Movies

[Rusty]

237 - Entranced Earth (1967) - 7/10 - An idealistic journalist is disillusioned after the candidates that he supports in hopes of reforming the system turn out to be in the pocket of those with the money and change is not likely to happen.


238 - Barren Lives (1963) - 7.5/10 - A poor family and their dog travel the drought stricken wastelands of Northeast Brazil in search of a better life. The man finds work, but also finds greedy landowners and police brutality.


239 - Flowers of Shanghai (1998) - 6.5/10 - The film follows a few courtesans at various brothels along with their wealthy patrons in late 1800s Shanghai. The patrons buy things for the courtesans and might get them out of the life by paying off their debts or marrying them. The costumes and settings were pretty good, but I found the story to be kind of dull for the most part.


240 - Happy Together (1997) - 7/10 - A gay couple in a dysfunctional relationship travel to Argentina where they get stuck due to lack of funds. They break up, but can't quite quit each other. Stylish, but also kind of aimless


241 - Nazarin (1959) - 8/10 - A Catholic priest lives in a poor inn among his flock. He gives away what money and possessions he has to those in need. After helping a prostitute who may have killed another woman, he is forced to leave and wander the countryside, working or begging for food. I liked this movie a lot, especially the first 2/3 or so of the film.

[Rusty]

247 - Il Grido (1957) - 7/10 - Aldo is a mechanic at a sugar refinery who has been in a relationship with a woman for 7 years while her husband was in Australia working and the two have a daughter together. When news arrives that the husband dies, Aldo expects to marry the woman, but she rejects him and they break up. He flees the town with daughter in tow and becomes a wanderer with no real plan.


248 - Lola Montes (1955) - 6/10 - This biographical film about the 19th Century entertainer/courtesan wasn't really all that interesting. I didn't care for the circus story framing device. The costumes were fine, but the story and lead actress were a bit lacking.


249 - Masculin Féminin (1966) - 7.5/10 - Paul is interested in political movements, including writing graffiti against the Vietnam War. Madeleine is working toward becoming a pop singer. They begin a relationship that has its ups and downs. The film has plenty of long conversations on a variety of topics between Paul, Madeleine, and their friends. I still found the film enjoyable and interesting, though.


250 - Syndromes and a Century (2006) - 6.5/10 - The story centers on a female doctor and a male doctor. It is told in a rural clinic and then in a city hospital. Like some of Weerasethakul's other films, there are a lot of things that I like, but the whole is a bit underwhelming.


251 - The River (1997) - 5/10 - A young man gets talked into helping out a movie shoot by pretending to be a dead body floating in a dirty river. After getting home that night, he develops sharp neck pains. Nothing he tries is able to ease the pain and discomfort - doctors, acupuncture, and other methods. There is minimal dialogue in the film and his parents each clearly have their own issues. I didn't really care that much for this one after the opening couple of scenes.

[Rusty]

262 - Warrendale (1952) - 7.5/10 - This documentary looks in on the daily lives of the people at a group home for emotionally disturbed children in Ontario. The facility used some experimental techniques such as holding and bottle feeding that were seen by some as controversial. I thought it was pretty good, though I did start to lose interest during the last third of the film.


263 - Walkabout (1971) - 9/10 - A teenage girl and her younger brother are stranded in the Outback with limited supplies. They try to make their way back to civilization and are aided by an Aboriginal boy who is on his walkabout. Nicely acted with excellent cinematography and an engaging story.


264 - Wake in Fright (1971) - 6.5/10 - A schoolteacher in a small remote town heads for Sydney for the holidays, but gets stuck in a cruel mining town instead. This seems to be a popular film, but I didn't really like it much. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for it. The schoolteacher should really lay off the booze.

The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906)

[Rusty]

265 - Naked (1993) - 4/10 - I know that this film has its fans, but I didn't care for it much at all.


266 - The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) - 7/10 - Two vagrants meet on the street of Paris and form a relationship, sleeping on a bridge that is under repair. Alex was a circus performer who has addictions and other issues. Michele is a painter who is slowly going blind due to a rare disease. They have a number of adventures, including waterskiing on the Seine.


