Movies

[Rusty]

422 - The Red Lanterns (1963) - 7.5/10 - We get to see some of the lives of the women working at a brothel in Greece called the Red Lanterns. They entertain many customers during the week, but get Sundays off. Some of them have a man they are close to and would like to get out of the business, but it is hard. The brothel is likely to be shut down soon due to a new law.


423 - Sholay (1975) - 8/10 - A former police officer recruits two criminals to capture a bandit who has been terrorizing his village. He wants them to capture the bandit alive and the two men will earn a large reward if they succeed, though the bandit also has a large gang that will need to be dealt with. I thought the film was pretty entertaining with some good action scenes and humor as well. The songs mostly didn't seem out of place either.


424 - The Class (2008) - 8/10 - The film mostly follows one class with a French teacher at a middle school in Paris with lots of foreign born students. It can be a tough group and we get to sit in on teacher meetings as well as the class itself. The teacher walks the edge a bit between trying to get their cooperation in working and being confrontational or insulting at times. I found it to be pretty realistic. I had a number of classes over the years that resembled this particular class in a variety of ways.


425 - Mother India (1957) - 6/10 - A greedy moneylender cheats a family for 20 years with just about everybody going along with it, including the people being cheated. This is regarded by some as a classic, but I found it kind of a slog to get through. The one I related to the most was Birju, the son who rebelled.

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426 - The Hunt (2012) - 8/10 - A kindergarten teacher is falsely accused of exposing himself to and molesting his students. This leads to him being assaulted and ostracized before finally being exonerated. Only a few stand by him during the troubles. It's a good film, but kind of painful to watch.


427 - Twin Dragons (1992, Hong Kong) - 7/10 - Jackie Chan plays twins who were separated at birth. One ends up as a concert pianist in New York City with his parents while the other is a raised in Hong Kong and becomes a martial artist. When the pianist travels to Hong Kong for a concert, their paths cross and they are mistaken for each other. Comedy and fights ensue. This wasn't the best Jackie Chan film, but it had decent action sequences and was fun.


428 - Return of the Seven (1966) - 6/10 - This sequel to The Magnificent Seven covers a lot of the same ground, but is much less interesting. Several years have passed since the first film. All of the men in the village where one of the gunmen from the first film (Chico) has settled have been rounded up and taken away by a bandit gang. Chico's wife seeks help from Chris (Yul Brynner) and he puts together another group of seven fighters to rescue his friend and the other captured men. There is a fair amount of action, but it all seems to be kind of by the numbers. The film is watchable, but not that good overall.

[Rusty]

429 - Heaven's Gate (1980) - 7/10 - This is based loosely on the Johnson County War in Wyoming toward the end of the 19th Century. Wealthy cattlemen try to intimidate and murder small ranchers, including a number of immigrants, who are challenging them on the use of the land. I was enjoying the film quite a bit for the first hour or so, but then started to lose interest. The film has really nice cinematography and I never completely lost interest, but it felt bloated and overlong. Overall, I thought it was a good film with the potential to have been much better. Of course, the production problems, cost overruns, and other issues doomed its release early on.


430 - The Texas Rangers (1936) - 7/10 - Fred MacMurray and Jack Oakie are outlaws who join the Texas Rangers, though initially it's part of a scheme. Things go well for them until they are sent to track down one of their former partners. The film is dated, but still fairly entertaining, particularly in the second half of the film. Gabby Hayes makes a brief appearance as a judge.


431 - Shenandoah (1965) - 7.5/10 - James Stewart stars as a farmer in Virginia during the Civil War who has a big spread that he works with his six sons, his daughter, and his daughter-in-law. Confederate and Union forces are in the vicinity near his farm, but he wants no part of the war and just wants his farm and his family to be left alone. His youngest son is mistaken for a Confederate soldier and taken prisoner so he goes off in search of him. I thought this was a pretty good western, even if it doesn't take place out west.


432 - Lawman (1971) - 8/10 - Burt Lancaster stars as a lawman from a town called Bannock who travels to the town of Sabbath with a list of names of cowboys who shot up Bannock and unknowingly killed a man earlier in the year. One of the men on the list challenged him before he got to town and is now dead. He meets with the town marshal and sets a deadline for the next day for the men to turn themselves in. He says that none of the men will be killed and they will get a fair trial in Bannock, but some of the men have other ideas. I thought this one was really good.


