Movies

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318 - The Ghost Writer (2010) - 6.5/10 - A former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) is writing his memoirs, but needs a new ghost writer since his previous one died. A new ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) and gets to work. It's tedious at first, but there seem to be some secrets buried within the text and the new writer might also be in danger. Unfortunately, I didn't really find the story all that engrossing. It wasn't bad, but it felt kind of flat.


319 - Where Eagles Dare (1968) - 8/10 - An American general has been captured after his plane went down and the Nazis are holding him in a fortified castle high up in the mountains. The castle is inaccessible, except by cable car from the lower elevations. An allied team is assembled to rescue the general before he can spill the knowledge that he holds about upcoming actions. There is plenty of action, deception, and so on. Richard Burton leads the team and Clint Eastwood is the lone American member of the team.


320 - One False Move (1991) - 6.5/10 - Three criminals kill a group of people in LA and steal a bunch of money and drugs. They head toward Houston to sell the drugs and Arkansas where one of the three has relatives. Detectives in LA get wind of the Arkansas connection and travel there to work with the local sheriff. The opening section in LA and a good part of the road trip with the criminals wasn't really all that good or interesting. The parts that took place in Arkansas with the sheriff were decent, though.


321 - In the Cut (2003) - 5/10 - An English teacher gets involved with a police detective who is investigating murders in her neighborhood where the bodies are also dismembered. It's got Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo as the leads, but wasn't very good.


322 - The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) - 7.5/10 - Dr. Mabuse has been dead for quite some time, but is he back? The film starts with a reporter getting murdered and soon segues to a hotel which is set up with two way mirrors and closed circuit tv cameras so that whoever is behind the scenes can spy on any guest they choose. It's a decent film and there is a lot to like, but it doesn't match up to The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. I did like it more than the original silent film.


323 - Thief (1981) - 8/10 - James Caan stars as a diamond thief and ex-con named Frank who wants to settle down and start a family. A major crime boss who is under police surveillance approaches Frank about working for him. Frank is resistant to the idea, but one last big score could set him up for life. There's plenty of action, a lot of nice night shots, and a good soundtrack.

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324 - Paper Flowers / Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) - 8/10 - A once successful film director looks back on his life. Suresh Sinha (Guru Dutt) is a popular director with a number of hits who is about ready to film Devdas for his next feature. He comes across a young woman named Shanti (Waheeda Rehman) who is not an actress, but he thinks will be perfect for a lead role in the film. The film follows his relationship with Shanti and also his relationship with his daughter (Kumari Naaz). The film is apparently based in part on Dutt's own experiences in the film industry. He starred in and directed the film and his life mirrored this to an extent. I thought Dutt, Rehman, and Naaz all did a nice job and I appreciated the music in the film, too.


325 - Junglee (1961) - 7/10 - Shammi Kapoor portrays a wealthy, but humorless jackass named Shekhar who lives by the principles espoused by his mother who is conscious of wealth and status. Shekhar's sister Mala is in love with a poor man, but her mother forbids their relationship and has Shekhar take her to Kashmir to get away from the man. While in Kashmir, Shekhar falls in love with the daughter of a doctor and his demeanor changes as a result, though it is not immediate. I didn't really like Kapoor's acting throughout much of the film, but I did really like Saira Banu as Rajkumari, the love interest. Overall, I did like the movie, but thought it could have been better.


326 - Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (1962) - 8/10 - An old, ruined mansion is in the process of being torn down when lunch break is called. The overseer (Guru Dutt) uses this time to reflect back to many years earlier when he first arrived at the mansion as a young, naive man. The estate is elegant, but the master of the house goes out drinking every night and spending time with dancing women while his unhappy wife (Meena Kumari) remains at home, lonely in the absence of her husband. The newly arrived worker befriends the daughter (Waheeda Rehman) of a man who works at the master's factory and the worker also befriends the mistress of the house, being seeming to be somewhat in awe of her. The film has nice performances from the three main leads as the tragedy plays out.