267 - The Silence (1963) - 8/10 - Two sister and the son of the younger sister are traveling by train through Central Europe. The older sister is ill so they stop in a town and stay at an old, slightly rundown hotel. The younger sister seems to resent her older sister and goes out to have fun while the older sister suffers in bed and the boy explores the hotel. They don't speak the local language so they only have each other for intelligible conversation.


268 - The Sacrifice (1986) - 6.5/10 - Family and friends gather for the birthday of an actor turned journalist. During the gathering, war is announced with a strong possibility of nuclear annihilation. The film is shot very and well and like other Tarkovsky films, there are things that I like in the film, but am not a big fan of the whole.


269 - A Question of Silence (1982) - 6/10 - Three women happen to be at a boutique at the same time. When one of them is caught shoplifting, they kill the male shopkeeper. A female psychiatrist is brought in to evaluate their sanity before trial. The film does have a few things going for it and I didn't dislike it, but it can be pretty heavy handed in getting its points across and also felt a bit amateurish at times. I will say that the jail cells the women were held in looked fairly comfortable.


270 - Las Niñas (2020) - 8/10 - Celia is an 11 year old girl who attends a strict Catholic school in Spain in 1992. She is on the verge of adolescence and lives with her single mother who has to work hard and often to pay the bills. A new girl transfers in from Barcelona and Celia befriends her. This new friendship also starts Celia on the road to questioning the rules and values that are commonplace in her life. I enjoyed the film a lot, though some might be put off by the long stretches where not much of consequence seems to happen. However, I think that a lot happens during those periods, even if it is setting the mood or giving insight into Celia's life. There are some questions raised about family history that aren't answered, but life can be messy, too. The girl who played Celia was excellent.


271 - Turn Me On, Dammit! (2011) - 7.5/10 - Alma is a horny 15 year old girl who lives with her mother in a small Norwegian town that she and her friends can't wait to leave. She regularly calls a phone sex number and fantasizes about a neighbor boy and many other people as well. I wasn't sure whether I would really like this film going in to it, but thought it was pretty funny.

[Rusty]

272 - La Notte (1961) - 7/10 - A married couple spends a day visiting an old friend, walking around various parts of the city, and attending a party. Sometimes they are together, sometimes apart. The two each seem tired of life, either in general or just as a married couple, and at times seem to be going through the motions. He flirts with several women and she seems too listless to care. This is a good movie, though I'll admit to being bored with it at times.


273 - The Passenger (1975) - 8/10 - Jack Nicholson is a journalist working on a story in northern Africa. He runs into a few problems and when the man in the neighboring room of his hotel suddenly dies, he assumes the other man's identity. He soon discovers that the man was an arms dealer, though, and this complicates things. Nicholson is pretty good here as expected.


274 - The Thin Blue Line (1988) - 8/10 - This documentary is an in-depth look at the case of a man who was wrongfully convicted of murdering a police officer despite little in the way of credible evidence against him. It's pretty well done.


275 - Tongues Untied (1989) - 7/10 - An experimental poetry-like documentary that wasn't really my thing, but wasn't bad.


276 - Vengeance is Mine (1979) - 7.5/10 - A serial killer has been captured and his past deeds and misdeeds are shown in flashback. This was based on a true crime case.


277 - The Life of Oharu (1952) - 7.5/10 - Oharu just can't catch a break. The film starts with an aging prostitute looking back on her life. She started out as the daughter of a respectable family, but misfortune piled upon misfortune caused her downfall through the strata of society.


278 - She Monkeys (2011) - 6/10 - Emma is a teen who gets into a fairly intense friendship/rivalry with another girl. Emma's younger sister seems to want to grow up far too quickly. The movie is okay, though the pacing is pretty slow and can be uninteresting at times.

[Rusty]

279 - Good Morning (1959) - 8/10 - Life in a Japanese suburb goes on with neighbors frequently visiting each other. The women gossip about their neighbors and the boys want to watch tv. Two of the boys vow to stop speaking because their parents won't buy them a tv. The colors look great here and this is a nice slice of life comedy.


