Best Movies Alphabetically L Movies Movies beginning with the letter L part 2 of 2 Review

8 More Great Movies beginning with the letter L that you should try to see in the near future. 

LEGEND OF THE DRUNKEN MASTER AKA: DRUNKEN MASTER 2 - 1994 -Directed By Chian Lang Liu and Jackie Chan

In 1978 Jackie Chan became a huge international star (everywhere but in the United States) with Drunken Master . So in 1994 on the brink of becoming a huge star in the U.S. too, Jackie made this sequel/homage to the original. It continues the story of Chinese folk legend Wong Fei Hung. It's one of his very best films. It was finally released in a slightly edited, specially dubbed version on U.S. screen in 2000. Jackie is at his very best in an amazing and thoroughly enjoyable action comedy which proves once and for all what an incredible athlete and martial artist Jackie is. This film has some of the most intricate, creative, and beautiful one on one fighting choreography you will ever witness. It's also very funny and Jackie's at the peak of his skills and charisma here. The one draw-back is that he's supposed to be 18 to 21 years old and is obviously in his late 30s.

LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943) Directed by Michael Powell

The legendary film Churchill tried to stop from being made at all and then had some success in editing, has been restored to it's original 163 minute running time. It's almost an epic, filmed in Technicolor-though modestly budgeted. It is the story of an old soldier who is wanted by the new army, but he must realize his ideas of a ‘gentleman's war' are a thing of the past. We see who the old curmudgeonly guy was through flashbacks. We see the rivalry between the British Major General (Rober Livesey) and a German officer (Anton Walbrook). There are several women the Major General falls in love with (all played by Deborah Kerr). It's something you should make a point of seeing on the now available Criterion DVD.

Life of Brian (1979) aka Monty Python's Life of Brian; Directed by Terry Jones

Brian (Graham Chapman) is a peasant in AD 32 who is mistaken for the messiah. It allows John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Chapman plenty of opportunity to come up with a series of sketches very loosely based around the Life of Brian. Naturally the film was extremely controversial and those without a sense of humor objected to it vehemently. Everyone else laughed their bullockses off. You own a copy of this on DVD don't you? SPAMALOT!!!  Now sing: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.....


Local Hero (1983) directed by Bill Forsyth

Forsyth followed up the little gem of a film called Gregory's Girl with this beautifully realized fable whose strengths come from dozens of quirky twists and turns that I will not spoil by writing about. Peter Riegert is trying to buy up a Scottish Village that is needed as a site for an oil refinery. It is never predictable. Burt Lancaster delivers a superb performance. A unique one of a kind film.

LONE WOLF AND CUB SERIES (1972-1974) 1- Sword of Vengeance 2- Baby Cart at the River Styx 3- Baby Cart to Hades 4- Baby Cart in Peril 5- Baby Cart in the Land of Demons 6- White Heaven and Hell directed by: 1,2,3 & 5-Kenji Misumi; #4 Buiichi Saito; #6-Yoshiyuki Kuroda.

Yeah, all 6 films get represented with one listing. Most Americans who became avid cult followers of this Samurai series discovered it at special midnight showings in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles in the mid 1970s. Corman produced a sliced and diced and dubbed versions of the series called Shogun Assassin in 1981 and there was a re-edited wall to wall action import derived from the series in 1974 called Lightning Swords of Death. Lone Wolf began as an extremely popular Japanese Manga comic book written by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Goseki Kojima. There were these 6 theatrical films, a live action television series, a cartoon series and knock-offs like Lone Wolf Cop too. It was still wildly popular in Japan in the 1980s (I'm not sure if it still is today.). Itto Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama) is the Shogun's Executioner who is framed by the Yagyu clan after they kill his wife. Itto does not save face and kill himself but takes his infant son and becomes a traveling assassin for hire as he plans a revenge against the clan who have wronged him. The films are beautifully stylized and feature exaggerated gore, impressive choreography and an increasingly bizarre and supernatural based story line. The Baby Cart and Itto's son become deadlier with each subsequent film. Number 1 sets everything up but delivers plenty of action. Number 5 is generally viewed as the weakest of the series because it has some pacing problems but still delivers an incredible climax. Number 6 is as wild and over-the-top as a gadget filled James Bond movie, but is an incredible thing to watch on several levels. Well acted, intelligently scripted, and beautifully choreographed the films are funny, inventive and viscerally exciting. Up the gore factor on Peckinpah's Wild Bunch by several notches and you have an idea-though its exaggerated and not particularly disturbing or dark. There's also an interesting history of the Samurai and an immersion in Japanese culture. The internal logic of the films is also pretty sound no matter how wild the story lines get. Unfortunately star Wakayama died and several additional planned sequels were never made. Later with different casts and directors it was turned into television series. Other knock-offs and versions including the television series are not half as good as these 6 films. These movies inspired some of Tarantino's Kill Bill , but they blow Kill Bill away.


The Long Goodbye (1973) directed by Robert Altman

Many despise what they wrongly believe is Altman's contempt for Raymond Chandler in this Chandler-esque update. It's a masterpiece of the 70's. The Camera never stops moving, the staging, pacing, script, acting, and sense of time and place is superb. The long out of print video release was a butchered pan and scan version of the film. But it was restored on DVD a few years ago. Few films captured 70s era Los Angeles with the authenticity of this film.  Look quick for Arnold as a thug's body guard, and that thug is played by a well known producer, director.  Elliot Gould may seem like an unlikely Philip Marlowe but he's never been better.  A masterpiece.
And dig the tune the doorbell plays, huh?

Lost Horizon (1937) Directed by Frank Capra

British diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Coleman) and a small group of civilians crash land in the Himalayas, and are rescued by the people of the mysterious, Eden-like valley of Shangri-la. Protected by the mountains from the world outside, where the clouds of World War II are gathering, Shangri-la provides a seductive escape for the world-weary Conway. It's a wonderful pacifist story (based on the James Hilton novel) turned into a Hollywood romantic escapism helmed by Capra who makes it all work beautifully. 20 minutes of edited footage has been restored!!!


Lost in America (1985) Directed by Albert Brooks
Brook's brilliant satire of the 80's, yuppies, mid-life crisis, and more. It's last half hour may not be nearly as good as what came before, but it's a gem and improves upon multiple viewings. Quick get that parking place!!!! You are not permitted to say nest or egg!!!  Gary Marshall's line reading of ‘Santa Claus' is just one priceless gem worth watching the movie for.