Leviathan-Lunch Wagon

Skogland's screenplay interjects a bit of conspiracy to the plot, as it turns out Joe isn't the only one threatening Liberty's life, and the Second Amendment comes in for a bit of a beating. Gun control is a hot topic and one worth debating, but in a better film, I'm afraid. I never understood the point of the subplot concerning the actor lover, and Liberty's character seems madly inconsistent, only occasionally acting in a believable manner, although Fiorentino and Snipes are very good. Vancouver fills in unconvincingly for Los Angeles. Good camerawork and a catchy, omnipresent score by Michael Convertino prevent claustrophobia from settling in this low-budget production.

LICENCE TO KILL (1989)--Directed by John Glen. Stars Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Talisa Soto, David Hedison. Until 2006’s “reimagining” of the 007 franchise in CASINO ROYALE, LICENCE TO KILL (note the British spelling) was widely considered the most brutal and violent film of the series. The first PG-13 Bond movie offers a change-of-pace plot by Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson that finds 007 (Dalton in his second and final Bond performance) resigning under protest from the British Secret Service and plotting revenge against Franz Sanchez (Davi), the South American druglord who fed Bond’s CIA pal Felix Leiter (Hedison) to the sharks.

Some have referred to LICENCE TO KILL as a "Joel Silver Bond movie," and that's a good description, right down to the trendy choice of villain (Central American drug dealer), supporting cast of familiar American character actors (Don Stroud, Anthony Zerbe, Frank McRae, Benicio Del Toro) and Michael Kamen as composer. It mostly eschews the elaborate gadgetry for which the Bond movies are well known, and although it’s a first-rate action movie, it doesn’t feel much like a James Bond adventure, despite Dalton’s tough, underrated performance. Glen handles the special effects and stunts (particularly a wild semi-truck chase on a desert road) with aplomb, and the elaborate story is crisply paced. The Bond Girls are a weakness; Soto (VAMPIRELLA) has never been much of an actress, and Lowell (LAW & ORDER) I can take or leave, although both women are beautiful and contrast each other well. Also with Wayne Newton (!), Everett McGill, Desmond Llewellyn as Q and Priscilla Barnes. Theme performed by Gladys Knight.

THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004)--Directed by Wes Anderson. Stars Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Anjelica Huston. Murray reunites with his RUSHMORE director for this marvelously quirky fantasy. I found it difficult to dislike, despite its occasional bouts of cuteness, but it's so strange that I'm not sure I can recommend it to anyone. Murray is Steve Zissou, an undersea explorer broadly based on the late Jacques Cousteau, complete with a red hat and a boat called "Belafonte". Zissou's most recent documentary films have not been well-received, and he's having trouble getting funding for the next. Not that anything could stop this eternal optimist (and egotist), not even the possibility that the laconic young Kentuckian who just joined his crew, Ned (Wilson), could be his son. Other characters in Anderson's weird world include Jane (Blanchett), a journalist doing an expose on Zissou; Eleanor (Huston), Zissou's estranged wife; and Alistair (Goldblum), Zissou's slick nemesis.

Murray's performance is essential, since Anderson's vision falls so squarely into a fantasy world that's still too close to ours for comfort's sake, we need Murray to keep our head in the game. He's in nearly every scene, and is funny, touching, energetic...I think he's better here than in his Oscar-nominated turn in LOST IN TRANSLATION. Mark Mothersbaugh's score is wonderfully witty, and the production design, which cribs from Jerry Lewis, of all people, is a childlike display of bright colors and dollhouse construction. Throw in Filipino pirates, a three-legged dog, a resort hotel destroyed by a monsoon, an underground sea laboratory, Goldblum in a '70s Dr. Pepper T-shirt, stop motion animation by Henry Selick (THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS) and a mythical "jaguar shark" that chomps on Seymour Cassel, and you have 2004's oddest studio film. Also with Bud Cort, Michael Gambon, Robyn Cohen and Noah Taylor. Seu Jorge plays Greek Chorus with a bunch of David Bowie tunes sung in Portuguese.

LIFE, LIBERTY AND PURSUIT ON THE PLANET OF THE APES (1974)--Directed by Arnold Laven & Alf Kjellin. Stars Ron Harper, James Naughton, Mark Lenard, Roddy McDowall, Booth Colman. One of five feature-length TV-movies spliced together from episodes of the short-lived PLANET OF THE APES TV series. Astronauts Virdon (Harper) and Burke (Naughton) are stranded on a world populated by intelligent apes after their spaceship crashes. Of course, they're actually on the Earth of the future, and are befriended by friendly ape Galen (McDowall basically reprising his movie role) while fleeing the authorities. After ape soldiers shoot Virdon, Galen summons an old doctor girlfriend to save his life; later, Galen calls upon his parents for help when an ape brainwasher captures Burke. Also with Jacqueline Scott, Michael Strong, Beverly Garland, Anne Seymour, Norman Burton, Harry Towne and Jamie Smith Jackson. Theme by Lalo Schifrin. Teleplay by Barry Oringer and Richard Collins.

LIFEPOD (1981)—Directed by Bruce Bryant. Stars Joe Penny, Kristine DeBell, Christopher Cary, Sandy Kenyon. This obtuse drama is one of the cheapest SF films I’ve seen in awhile. Or mostly seen; I fell asleep and missed about 40 minutes. Strangely, when I woke up, the plot didn’t seem to have advanced at all. Clearly influenced by 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, this homemade sci-fi movie finds a cruise spaceship on its maiden trip to Jupiter that is taken over by its central computer. A handful of crew and passengers escape aboard a “lifepod” and drift in space. They talk. And talk. And talk some more. The only time anonymous character actor Kenyon ever was credited as a “Special Guest Star,” LIFEPOD offers some well-done backyard visual effects, but the sets (both of them) are blank and claustrophobic. Penny, soon to go on to RIPTIDE and JAKE AND THE FATMAN, was just starting out, but DeBell had just done THE BIG BRAWL with Jackie Chan. Also with Carl Lumbly (CAGNEY & LACEY) and Jordan Michaels.

LIGHT BLAST (1985)--Directed by Enzo G. Castellari. Stars Erik Estrada, Ennio Girolami. Wow! What an amazingly ridiculous, hilarious and action-packed picture. You could usually count on Castellari to deliver cheap, well-crafted nonsense that goes out on a storytelling limb and dares you to take it seriously. Filmed in San Francisco, LIGHT BLAST casts CHIPS star Estrada as a tough cop who is introduced stripped to his briefs to defuse a hostage situation. Erik gets the case when rejected scientist Girolami (THE NEW BARBARIANS) creates a death ray and uses it to melt the skin from his victims (like in the climax of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK). There is a ton of action, including wild slo-mo shootouts, explosions, car chases, squibs, you name it. Near the end, Estrada steals Albert Arciero’s racecar and jumps practically every hill in Frisco in pursuit of Girolami’s machine. As usual, Castellari mixes live stuntwork with unconvincing miniatures to add to the film’s bizarre tone. Estrada is actually fairly charismatic and seems to fit well within the director’s world.

