Lisa Lieberman's Blog, page 9

Bedazzled

Most of the guys I knew in college thought this was the funniest movie ever. It was definitely a guy thing, clever in a sophomoric, British boys school sort of way. Not unlike Monty Python, in fact. The bit with ...
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Damn Yankees

Yankees haters are just as numerous today as they were in 1958...
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Yankee Doodle Dandy

I meant to review this on the 4th of the July. Then I might have been able to get away with my unabashed appreciation MORE

The Hitler Diaries

In retrospect, it was so lame. A cache of Hitler’s diaries, some sixty-two handwritten volumes spanning the period from 1932 to the eve of his death in 1945, was supposed to have been found in an East German barn. The German source who sold the diaries to the magazine Der Stern...

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The Lady Vanishes

Hitchcock's last British film, made on the eve of World War II. A delightful tribute to England -- and a effort to prod his countrymen out of their complacency.

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Le Corbeau (The Raven)

Henri-Georges Clouzot's dark, dark 1943 film -- a veiled attack on French people who informed against their fellow citizens during the German Occupation. Clouzot's been called the French Hitchcock. That's like comparing Quentin Tarrentino to Walt Disney...

Read my review on Now and Then Reader:

http://nonfictionbooksblog.blogspot.com/

Welcome to Sarajevo

Rather chilling, the parallels between the West's inaction in the face of Serbian atrocities against Bosnians in the mid-1990s and our inaction in Serbia and the Sudan today.

See my review here.

Gone With the Wind

I can't think of a better way to indulge during a holiday weekend than watching a classic film.

Part of the pleasure in watching this movie for the umpteenth time is waiting for the great lines to come around. Butterfly McQueen’s Prissy: “Lawzy, we got to have a doctor. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ babies.”

Of course, nothing compares to Clark Gable’s memorable kiss-off: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” More...

Bad Girl Blues

Who remembers Bonnie and Clyde? Read my latest blog on Now and Then Reader to get the inside story. I even throw in a clip from the classic James Cagney gangster film, "The Public Enemy" to add a bit of flavor (grapefruit, in this case).

A Question of Justice

My translation of Simone de Beauvoir's essay, "An Eye for an Eye," where she argues in favor of the death penalty for war criminals, is available as a Kindle Single.

It's a timely topic. I've written a new post on the Now and Then Reader blog about the recent Charles Taylor conviction for complicity in crimes against humanity and what Beauvoir would have thought about the verdict.