280 - Early Summer (1951) - 9/10 - Noriko (Setsuko Hara) is a secretary who lives a happy life hanging out with friends and sharing a home with her parents and her older brother's family. At 28, she is considered to be old to still be single so her family starts thinking about marrying her off to a 40 year old friend of her boss. Noriko has other ideas, though. There is plenty of humor in this family drama and a playfulness at times. Hara is very good here, but that is to be expected.


281 - Boat People (1982) - 7.5/10 - A Japanese photojournalist visits Vietnam and starts looking behind the scenes at places other than the model sites shown to him by his government liaisons. I thought the photographer character was portrayed a bit simplistically at times, but the story is engaging and I liked the supporting cast.


282 - The Son (2002) - 6/10 - A carpentry instructor at a vocational center accepts an apprentice who was just released after a 5 year stay at a juvenile correctional facility. He has an uneasy interest in the boy even going so far as to follow him. There is definite tension here, but I didn't care much for the film.


283 - The Return (2003) - 9/10 - Two brothers return home one day to find that their father has returned after an unexplained 12 year absence. The next morning, their father takes the boys on what is supposed to be a nice fishing trip. The older brother seems to desperately want to bond with their father while the younger boy is resentful, suspicious, and stubborn. The father's sometimes abrupt manner doesn't help matters. The trip turns into much more than just a simple fishing trip. I liked this one a lot.


284 - After Life (1998) - 8/10 - The film starts with people arriving at a station in a remote area. It turns out that these people are recently deceased and they are there to choose one memory from their life that they will remember for eternity before moving on. Counselors are on hand to interview the people about their lives and to help them select their memory. The film lacks drama and feels like a documentary at times, but it works pretty well and is a nice film.


285 - Platform (2000) - 6.5/10 - The film follows a theater troupe in China from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. We get to see some aspects of life under communism during that time. There are parts of the film that are interesting, but I didn't really care about any of the characters or what happened to them.

[Rusty]

286 - Gertrud (1964) - 4/10 - Gertrud leaves her husband for a younger piano player in her search for love. There are long stretches of boring dialogue and I thought the style of acting was very stilted and uninteresting, especially from the woman playing Gertrud. She also spent almost the entire film looking sad and perhaps even depressed. It was a slog to get through.


287 - Dogville (2003) - 8/10 - A woman on the run makes finds herself in a small dead end town nestled against the mountains. Gangsters are after her and later the police as well. The people of the town shelter her and give her a home, though things eventually turn a bit more sinister. It took me almost an hour to get into this with the unique approach to scenery and sets. I did end up liking it, though, and Nicole Kidman was very good.


288 - La Bête Humaine (1938) - 7.5/10 - I suppose this could also be called 'Murder on the La Havre Express'. This film noir precursor is based on an Emile Zola novel. A wealthy man is murdered aboard a train. The main characters are a station master and his young wife along with a train engineer with a blood disease that makes him prone to occasional moments of insanity. It was pretty good.

[Rusty]

289 - Muriel, or the Time of Return (1963) - 5.5/10 - Hélène sells antiques out of her apartment. She lives with her stepson, Bernard, who is haunted by his time as a soldier in Algeria. Hélène gets a visit from her old lover Alphonse. The film left me cold and I didn't care for the use of music in it either.


290 - Ten (2002) - 7/10 - Ten vignettes with a female driver and her passengers, including her son several times and her sister a couple of times. A lot of this focuses on the role of women in their society. The driver's kid sure was a brat.


291 - My Own Private Idaho (1991) 6/10 - River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves star in this film about a narcoleptic hustler who goes off in search of his mother and is accompanied by his friend. I didn't really like this as much as I expected.


292 - Stories We Tell (2012) - 8/10 - Sarah Polley interviews family members and friends while also directing her father as he narrates the film about her late mother and a family secret. I thought it was pretty interesting.


