The Lost World -- 1925 -- NR

The is the 1925 silent film based on Arthur Conan Doyle's novel. This film is famous for its dinosaurs which tend to show up as archive footage in a ton of other movies and such. Its dinosaur special effects and the combining of the dinosaurs with the live actors is still very good, so in 1925, it probably blew everyone away. This was one of the first movies that showed that when making a movie, the only limit is your imagination.

Plot wise, it takes off pretty good but once they reach the plateau of the dinosaurs, it really drags. I nearly fell asleep, and that's rare during a film of any kind. Once we got back to London with the dinosaur, the movie picked back up again to a decent finish. The interactions between the dinosaur and the town and people of London was very well executed effects-wise. 

It's an iconic movie in film history, and the version I watched had a good 30 minutes of footage restored to it. Still worth watching for the history, but I think they maybe should have left those 30 minutes out.

Lawrence of Arabia -- 1962 -- PG

This is the longest theatrical movie I know of topping off at 217 minutes (227 with the Overture, Entr'acte and Exit Music). The theatrical edition of Return of the King only runs 200 minutes (the extended edition run 250, making it the longest overall I know of). This movie was so long, there is an intermission scripted into the movie so people get a potty break at about 140 minutes into it.

NOTE: I did learn that The Ten Commandments clocks in at 220, so it is technically longer, but it doesn't have the music, so it could go either way depending on whether you want to count the music.

That aside, this movie is very well-paced. It flows easily from point to point and T.E. Lawrence's plight is well-conceived and believable. He is a man who came from the British army to Arabia and ends up uniting several warring Arabian tribes in an effort to place Arabia under their rules instead of Britain's. 

The only complaint I have is the unbelievably long (but picturesque) riding sequences. 30 minutes could have been cut from the final product if there weren't so many camels walking across the desert shots. There was a full 7 minutes devoted to a tribe leaving their village to go to war. It got real old real fast. 

Beyond this, however, it did earn a well-deserved best picture award in 1962, along with 6 others and proves to be overall a very good film.

Layer Cake -- 2004 -- R

The primary reason I got this movie was to see Daniel Craig (the next James Bond) play in a film that might fit the Bond chops. Well, this film didn't exactly.

This was more of a wannabe thriller than an action movie, and it was all about cheering for the drug dealers. The literary source material was clear in the writing since there were a wealth of characters, and they were all really well fleshed out. Parts of it ran a little confusing at times, and who Dragon is was never fully explained, though I believe I caught the implication.

But when there are so many characters, some get less screentime than others, which simply feels odd at times. There was a love interest, but she barely got 5 minutes. There was a plot to rescue some runaway, that was only just touched on a few times before we went back to the main plot. I don't think the resolution to that plot was ever given. 

While the story's resolution was very clever and appropriate to the feel of the story, thinking back over the whole thing just leaves a lot of question marks. Not really so much that there are plot holes, just weird curiosities left open by the sheer wealth of characters and activity that went on. The movie needed to be longer to get it all in. I actually read the first draft of the screenplay was 408 pages...yeah, not that long, but they could have shot for the two hour mark, at least.

Overall, it was a decent flick with lots of plot and characters, but really too big for its britches, they used the "f" word about 20 times per scene (got annoying), and I disliked the ending to boot.

Lumiere Films - 1895-1896

Swimming in the Sea 
Children Digging for Clams
Loading a Boiler
Dragoons Crossing the Saone 
Promenade of Ostriches 
Childish Quarrel 
Lion, London Zoological Gardens
Photograph
Transformation by Hats
Carmaux:Drawing out The Coke
Poultry Yard
Arab Cortege, Geneva
New York: Brooklyn Bridge
New York: Broadway and Union Sq
Policemen's Parade, Chicago

Another collection of older, very short films yielded pretty much as the title clearly states in all cases. The camera appears to have been positioned on a tripod to watch what is going on and it all plays out very much like a still photographer's photo gallery, but with the pictures moving. Two of them, however, deserve some special distinction.