327 - Guide (1965) - 8/10 - Raju was a tour guide who fell in love with the young wife of an older archeologist. The woman was a dancer and the daughter of a prostitute so many people in Raju's village were against her, including his mother and uncle. When the film starts, Raju has just been released from a short stay in prison and instead of returning home, decides to go in a different direction. He is mistaken for a holy man and the people of a rural village start looking to him for wisdom. His earlier life is told in flashback. I thought the film wandered a bit during the second half, but overall it is pretty solid and I enjoyed it.

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328 - Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) - 7/10 - Anjali is an 8 year old girl whose mother died in childbirth. She was named after her father's best friend in college, but her father hasn't seen the other Anjali since college. The girl decides to reunite the two and sets out to find her namesake and make it happen. Objectively, it isn't really that great of a film, but I thought there was something kind of infectious about it and I enjoyed it.

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329 - Bandini (1963) - 8/10 - Kalyani is a quiet resident of a women's prison in 1930s India. She volunteers to take care of a TB patient, a dangerous thing to do at the time. She gains the eye and the ear of one of the prison doctors and the story of how she came to be a prisoner is revealed in flashback. I think the first part of the film is the strongest, but the whole picture is pretty good.


330 - Scorching Winds / Garm Hava (1974) - 8/10 - Salim Mirza is a Muslim with a good family and life in India. When Pakistan is created during partition, Salim's brother and a number of other relatives emigrate to Pakistan. Life becomes difficult for those who chose to stay behind in their home town. The film does a very nice job of showing some of the difficulties faced by the minority Muslim population after the partition.


331 - Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) - 7/10 - A chauffeur takes the fall for his crime boss employer only to see the boss betray his promises of support for the chauffeur's family. This eventually leads to the husband, wife, and three young sons all being separated from each other for 20+ years with each boy being raised in a different home with different religions. One of the sons becomes a police officer, another runs a bar, and the third is a singer. The story is kind of ridiculous and over the top with plenty of bad fighting scenes mixed in. And yet, some of the songs were good and the film itself became kind of fun after a while, sometimes due to the ridiculousness of it. I ended up finding it entertaining and can understand why some people love the film and some hate it.


332 - Cry of the Wounded / Aakrosh (1980) - 6.5/10 - A tribal man is in court and charged with the murder of his wife. He stands mute and does not speak through most of the film. His defense attorney tries to find out what happened and whether the man is actually guilty or not, but meets resistance along the way and finds his own life in danger. It's a good story, but I did not really care for the manner in which it was presented nor the defense attorney.


333 - Who Pays the Piper / Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983) - 5/10 - Two photographers open up a new studio, but don't do well at first. They get an assignment from a newspaper specializing in scandals which leads to more work for them. They uncover graft, but it leads. to quite an adventure and some Weekend at Bernie's action. Unfortunately, a lot of this is kind of dumb and not very funny, especially during the first half of the film.

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334 - Nightmare (1964) - 6/10 - Janet is a 17 year old girl whose mother went insane and murdered her father when Janet was 11. Janet has nightmares about it and the nightmares seem to get worse when she sees a mysterious woman in white wandering the halls. It was okay, but the whole thing was fairly bland without a lot of real tension.


335 - Streets (1990) - 5/10 - Christina Applegate stars as a teenage prostitute who is attacked by a client. She is saved by a teenage runaway boy and the two start hanging out. However, it turns out that the client is a psycho motorcycle cop who has a one track mind in terms of finding 'the one that got away'. This isn't a very good film.


336 - The Power (1968) - 7.5/10 - George Hamilton stars as a biologist named Jim Tanner who heads a committee researching human endurance in conjunction with the space program. One of the committee members has designed a test that shows another member has mental powers in advance of normal humanity. When that man is murdered, suspicion falls on Tanner and he starts trying to get to the bottom of things to clear his name. This was a nice thriller.


337 - The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie (1972) - 6/10 - A traveling salesman picks up a strange teenage hitchhiker (Bonnie Bedelia) and soon finds his travels derailed since she has plans of her own. His actions seem kind of dumb and I don't think the story is all that convincing. There are obvious similarities to Misery which came much later. As a side note, Kathy Bates is only a few months younger than Bedelia.