LIGHTNING BOLT (1966)--Directed by Antonio Margheriti. Stars Anthony Eisley, Folco Lulli, Diana Lorys, Wandisa Guida. U.S. TV star Eisley (HAWAIIAN EYE) went to Rome to headline this spaghetti spy movie set in Florida. Obviously inspired by the Bond films, particularly GOLDFINGER and DR. NO, it’s cheap and clumsy, but not unentertaining once the action picks up in the second half. American agent Harry Sennett (Eisley) goes to Cape Kennedy to discover who is sabotaging NASA’s moon rockets. The answer is Rehte (Lulli), a mad beermeister who plans to rule the world from his underwater city by putting a laser on the moon and pointing it at major Earth cities. There’s something mildly delightful about Sennett’s non-confrontational approach to escaping his captors--he just pulls out a checkbook and offers to buy them off with taxpayers’ money! If you’ve seen a Bond film, you know where this movie is going--the escapes, fights, gorgeous women, slight sci-fi trappings and an exploding hideout. Margheriti needed more time and more money to make this anything like a Bond film, but it kinda works.

LI’L ABNER (1966)—Directed by Coby Ruskin. Stars Sammy Jackson, Judy Canova, Jerry Lester, Jeannine Riley, Robert Reed. Al Capp, who created the LI’L ABNER comic strip n 1934, wrote the teleplay for this NBC pilot produced by United Artists. The 30-minute sitcom, shot with a single camera on a soundstage at Paramount Studios, was not picked up, but reportedly received a one-time airing in 1967. LI’L ABNER had been popular as a musical on Broadway and in movie theaters (with different casts), but was never successful on television.

Jackson, who had recently starred in a sitcom based on NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS, plays the matrimony-shy Abner, still (stupidly) dodging the kisses and hugs of super-stacked Daisy Mae (Riley). While she and Mammy Yokum (Canova) conspire to trick Abner into marriage, competition arrives in Dogpatch in the form of a rich city slicker, played by future BRADY BUNCH dad Reed. Capp’s oddball script finds Pappy Yokum (Lester) attempting to outsmart Mammy’s wedding plans by locking Abner inside a time capsule that won’t open until 2966!

Performances are appropriately broad under Ruskin’s sure direction. Old pro Lester and Canova’s mugging earns whatever laughs can be squeezed out of this hoary premise, and the show grows slack when the younger performers take center stage. Besides Riley’s low-cut costume, LI’L ABNER’s most interesting aspect is “Special Guest” Reed, who probably enjoyed the change of pace from the heavy dramatics of THE DEFENDERS, the social drama on which he co-starred with E.G. Marshall from 1961 to 1965. Also with Larry D. Mann as Marryin’ Sam and the voice of Paul Frees. Howard Leeds, later to work with Reed on THE BRADY BUNCH, was the producer.

THE LIMEY (1999)--Directed by Steven Soderburgh. Stars Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Barry Newman, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzman. If Oscars were awarded for casting, Soderburgh and his casting director Debra Zane would definitely be up for consideration. For their leads in a taut little revenge thriller in which time jumps back and forth according to the directors whim, they have selected Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda, two of the '60s most influential and charismatic icons. Both turn in strong performances in THE LIMEY in roles that reverberate their most memorable performances: Fonda's brooding Captain America of EASY RIDER could easily have become high-living, drug-dealing record exec Terry Valentine, while Soderburgh uses actual clips of Stamp in 1967's POOR COW (with Julie Christie in which Stamp played a thief named Wilson) to illustrate that character's flashbacks.

The plot, devised by Lem Dobbs (who worked with Soderburgh on KAFKA), could have been ripped from almost any old detective novel: Wilson (Stamp), a thief just released from an English prison, travels to Los Angeles to investigate the death of his daughter Jenny, who perished in a fiery car crash which may or may not have been staged to conceal a murder. Wilson's chief suspect is Jenny's boyfriend, fast-talking hipster Valentine (Fonda), who's now living with his new girlfriend, a beautiful young woman named Adhara ("You can never go wrong naming yourself after a constellation," Valentine says) who is the same age as Jenny. Wilson's quest is very simple: kill Valentine. He receives help from two of Jenny's friends: likable Latin Eddie (Guzman) and lonely acting coach Elaine (Warren), with whom Wilson has a relationship, but--refreshingly--not a sexual one. Another sweet piece of casting is Newman as Valentine's security chief Avery; Newman played Kowalski, the existential auto racer of the 1971 counterculture classic VANISHING POINT, and his presence solidifies the iconic zeitgeist so central to Soderburgh's vision. The cast of old pros, which also includes Andy Warhol regular Joe Dallesandro, does a wonderful job, expressing the right amounts of weariness and ambition. Stamp plays Wilson as a single-minded man so tightly wound, it appears he may burst (which, in fact, he does on a few occasions). It's one of his best performances, blending dollops of ironic humor with sorrow in missing out on his daughters childhood and an unfamiliarity with modern society (he mistakes valets at a swanky party for security guards).

THE LIMEY's main weakness, surprisingly, is Soderburgh's overly flowery direction. In OUT OF SIGHT (which I thought was one of that year's best pictures), Soderburgh presented one of the best love scenes I've ever seen, in which the verbal foreplay between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez was relayed in voiceover as we saw the characters prepare for bed. Unfortunately, Soderburgh recycles the gimmick here. In fact, he uses so many flash-forwards and time distortions that what was an effective storytelling device in the previous film becomes just another annoying look-at-me way of drawing attention to the filmmaker, rather than to the story itself. Soderburgh should have had more confidence in his material, because it's a tasty piece of crime fiction that Brett Halliday or Raymond Chandler would have been proud of. However, Soderburgh does draw some terrific performances from his cast, the pacing is brisk, and his handling of the action scenes is quite clever, especially in the scene (which draws a laugh from the audience) in which Wilson dispatches one of Valentine's bodyguards during a posh mountainside party.

Also with Amelia Heinle (an actress who so strongly resembles Denise Richards that they could be sisters) as Adhara, Nicky Katt (who has some of the movie's funniest lines) as a greasy hitman, William Lucking, Matthew Kimbrough and Melissa George (an Australian actress well-known for her stint on a soap opera there) as Jenny. Cliff Martinez's score is fine, and it's bolstered by clever use of The Who's rocker "The Seeker", written by Pete Townshend.

LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT (1975)--Directed by Claudio Guzman. Stars Linda Lovelace. I wonder how many MONKEES fans have seen this softcore comedy. It plays much like a typical MONKEES romp, and Micky Dolenz co-stars as a bus driver named Fenwick. The DEEP THROAT star, now married to producer/choreographer (and former MONKEES director) David Winters, attempted to jumpstart a mainstream acting career with this chaotic, politically incorrect sex comedy that co-stars a lot of hack comedy character actors. A bunch of out-there radicals--including a Chinese launderer (Joey Forman), a jive black dude, a priest (Val Bisoglio), a homosexual (Danny Goldman) and a Nazi (Garry Goodrow)--try to run Linda for President and organize a cross-country roadtrip to round up funds and votes. The result is a plotless exercise in hard-R sex scenes, stupid jokes, racial and ethnic humor that would never fly in today’s world, a talking monkey, full-frontal nudity by JFK impersonator Vaughn Meader, Chuck McCann in two roles as a bigoted mayor and an outrageously stereotyped Italian assassin, and roles for Louis Quinn (77 SUNSET STRIP), Joe E. Ross (CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU?), Marty Ingels, Jack DeLeon, Scatman Crothers, Morgan Upton as the pedophile Vice President and Robbie Lee from SWITCHBLADE SISTERS. Guzman directed a lot of sitcoms and this feature for Arthur Marks’ General Film Corporation. PRESIDENT did nothing for Lovelace’s acting career, and she soon after became a vocal anti-porn crusader. She died after a 2002 car crash.