Photograph - this one appears to be more staged than filming actual events. A photographer poses another man for a picture, and the man has trouble posing, then they knock the camera over, breaking it apparently. It's very comic and slapstick-ish.

Transformation by Hats - this one has a man who changes his appearance (including his face) by changing hats with some built on masks. He does an effective job and it took a moment to realize exactly what was going on. It was an effective demonstration of how some minor work that would later be attributed to makeup would appear on screen.

It was a fascinating collection to view. This is on "The Movies Begin Vol. 1"

Labyrinth -- 1986 -- PG

A fantasy tale from the Jim Henson company involving a girl who unwittingly gives her baby brother over to the Goblin King causing her to have to follow him through the King's labyrinth in order to get him back. It's a great little story with some fanciful characters and good humor. Hey, what can you expect from Jim Henson at the helm and a Monty Python alumnus, Terry Jones, writing the screenplay?

While the story is overall quite fun, it is not without shortcomings. One thing that no one would be able to get away with in a normal story is all the coincidental things that go on. Nearly everything happens by apparent coincidence, chance, or just good luck. Sarah marks the ground. These marks just happen to be on movable tiles. Sarah falls into a oubliette. Hoggle just happens to be waiting for her there. They run up against a locked door running from the cleaners. There just happens to be a collapseable wall next to the door that Sarah just happens to find. Sarah escapes the junk lady. Her band of friends just happen to be right outside.

Can't fault the band of buddies as this sort of thing is typical of kid movies, which this one lays no claim to being more than. The over-emphasis on being friends gets grating after awhile, and I honestly wished we would move on from that. "Ludo and Hoggle friends..." Great.

These are my only complaints though. It's a fun movie to watch, and the music is awesome. Some parts are very 80's-ish in style, but it only adds to the nostalgia of the whole thing. I've always liked this film, and I still do.

Lucky Number Slevin -- 2006 -- R

Wow, very cool. Here we have a thriller that self-references to North by Northwest, and what an appropriate analogy it is. It's easily as well constructed aa that Hitchcock classic, though a bit more graphic.

What we have is a guy named Slevin who, after a fit of bad luck, goes to stay with a friend who has disappeared and is immediately picked up by some gangsters to whom his friend owes money. He is charged to work an act of vengeance on boss #1 for the actions of boss #2 in exchange for paying off the debt he (or rather, his friend) owes. Well, then boss #2 takes an interest in him for the debt owed to him as well. Then, there is apparently a hitman involved who has some sort of interest in our boy Slevin as well. That's the setup.

This film both takes right off, while at the same time being a slow burning fuse that begs for us to pay attention or risk missing something that may or may not be important later. I say it like that because like any well-made film, everything is important but until the chips finally come down, we have no idea. A normal film gives up the setup in the first 20 minutes; this one gives you a bunch of stuff that happens, but doesn't give up much. Nonetheless, I was glued for the duration wondering what the heck was going on.

Got some great characters in this one and though it's hard to discuss some issues without spoiling the film, I will say everyone's motives make perfect sense and every little thing works together to make the larger whole very cohesive and tightened together nicely. The plot flows very quickly with little in the way of extraneous scenes to make you wish they would just get on with it.

Only one scene made me wish we would move on, and while that scene served to reveal some character info between the two bosses, I really think it went on too long as I was just wishing we could get to the point of the film which was approaching very quickly by that time.

This was a great film, and right up my alley. It was twisty, and appropriately confusing until just the right time when everything comes out and all reasoning is revealed. I really enoyed it.

The Lake House -- 2006 -- PG

Well, this was the next movie on my wife's Netflix list, but this time, I wanted to see it. The previews looked a bit wild, so it drew me in. What I got was a pretty well-constructed fantasy romance.