433 - Armour of God (1986) - 7/10 - Jackie Chan stars as a treasure hunter/adventurer whose girlfriend is kidnapped, leading him to pursue legendary treasures known as the Armour of God. The opening sequence where he acquired the sword is pretty cool and I also liked the car chase and some of the other stunts. Other parts of the movie were somewhat mediocre, but it was still a fairly entertaining film.

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434 - Operation Condor (1991) - 7.5/10 - I liked the sequel to Armour of God a bit more than the original. It also has an excellent opening scene plus a spirited car/motorcycle chase. Jackie and friends are being pursued by groups who want the location of an old Nazi base in the desert which is supposed to contain tons of gold. There is plenty of action and it is a fun film. There is a third film which came out around 20 years later that I plan to check out.


435 - Project A (1983) - 7/10 - Jackie Chan is a coast guard officer in 19th Century Hong Kong where pirates are prevalent. There is a ton of action and the movie is okay, though I liked it a bit less than Armour of God.


436 - Project A: Part II (1987) - 7/10 - Jackie is put in charge of a police district and has to gather evidence against a corrupt police superintendent while also dealing with gangsters, revolutionaries, and pirates. I liked it more than the first one.


437 - Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) - 7.5/10 - It was cool seeing Berlin from the 1920s with people getting up, going to school or work, going about their day, and then enjoying leisure time after work.


438 - Dragon Lord (1982) - 6.5/10 - Dragon and his friend spend a lot of time between getting into trouble, playing sports, chasing after girls, and so on. They step up when they stumble across a plot by local smugglers. There are plenty of fights and action, though the story is a bit lacking.


439 - The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (1975) - 7.5/10 - A nice little stop motion animation film about an elderly bicycle repairman who lives on top of a steep hill in the small town of Pinchcliffe. His former assistant is a well known race car driver who stole at least one of his inventions on the way to success. With help from friends and a wealthy sheikh, the repairman builds a powerful race car himself and challenges his former assistant to a race.

[Rusty]

440 - Death on the Nile (2022) - 6.5/10 - The film looks great, but much of the acting and story feels kind of lifeless.


441 - Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (2009) - 7/10 - Another entry in the Evangelion series. It had its moments.


442 - Faust (1926) - 7.5/10 - God and Satan are battling and use Faust's soul as a wager. Satan tempts Faust with youth and power, but deceives and tricks him where he can along the way. The effects were very good and the acting was also effective, though the story itself didn't interest me as much.

[Rusty]

443 - I Was Born, But... (1932) - 8/10 - A family moves into a new home due to their father's job The two young boys in the family have trouble with a gang of boys in the neighborhood and avoid school for a while as a result. The boys also have to learn the realities of what adults must sometimes do in order to keep a good job. This is a very nice film.


444 - Ip Man (2008) - 8/10 - Donnie Yen stars as Wing Chun master Ip Man in this biopic. The film starts in China in 1935 where Ip Man is well known in his home city, but is modest and reserved. His family is forced into poverty when the Japanese invade and he survives by working at a coal mine. The Japanese general in charge is a martial artist and recruits local martial artists to fight with his troops, earning a bag of rice if they win. Ip Man is not interested in that, but fights for other reasons. This film was very entertaining and had good fight sequences. It was certainly more interesting than the later film, The Grandmaster, which was also about Ip Man.


445 - Ip Man 2 (2010) - 7/10 - Ip Man and his family move to Hong Kong where he tries to set up a martial arts school, but runs afoul of the association of various martial arts schools. Then we get kung fu vs western boxing. This kind of turned into the Ip Man version of Rocky IV and was still entertaining, but wasn't as good as the first film.

[Rusty]

446 - Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) - 7/10 - Heart of Darkness in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. A Spanish madman leads a group of explorers in search of El Dorado. There is a lot of interesting scenery. Natives pick away at their numbers.


447 - Ip Man 3 (2015) - 6/10 - There are still plenty of decent fights, but the story is kind of a mess. Real estate developers threaten the school where Ip Man's son attends. Fights between Ip Man's students and gangsters. Kidnappings, Mike Tyson, and more.