338 - Vigilante (1982) - 7/10 - A factory worker named Eddie has his life turned upside down when his wife and son are assaulted by a gang. His friend Nick tries to get Eddie to join the group of vigilantes that takes matters in to their own hands, but Eddie wants to let things play out in the courts. He changes his mind when corruption and bribery become evident. This is a decent revenge film, somewhat along the Death Wish lines.


339 - Cutter's Way (1981) - 7/10 - Bone (Jeff Bridges) is driving when his car breaks down in an alley. He sees a man stop and dump something before driving on and almost running Bone over. Bone finds out later that the body of a murdered girl was dumped and the police suspect that he may have killed her. Bone thinks he recognizes the killer during a parade and Bone's friend Cutter (John Heard) decides to try and get the man to confess. Cutter is a veteran with his own way of doing things. It was decent, but felt like it had the potential to be a lot better.


340 - Return from the Ashes (1965) - 7.5/10 - A Jewish woman married a chess master in France when WWII started, but it didn't keep her from being arrested and sent to a concentration camp. She survived the war and eventually returns home under a false name to find that she is thought to be dead and that her husband is sleeping with her step-daughter from a previous marriage. It's a good film with a nice ending.

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341 - India: Matri Bhumi (1959) - 7/10 - This is a mix of documentary and drama which shows several aspects of life in India. I enjoyed the documentary aspects more, but it's not bad overall.


342 - Kummatty / The Bogeyman (1979) - 8.5/10 - A group of village children go about their daily lives - going to school, hanging out, etc. - when a strange old man comes to to their village. He sings folk lore songs, dances, and may have some magic ability. The children. take a liking to him and start calling him Kummatty. I liked the first half of the film more, but the second half wasn't bad. It has really nice cinematography and reminds me a bit of Weerasethakul's films. The music is good and the kids in the film did a nice job.


343 - Baishey Shravana / The Wedding Day (1960) - 7.5/10 - A middle aged traveling salesman marries a teenage girl to please his aging mother. Things go well at first, though she is lonely with his long absences due to work. Then a series of tragedies strike, including an accident, a storm, a war, and a great famine. It's a good film, is shot well, and has nice performances, but I didn't get quite as engaged with the film as I expected.


344 - Prem Sanyas / The Light of Asia (1925) - 7/10 - This starts out as a sort of travelogue/documentary about India, but soon segues into a tale about the life of Gautama, who would become known as the Buddha. I think a full length documentary like what is shown at the beginning would be interesting, but I did like the tale of Gautama as well.

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345 - Maya Darpan (1972) - 6/10 - Taran lives with her father and aunt in an old mansion. She doesn't seem to have much to do and lives a lonely life. The cinematography is decent, but I wasn't too fond of the acting. The film also moves at a very slow pace and it just didn't quite click for me, though I wanted to like it more.


346 - Agraharathil Kazhutai / Donkey in a Brahmin Village (1977) - 5.5/10 - A group of people attack and kill a donkey for no apparent reason. A college professor decides to take care of that donkey's offspring, but it causes problems for him wherever he goes. I guess people are superstitious about donkeys or just don't like them or whatever. There were a few somewhat interesting bits here and there, but mostly it kind of falls flat.


347 - Ajantrik / Pathetic Fallacy (1958) - 8/10 - Bimal drives an old 1920 jalopy as a taxi. It's beaten up, but is pretty reliable. Others laugh at him for driving it, but he loves the car, has named it, and thinks of it as a person. The film shows Bimal interacting with the locals as well as various customers. His love for the car is evident and I found myself enjoying the film quite a bit.

348 - Chinnamul (1951) - A group of farmers in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) have to leave the village that their families have lived in for ages due to partition. They move to Calcutta where they have nothing and struggle to survive. Unfortunately, the only available print is pretty horrible. I'd like to see it with a decent print some day.


349 - Khayal Gatha (1989) - 7.5/10 - A movie about the history of Khayal music. The film looks and sounds great. It is more of an experience than a narrative, though.