THE LINEUP (1958)--Directed by Don Siegel. Stars Eli Wallach, Robert Keith, Warner Anderson, Emile Meyer. A taxicab pulls up to a dock filled with passengers disembarking from a cruise ship. A porter grabs a suitcase, tosses it into the cab's open window, and beats feet. The cab screams away from the curb and smashes into a tractor-trailer. As the confused truck driver and dozens of witnesses look on, the cab backs away and tears off again down the street, where a lone police officer stands in wait. The cab clips the cop, who manages to fire off a single shot before dying. The bullet crashes through the taxi's rear window and buries itself in the driver's back, causing the car to once again smash up. Yep, it's another taut action thriller directed by Don Siegel, who made this type of film about as well as anyone else.

Based on a then-current television series of the same name, THE LINEUP certainly shows its DRAGNET influence, but unlike that Jack Webb show, Siegel's film is more interested in its villains than its straight-arrow cop protagonists. San Francisco detective lieutenant Ben Guthrie (Anderson, reprising his series role) and partner Al Quine (Meyer, usually cast as heavies) investigate the strange suitcase hijacking and discover a cache of heroin hidden inside a statue the case's owner bought overseas. At first suspecting the man of being a smuggler, Guthrie soon realizes the plot is even thicker--a drug-running organization in which the smugglers sneak the dope into souvenirs belonging to innocent civilians, and then retrieve the heroin once the unsuspecting dupes land on U.S. soil. Assigned by the crime organization to pick up the drugs are a pair of unusual assassins: erudite Julian (Keith), who's compiling a list of "final last words" spoken by their victims, and his protégé Dancer (Wallach), a psychopath who handles all the rough stuff.

Filmed on location in San Francisco and taking place in a single day, THE LINEUP excels in presenting its tight plot from two separate angles, showing Guthrie and his men piecing together the events one jigsaw slice at a time, while increasing suspense by developing its bad guys as being more colorful and sophisticated than their foes. Siegel also doesn't stint on the action, wrapping things up with a shocking attack on an invalid in a wheelchair and a screaming car chase along an incomplete freeway. Wallach and Keith are an interesting Heckle-and-Jeckle team, while Anderson is solid and authoritative as the lead. For some reason, his TV costar Tom Tully didn't make it to the big screen, although supporting player Marshall Reed as Inspector Fred Asher makes a brief appearance. Richard Jaeckel makes an impression as dipsomaniacal driver Sandy. Also with Mary LaRoche, Raymond Bailey, Vaughn Taylor and William Leslie. Music by Mischa Bakaleinikoff. The television series ran six seasons, all with Anderson, who later starred in the first season of PEYTON PLACE, as Guthrie.

LIPSTICK (1976)--Directed by Lamont Johnson. Stars Margaux Hemingway, Mariel Hemingway, Chris Sarandon, Anne Bancroft. I've seen more than my fair share of garbage movies. Most of them are independently made on a low budget by actors and filmmakers on the lower fringe of Hollywood society--exploitation movies made originally for drive-ins, grindhouses or lower ends of double-bills. But some of the wildest and weirdest come directly from major Hollywood studios; these are usually the most wrongheaded too, covered in a level of camp that films from outside the system usually can't touch. This is because the studios like to have their cake and eat it too. While independents like AIP or New World or Nu Image are content to splash trash on the screen, the majors like to think they're above that sort of thing, even though they worship the big dough exploitation pictures can earn. So they frequently attempt to have it both ways--make a trashy exploitation picture, but dress it up with big stars, expensive production values, and a relevant social message or subtext that they think will make their film more important. This almost never works; when a filmmaker thinks he's above the audience he wants to reach, the ballgame's over before it's begun.

LIPSTICK is ridiculous sleaze all right, but not in the upper echelon of what-were-they-thinking studio thrillers like MANDINGO or THE COLOR OF NIGHT. It still contains traces of an even dumber movie, including a weird scene of a naked Sarandon making a late-night prank phone call to Margaux that is never referred to and an odd supporting turn by Perry King (hey, he was in MANDINGO!) that feels like most of it was left in the editing room. LIPSTICK is one of those movies that, if it were any worse, would also be better. Also with Robin Gammill, John Bennett Perry and Francesco as Francesco.

THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER (1963)--Directed by John Huston. Stars George C. Scott, Dana Wynter, Gladys Cooper, Clive Brook. Enormously entertaining mystery starring Scott as a retired British colonel attempting to solve the murders of twelve men whose names all appeared on the title list. The victims were all World War II POWs whose plan for escape was spilled to the Japanese by an informer. The killer is a master of disguise, which makes for some very clever moments. Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum and director Huston all appear in cameos and in various disguises. Filmed on location in Ireland.

LITTLE CIGARS (1973)--Directed by Chris Christenberry. Stars Angel Tompkins, Billy Curtis, Jerry Maren, Felix Silla, Frank Delfino, Emory Souza, Joe DeSantis. A buxom blonde (the well-cast Tompkins) teams up with five men for a Midwestern armed robbery spree. The gimmick is that all five men…are midgets. Angel encounters the “Little Cigars” during their carnival spiel, which turns out to be a cover to distract the audience while the midgets rob their cars in the parking lot. Sensing an opportunity to pick up some quick bucks, she convinces the men that, because of their size, they can pull off jobs ordinary robbers can’t. While you would think that a gorgeous blonde and five midgets wouldn’t be able to elude police capture for long (a point the film wisely makes), the Cigars manage quite a crime spree while being pursued by goons working for gangster DeSantis, who wants to punish his former moll, Tompkins, for frying his manhood with a lit cigar. Surprisingly entertaining with Christenberry’s light direction and the screenplay’s successful attempt to make all five midgets three-dimensional characters with distinct personalities. Also with Jon Cedar, Phillip Kenneally, Barbara Rhoades, Todd Susman, Michael Pataki and Frank Bonner. Music by Harry Betts. Writers Louis Garfinkle and Frank Ray Perilli worked many times with producer Albert Band, including THE DOBERMAN GANG, another PG-rated caper movie.

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE (1977)--Directed by Nicholas Gessner. Stars Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, Alexis Smith, Bobby Jacoby. 15-year-old Foster delivers an assured, adult performance in this unusual, character-based chiller shot in Quebec. She plays 13-year-old Rynn, who has been living in a rented house in a small Canadian community for only two months. Rynn appears to be quite independent, perhaps because her father, a poet who craves privacy while working, never seems to be around. Her bigoted landlady (Smith) and her pedophile son (Sheen) are inordinately interested in probing Rynn’s secrets, which lead to surprisingly mature developments in Laird Koenig’s screenplay, based on his novel. Jacoby (from BAD RONALD) plays Mario, a crippled teen magician with a strange kinship with Rynn. Christian Gaubert’s original score is inappropriate for Gessner’s talky thriller, but LITTLE GIRL is otherwise a quite effective movie, containing a couple of good scare scenes, four terrific lead performances, and suspenseful camerawork. Mort Shuman, the co-writer of “Viva Las Vegas” (!), is surprisingly good as a sympathetic cop. AIP released it Stateside with a PG rating, but current prints reinstate a nude scene (performed by Foster’s 21-year-old sister) that appeared in overseas prints.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006)—Directed by Jonathan Drayton and Valerie Faris. Stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano. Four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, went to this quirky light comedy about a dysfunctional family on a road trip. The Hoovers pile into their old VW bus to take 8-year-old daughter Olive (Breslin) to California to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Dad Richard (Kinnear) is a failed motivational speaker. Uncle Frank (Carell) was just released from the hospital following a suicide attempt, and teenage son Dwayne (Dano), a nihilist under a vow of silence, is assigned against his will to keep an eye on him. Richard’s father (Arkin, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar) is a foul-mouthed heroin user. And mom Sheryl (Collette) tries to keep it all together. Mechanical failures, infighting, disillusionment, not even death keep the Hoovers from helping Olive’s dream come true. If nothing else, they’re certainly resilient. I found SUNSHINE to be a moderately good time, but it’s hardly deep or packed with bellylaughs, and I’ll be surprised if anyone remembers it even exists ten years from now. Young Breslin was also nominated for an Oscar, as was screenwriter Michael Arndt (who won).

