A to Z Challenge 2020 - L

La La Land (2016)
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone
Brief Thoughts: This is a movie I resisted for a while, in large part because I thought it appealed to critics for all the wrong reasons (critics don’t often seem to consider the quality of the film itself as the determining factor in their assessments). It felt like celebrating the increasingly unpopular Classic Hollywood Aesthetic, like an act of defiance to modern audience trends (which of course is exactly what people have been saying about the Oscars for years). And it stars Ryan Gosling. I’ve had a hard time processing Gosling, too. He’s one of those actors who’s been working since he was a Mouseketeer, presumably because he just kept auditioning well, not because he had any specific real appeal. So for a long time I watched his career unfold and had absolutely no interest. When I finally did see La La Land (and Blade Runner 2049), I saw an actor who was doing something I hadn’t seen before, a pretty boy world weariness. “City of Stars” is difficult to forget, too, even though it seems it should be, the antithesis of the usual movie song, which tends to go out of its way to be noticed (but I guess that’s every pop song).

The Last Kiss (2006)
Director: Tony Goldwyn
Starring: Zach Braff
Brief Thoughts: I’m a big fan of the sitcom Scrubs. I was happy when Zach Braff made a successful (for a brief moment, anyway) transition to film with the cult classic Garden State, but I ended up preferring his later effort The Last Kiss, which if it had landed better might have positioned Braff into a Dustin Hoffman-like career. But it wasn’t meant to be.

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Ken Watanabe
Brief Thoughts: Originally conceived as merely a companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers, which was expected to be a big hit, Letters from Iwo Jima instead arrived like a miracle, a movie that would have been impossible decades earlier (there was Tora! Tora! Tora!, but that leaned pretty heavily into standard WWII memories). A movie from the perspective of, and sympathetic to, Japanese forces, spoken in Japanese, by an American filmmaker, and of all people, Clint Eastwood! Completely unforgettable.

Liberal Arts (2012)
Director: Josh Radnor
Starring: Josh Radnor, Elizabeth Olsen, Richard Jenkins, Allison Janney
Brief Thoughts: I’m an even bigger fan of How I Met Your Mother than I am of Scrubs, so it was kind of amusing when Josh Radnor attempted to duplicate Zach Braff’s movie adventure. He ended up with about the same results, but in the process got to direct and star in two movies, the second of which was better, Liberal Arts, which features him as a college graduate whose life sort of loses meaning off-campus, until he finds his way back there and rediscovers himself. I find that easily relatable. Life was far simpler on campus. A microcosm of the world is far easier to navigate. But eventually I started figuring things out.

Life (1999)
Director: Ted Demme
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence
Brief Thoughts: Dipping past the millennium line again; this is another movie that’s criminally ignored, arguably Eddie Murphy’s best movie (and pretty much by default, Martin Lawrence’s), a buddy movie that tosses them into prison for, well, life, sort of the tragicomic version of The Shawshank Redemption.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett
Brief Thoughts: Bill Murray was a huge family favorite growing up, though we mostly shackled him to Groundhog Day (our introductions were Caddyshack, but that was kind of rowdy for a bunch of Catholics to watch repeatedly, and Ghostbusters, but we ended up spending far more time watching the cartoon) and What About Bob? (Baby steps!). I honestly don’t think my siblings would be able to appreciate later Murray, world weary Murray, whether Lost in Translation or the comic absurdity of Life Aquatic (so yes, I am easily the family’s cinephile).

Life of Pi (2012)
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: a tiger (probably?)
Brief Thoughts: A work of genius in book and film.

Lions for Lambs (2007)
Director: Robert Redford
Starring: Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Andrew Garfield, Michael Peña, Derek Luke
Brief Thoughts: A wordy thought piece, but a brilliant look into the times, with an excellent cast. I got the DVD at Target, which included a copy of the script. Somebody at the time realized that it was probably a significant film. And they were right.