We start out with a woman who is a doctor leaving the title house and moving to Chicago. Her departure is immediately followed by the arrival of a guy who is an architect and in the mailbox is a letter from the woman. It's pretty basic stuff about the house, but nothing she says matches what he finds in the house, and to top that off, he writes back to her telling her he doesn't know who she is since no one has lived in the house in years.

What we very quickly learn (and it's in all the previews) is that these people live two years apart and they are only connected through this mailbox in front of the house that will pass letters through in real time with a two year lapse. It's actually a very interesting concept, and plays out fairly well throughout the course of the story. It allows for a solid connection between these two people and fills out their characters well.

One pressing question throughout the film is why the architect doesn't just show up and see her. After all, he has already experienced everything she is going to, so what's the hold up, right? I have my half-baked theories throughout and this point is throughly clarified without a doubt in a climactic ending. The pacing occasionally slows, but not to the point of distraction. The film does commit a rather paradoxical continuity error as well, but based on the fantasy already created, it's forgivable. Also to make the story work, it glazes over a few things that seem a little obvious that our hero might have done, but perhaps he understand the paradox it would have created...

This is a cool little fantasy romance that is quite a bit different from your standard chick flick fare. While the why is never explained, it really doesn't need to be. It's one of those things that's just an enigma in the world...a mailbox that allows two people to connect over a two year span.

Lady in the Water -- 2006 -- PG-13

From the maker of The Sixth Sense, and a slew of other movies that feel more low-budget than big money, M. Night Shyamalan gives us this movie he calls a bedtime story, primarily because it is a story he told to his kids and he actually published as a book with illustrations and such. Anyway, as a movie, this tale gives us a combination of a fantastical world with some cool storytelling elements and some serious contrivances that make you lift an eyebrow and wonder how conceivable some of it really is.

The high points rest in the back story of the tale and the basic elements of the story we are given to deal with. We have the story of these water beings who once communed with man and gave him wisdom and insight into his world. Legend said that man moved away, but recently, the water folk of the blue world are trying to come back into contact with them and give man direction. This is what brings this water lady into contact with the world of this apartment complex, and complex is an apt description. Most everyone you see in this film at one time or another plays some kind of role in the larger fabric of the storyline, and not just another extra.

The main story revolves around the apartment maintenance guy and his relationship with this woman who rescues him from drowning in the swimming pool (which he falls into after he catches her swimming after hours). He learns that she is a narf, or a sea nymph, and that she has to deliver a message and return to her world via The Great Eatlon, a big eagle. Stopping her is a scrunt, which is a creature that blends into the grass, but this scrunt is not supposed to attack per the laws of her world while she awaits the Great Eatlon to pick her up, but he does anyway. Unraveling this mystery takes up the central portion of the film.

The downside to all of this is all the contrivances it took to tell the story. They needed to find some people to help the lady meet the eagle and avoid the scrunt. Well, this means the maintenance guy would have to convince everyone involved that this story is true to the point that they would help. Now, we don't see the convincing, but everyone they want seems to play along. Why? It seems a bit easy not to run into a little conflict there.

The bedtime story element is maintained by (and this runs a bit cliche) the old Chinese mother who doles it out piece by piece to her daughter who gives it to the maintenance guy as the plot requires. Finally, the whole thing is given at one point and the relationship with the daughter is dropped entirely, which is complained about, interestingly. While we need someone to control the legend and give it to us in an interesting and verbal way, it got weird after awhile the different ways that it was be delivered (and he did go for variety here). I finally got to the point that I was tired of seeing the daughter pop with another "my mother told me more of the story...", and just wanted it to all be out and let us move on.

There was one point while watching that I thought something was figured out too easily, and taken a bit too far. This was where the "kii" was located. It was in a secret room underneath the pool. Our maintenance guy swims to the deepest section of the pool, removes a grate, and keeps going down until he finds it (holding his breath forever). I'm thinking, "who the heck would even think of doing this without knowing it's there?" Well, there is a deleted scene that covers this. He still isn't told outright, but it allows him a chance to ask her, and then have it dawn on him without her disagreeing.