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350 - Anuradha (1960) - 7/10 - Ten years earlier, Anuradha was a popular singer with records and everything. She gave it all up when she fell in love with a talented village doctor. They now have a precocious young daughter who often accompanies her father on rounds. He is kept very busy with his work, neglects his wife, and is oblivious to her needs. She has little to occupy her time and is withering away in the village. It's a decent film, but the relationship between the two didn't quite work for me as believable.


351 - Chemmeen (1965) - 7.5/10 - The daughter of a poor (but greedy) fisherman is in love with the son of a fish trader, but tradition forbids their being together. The setting and music here are very nice.


352 - Samskara / Funeral Rites (1970) - 5.5/10 - A Brahmin village has a dilemma when one of their citizens dies. Unfortunately, he was a renegade and flouted Brahmin traditions openly, though he had not been kicked out. His body should be quickly cremated, but none of the elders want to get polluted by handling the situation. The film starts out okay, but then really kind of meanders and I found it to be very boring and uninteresting.


353 - Shyamchi Aai / Shyam’s Mother (1953) - 8/10 - The film tells the story of a boy growing up in a loving family that was once well to do, but is now falling deeper and deeper into poverty and debt. Through these hardships, the mother still manages to instill positive lessons in her son. There are plenty of humorous scenes and also a few sad ones. The music is very good and I liked the performances of the mother and son.


354 - Subarnarekha / The Golden Thread (1965) - 7/10 - After partition, a man living in a refugee camp is responsible for his preteen sister. As a result, he takes a factory job away from the city so that he can provide for her. He also takes with him a boy whose mother was kidnapped from the camp and has no one else. Time skips forward a couple of times as we follow their story. The first segment was the most interesting. The third segment didn't seem as well developed.

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355 - Baise-moi (2000) - 3/10 - Well, that was certainly something.


356 - Breakdown (1997) - 8.5/10 - A married couple is driving from Boston to San Diego in their brand new Jeep when they have an encounter with a man in a truck along a stretch of desert highway. When their Jeep later breaks down, the wife gets a ride with a trucker to go for help. When she disappears, the husband is left to try and find her and get her back. The first half is more suspense and the second half is more action. It blends together into a very enjoyable film.


357 - Confess, Fletch (2022) - 7.5/10 - Fletch is investigating stolen art for his Italian girlfriend when he is framed for the murder of a woman whose body is found in the townhouse he rents. Jon Hamm is pretty good as Fletch and the film is pretty funny. The supporting cast is also good. While the film certainly wasn't going to win any awards, it was entertaining and fun.


358 - Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind / Di yi lei xing wei xian (1980) - 7/10 - Three teenagers set off a prank bomb in a movie theater, but things start to get more serious when a young woman gets them involved with a number of crimes, including hijacking a bus. Robbing a violent foreigner brings in organized crime on their tail. There are a number of comedic elements along with the violence.


359 - Femme Fatale (2002) - 7.5/10 - Rebecca Romijn stars as a diamond thief with a new identity whose picture is taken by a paparazzi (Antonio Banderas). This photo might bring her old partners back into her life as they seek the money she cheated them out of. The film starts out pretty well and is pretty nice overall with the occasional lull. It makes good use of music at times.


360 - Innocence (2004) - 8/10 - A group of young girls gather around a coffin. Inside the coffin is Iris, the new 6 year old of their boarding school house. The girls wear ribbons which are color coded by their ages. The school is fairly mysterious with only 3 adult women and the girls from their house and other houses. The girls take lessons, have dance classes, play, and swim. They have no contact with the outside world until they age out of the school. There are no explanations in the film, but it can be captivating as we experience a year in the life of the girls.


361 - La caza / The Hunt (1966) - 7/10 - Three Spanish Civil War veterans get together to go rabbit hunting out in the wilderness. Old grievances lie just below the surface giving the whole day a degree of tension.


362 - Series 7: The Contenders (2001) - 7/10 - The Contenders is a reality show where 5 people are selected at random and are forced to compete in a death match. These 5 people plus the winner from the previous season have to try and kill each other and the last one alive is the winner. Win three series in a row and they let you go free. I'm not a reality show fan, but this was okay and I liked the ending.

