From the Roku: L.I.E. (2001)

Before I say anything about "L.I.E.", I have to sing the praises, quickly of the Roku. I had no idea what one was until a friend bought me one for my birthday this year. Basically, the Roku is a device that allows you watch movies from Netflix (and Amazon-but those cost extra) on your television. You even create your own queue on there as you add an remove movies. They have TV shows too. Now, not everything is available this way, obviously, but, suffice to say, its pretty great. So there has been a whole host of things sitting on my Roku queue off and on for a while.



I realized last night that I had only watched half of "L.I.E." before going out and seeing "An Education" and "A Serious Man". The fact that I forgot that fact until last night shows how into the movie I actually was. I'm not sure if this particularly film is to blame, but it belongs to that thoroughly played out subset genre of indie the evil-underneath-the-facade-of-suburbia movies. Maybe if I had seen this in 2001 it would have seemed fresher-but somehow I doubt it. And, yes, there is a pedophile in it. It resolves itself differently, which I suppose is a surprise, but even the ending seemed like more of an act of desperation than anything else. I honestly think Paul Dano is one of the best young actors out there today-and this was essentially his first film role, he looked so young. He and a creepy, yet always reliable Brian Cox were both good. But its all been done before, really. Or it has been rehashed since.