LITTLE NIKITA (1988)--Directed by Richard Benjamin. Stars River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, Richard Bradford. Poitier's return to the big screen after a ten-year absence. It's too bad he came back for this silly and implausible thriller about an FBI agent (Poitier) who tracks a KGB agent (Bradford) to a small California town. Poitier becomes friends with a teenage boy (Phoenix), whose typical middle-class parents turn out to be Russian spies! The actors do what they can with the material, but there isn't much here of interest.

THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960)--Directed by Roger Corman. Stars Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Jack Nicholson. Corman's legendary cult horror/comedy was made in two days and a night on mostly one set. Haze is Seymour Krelboin, a lowly assistant to florist Gravis Mushnick (Welles). Krelboin tries to impress his boss and his girlfriend Audrey (Joseph) by inventing a new plant. Unfortunately, he later realizes that it talks and that it needs human flesh and blood to survive. A truly clever and funny movie that parodies and satirizes dozens of American institutions, including DRAGNET, Jerry Lewis movies and mad scientist B-pictures. Miller is great in his one scene as a plant-eating man (get it?), and Nicholson is truly hilarious in a very early role as a masochist who loves visiting the dentist.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986)--Directed by Frank Oz. Stars Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia, Steve Martin. Funny and outrageous musical based on Roger Corman's 1960 cult classic via a successful Broadway revival. Nebbishy Moranis invents a new plant, which endears him to boss Gardenia and girlfriend Greene. However, when he finds that Audrey (the plant) needs human blood to survive, Moranis keeps the bodies piling up. Cameos by James Belushi, Christopher Guest, Bill Murray (in the original Jack Nicholson role) and John Candy. Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops is terrific as the voice of Audrey. "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" was a Best Song Oscar nominee.

LIVE AND LET DIE (1973)--Directed by Guy Hamilton. Stars Roger Moore, Jane Seymour, Yaphet Kotto, Julius W. Harris, Clifton James, David Hedison, Gloria Hendry. Moore's first turn as Ian Fleming's suave secret agent James Bond. 007 travels to New York to battle a band of Harlem heroin smugglers, led by Kotto (as Mr. Big) and his metal-clawed henchman Harris. Kotto is also aided by a beautiful psychic named Solitaire (Seymour), who retains her power only so long as she remains a virgin--a situation Bond quickly remedies. There's a great motorboat chase, and Moore is okay as Bond, but the film at times veers too far into blaxploitation territory, and James is pretty embarrassing as a redneck Louisiana sheriff. Music by George Martin. The excellent Top 10 theme was performed by Paul McCartney & Wings. Script by Tom Mankiewicz. From the director of GOLDFINGER.

LIVE BY THE FIST (1993)--Directed by Cirio H. Santiago. Stars Jerry Trimble, Vic Diaz, George Takei. Santiago returns to those CAGED HEAT 2 sets in the Philippines to shoot this prison movie for executive producer Roger Corman. Light welterweight kickboxing champion Trimble is former Navy SEAL John Merrill, who is framed for the murder of a Filipina and sentenced to an island prison ruled with a corrupt fist by Warden Acosta (Diaz, who played pretty much the same role in CAGED HEAT 2). There he finds himself torn between two rival gangs that want to kill him, a sadistic guard who wants to kill him, and Acosta, who wants to kill him. All this blood thirst leads to several surprisingly well-choreographed fights, as Trimble kicks, punches and smacks his way through pretty much the entire cast with the exception of Takei (STAR TREK), who plays Uncle, Merrill's kindly older cellmate. Not only do the sets and situations seem familiar, but so does the story. That's because LIVE BY THE FIST is a remake of Corman's BLOODFIST III: FORCED TO FIGHT, which came out a whole one year before this film (it's also better, thanks to a warm supporting performance by Richard Roundtree in the Takei role). For 78 minutes of fast martial-arts action, LIVE BY THE FIST fits the bill just fine. Also with Laura Albert, Ted Markland, Romy Diaz and Roland Dantes. Nicolas Rivera's score is hilariously over the top. Trimble is from Kentucky.

LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (2007)—Directed by Len Wiseman. Stars Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Twelve after DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE, which I don’t recall many people loving at the time, Willis returns as John McClane in LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, and, no, I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean. This is a bad movie that I was willing to go along with until its big action setpieces became just too silly to swallow, particularly one in which Willis drives a semi up a steep incline, falls back through the trailer, lands on the wing of the F-35 fighter that’s shooting at him, and dives off the plane onto the asphalt without getting hurt. It's a very mechanical film with no heart, no warmth, no realism. Even though the plot threat affects far more people, I never felt any menace, as we did the hostage-taking of the first movie or, especially, the stranded airplanes in DIE HARD 2. Since this movie looks and is designed like a video game, there's no sense of danger or urgency; one expects to just "reset" Bruce at any time.

LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (what does that mean?) really falls down in its choice of villain. To go from Rickman to Sadler to Irons to Timothy Olyphant (!) is a struggle no film could defeat. Olyphant is one-note as Gabriel, a cyber-terrorist who shuts down Washington, D.C. on July 4th in an attempt to drain the U.S. economy directly into his bank account. McClane reluctantly teams with a young hacker/slacker (Long) in a chase that resembles a Whack-A-Mole game with our heroes showing up just barely too late to stop Gabriel’s plot. And if you didn’t think the bankruptcy of the United States was enough motivation for McClane to risk his life again, Gabriel has to ruin everything by kidnapping the cop’s daughter (Winstead, the cheerleader memorable in DEATH PROOF) too. Too much sloppy CGI, too little excitement, and no roles for Bonnie Bedelia or Reginald VelJohnson. Instead we get Cliff Curtis, Maggie Q, Christina Chang, Zeljko Ivanek and Kevin Smith.