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363 - Jukti, Takko Aar Gappo / Reason, Debate and a Story (1974) - 5.5/10 - An intellectual drunk is left by his wife and son and starts to wander with a couple of followers, lamenting about the state of morals and society. It wasn't really all that interesting.


364 - Ghare-Baire / The Home and the World (1984) - 8/10 - The film takes place in the first part of the 20th Century. Bimala is an educated woman who has learned English, keeps up on current events, and much more. Her husband (from an arranged marriage) had a Western education and wanted his wife to be free of tradition. There is a movement to boycott foreign goods and her husband doesn't support it because it will hurt the poor, but Bimala gets involved with a slick talking rebel leader and becomes a supporter. The film is heavy on talking, often of an intellectual nature, and moves rather slow. Still, it is interesting and the film looks very nice.


365 - Days and Nights in the Forest (1970) - 7/10 - Four friends from Calcutta go off to spend the weekend in the forest. They act boorishly, flirt with women, and break a few rules along the way. It wasn't bad, but I didn't get into it as much as many of Ray's other films.

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366 - Bagh Bahadur / The Tiger Dancer (1989) - 8/10 - Ghunuram returns home to his village every year to perform the Tiger Dance. This year, he hopes to marry the daughter of the man who drums for him, but competition arrives in the form of a traveling group of entertainers with a live leopard and its trainer. It's a nice film. It's fairly simple in a number of ways, but well done.


367 - Dakhal (1982) - 6.5/10 - A tribal woman married a peasant farmer and settled down with him. They had two kids and over a 12 year period, reclaimed marshy land and made a nice, working farm. After the husband dies, a greedy landowner works to cheat her and her kids out of their land. It wasn't bad, though it was a bit lacking in depth and could have used better subtitles.


368 - Marupakkam / The Other Side (1990) - 5/10 - A man returns home after his father suffers a stroke. The father had been very rude to the son's wife upon first meeting which eventually led to a separation. The father's past goes through his mind with respect to his own mother's disapproval of his first wife. I found myself having no sympathy for the father and didn't really like this too much, though the music wasn't bad.


369 - Charachar / Shelter of the Wings (1994) - 6.5/10 - Lakha is an odd bird (so to speak). His job is to catch birds and sell them to a broker. He works with a partner and while birds are plentiful and they catch a lot of birds, he makes almost no money because he usually sets his share of the birds free after catching them. He loves birds and spends a lot of time holding and admiring them. His wife would rather eat and have decent clothes, though.


370 - Village Rockstars (2017) - 8/10 - Dhunu is a 10 year old girl sho spends much of her free time hanging out with her brother and a group of boys, though this is looked down upon by some of the village women. She dreams of owning a guitar and playing in a band. Much of the film is slice of life fare and some might be turned off by the pace, but I enjoyed it.


371 - Mondo Meyer Upakhyan / A Tale of a Naughty Girl  (2002) - 7.5/10 - It's 1969 and the moon landing is only a few days away. Lati is a 14 year old girl whose mother is a prostitute in a village brothel. The mother has plans for Lati to become the mistress of the local cinema owner, but Lati wants to go to school and continue her education.


372 - Lal Darja / Red Door (1997) - 5/10 - This is a pretty dull tale of a dentist who takes little interest in anything. He thinks that his limbs have been getting stiffer over the past year, but his doctor can't find anything wrong. His wife wants to leave him and his son doesn't want to speak to him. We also get memories of the dentist as a boy when he thought he could control a red gate without touching it.

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373 - Mr. Klein (1976) - 7/10 - Robert Klein is an art dealer in 1942 Paris who takes advantage of Jewish citizens seeking to flee the country by purchasing artwork from them at extremely low prices. One day, he is surprised to find a Jewish newspaper with his name on it delivered to his door. He learns that there is a Jewish man named Robert Klein who is forwarding his mail to his address. He seeks to track down this other Robert Klein in an effort to protect himself. The film is fairly well crafted, but I thought it lacked the spark to make it a very good film. I wasn't overly impressed with Alain Delon as the lead, though he wasn't bad.