293 - The Insect Woman (1963) - 7/10 - A girl is born to a poor farming family in 1918. The film covers different periods of her life up into the 1960s as she keeps trying to improve her station and situation in life.


294 - Sazen Tange and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo (1935) - 7.5/10 - An old pot with a treasure map inside is sold to a junk dealer before the owner learns of its true value. This starts the search for the pot in this Japanese comedy which involves a samurai who only has one eye and one arm. It was pretty good.

[Rusty]

295 - A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) - 7/10 - A troupe of entertainers come to town and it is time for an aging actor to meet up again with his former lover and their son. The son thinks of him as an uncle, not knowing their true relationship. The actor's current girlfriend gets jealous and threatens the status quo. This is a decent early Ozu. It will be interesting to see how the remake compares.


296 - Elephant (2003) - 8/10 - The film follows a number of students on a typical day in a high school. Two students have plans to disrupt the day by shooting a number of people. I thought this was very well done. It definitely brought back a number of memories from that time period when I was teaching in the post-Columbine era.


297 - Inland Empire (2006) - 3/10 - A very long and weird movie from David Lynch. Not one that I enjoyed very much, but I stuck with it.


298 - Hypocrites (1915) - 6/10 - A morality film with a preacher giving a sermon about hypocrisy that his congregation doesn't appreciate. The film is kind of boring, but noteworthy for the full frontal nudity of a young woman (as Naked Truth) which was shot using double exposure.


299 - F for Fake (1973) - 6.5/10 - Orson Welles hosts this partial documentary about an art forger. It's interesting for a while, but kind of loses steam. The bit at the end wasn't that great.


300 - The Reunion (2013) - 7/10 - A woman makes a short film showing what might have happened had she been invited to her 20 year high school reunion and had a chance to tell her fellow classmates how she felt about being bullied for many years. Then she contacts members of her class and invites them to meet with her to watch the film and discuss their view of the time they shared in school. It was interesting.


301 - An Autumn Afternoon (1962) - 8.5/10 - Shuhei is a widower who lives at home with his two younger children, 24 year old Michiko and 21 year old Kazuo, He meets up regularly with some of his old classmates to drink and talk. He starts thinking that he is holding his daughter back from marrying and starts looking for an acceptable husband for her. There is a fair amount of humor here. The relationship between his older son and daughter-in-law is entertaining. The daughter-in-law is a no nonsense take charge type. While some of the themes are a bit dated, it is still a very nice film.


302 - L’Eclisse (1962) - 7.5/10 - Vittoria breaks up with her boyfriend and goes to visit her mother at the Rome Stock Exchange. While there, she meets a young stockbroker and the two eventually start seeing each other, though she seems hesitant to make it a serious relationship. There are some nice moments and images here.

[Rusty]

303 - 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967) - 4/10 - Another strange Godard movie. I didn't like the whispering narration at all.


304 - I Know Where I’m Going! (1945) - 7.5/10 - An Englishwoman travels to remote Scottish islands for her marriage to a wealthy man. Along the way, she gets trapped on one of the islands due to inclement weather and finds herself falling for a naval officer on leave. It's a good romance elevated by nice performances and scenery.


305 - Lola (1961) - 7.5/10 - A young man meets his old girlfriend (Anouk Aimée). She's pining away for her old lover who has been away for 7 years. There's an American sailor leaving for home soon plus a girl about to have her 14th birthday. Their lives intersect in a number of ways in this enjoyable Jacques Demy film.


306 - The King of Comedy (1982) - 9/10 - An aspiring comic (Robert De Niro) tries to get close to a popular late night talk show host (Jerry Lewis), hoping to get a spot on his show. He resorts to drastic measures to get his chance. Very nicely done.


307 - The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959) - 7.5/10 - A German architect saves the life of a dancer while in India for a project. This endears him to the Maharajah for awhile until it turns out that they are each interested in the woman. It was fun. I'll watch the second part tomorrow.

[Rusty]

308 - The Indian Tomb (1959) - 7.5/10 - The sequel/second half of The Tiger of Eschnapur isn't quite as good, but is still entertaining. I laughed at the bits with the lepers since it seemed so much like a zombie hordes from various tv shows/movies.