A final complaint here is Reggie. We meet Reggie very briefly at one point in the film, and he is one of those myriads we have to try and keep track. Well, pay attention to Reggie because he has a larger role than he is given deveopment for. When that came up, I was thrown off, because his name was called out and I said, "Who?"

So the film is a bit of a mix to me, mostly offering a clever storyline with a wealth of nice characters, but forcing us to accept some things rather easily to make it all work. The central pair is well hashed out, and the supporting circle gets less and less as we move away from the middle, but overall it's not too bad, and if you just accept that everyone believes the legend, it works.

Little Miss Sunshine -- 2006 -- R

When I first saw the poster to this one, I rolled my eyes. When I heard about the plot, my eyes rolled again. I hear about this little film that everyone just loves at all the festivals, and it does really well with audiences too, so I figure I should probably watch it. Then it got into IMDB's top 250, and again, I figured I should watch it. So I did.

We get this family with a bunch of unique characters and personalities and the youngest finds out that something happened with the reigning Little Miss Sunshine in their area, and she had won this competition (or that's what I understood). So now she wants to head to California to compete in the national version, but the family cannot afford to fly there, they can't leave the suicidal member home alone, etc., so they decide to load up the big yellow VW us and go to CA for this beauty competition. Along the way, we get a lot of madcap misadventures that serve to up the comedy factor over and over, and somehow, the comedy stays pretty fresh.

The strength in this one is in the characters. Dad is a wannabe motivational speaker with his "9 step program to success." Mom is...well, she's the mom. Ok, nothing special there, but she can't drive a stick and she holds everyone else together. Mom's brother tried to kill himself because his lover dumped him for his colleague, and he got fired. Older son doesn't talk because he wants to be a pilot. Grandpa is a foul-mouthed porn addict. The youngest wants to be a beauty queen. Toss all of these in to a bright yellow VW bus with a personality of its own, and you've got this movie.

The actual competition is the smallest part of the film at the end, but it also shows that this little girl doesn't belong there (even before her memorable talent performance). You have all of these china dolls with more makeup than your average hooker, and then our little heroine looking cute, but not...one of them.

I would say the only weakness in this film was an only sort of kind of ending. When I listened to some of the commentary, I learned that they wanted to go for a not quite happy ending, and in my opinion, while it's good to listen to your characters for the ending that is right for them, it seemed like most of the movie was going for the "not quite normal" idea. Sometimes this worked, and at other times, it was obvious they thought through the situation and took a different way out than the norm.

Overall, it was a really good film, especially considering my doubts going into it. They constructed a solid plot, some good characters, and some great comedy.

Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run) -- 1998 -- R

While it's kind of a dumb title (the literal translation of the German title is Lola Runs), the movie is far from that as it combines some animation with lots and lots of running by the title character.

This is a fast paced, energetic film, that follows a woman who has 20 minutes to get 100,000 Marks to her boyfriend (which she has to practically generate out of thin air) to pay off a mobster or he is going to rob a store across the street from where he is waiting for her. Why does she run? Well, she had a moped, but it was stolen, which caused her to be late picking up her boyfriend in the first place, which led him to take a subway. Well, he skipped off the subway when some cops got on, and he left the bag of 100,000 Marks on the seat, and it was stolen by a homeless guy. So if they don't get this 100,000 Marks to the mobster, he will kill the boyfriend. Lola runs through the people she knows to figure out where to get 100,000 Marks on a moments notice (cause that's a lot of money), and she decides to go ask daddy, the banker. Got that? So begins the run.

The movie follows three different storylines, each with a different outcome. We start Lola's run here as she she runs down the stairs of her building and encounters a man and his dog. This encounter is different in each of the three timelines, and sets off what happens in each version. Lola runs across a variety of people on her run, and the time and circumstances of her encounter with them determines how their life goes from there (which we get as a quick series of snapshots right after Lola runs past them). Once each timeline comes to its conclusion and we get the outcome, we get a quick character moment between Lola and her man before the timeline starts over, and we get another version of what could happen if...