374 - Nomad (1982) - 7/10 - A number of Hong Kong youth in their teens and twenties fool around and have fun. Things take a more serious bent later in the film.


375 - Red Dawn / Rojo amanecer (1989) - 8/10 - This film about the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City focuses on one family and mostly takes place in their apartment or just outside. The family has two university age students who attend a large rally nearby. The army has placed snipers in building overlooking the rally, incites violence, and kills or injures many of the protesters and others. It's well done.


376 - The People Under the Stairs (1991) - 6.5/10 - A boy nicknamed Fool and two others hatch a plan to rob a nearby house where an odd, secretive couple lives. There is supposed to be a coin collection with valuable gold coins plus other items of value, but the three get much more than they bargained for. The first 2/3 of the film was pretty so-so, but I liked the last 20-25 minutes a lot more.


377 - My Brother’s Wedding (1983) - 6/10 - Pierce works at his parent's dry cleaner. His brother (a lawyer) is getting married soon, but Pierce doesn't like his brother's fiancée. Pierce has also been asked to help his close friend, Soldier, an ex-con with difficult prospects. Most of the film is just day to day slice of life activity. There are some nice bits here and there, though the acting generally isn't really all that great.


378 - Rapt / The Kidnapping (1934) - 6/10 - The film takes place in the mountains of Switzerland where there is a French speaking village on one side of a mountain and a German speaking village on the other. One day, a French speaking shepherd finds that his dog has been killed by a man from the other side. As revenge, he kidnaps the other man's fiancée and keeps her prisoner with the other residents of the village turning a blind eye. The film has decent cinematography and a fairly good ending, but I thought the acting was often kind of antiquated, left over from the silent era and still old fashioned then. The story itself was adequate, but not great.

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379 - Paan Singh Tomar (2012) - 7/10 - This biopic is about a man who was in the army in 1950s when it was discovered that he had a talent for running. He became a national champion in the steeplechase and had a long career. Trouble arose when he retired from the army and returned to his home village. Circumstances dictated that he become a rebel and outlaw. The film was pretty good and had some nice moments over the first 35 minutes or so. It wasn't bad after that, but became less interesting. Irrfan Khan gives a nice performance, but the different elements of the story could have been stitched together better.


380 - Thai Saheba (1997) - 6/10 - A husband and wife appear to be happily married back around the time that India gains independence. The husband is fairly wealthy with lots of land, but is not that concerned with holding on to the land. They have no children so they adopt the son of one of their relatives. Soon after, it turns out that the husband's mistress has a daughter. Years pass, and the two children fall in love and want to marry, but since they are viewed as brother and sister despite there being no blood relation, custom forbids the union. The story sounds much more interesting than the film turns out to be. The performances seem rather restrained much of the time. It wasn't bad, but the potential was there for more.

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381 - Shantham / Calmness (2001) - 7/10 - A grief stricken mother seeks to perform the funeral rites for her murdered son. The son was killed by his best friend as both were caught up on opposite sides of a political struggle where the leaders used them as pawns. The man who killed his friend is plagued by inner turmoil and the cycle of violence threatens to continue. The film has a lot of this going on almost in the background, but there is a sense of restraint and grief among the mothers and others who wish to keep things from escalating.


382 - Chidambaram (1985) - 6/10 - Muniyandi works with cattle on a large farm. He requests leave to go home to his village to get married. After the marriage, he brings his wife to the farm to live. One of Muniyandi's supervisors takes a liking to Muniyandi's wife, though he tries to resist the urge.


383 - Kathapurushan / Man of the Story (1996) - 6/10 - A boy is born in the late 1930s and the film follows his life over the next 40+ years. The boy's father isn't around and the boy is raised by his mother and grandmother with his uncle also present at times. The acting is okay and there are some interesting parts here and there, but they film jumps ahead around a decade at a time and the parts of the story don't really mesh together all that well. There is too much left out and it is not really all that great overall.