309 - The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) - 6.5/10 - A man visits a rural village due to a dying relative. Not much really happens through much of the film as the villagers go about their day. There are humorous moments throughout such as his having to get in his car and drive out of the village to a higher elevation every time he gets a call on his cell phone, the woman who has 9 kids one day and 10 kids the next, and the boy who always has to get to school or study for exams. It's not a bad film, but seemed kind of inconsequential, at least on first viewing.


310 - White Dog (1982) - 8/10 - An actress (Kristy McNichol) hits a dog while driving at night in the hills. She takes it to the vet and the dog isn't badly hurt so she takes it home and puts up signs looking for the owner. However, it turns out that the dog has been trained to attack black people and after a few incidents, she takes the dog to a trainer (Paul Winfield) who thinks that he might be able to undo the training. It's a pretty good movie and a different look at racism.


311 - Salvatore Giuliano (1962) - 7/10 - The film starts with the bullet riddled corpse of a Sicilian bandit/freedom fighter and then jumps around to his backstory with occasional narration. The film is shot very nicely and looks good, but the story jumps around and I think it was lacking in coherency for those not already pretty familiar with the history of that time period and Giuliano. It was probably fine for the Italian market when it came out since it was relatively recent history for them. I could still appreciate the style.


312 - Marnie (1964) - 7/10 - Tippi Hedren stars as Marnie, a young woman who gets hired at companies under a false name, works there for a few months, and then disappears after robbing the company. Sean Connery stars as the owner of a company who hires her, even though he recognizes her from one of her previous jobs. I thought the first half of the film was pretty mediocre, but I liked the second half a lot more.

[Rusty]

313 - The Cloud-Capped Star (1960) - 8/10 - Neeta is a hardworking and bright young woman who is getting close to graduating from college. She lives at home with her poor family and the little money she brings in tutoring helps make ends meet. One brother is kind of lazy and practices his singing, hoping to make it big one day. Her younger sister is more interested in having fun and finding a husband. When Neeta's father gets injured, supporting the family falls on Neeta's shoulders and is just the first of a series of misfortunes to affect her. The film is very melodramatic, but also pretty good.


314 - Red Desert (1964) - 6/10 - Monica Vitti stars as a woman filled with anxiety and other mental issues. She is married with a young son, yet feels isolated, apparently due to a recent accident. The film looks great and Vitti does a good job in her role, but I didn't really connect to the story and ended up not enjoying it very much.


315 - Down By Law (1986) - 7/10 - A pimp (John Lurie) and a DJ (Tom Waits) are each setup and arrested in separate incidents. They are placed in the same jail cell in New Orleans, but don't get along. Then a talkative Italian (Roberto Benigni) is placed in their cell and livens things up. It was kind of low key with a fair amount of humor thrown in and I enjoyed it.


316 - Marketa Lazarová (1967) - 6.5/10 - I liked the cinematography and music quite a bit, but the movie could be a bit of a slog to get through at times.


317 - A Moment of Innocence (1996) - 7/10 - Mohsen Makhmalbaf stabbed a policeman when he was 17. This film is about the making of a film about the event. It was okay.


318 - The Elephant Whisperers (2022) - 8/10 - I decided to go ahead and rewatch this. I still enjoyed it.

[Rusty]

319 - Born in Flames (1983) - 7/10 - This low budget film features a couple of feminist groups in New York City in a near future society. Two pirate radio stations are in action, women ride in groups on bicycles through the city to protect other women from assault, and there is plenty of political action. More drastic measures are put in play when a major political activist is killed while in police custody. I thought the film was pretty interesting.


320 - Kaddu Beykat (1976) - 7/10 - This film takes place in the director's village in Senegal and depicts the daily life of the villagers there and it also serves as a discussion with some of the problems facing them. Drought has been a problem for several years and the harvests are not providing what they once did. One villager is hoping to get married soon, but doesn't have the money needed for the bride price. He travels to the city (Dakar) to find work, but finds people there who are willing to exploit those who want to work.