LIVE WIRE (1992)--Directed by Christian Duguay. Stars Pierce Brosnan, Ron Silver, Ben Cross, Lisa Eilbacher. LIVE WIRE should have been the film that made Brosnan a bankable star. Directed by Christian Duguay, who had some success in Canadian television and direct-to-video sequels, LIVE WIRE was produced by New Line Cinema for theatrical release, but for whatever reason, it ended up debuting on HBO, where audiences likely took it for just another made-for-TV thriller. Brosnan plays Danny O’Neill, a tortured FBI explosives expert who comes across an ingenious bomb threat. Terrorist Mikhail Rashid (Ben Cross) masterminds a scheme to blow up U.S. senators using a clever new explosive that looks, smells and tastes like water. It explodes upon contact with stomach acid, making for a really bloody thirst-quencher. Meanwhile, Brosnan flexes not only his action chops, but also his dramatic ones as Danny deals with the recent accidental death of his young daughter and his wife’s (Lisa Eilbacher) affair with corrupt senator Ron Silver. Bolstered by a Bart Baker screenplay that mixes humor, domestic drama and intense setpieces well-staged by Duguay, LIVE WIRE is a surprisingly good thriller.

THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1987)--Directed by John Glen. Stars Timothy Dalton, Maryam D'Abo, Joe Don Baker, John Rhys-Davies, Jeroen Krabbe. Dalton's first of two efforts as Ian Fleming's famous British agent James Bond. 007 is sent to rescue a Russian defector (Krabbe), and uncovers a Soviet plot to buy hi-tech weapons from an American arms dealer (Baker). Dalton is really very good as Bond; he's tough, suave and rugged--in fact, the closest any actor has been to Fleming's description of 007 in the novels. Dalton does seem to take things a bit too seriously though. D'Abo is bland as a Czech cellist, but Baker and Krabbe are serviceable villains (Baker returned to the Bond fold as CIA liaison Jack Wade in Pierce Brosnans first two movies). In the first post-AIDS Bond film, 007 sleeps with just one woman (D'Abo). The screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson is thankfully heavy on plot and easy on the gadgetry; however, Bond's gimmick-laden Aston-Martin is a major gas. Set pieces include Bond riding down the side of a snowy mountain on a cello case and a stunning fight while hanging out of a transport plane. Also with Art Malik, Caroline Bliss and Desmond Llewellyn as Q. Music by John Barry. Theme performed by a-ha. Filmed in Austria, Morocco, Gibraltar, Italy, the United States and England. From the director of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.

THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE (2003)--Directed by Jim Fall. Stars Hilary Duff, Adam Lamberg, Yani Gellman, Alex Borstein, Ashlie Brillault, Robert Carradine, Hallie Todd, Jake Thomas. Following in the footsteps of such cinematic landmines as MCHALE'S NAVY JOINS THE AIR FORCE and THE NUDE BOMB comes THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE, a feature-film version of a situation comedy that has aired on the Disney Channel since January 2001. For those of you who are not 13-year-old girls or parents of such and doubtlessly have little familiarity with the show, Lizzie is a typical Southern California junior high school student, interested in makeup and boys and pop music and malls and surrounded by a pair of loving though befuddled parents (Robert Carradine and Hallie Todd), a mischievous little brother (Jake Thomas) and her best pal Gordo (Adam Lamberg), a boy in her class who clearly like-likes Lizzie as more than a friend. Perhaps the show's most ingratiating quality is its habit of illustrating Lizzie's teenage insecurity with an animated version that frequently punctuates the action to let us know what she's thinking.

Unlike most film renditions of TV sitcoms, such as THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE, Walt Disney's THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE is not a spoof. It's more akin to THE FACTS OF LIFE GO TO PARIS, but on the big screen, as the television cast reunites for a glossier feature-length "episode". Lizzie (played by wide-eyed 15-year-old Hilary Duff), freshly graduated from junior high, heads to Rome for a two-week class trip that she hopes will invite adventure and romance. Also on board are Gordo; Lizzie's nemesis Kate Sanders (Ashlie Brillault), a stuck-up glossy-lipped diva; and their chaperone Miss Ungermeyer (MAD TV's Alex Borstein). It takes Lizzie less than a day to stumble onto a dreamy adventure, as she meets Paolo (Yani Gellman), a handsome Italian teen pop singer, and begins faking illness in order to ditch Miss Ungermeyer's group and spend her days seeing the sights from the back of Paolo's motorcycle. Her attempt at deception, aided by faithful Gordo, is jeopardized by the fact that Lizzie bears a striking resemblance to Paolo's equally famous singing partner Isabella (also Duff). In the sitc0m universe where LIZZIE takes place, that means Lizzie will eventually have to impersonate Isabella on a live television broadcast, performing an elaborate production number complete with backup dancers and an audience including her own family, which has traveled spur-of-the-moment thousands of miles because they missed her.

LIZZIE is a fluffy fairytale mixing elements of ROMAN HOLIDAY, THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN and even THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER, the kind of movie in which the romance consists of only one kiss, travelogue montages of Roma are accompanied by Dean Martin songs on the soundtrack, the idea of an American ninth-grader being picked up by an older Italian lothario is fanciful instead of foolhardy, and "The End" is spelled out with a fireworks display. As empty and gooey as LIZZIE is, it's impossible to dislike and is in fact a logical successor to previous Disney kid fare like POLLYANNA and THE PARENT TRAP. Miss Duff combines the likable, down-to-earth spunk of Hayley Mills with the innocent sex appeal of Annette Funicello, her unapproachable beauty counterbalanced by a self-effacing humor and identifiable awkwardness that rings true to teens. In reality, Duff is too lovely and charming to ever be mistaken for the class misfit that Lizzie is, but the bouncy exuberance of her performance forces us to like her nonetheless.

One note of caution to parents attending with their kids: be prepared to buy the soundtrack. LIZZIE is awash with appropriately frothy bubblegum pop, expertly crafted to both provide ancillary income for Disney and to apparently launch Hilary Duff's singing career. Whether her albums sell in the millions like Christina Aguilera's or populate bargain bins at flea markets worldwide like Alyssa Milano's, it's too early to say, but in the current Britneyized rock-as-porn media-driven teen climate, it's refreshing to see a young girl singer who genuinely appears to be having a good time performing. And just performing, without the complex choreography, the colorless posing, and especially the grotesque sexualization that seems to go with the territory these days, usually in an attempt to deflect attention away from the performer's lack of talent. I suppose the backstage machinations behind Duff's career are as calculated as anyone else's (all the way back to teen idols of the past like Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue), but for her sake, I hope her handlers realize that she doesn't need the artifice of too-sexy clothes and high-priced record deals. She is the real deal.

LOAN SHARK (1952)—Directed by Seymour Friedman. Stars George Raft, John Hoyt, Paul Stewart, Russell Johnson, William Phipps. It's dark. The camera slowly dollies in on an apartment building, as an upstairs light turns off. Pan down to see a man exit onto the street. A nervous man carrying a suitcase. As he walks down the sidewalk, he hears loud footsteps behind him. Two men. Clop clop clop clop. The man is afraid. He begins to panic and runs down an alley. But he's trapped. It's a dead end. Clop clop clop clop. The eerie-sounding footsteps grow louder as the men inside the shoes get closer. The man looks into the camera with a terrified look on his face. Cut to a fist jabbing directly into the lens, as an animated glass cracking fills the screen. A fast dissolve to the two men working over the first man. One holding him from behind, the other smashing him in the face over and over until he finally collapses, unconscious, to the alley floor against a garbage can. A music sting and the title--LOAN SHARK--fills the screen.