448 - Ip Man 4: The Finale (2019) - 7.5/10 - Ip Man travels to San Francisco to visit his student, Bruce Lee. While there, he also looks to see if a school there would be right for his wayward son who has recently been expelled for fighting. He encounters racism in the form of a couple of brutal Marine boot camp instructors who are experts in karate (kind of ironic) and look down on kung fu. The racism aspect seemed a bit overdone, but the fights were good and the story was entertaining.


449 - The Mississippi Gambler (1953) - 8/10 - Tyrone Power stars as a riverboat gambler named Mark Fallon who insists on an honest game and won't stand for cheating at cards. He falls for the sister (Piper Laurie) of a man he beats at cards, but she doesn't want anything to do with him, despite her father approving of him. The story is nicely told and Power is very good in the lead role. Paul Cavanagh is also good in a supporting role as the wealthy father of the woman Fallon is interested in.


450 - Singing Guns (1950) - 7.5/10 - Vaughn Monroe is a stagecoach robber who feels wronged by the mining company and has accumulated a large fortune in stolen gold. After saving the life of the sheriff, the town makes him deputy while he recovers, not realizing who he really is. The only person who knows is the local doctor (Walter Brennan) who is trying to get him to turn to the side of good. I thought it was a pretty solid film.


451 - Stagecoach to Fury (1956) - 5/10 - This subpar western features Mexican bandits who take the passengers of a stagecoach prisoner at a layover. They are expecting a gold shipment to come through soon. We get flashbacks to the prisoner's pasts as well. The characters and story aren't very interesting.

[Rusty]

452 - In Old Oklahoma (1943) - 7/10 - Jim Gardner (Albert Dekker) is a big oilman and businessman in 1906 Oklahoma. Whatever he wants, he gets. He sets his eyes on the oil in the nearby Indian lands as well as schoolteacher Cathy Allen (Martha Scott), but cowboy Daniel Somers (John Wayne) gets in the way of both. It's a fairly standard western, but has good performances and an enjoyable story.


453 - 3:10 to Yuma (1957) - 8.5/10 - Glenn Ford stars as an outlaw who gets captured while lingering for too long after robbing a stagecoach and killing the driver. He's going to be sent by train to Yuma and a poor rancher (Van Heflin) agrees to escort him for $200, which he needs to keep his ranch running. The outlaw's gang aims to free him and the escort duty won't be easy. Ford and Heflin give very nice performances and I liked the film a lot. It's been too long since I saw the remake to compare them, but I'd rate them about the same.


454 - Johnny Guitar (1954) - 8/10 - Vienna (Joan Crawford) owns a saloon outside of town and is waiting for the railroad to come through so that she can cash in. Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden) arrives at the saloon after witnessing a stagecoach robbery on the way there. A mob shows up at the saloon looking for the people who they suspect committed the robbery and the woman leading the mob (Mercedes McCambridge) tries to convince the rest to bring Vienna in as well. I thought that Crawford was excellent in the film and Hayden was also very good. I didn't like McCambridge much, though, in her role as the main adversary.

[Rusty]

455 - Hurrah! for Freedom (1946) - An interesting film from Korea that was made just after gaining independence from Japan. It shows a small group of people resisting the Japanese presence and fighting for their freedom.


456 - A Short Film About Love (1988) - 6/10 - A young man who works at the post office watches a woman in a neighboring apartment building through a telescope in his bedroom. He has fallen in love with her, but doesn't know how to express it properly. This is kind of a strange movie and I didn't really enjoy it all that much, but it is okay.

[Rusty]

457 - Sand (1949) - 6.5/10 - A prize stallion is accidentally set loose due to a train crash. Mistreatment by those who find the horse causes him to become mean at times. The stallion's owner comes in search of his horse and enlists the help of a rancher to track him down and win him over. The film is pretty dull through the first half, but gets better after that. The dark print that is available does it no favors.


458 - Silver Queen (1942) - 6/10 - Coralie is an heiress whose father loses his fortune in a stock crash. He'd also lost the deed to a silver mine while gambling. After he dies, she takes up running gambling tables to earn money to repay her father's creditors. She's also somewhat torn between the man her father wanted her to marry and a successful gambler. It certainly isn't the best western and the story gets kind of muddled here and there, but it's watchable.


