Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

Rendell's 1986 thriller is gloriously overcooked and very Spanish. We have Javier Bardem as
a wheelchair-bound basketball ace, an inspired opening birth sequence, murder, voyeurism,
revenge and family secrets.
The Lives of Others
(Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
The title works in many ways, as this German Oscar-winner revisits the otherworldly climate
of paranoia behind the Iron Curtain and charts a complicated power-play between people who
never knowingly meet. One one side, a repressed Stasi officer; on the other, a bohemian
stage couple under suspicion. Despite the drab settings, the tension is exhilarating.
Local Hero
(Bill Forsyth, 1983)
A movie that did a big favour for Scottish tourism (not to mention Mark Knopfler's bank
account). Even if its portrait of gentle village life was essentially a fiction, it was one the world
was happily taken in by, as sure as Burt Lancaster's big American oil men were.
The Lodger
(Alfred Hitchcock, 1926)
Subtitled A Story of the London Fog and based on the Jack the Ripper killings, this was the
most accomplished of Hitchcock's silent films, the atmosphere heavy as the pea-souper air.
And you can see the young master working on his signature motif, the question of whether
mysterious lodger Ivor Novello is innocent or guilty of serial murder...
Logan's Run
(Michael Anderson, 1976)
The following year's Star Wars not only made the shopping-mall futurism and clunky miniature
work seen here seem like yesterday's news, it also put a long-term stop to such intelligent,
conceptual science-fiction. The notion of a computer-controlled world that survives by killing
its citizens at age 30 is undeniably powerful. Though it presents a heavily revamped and
sanitised version of the novel, glimpses of the source material's sex, drugs and robot violence
are present throughout.
Lola
(Jacques Demy, 1961)
Anouk Aimée turns on the charm in Demy's debut film - she plays a bubbly cabaret girl (a sort
of New Wave Marlene Dietrich) still waiting for her lover to come back to Nantes seven years
after he left her. Like all the best Nouvelle Vague, it's slapdash and infectious - and brilliantly
communicates its sheer pleasure in cinema itself.
Lolita
(Stanley Kubrick, 1962)
Adapted by Nabokov from his own novel, this censor-baiting love story features a suavely
funny performance by James Mason as the lecturer who romances housewife Shelley
Winters to get to her 15-year-old daughter, Sue Lyon. If it doesn't quite capture the glittering
facility of Nabokov's writing, Kubrick's movie still works as an enjoyably sinister sexual
comedy.
London
(Patrick Keiller, 1994)
Fascinating curio about one man's attempt to get a metaphysical grip on the capital via a
psychogeographical picaresque around town. Presented as a series of long, static shots
accompanied by Paul Schofield's burbling, factual-fictional narration, it delves into literary,
political and public London past and present, and manages a fair few esoteric revelations
along the way.
Lonely Are the Brave
(David Miller, 1962)