Admittedly, this 1952 crime drama never lives up to its stylish and definitely attention-grabbing prologue, but it's still an interesting little picture. Screen legend George Raft (SCARFACE) toplines as Joe Gargan, a tough but decent guy just out from serving nearly three years in prison for beating a guy up in a fight. Temporarily shacked up in his "kid sister's" house (Raft is thirty years older--and looks it--than the actress playing his sister), he is offered a job at the tire plant where his brother-in-law Ed (Bill Phipps) works, but turns it down when the boss asks him to investigate a loan sharking conspiracy that's draining the employees of their paychecks. Joe changes his mind, however, when Ed is murdered after attempting to gather evidence against the loan sharks. Undercover, Joe ingratiates himself with the leader, Phillips (John Hoyt), and is invited to join the organization as a collector, where he works from inside to discover the identity of both Phillips' boss and the tire plant employee who killed Ed.

LOAN SHARK is hardly credible--the police are completely unaware of Joe's investigation, which is completely run by the tire plant boss, the most generous ever. Meanwhile, Raft is clearly, at almost sixty, too old for the role, yet his professionalism and the fine cast recruited by journeyman director Seymour Friedman make the story feel somewhat real. Busy TV guest star Paul Stewart plays Phillips' #1 gunsel--a role he would portray in a zillion television episodes--and future "Professor" Russell Johnson has a decent part as the killer. LOAN SHARK runs only 74 minutes, so there isn't time for it to grow old, and location shooting at a real Goodyear plant adds verisimilitude. In fact, the scenes showing how tires are (were) made are some of the coolest in the movie!

LOCK UP (1989)--Directed by John Flynn. Stars Sylvester Stallone, Donald Sutherland, John Amos, Tom Sizemore. LOCK UP may be the least believable film of Sylvester Stallone's career, as hard as it may be to believe. He's the world's nicest criminal, a guy who was sent away for beating up the neighborhood bully. With just six months to go on his sentence, he's abducted from his country-club prison and deposited in a hellhole commanded by warden Donald Sutherland. Stallone is the only inmate to ever escape from Sutherland's prison, and Don wants revenge. LOCK UP is probably the only prison picture with a buoyant musical montage (to The Ides of March's "Vehicle"), but it's also a pretty decent picture. Stallone was facing much critical backlash at this point in his career, and it’s possible this action picture may have been a bigger hit if made a few years earlier. Also with Frank McRae, Sonny Landham, Danny Trejo and Darlanne Fluegel. Music by Bill Conti.

LOCKDOWN (1990)--Directed by Frank Harris. Stars Richard Lynch, Chris DeRose, Chuck Jeffreys. DeRose is like a less animated Ken Wahl, if you can believe it, but Lynch turns in a typically colorful villainous performance as a car thief who frames cop DeRose for a murder. While DeRose mopes around the federal pen, dodging assassination attempts by the cousin of the man he allegedly killed (who also happens to be the leader of Lynch's chop-shop gang), his partner (Jeffreys) noses around on the outside to find evidence that will exonerate him. Harris can't decide whether to make DeRose or Lynch his lead character, even though Lynch is much more interesting to watch. He does, however, take full advantage of Jeffreys' uncanny vocal and physical resemblance to Eddie Murphy. This is a pretty routine prison picture that's not above opening some convenient plot holes to paint its way out of a corner. Harris' direction is as bland as DeRose's performance. Believe it or not, DeRose once competed on BATTLE OF THE NETWORK STARS as a cast member of THE SAN PEDRO BEACH BUMS! Jeffreys, who shows off some nice martial arts skills, works as a stunt coordinator today (BLADE: TRINITY). Also with Joe Estevez, Elizabeth Kaitan and Elizabeth Rowin. Music by Bob Mamet. From the director of KILLPOINT, who also served as his own cinematographer. Filmed in San Jose, California.

LOCUSTS (2005)--Directed by David Jackson. Stars Lucy Lawless, John Heard, Mike Farrell, Dylan Neal. CBS, which scored big with SPRING BREAK SHARK ATTACK a month earlier, aired LOCUSTS, which stars Lawless (XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS) as the U.S. Undersecretary of Agriculture (!) who fires her former mentor (Heard of C.H.U.D.) after she discovers his secret experiments to create a "bio-engineered superlocust". He claims the same science can be used to cure children with cancer, but Xena's not having any of it and orders the superlocusts destroyed. Some get away, though--one of the military flamethrower guys steals some of them and accidentally knocks a couple into the sink drain, then at an Air Force base, a Jeep driver is hit in the eye with a flying insect, which causes him to swerve out of control, knocking the briefcase carrying the other locusts out of the Jeep, where it is run over by a following Jeep, which causes the rest of the kidnapped locusts to escape. Yep, it's that kind of movie. Farrell (M*A*S*H) plays Xena's father, a simple Indiana farmer, who somehow managed to spawn a daughter with a New Zealand accent, and Neal (HYPERION BAY) is her wimpy husband, who whines about Lucy not making enough time for him. The teleplay by Doug Prochilo and the visual effects are the pits, and since locusts really aren't terribly dangerous to humans, the body count and terror factor are too low to work up much suspense. As two hours of TV silliness, LOCUSTS is mildly diverting, but I liked the over-the-top cheese of SPRING BREAK SHARK ATTACK better.

LOGAN'S RUN (1976)--Directed by Michael Anderson. Stars Michael York, Richard Jordan, Jenny Agutter, Roscoe Lee Browne, Peter Ustinov. MGM released this mega-budgeted science-fiction movie to generally poor reviews and box-office in 1976, the year before STAR WARS changed the face of sci-fi forever. In the 23rd century, Earth's population lives peaceful and hedonistic lives within domed cities, free from crime and disease. The downside is that life ends at age 30, when, on Lastday, citizens take part in Carousel, in which lucky participants are reportedly renewed through reincarnation. Some refuse to report for Carousel, and are called runners; they attempt to flee, and are pursued by an elite band of policemen called Sandmen.

Logan 5 (York) and Francis 6 (Jordan) are two such Sandmen, best friends who take pleasure in gunning down runners. Logan becomes curious about a strange ankh he removes from the body of one runner, and he later meets a beautiful young woman named Jessica (Agutter), who wears an identical ankh around her neck. When his next assignment involves a trip outside the dome to track down over 1000 runners that are unaccounted for, Logan becomes suspicious about Carousel, and teams up with Jessica to escape the city and find Sanctuary, a fabled paradise where runners are able to grow old peacefully. Pursued by an obsessive Francis, Logan and Jessica escape the city through a series of ice caves, where they are menaced by a shiny silver robot called Box (Browne), and wind up in a post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C., where they meet a kindly old T.S. Eliot-quoting man played by Ustinov.

Besides the expensive-looking sets and skimpy costumes on the ladies, there isn't much to recommend about LOGAN'S RUN. The Oscar-winning visual effects involve obvious miniatures, matte paintings and process shots that can most politely be described today as unconvincing. No attempt was made by Anderson or costume designer Bill Thomas to disguise the blatantly '70s fashions and hairstyles, David Zelag Goodman's (EYES OF LAURA MARS, STRAW DOGS) screenplay is pretty confusing at times, and Anderson (DOC SAVAGE) merely plods along from one setpiece to the next without infusing much excitement into them. The performances range from intense (Jordan, who's mostly wasted) to sleepy (York) to vapid (Agutter) to distractingly hammy (Ustinov, who appears to be auditioning for the role of Boss Hogg). On the plus side are Jerry Goldsmith's part-electronic-part-orchestral musical score and a surprising amount of nudity (including Agutter) for a PG movie.