384 - Sagar Sangamey / The Holy Island (1959) 7/10 - A widow and a little girl are among the travelers making a pilgrimage when they run into hardships which push them closer together. It was decent.


385 - Kaasav: Turtle (2016) - 5.5/10 - Niche is a suicidal young man who cuts his wrists and ends up in the hospital. After leaving there, he meets a woman named Janaki who takes him to a seaside home that she has rented near a project involving sea turtles. She has her own ideas about helping him. The film has a decent ending, but I didn't find much of the rest all that convincing.


386 - Shwaas / A Breath (2004) - 6.5/10 - A grandfather takes his 8 year old grandson to the doctor because the grandson is having vision problems. It turns out that the boy has a rare type of cancer and needs an operation right away. The grandfather is a bit befuddled by the hospital system, but wants what is best for his grandson. This is kind of like a made for tv film, though it's not bad and I did like it.

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387 - Cleopatra Jones (1973) - 7/10 - Cleopatra Jones (Tamara Dobson) is a federal agent who is out to bust Mommy's (Shelley Winters) drug ring. There's plenty of action, though generally fairly tame. Winters is pretty out there as the villain and Dobson is okay as the lead. The ending is good and it's a fun film.


388 - Fair Game (1995) - 6.5/10 - Cindy Crawford is a lawyer who is targeted by an international criminal and his ex-KGB henchmen. William Baldwin is a police detective who ends up protecting her from the hit squad. The motivation for the villain seems kind of dumb. There undoubtedly would be easier and less conspicuous ways of handling things. The movie itself is kind of dumb, but has decent action sequences and I thought it was mostly fun. Sure, some of the humor might have been unintentional, but I still had a good time.


389 - Laser Mission (1989) - 3.5/10 - Brandon Lee stars as a freelancer who is sent by the CIA to get a top laser scientist before he can fall into Russian hands. The acting and action scenes are pretty bad. The plot is also pretty dumb.


390 - The Gauntlet (1977) - 7/10 - Clint Eastwood stars as a Phoenix cop in a dead end position who is sent to Las Vegas to escort a prisoner/witness (Sandra Locke) back for a trial. After picking her up, it seems like everybody is out to kill them, including the police. They have quite the journey getting to their destination. Some aspects get kind of dumb after a while, including the tons of bullets which are used to try to kill them on more than one occasion, but it is still a fairly entertaining film and I enjoyed it.


391 - The Body Snatcher (1945) - 7.5/10 - A doctor in Edinburgh in 1831 teaches anatomy and occasionally uses corpses delivered by an unpleasant cab driver (Boris Karloff). These corpses are usually obtained by robbing graves, but sometimes a more proactive approach is taken. A medical student who looks up to the doctor becomes aware of these liberties and struggles with it. Karloff is pretty good here. I also liked Russell Wade as the somewhat naive medical student.


392 - The Fog (1980) - 7/10 - A small town in California is about to celebrate it's 100th year when strange things begin to happen. The local pastor discovers his grandfather's journal from a century earlier which tells one of the town's buried secrets. A fog starts rolling in, bringing evil beings with it who kill unsuspecting residents. It's not bad, but some of the things seemed kind of random and I didn't feel much tension during the film.


393 - Antaheen / The Endless Wait (2009) - 7/10 - Abhik is a police officer in his early 40s who lives a somewhat lonely life outside of work. Brinda is an investigative tv journalist in her early 20s. The two become close through anonymous online chatting, each serving as a sort of lifeline for each other. When circumstances lead to them meeting in real life (without knowing that they are online friends), their relationship is much rockier at first, though it becomes closer over time. The similarities to You've Got Mail are pretty obvious, but it's a decent film.


394 - Court (2014) - 5.5/10 - An aging folk singer/protest singer is arrested on a charge of abetting the suicide of a man who cleans the sewers. The evidence is flimsy and/or fabricated. The singer's attorney does what he can, but the wheels of justice move very slowly and the system itself seems inept and perhaps corrupt as well. The takes are pretty slow and generally dull. The scenes which take place outside the court don't really add much to the story other than to make it drag out longer.'