321 - Malcolm (1986) - 7.5/10 - Malcolm is a high functioning autistic man who is a mechanical genius loses his job working for a tram company. He takes on a boarder to help make ends meet and the boarder turns out to be a criminal who was recently released from jail. Malcolm uses his inventive genius to help pull off a number of robberies. This was a fun comedy with some quirky inventions to help liven things up.


322 - The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) - 6/10 - An escaped serial killer attacks people at a home where a group of high school girls have gathered for a sleepover. The killer uses a cordless power drill and seemed pretty odd. There is a lot of gratuitous nudity and there are also tons of jump scares. It's not the best slasher film, but was watchable and had some humor, intended or not.


323 - Blissfully Yours (2002) - 6/10 - A man visits a doctor due to a bad rash, but lets his girlfriend and a woman who accompanies them do the talking since he is an illegal immigrant. Afterward, the couple drive to a forested area to have sex and fool around. The woman ends up joining them. There isn't really a whole lot that happens in this film. The earlier section while visiting the doctor was more interesting than the part in the forest.


324 - Landscape in the Mist (1988) - 8/10 - Voula is a young girl who goes to the Athens train station with her little brother every day with the idea of boarding the express train to Germany to search for their father. The two kids live with their mother and have never known their father, but she has told them that he is in Germany. They finally take the plunge and start out on their journey, but there are many roadblocks along the way, including not having tickets for the train. I liked this one a lot.


325 - Love Streams (1984) - 8/10 - John Cassavetes stars (and directs) as a Robert, a writer who drinks too much and always is seeking out the company of a number of women. One of his ex-wives shows up one day and drops off the 8 year old son he's never spent time with and he agrees to have him spend the night. He promptly takes the kid to Vegas and essentially abandons him in the hotel room. Robert's sister, Sarah (Gena Rowlands), has mental issues and is going through a divorce as a result. She ends up staying with her brother after the divorce. The film has its ups and downs and there is plenty of humor amidst the pain each is suffering. I enjoyed the film, but I'm sure it isn't for everyone.


326 - The Hawks and the Crows (1966) - 6.5/10 - A father and son travel around the country, encountering various people and a talking crow. The film seemed to be part comedy and part social commentary, though neither resonated too strongly with me. It wasn't bad, though.

[Rusty]

327 - Accattone (1961) - 6/10 - Accattone is a lazy pimp who runs into a problem when his prostitute is sent to jail. Since he is apparently allergic to work, he recruits a young woman and has her try selling herself on the streets. I didn't really connect with this one. It seems to be fairly well made, but neither the characters nor the story interested me much.


328 - Charulata (1964) - 8/10 - Charu is an intelligent, but lonely housewife in the 1870s. Her husband spends all of his time with his newspaper and Charu doesn't have much to do with the servants running things in the household. Her quality of life improves with the arrival of her husband's cousin, an intellectual like herself. It's a nice film.

[Rusty]

329 - Ossessione (1943) - 7.5/10 - A drifter ends up stopping at an inn where he helps the owner with a few mechanical repairs. The owner's wife is attracted to him, but won't leave her husband due to the husband's money A pretty nice Italian drama..


330 - The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) - 7.5/10 - The real Kaspar is supposed to have spent the first 16+ years of his life in a small room with no human contact and limited things to occupy his time. Somebody took him out of the room, taught him to write his name, and placed him in a town square with a note in his hand. The film seems to follow the historical record pretty closely and the actor playing Kaspar does a nice job, though I found it a bit odd that they chose someone who was about twice the age of the real Kaspar. The first half of the film was more interesting than the second half.


331 - The Mother and the Whore (1973) - 5.5/10 - Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for this one, but the endless talking usually wasn't all that interesting, especially with a leading character that I didn't care for very much. The really long run time didn't help either.


332 - The Phantom of Liberty (1974) - 8/10 - In Luis Buñuel's penultimate film, we are treated to a series of surrealist sketches that are at times loosely connected. Some of them are funnier than others, but overall it is a pretty entertaining film.