Also with Farrah Fawcett-Majors (just before CHARLIE'S ANGELS shot her to superstardom), Michael Anderson Jr. (THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER), Lara Lindsay and Gary Morgan. The futuristic-looking sets were actually a Dallas, Texas mall. Goodman based his screenplay upon a novel by SF vets William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, which was also spun off into a short-lived television series.

LOIS & CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (1993)--Directed by Robert Butler. Stars Dean Cain, Teri Hatcher, John Shea. Feature-length pilot to the ABC-TV series introduced Cain as a sexier Superman and Hatcher as a stronger Lois Lane, who nonetheless needed saving many times over in the pilot and in the episodes that followed. Shea became one of the great villains in TV history with his portrayal of evil millionaire Lex Luthor, who tries to destroy both the space shuttle and the mysterious superhero with the red cape that is standing between him and world domination. The show did an admirable job at balancing romantic comedy and adventure/fantasy, but after three successful seasons, new (inferior) writers and producers came in and demolished whatever quality the series had to that point. LOIS & CLARK had become so bad that ABC buried it in a Saturday time slot, then bought out its previous commitment for a fifth season. The pilot featured Lane Smith as Daily Planet editor Perry White, Michael Landes as Jimmy Olsen, Tracy Scoggins, Elizabeth Barondes, Tony Jay and Kim Johnston-Ulrich. Teleplay by the show's executive producer Deborah Joy Levine. The beautiful Hatcher became one of TV's most photographed women, and was reportedly the most downloaded actress on the Internet. Butler was a veteran director of many TV pilots, including STAR TREK and HILL STREET BLUES.

LONE HERO (2002)--Directed by Ken Sanzel. Stars Sean Patrick Flanery, Lou Diamond Phillips, Robert Forster. Phillips gets top billing in this not-bad DTV thriller as Bart, the evil leader of a biker gang who sticks up a tavern in a small Montana town and is "arrested" by citizen John (Flanery), a college-age youth working in a Wild West show at a local tourist trap. Bart swears revenge against John and the whole town of Profit after his swift escape from the local yokel cops. The townspeople become virtual prisoners of Bart's entire gang, leaving it up to John and his grizzled co-worker Gus (Forster) to keep the peace. Sanzel brings a welcome light touch to his script that's nicely played by the leads. You probably never rented this movie because the video box consists solely of a photo of a longhaired Lou Diamond, but it's a pleasant trifle with enough gunplay and chases to keep you awake. Forster steals the show as usual. Also with Mark Metcalf and Tanya Allen. Filmed in Canada.

THE LONE RANGER (1956)--Directed by Stuart Heisler. Stars Clayton Moore, Jay Silverheels, Lyle Bettger. After 200 or so TV shows, the Lone Ranger and Tonto came to the big screen in their first color feature. The characters (which were created for a radio program in 1933 by Fran Striker) had also been the subjects of a '30s serial released by Republic Pictures. Moore, who played the masked man on television from 1949 to 1957 (except for a brief period when he was replaced by John Hart), was still making public appearances in costume in the 1990s. When THE LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER was released in 1981 with unknown Klinton Spilsbury as the titular hero, Moore was forced to stop wearing the Ranger's mask in public under penalty of copyright law. He got around that ruling by substituting big sunglasses for the mask. Silverheels died in 1984. In this movie, the masked man and Tonto try to prevent war between ranchers and Indians. Also with Robert Wilke, Michael Ansara, Beverly Washburn, Perry Lopez and William Schallert. Music by David Buttolph includes "The William Tell Overture" (of course), and is very reminiscent of his MAVERICK theme of a year later.

THE LONE RANGER AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD (1958)--Directed by Lesley Selander. Stars Clayton Moore, Jay Silverheels, Douglas Kennedy. United Artists released this second feature (see 1956's THE LONE RANGER) based on the long-running TV show starring Moore and Silverheels. Fans of the series will find something to like here. It has a pulpy plot (hooded raiders murdering owners of a mysterious medallion that, when all five pieces are joined together, forms a map to a legendary hidden city made of gold discovered by Spanish conquistadors hundreds of years earlier), the masked man dons one of his patented disguises to pump a femme fatale for information, Tonto goes into town and gets beaten up, and, of course, lots of bang-bang action. And it's in bright Technicolor, and mostly takes place on vast desert locations rather than a soundstage featuring that same old big rock (you fans of the TV show know which rock I'm talking about). The biggest difference is that the Ranger and Tonto shoot to kill in this movie, whereas I don't believe they ever killed anyone in the series. Selander's direction is static and features too many talking heads, and there's a dull romantic subplot involving a proud doctor and his Indian fiancé, but THE LONE RANGER AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD is basically 80 minutes of cowboy fun, and shouldn't be missed by anyone who grew up watching these heroes in afternoon reruns. Also with Charles Watts, Noreen Nash, Lisa Montell, Ralph Moody and Dean Fredericks, who passed away at the age of 75 the same day I saw this movie again in 1999. Music by Les Baxter is routine, and doesn't sound much different than the library tracks used in the ABC-TV show. Selander directed over 125 features, almost all of them westerns of the B variety.

LONE STAR (1996)--Directed by John Sayles. Stars Chris Cooper, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey, Joe Morton, Elizabeth Pena, Clifton James. One of Sayles's best films and possibly the best movie of 1996. Sayles, who also wrote and edited, has composed a story that is structured like a mystery, but is mostly about family, race relations, dealing with the past, patriotism--you name it. Cooper is Sam Deeds, sheriff of a Texas border town, who is called in to investigate when a forty-year-old skeleton turns up in the desert. It is former sheriff Charley Wade (played in flashbacks by Kristofferson), a corrupt lawman who allegedly skipped town in 1957 with $10,000 in city funds. Wade's replacement was the legendary Buddy Deeds (McConaughey), Sam's deceased father. Deeds believes his father may have committed the murder, and during his investigation he becomes involved with the town's mayor (who was also Wade's deputy), the owner of the town's black tavern, a wealthy Mexican woman and the woman's daughter, Pilar, who is also Deeds's high school sweetheart. Pilar is played by the marvelous actress Elizabeth Pena, who has appeared in other Sayles films (and his unfortunately short-lived TV series SHANNON'S DEAL). Although the story takes place in three different time periods, Sayles's seamless editing keeps it flowing, and his rich dialogue (there isn't much action in this cop story) is endlessly entertaining. There isn't much humor in LONE STAR, and Cooper isn't loaded with charisma, but these are minor quibbles. LONE STAR is a great film.

LONE WOLF McQUADE (1983)--Directed by Steve Carver. Stars Chuck Norris, David Carradine, Robert Beltran, Barbara Carrera, L.Q. Jones, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Dana Kimmell. Many classic films can be summed up in merely one scene--a scene so indelible that, once viewed, is imprinted onto your brain forever. PSYCHO's shower scene. Brando with the orange peel in THE GODFATHER. Gene Kelly splashing the title song in SINGING IN THE RAIN. LONE WOLF MCQUADE, chopsocky hero Chuck Norris's most entertaining feature, has a scene like that. Norris, as maverick Texas Ranger J.J. McQuade, has been captured in the desert by evil drugrunner David Carradine. Instead of just shooting him in the head, Carradine promises Norris a slow, tortuous death. He rips off his rival's badge, tosses him into the front of his 4x4, pushes it into a deep pit, and uses bulldozers to bury Norris alive. As Francesco DeMasi's Morricone-like score builds to a frenzy, Norris opens a bottle of beer, pours the liquid over his head, starts the engine--VROOM!--shifts into drive, pushes the secret button on the dashboard that operates the truck's Super Turbo Charger, lets out a scream, floors the accelerator and--VOOM!--drives that sucker right outta the ground! As dopey as it may seem on the surface, that moment never fails to garner a noisy reaction from its audience, and it's to Norris and director Steve Carver's credit that they're able to maintain the same level of excitement through the rest of the movie.