459 - The Iron Horse (1924) - 7.5/10 - As a young boy, Davy traveled west with his surveyor father and dreamt of a transcontinental railroad. His father was killed, but he grew up to help build the railroad. There is romance and there are villains along the way. I thought the acting was still a bit stiff and awkward at times, but the ending was good and there is nice footage mixed in along the way.


460 - Chinese Zodiac (2012) - 7/10 - Jackie Chan stars in what is supposed to be the third film in the Armour of God series. However, a lot has changed in the 20 years since the previous film and it really doesn't seem like the same series. There are lots of good fights and stunts, plenty of silly stuff, etc. Jackie and his crew are searching for priceless animal heads from the zodiac that were looted from China in the 19th Century. This film may lack a bit of the charm of the older films, but I thought it made up for it in other ways and was about the same overall level.


461 - Drunken Master (1978) - 8/10 - Jackie Chan is the son of a kung fu master with his own school. He has skill, but enjoys getting into trouble. The father sends his son to train with a drunken old man with his own unique style of fighting. There is plenty of comedy and entertaining fights.


462 - Days of Being Wild (1990) - 6/10 - A young man in Hong Kong treats women poorly, but they love him anyway. He wants to go off in search of his biological mother in the Philippines if his adoptive mother (a former high class prostitute) will tell him where to look. I enjoyed some of the director's later films, including (the loosely related) In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express, but this one was much less interesting and seemed kind of listless.

[Rusty]

463 - Forty Guns (1957) - 7/10 - The Bonnell brothers are U.S. Marshals and they arrive in Tombstone, Arizona to serve a warrant on a man who is one of forty hired guns working for Jessica Drummond, a powerful female rancher. The rancher's brother is a cruel bully who shoots up the town until stopped by Griff Bonnell. There's romance and gunfights and a nice soundtrack. The central relationship between Griff and Jessica didn't totally work for me, but it's a decent film.


464 - Man of the West (1958) - 8/10 - Link Jones (Gary Cooper) is on his way east to hire a schoolteacher for his small community. He and two others get stranded when their train is attacked by outlaws. Link leads the others to the house where he was raised which happens to be nearby. However, his outlaw uncle and his gang are still living there. Cooper was way too old for the role, but I thought he did a decent job.


465 - Winchester '73 (1950) - 8/10 - Lin McAdam (James Stewart) arrives in Dodge City in search of Dutch Henry Brown. The two take part in a shooting competition for a rare Winchester rifle. After the competition, Dutch leaves town in a hurry with McAdam in pursuit. The story mostly follows the trail of the rifle as it changes hands a number of times. Stewart is good in his role, but the supporting cast shines as well, including Dan Duryea as a slightly crazed outlaw named Waco Jones and Shelley Winters as a woman caught up in the middle of things.

[Rusty]

466 - The Legend of the Drunken Master (1994) - 7.5/10 - Wong Fei-Hung accidentally gets caught up in a plot to smuggle Chinese artifacts out of the country. It's a good film and there are plenty of good fights, but it isn't as much fun as the original Drunken Master film.


467 - Rumble in the Bronx (1995) - 7/10 - Keung (Jackie Chan) travels to New York City for his uncle's wedding and sticks around for a while to help out while his uncle is on his honeymoon. He runs afoul of a local gang of street toughs and also gets involved with a violent group looking for stolen diamonds. The story is a bit lame, but the stunts are great and I did enjoy the movie, though probably not as much as when I first saw it in the 1990s.

[Rusty]

468 - North West Mounted Police (1940) - 6.5/10 - Dusty Rivers (Gary Cooper) is a Texas Ranger who travels to Canada in search of a man wanted for murder in Texas. He works with the Mounties to search for the man and also helps the Mounties put down a rebellion. He falls for the sister of one of the Mounties and hopes to bring her back to Texas with him. The film isn't bad and has good parts, but overall it is somewhat dull.