This is a fascinating alternate timeline sort of film that is unrelenting in its pace and energy. You hit the ground running right off (literally) and it doesn't stop until the credits roll...backwards. It begs to be unique and succeeds rather well. Through the timelines, we learn things about the characters that we are able to use in understanding things in the other timelines, though the characters, of course, don't have this privilege.

The characters aren't overly developed here, and in fact, since the film feels like a supercharged short filmed three ways, the development is sufficient to carry us through the simple storyline. This film is a rare exception in that to care about the characters, minimal development is required. We get some info about them in the beginning and then intermediary segments, but nothing really indepth.

So we have a film that attacks us with so much energy that it insists we keep up with it as it charges through its alternative storylines at break neck speed. It's a clever study that worked very well.

Lost Highway -- 1997 -- R

That was interesting...and weird. Then again, it's a film by David Lynch; honestly, what was I expecting? A film with a normal plot line and development? That's like expecting Uwe Boll to make a good, thought-provoking film...zing! No, this is David Lynch, and the film is like something out of a dream.

Geez, where to begin here...I am still working this film out in attempting to make heads and tails of it. Maybe I should watch it again, kind of like I feel about Mulholland Drive. We start out with Fred Madison getting buzzed by someone on the outside with a message that Dick Laurent is dead. Fred looks outside and sees no one there, and the message is weird and means nothing to us for quite some time. Fred and his wife, Renee, appear to be a happy couple. He works as a musician, and they seem to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. One day, Renee finds an envelope with a videotape in it. When they watch it, they see their house filmed from the outside. As the days wear on, more and more of this video is left on their doorstep heightening the tension of this first half of the film. We actually breeze through this first portion of the film; it's paced and executed very well, and it's very tense.

We finally meet someone named Andy who knows this Dick Laurent character and insists that Dick is not dead. He actually seems to be a bit flipped out about it. Then we find this mystery dude who insists he met Fred at Fred's house, and Fred, of course, doesn't know this guy. The guy notes that he is at Fred's house right now. Say what? Sure, that gets our attention. Fred calls his house, and the guy answers! If this were any other movie (you know, like Cinderella III), we'd have poo-pooed the thing and flipped it off by now, but this is David Lynch, and somehow this logic twist works within the warped framework he has setup.

Stuff happens I'd rather not spoil, and Fred ends up in prison, but at one point, the guard looks in Fred's cell and Fred is not Fred any more. Fred is now Pete Dayton, a 19 year old felon on probation and living with his parents. They release Pete to his parents' custody, and so begins the second part of this movie and a skid back to setting up this portion of the film. The next twenty minutes are probably the slowest, not because they are done badly, but because we just came off the high of the first part, and now we have to have a lot of new exposition to understand what is happening next.

It gets even weirder from here as Pete meets this blonde by the name of Alice who looks just like Renee. Alice is the number one girl of Eddie (aka Dick) Laurent who is supposed to be dead, and Pete is a buddy of Eddie. While you're trying to piece all this together and figure out how it relates to the first part of the film, you learn that something happened with Pete and neither his parents, nor his girlfriend, Sheila, wish to talk about it. Everything starts merging near the end and we get a neat little bookend with one of our characters going up to Fred's door at the end and stating that Dick Laurent is dead. From there, you're on your own...

Hard to say a lot more about it. The characters are fairly well drawn for what they are and how they play out. The plot is...well, good luck with that. Being curious as to what is going to happen next is what keeps you glued to this one, because it is so wonderfully unpredictable.

What's real? What's not? That's up to you. I'm sure Lynch has his own plan and just laughs at what people come up with. This is not a film for everyone, but it is definitely different. Like most Lynch films, it's like watching a dream, and if you approach it from that angle of it being a dream, it'll suck you in.

