The Welcome Mat

:710: 134 - Aliisa (1970) - 7/10 - An elderly woman has to survive on a small national pension. She lives in a small, old apartment and has no money for luxuries. When she receives word that her building is going to be renovated and that she must vacate the apartment, she has nowhere to go. The film...

:710: 133 - Onnen maa / The Land of Happiness (1993) - 7/10 - The tango is popular in the rural Finnish area where this film was set in the early 1960s. A man returns home to his parents' farm after a long time away at the city. His father is ill, but his brother is steadfast in keeping things going...

:810: 129 - The Holdovers (2023) - 8/10 - Paul Giamatti stars as a teacher at a private boarding school in Massachusetts as Christmas approaches in 1970. He is tasked (punished) with chaperoning the few boys who remain on campus over the Christmas holidays. One of the boys in particular stands out a...

:610: 127 - May December (2023) - 6/10 - Natalie Portman stars as an actress who inserts herself into the lives of a couple (Julianne Moore and Charlie Melton) who have been married for 23 years in a relationship that started when the wife was 36 and the husband was 13. The actress stirs things up q...

:310: 122 - The Idiots / Idioterne (1998) - 3/10 - A group of people try to embrace their inner idiot by going out in public and acting as if they are mentally disabled. I didn't like it at all, though I can see why some might. :6510: 123 - R (2010) - 6.5/10 - The film starts with Rune being taken t...

:310: 116 - People Meet and Sweet Music Fills the Heart (1967) - 3/10 - This is a sex comedy about a man who follows a dancer to Brazil. It jumps in and out of role play and fantasies with different characters ending up suddenly in bed. The plot jumps around a lot and is fairly nonsensical. Visually...

:610: 112 - Silent Heart (2014) - 6/10 - A family gathers together to celebrate Christmas early with the understanding that the elderly mother will be committing suicide after they leave due to her terminal disease getting worse. It's a serious subject, but the film is overly melodramatic and the tw...

:5510: 106 - The Ballad of Carl-Henning (1969) - 5.5/10 - Carl-Henning is an immature young idiot who works at a dairy. He always seems to be fooling around and doing one dumb thing after another. The movie isn't really all that great and I didn't care what happened to Carl-Henning during the film. ...

:710: 99 - Lars Ole, 5c (1973) - 7/10 - Lars Ole is a grade school boy who uses his mother's credit at the bakery to buy treats for kids in his class to try and fit in. The film is almost documentary style as it follows the kids in class, on the playground, and elsewhere. Some parts are more interes...

:710: 93 - American Symphony (2023) - 7/10 - Jon Batiste works on composing his American Symphony while also supporting his wife who is undergoing treatment for leukemia. He also has his job as a tv bandleader, the Grammys, and more. The music, people, and story are all interesting, but I thought th...

:6510: 88 - The Adventures of Picasso (1978) - 6.5/10 - This surrealist comedy about the life of Pablo Picasso seemed kind of dumb at first, but I soon started to enjoy it and found a number of the antics amusing. It went on too long, though, and I started losing interest in it, though some of the g...

:7510: 84 - Eat Sleep Die (2012) - 7.5/10 - Rasa is a 20 year old who works at a factory and lives with her father. Her father has a number of ailments and doesn't speak Swedish nearly as well as his daughter so she looks after him as well. When the factory lays off a number of employees, including ...

:6510: 82 - Children's Island (1980) - 6.5/10 - Reine is an 11 year old boy who doesn't like his mom's boyfriend. He rebels against being sent away to a summer camp by pretending to go, but instead wandering around Stockholm, meeting a variety of people and having a few adventures. The kid is also o...

:7510: 77 - Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) - 7.5/10 - There is plenty of action and I like Hayley Atwell's character here. The story is decent, but not as entertaining as some of the earlier entries in the series. Still, it is a fun movie. :710: 78 - The Creator (2023) - 7/10 -...

:7510: 75 - Bobi Wine: The People's President (2022) - 7.5/10 - This documentary covers several years in the life of Bobi Wine, a musician/politician in Uganda who tried to dethrone the President of Uganda who has been in power since 1986. There's plenty of corruption and strongarm tactics employed ...