469 - The Great Silence (1968) - 7/10 - In a snow covered landscape, a mute gunfighter protects a group of people against bounty hunters. The most vicious of the bounty hunters (Klaus Kinski) has his own methods. This is a decent film and I probably should have liked it more, but it didn't totally resonate with me.


470 - Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) - 8/10 - James Coburn stars as Pat Garrett with Kris Kristofferson as Billy the Kid in this interpretation of the story. The soundtrack is excellent and the story is pretty good as well, even if Kristofferson is about 15 years older than Billy was when he died.


471 - Randy Rides Alone (1934) - 6.5/10 - John Wayne stars as Randy Bower in this fairly straightforward b-movie. Randy arrives at a saloon known as The Halfway House only to find everyone dead inside. While he is looking around, the sheriff arrives and arrests him, despite his protestations of innocence. He later escapes and helps track down the gang responsible. It's entertaining, even if there are a few oddities in the film.

[Rusty]

472 - The Young Master (1980, Hong Kong) - 7/10 - Jackie Chan stars as an orphan who was taken in by a kung fu master and trains in his school. When his fellow orphan brings disgrace on the school and is kicked out, He takes off in search of his brother and is mistaken for a wanted criminal. The film starts out pretty slowly, but there is plenty of action after that. It's a decent film, but not one of Chan's best.


473 - The Killer (1989, Hong Kong) - 7.5/10 - An assassin takes an interest in a nightclub singer after she is accidentally blinded during one of his jobs. He decides to take on one last big job to help pay for a cornea transplant, but is double crossed and now has assassins after him as well. He finds an unlikely ally in a police officer investigating his latest job. The bullets sure were flying through a good portion of the movie. It's kind of ridiculous, but is still plenty of fun.


474 - Still Life (2006, China) - 6.5/10 - A man arrives in the town of Fengjie to search for the wife and daughter that he hasn't seen in 16 years. Fengjie is being slowly submerged due to the new Three Gorges dam. A woman also arrives in Fengjie looking for the husband who left two years earlier. Their stories are only tangentially related. The movie is very slow, but looks great. I only found the story itself mildly interesting with the woman's story the more interesting of the two.

[Rusty]

475 - Romance of the Western Chamber/Xi xiang ji (1927, China) - Chang Kung is a young scholar who falls for Ying Ying, the daughter of a wealthy woman. Ying Ying seems to like Chang Kung as well. Bandits attack the temple where they are all staying, demanding they give up Ying Ying since the bandit leader has taken a fancy to her. The battles weren't anything special, but I liked the story and the actors. It feels fairly complete, though apparently the second half of the film is lost.


476 - Bend of the River (1952) - 7.5/10 - Jimmy Stewart is a reformed border raider who is leading a group of farmers to their land in Oregon. They have a number of things to deal with, including raids by Shoshone warriors and a merchant who decides to hold back their winter supplies when prices rise due to a gold strike. It's a pretty solid and film, though not as good as Winchester '73.


477 - Duck You Sucker (1971) - 7/10 - During the Mexican Revolution, a bandit and an Irish explosives expert team up and end up working with revolutionaries after an attempt to rob a national bank. The first half hour or so of this movie (except for the gross eating scene) was great. Then it got much less interesting.


478 - Dead Man (1995) - 7.5/10 - Johnny Depp stars as an accountant named William Blake who travels from Cleveland for a job in the west, only to find that the job has been filled. After getting shot and then killing the man in return, he finds himself on the run and branded an outlaw with a Native American as a sometimes guide. He finds himself changing the more he is on the run. The movie gets a lot more interesting as it goes along, partly as I adjusted to the slightly off-kilter type of film this is. Blake changes throughout the journey and Depp gives a nice performance, though I think Gary Farmer is even better as Nobody.


479 - Destry Rides Again (1939) - 8/10 -The town of Bottleneck is run by a crooked gambler/saloon owner in conjunction with the corrupt mayor. When a local ranch owner is cheated, the sheriff goes to investigate and isn't seen again. The town drunk is named sheriff and he sends for the son of a famous lawman to serve as his deputy. Jimmy Stewart gives a nice performance as the laid back deputy and Marlene Dietrich has a big role as Frenchy, a popular singer at the saloon. The fight between Dietrich and Una Merkel during the film was very good and the movie as a whole is as well.