievement is to erase this otherness." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
Levity (2003) |
"More honorable than effective, with Billy Bob as a Jimmie Dale Gilmore lookalike who speaks in the voice of Hank Hill..." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Libertine (2005) |
"The filmmakers would rather sentimentalize their debauched hero than convince us there was insight in his cynicism or artfulness in his obscene verse." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) |
"Lacks the energy and snap of previous Anderson films, but as Bill Murray says about a jaguar shark: 'It's pretty good, isn't it?'" |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
The Life Before Her Eyes (2008) |
"A 'Carnival of Souls' for Mitch Albom readers..." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Lightning in a Bottle (2004) |
"This 'blues' film devotes more time to the music of Jimi Hendrix than to that of Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters..." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
Lions for Lambs (2007) |
"Might be a useful tool for stimulating discussion in a high school classroom, as long as the class is studying civics and not cinema." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Little Children (2006) |
"Perhaps most satisfying when viewed as a particularly fraught, literate and beautifully acted soap opera; no doubt the movie's East Wyndham, Mass., is located on the same commuter train line that serves Peyton Place and Wisteria Lane." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3/4 |
Little Man (2006) |
"This feature-length rewrite of a 1954 Bugs Bunny cartoon stages its expected comic humiliations, ridiculous sight gags and gruesome sex and potty jokes with unfussy efficiency." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3/4 |
Little Miss Sunshine (2006) |
"A plus is that the stubborn VW bus -- a vehicle that both requires and betrays cooperation -- makes a wonderful metaphor for the family experience." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
The Lives of Others (2006) |
"Will remind some of 'The Conversation,' but a closer if less obvious link is 'Fahrenheit 451': Wiesler is essentially Bradbury's conflicted 'fireman,' Montag, transported from a dystopian science-fiction future to a dystopian historical past." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato |
The Living Corpse (1967) |
"This Pakistani 'Dracula' film is a mind-bending fusion of Hammer-style vampirism with the exotic song-and-dance numbers found in the movies of India and Pakistan..." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato '3/4' |
Loggerheads (2005) |
"Sincere, affecting and simple in its direct emotional appeal if not in the overlapping chronologies of its three narratives..." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Lonely Street (2009) |
"This sub-Elmore Leonard comedy/murder mystery is redeemed by Robert Patrick's dignified, respectful interpretation of the 70-something Elvis as a man who's given up drugs and fried foods for wheat grass and Tai Chi." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Lonesome Jim (2006) |
"As in 'Elizabethtown' and 'Jersey Girl,' the hero doesn't have to do anything but exist to attract the devoted attentions of a beautiful woman, a sexist fantasy of entitlement as insidious (if unacknowledged) as that found in an old Rat Pack movie." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato '3/4' |
The Longest Yard (2005) |
"The rare remake that honors rather than exploits or degrades its source." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato '3/4' |
Look at Me (2005) |
"The work of a wry, generous filmmaker who wants to sympathize with even her most self-centered characters..." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (2006) |
"As Brooks tries to take the pulse of 'the Muslim world' with absurdist routines that have no more than cult appeal even in his own culture, the movie becomes more a timeless satire of U.S. government inefficiency than a commentary on the post-9/11 era." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) |
"Yes, good triumphs over evil, but watching the Rings series, we don't forget that real-life war and terror are accelerating outside the theater." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato '3/4' |
Lord of War (2005) |
"Glib as its protagonist, it wants to talk its way into the pantheon alongside 'Dr. Strangelove'; still, it's a worthy addition to a movie culture that fetishizes firearms..." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato '3/4' |
Lords of Dogtown (2005) |
"Entirely sympathetic to its youthful, even bratty characters -- and, by extension, to the youth audience that is likely to respond most enthusiastically to the film." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3/4 |
Lorna's Silence (2009) |
"Money -- not love or family -- is the (literal) currency that motivates social behavior; human relationships are reduced to financial transactions." |
John Beifuss |
Splat 2/4 |
The Lost City (2006) |
"Book-ended by fine songs; in between, Garcia offers more than two hours of clumsy Coppola/Scorsese karaoke..." |
John Beifuss |
Tomato 3/4 |
Lost in Translation (2003) |
"An effective mood piece about cultural dislocation and personal alienation..." |
John Beifuss |
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