Although set in contemporary times, LONE WOLF MCQUADE is really a throwback to the Italian westerns of the '60s, even hiring DeMasi (who has scored films with great titles like KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE, SEVEN PISTOLS FOR A MASSACRE and FOR A FEW BULLETS MORE) as composer. McQuade (Norris), the hero, is your basic stereotypical movie cop--a man of few words and many bullets who's always being dressed down by his by-the-book superior (played here by western vet R.G. Armstrong). After a well-mounted opening sequence that climaxes in Norris mowing down about a dozen guys with a machine gun ("A Texas Ranger once kicked my daddy's teeth out. How 'bout you, Ranger, you goan' kick my teeth out?") and saving the life of rookie cop Kayo (Beltran), he begins investigating an Army transport hijacking that resulted in the theft of hundreds of high-powered weapons in which his teenage daughter Sally (Kimmell) is injured and her boyfriend killed. Reluctantly teaming with Kayo, former partner Dakota (the always-charismatic Jones) and government agent Jackson (PENITENTIARY's Kennedy), McQuade traces the robbery to sinister, karate-kicking magnate Rawley Wilkes (Carradine), who loses his spicy girlfriend Lola (Carrera) to McQuade's taciturn charms, but counters by kidnapping Sally. The finale pits Norris and a V-neck-sweater-clad Carradine in a sandy mano-y-mano battle to the death.

The screenplay by H. Kaye Dyal and B.J. Nelson may contain a lapse or two in logic, but Carver's direction is so fast-paced that the script basically serves as a clothespin on which to hang karate battles, car chases and shootouts. Everyone seems to have gotten the comic-book feel of the production, directing Carradine to play the heavy like he's taking over the world, making sure no more than a few scenes go by without someone being shot or kicked in the face, and even tossing in as a supporting character a midget in a mechanical wheelchair with secret passages installed in his racetrack office! Norris is no great shakes as an actor, but his limitations are less noticeable surrounded by scenery-chewing vets Carradine and Jones, and he looks like DeNiro next to Carrera's unconvincing performance.

Of Norris's features, only CODE OF SILENCE, directed by future Oscar nominee Andrew Davis, is as good as MCQUADE, which serves as a fine precursor to his long-running television series WALKER, TEXAS RANGER. Also with Sharon Farrell, William Sanderson, John Anderson, Daniel Frishman and Aaron Norris. Carradine was reportedly a bit of trouble on the set. He allegedly agreed to do the film only on three conditions: 1) he got the girl 2) he didn't lose an onscreen fight to Norris and 3) his character didn't die. Needless to say with Wilkes being the villain, these didn't all come to pass. Carver had previously helmed Chuck in AN EYE FOR AN EYE. McQuade's injured daughter is taken to Eastwood Hospital, an obvious nod to the Sergio Leone westerns. From the director of BIG BAD MAMA. Chuck's stuntman brother Aaron went on to direct nine films, most of which starred Chuck; he also served as a writer, director and executive producer on WALKER.

LONELY ARE THE BRAVE (1962)--Directed by David Miller. Stars Kirk Douglas, Walter Matthau, Gena Rowlands, George Kennedy. Solid drama about a modern-day cowboy (Douglas) who receives a one-year jail sentence for his part in a bar brawl. Rather than serving his time, Douglas escapes on horseback and is pursued, using modern means, by a sympathetic sheriff (Matthau). Douglas and Matthau are excellent as the antagonists who have much respect for each other, yet must be enemies. The supporting roles are well cast, and the touching script was penned by Dalton Trumbo (PAPILLON). Also with Carroll O'Connor and Bill Raisch as the man Douglas fights with in the bar. Raisch went on to TV cult fame as the one-armed man who outran David Janssen on THE FUGITIVE.

THE LONELY GUY (1984)--Directed by Arthur Hiller. Stars Steve Martin, Charles Grodin, Judith Ivey, Robyn Douglass. When Martin is kicked out by girlfriend Douglass in this mostly unfunny comedy, he finds a friend in fellow lonely-guy Grodin. As usual, Martin and Grodin are good for a few laughs, but the script (co-written by Neil Simon) just isn't funny. One of Martin's worst movies.

THE LONELY LADY (1983)--Directed by Peter Sasdy. Stars Pia Zadora, Lloyd Bochner, Bibi Besch, Jared Martin, Joseph Cali. One of the funniest movies you're likely to see in this or any other lifetime. Just think if it had been made as a comedy. Aspiring screenwriter Zadora battles the usual obstacles on her way to Hollywood stardom, such as abortion, a nervous breakdown, rape with a garden hose, and lesbianism. Look for Ray Liotta in a supporting role. Filmed in Italy, and based on a novel by Harold Robbins.

THE LONG GOODBYE (1973)--Directed by Robert Altman. Stars Elliott Gould, Sterling Hayden, Nina van Pallandt, Mark Rydell, Jim Bouton. Excellent crime drama starring Gould as Raymond Chandler's literary private eye Philip Marlowe. The setting has been updated to modern-day Los Angeles, and the story finds Marlowe reluctantly becoming involved with a gangster (Rydell) who thinks Marlowe has some money belonging to him; Marlowe's friend Terry (Bouton), who may have killed his wife; and Terry's neighbor (van Pallandt), who thinks her eccentric alcoholic husband (Hayden) may have killed Terry's wife. The plot isn't nearly as important as the dialogue and atmosphere, which are wonderful. The casting of Gould, a Jew from New York, as Philip Marlowe caused many Chandler fans to become outraged, but it's hard to picture any other contemporary actor in the role. Much of Gould's dialogue was reportedly improvised. Much of the realism comes from Altman's ingenious casting of non-actors in major roles--Rydell was a director; van Pallandt, a socialite; Bouton, a major-league baseball player. Music by John Williams. Cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond (CHINATOWN). Screenplay by Leigh Brackett (THE BIG SLEEP). Look for David Carradine in a cameo and an early screen appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Music by John Williams.

THE LONGEST NIGHT (1972)—Directed by Jack Smight. Stars David Janssen, James Farentino, Sallie Shockley, Skye Aubrey. Merwin Gerard (ONE STEP BEYOND) based his teleplay on the ordeal of college student Barbara Jane Mackle, who was kidnapped in 1968 by an intelligent assailant and his girlfriend who buried her in the Georgia woods in a specially designed box that was attached to a sophisticated battery system that provided enough light, air and water for several days. The 1973 exploitation feature THE CANDY SNATCHERS was likely inspired by the famous case, which was officially adapted from Mackle’s autobiography as 83 HOURS ‘TIL DAWN in 1990. THE LONGEST NIGHT was made for the ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK while the case was still fresh in the public mind, and it seems to be a relatively accurate retelling. Janssen is stalwart as the girl’s father, here named Chambers, and Farentino and Aubrey play the kidnapp