Leon (The Professional) -- 1994 -- R

Here's something rather special...Jean Reno, always the French cop, never the lead, takes the lead in this film about a "cleaner" who is highly skilled at his craft. Natalie Portman in her first big screen appearance 5 years before Star Wars: Episode 1 showing how good she is. It all amounts to a movie that is equal parts disturbing, touching, and tragic but well crafted.

Leon is a professional hitman who handles jobs given to him by a man named Tony. 12-year-old Mathilda lives next door to Leon with her family (mother, father, sister, brother), and they've passed each other in the hall before, so they're familiar with each other. Worst comes to worst one day when Mathilda's father is set upon by a set of goons lead by Stansfield (played by Gary Oldman, who is rather wirey and psychotic in his performance), and they wipe out her entire family while she is out for groceries. Upon seeing the carnage, she wisely walks past the door and acts as if she lives with Leon instead. So begins a relationship between the two where she wants to be trained as a cleaner so she can exact revenge for the death of her little brother, but Leon wants no part of that, though some part of his cold self wants to take care of her.

The film is centered around the relationships between these characters and the situations they find themselves in. Leon does take Mathilda in as an apprentice of sorts, allowing her to accompany him on his hits and even assist him in drawing out the bad guy. Mathilda falls for Leon in a way only a little girl can, and he wisely maintains a fatherly distance from her. Stansfield maintains his psychosis throughout his bizarre part of the overall plot which I would not spoil here. These are three very well drawn characters that lead us through this interesting little story.

The whole thing flows very naturally and smoothly, and I didn't find it dragging at any point really. Leon is exceptionally clever in escaping difficult and dangerous situations and watching the intelligence given to him is nothing short of impressive.

This is a very cool film with lots of action and character built in which not only gives you a satisfying movie experience, but one that allows you to sink into the story presented and feel like you just viewed something that might have actually happened instead of some kind of sick fantasy. Definitely worthy of its place in the greatest films of all time.

The Last Kiss -- 2006 -- R

Ever watch a movie (that isn't horror) where you just want to strangle the character so he doesn't do something else that is stupid. Oh man, I wanted to tie Zach Braff's character to a chair in this movie so he was incapable of making yet another asinine decision. Here's the scoop.

In the midst of half a dozen subplots, you have the character of Michael, who is afraid of marriage and commitment, but is living with a girl he has knocked up. Apparently they've been together for several years, but he is afraid that getting married will "change all that." I guess his love of sitcoms has gone to his head. Anyway, Michael and his pregnant girlfriend, Jenna, head off to someone's wedding where Michael meets a girl named Kim, who is nearly 10 years younger and in college. She likes him and he is appropriately stand-offish to her...until she asks if he wants her number. He says sure, but (oh, bummer) nothing to write with. She tells him where he can find her. He returns to life with Jenna.

Now, stupid things occur. I will grant that this is my opinion and my own values factor into this, but here goes. He goes to the college gathering area and meets up with Kim. She wants him to come out to a party. The idiot goes. He lies to the wife to get there and gets caught, she fusses at him and forces him out of the house for lying to her. This is when you tell Idiot...er, Michael...to sleep in the freaking car like a good little puppy. Nope. Kim calls and says she needs to see him. Sure. He goes over there, and any guess on what happens in her room? Well, he is an idiot, so why not.

Which character gets our sympathy and relation in this plot? The pregnant girlfriend. We want things to work out, but I felt sorry for her character in dealing with this idiot. She is honest and sweet. She honestly tries to get ahold of him when an emergency arises, and jerk has his phone off. Commitment issues are one thing, but the only thing that made his escapades not adultery was his lack of marriage certificate (not that the baby and prior loving relationship counts for much, I guess). So we follow his roller coaster through his asinine decisions wondering how humanity produced such an idiot.

Add to this plot at least four others that occur on and off throughout the narrative. You've got the party boys who want to move to South America, the one party boy whose father (I think) died, the parents who have a brief separation, and the married couple who decide to separate and share custody of the baby (another really dumb plot where you want to strangle that guy too). She wants help with the baby, and he feels like she's strangling him. A deleted scene here would have helped showing her being a bit overbearing and not letting him help. I think he could have tried harder. Marriage is work, and these folks weren't trying in the least.

The characters were, on the whole, wildly inconsistent or just childish. One minute Michael is declaring his love and devotion and the next, he's out with this chick. Then he's apologizing for kissing her, then he goes out and has sex with her. What the heck. He comes into his own at the end, but by then, we're lost. Jenna is well done. She is a simple girl who wants a family and is honest about doing it. I liked her. Most of the other characters were decently drawn with some fairly consistent activity. Just our main plot was annoying.

So it was an irritaing movie. The subplots were far too many and way too irrelevant to the main movie. They actually detracted from the plot. Maybe they were hoping we'd like the party boys and forget the idiocy. What this movie really feels like in the end is like a chick flick written by a college boy. It has that mentality and general randomness to it. It also has more of a focus on the male perspective than your standard romantic film, and begs (oh how it begs) you to sympathize with Michael and his buddy who separates from his wife even though the reasoning for them both is incredibly selfish. I can't see a woman coming up with this.

So really, it was a mixed up little flick that tried to tell about a confused man who was trying to find his own way in a relationship, and instead showed what happens when a bunch of frat boys try to grow up and get lost on the way.

Lady Vengeance -- 2005 -- R

The final film of the vengeance trilogy I approached with high hopes, praying that the lessons learned from Oldboy would carry through. I was wrong. Oldboy was an exception. While Lady Vengeance doesn't repeat the most grievous error of the first film, we are often treated to long scenes of mundane tasks, like people eating, for several minutes.

As a side note, I did find it interesting that there was this green paperish stuff that you put in your rice and when you fold it into the rice, it's easier to pick up a mouthful of rice with chopsticks. I don't know what the green stuff is (rice paper?), but it's use was fascinating to me. Yes, this is something I learned from the movie.

Anyway, the plot follows a girl convicted of kidnapping and killing a 5 year old boy (what does this guy have against children?), so she is locked up for 13 years in a women's prison. When she gets out, she apparently has this elaborate plan worked up that she had shared with several of her prisonmates who she befriended because while in prison, she displayed an angelic presence. Much to the surprise of nearly everyone, she drops this facade as soon as she gets out, donning blood red eye shadow and starting her mission.

We aren't given a large number of clues to begin with, just a slew of names and other info about these people that is really hard to keep track of. The point of all the names was that our girl used each of the people she met as a piece of an elaborate puzzle to create what she wanted to get her vengeance on what I assumed early on to be the guy who framed her for the murder, though more information comes out as we move onward to further deepen her cause.

I will throw out at this point that the disc I was watching skipped really bad and when I reset my DVD player to see if it would move past that point, it ended up skipping the entire second act of the film that I had to go back and watch after I watched the ending (boy, was I confused for awhile there).

After all the initial introduction, the movie strays into irrelevant land where the girl has a daughter who was adopted by a family in Australia. She goes to see her daughter, and after a drunken evening with her adopted parents, they agree (for some weird, unknown reason) to let the girl (who speaks no Korean) to accompany our heroine to Seoul to hang out for a few days. Turns out while the section of the movie I accidentally skipped does contain important plot info near the end, the central section was really slow, and I about considered myself done with the movie a couple of times before forcing myself to at figure out how we got to where I'd started in the third act after my DVD skip.

This was the part of the movie containing the overlong eating scene where I learned about the green paper stuff. While I understood the relevance of what happened in that scene, and get its overall impact, it needed to be cut down...badly.

Once we got into the third act, it was rather good and even disturbing. If getting there wasn't such a chore, it would have been that much better.

So this third vengeance film is very mixed in regards to how it played out. It needed a lot of cuts to keep the pacing up since we had way too much menial work to stare at when a film needs to keep moving to maintain interest. If it had a few cuts here and there, it would actually be fairly decent, since the plot itself is rather good.