Movies

[Rusty]

395 - Vanaprastham (1999) - 7/10 - Kunhikuttan is a well known Kathakali dancer in the 1950s. He is poor and lives with his wife from an arranged marriage and his young daughter, though he is often on the road with his troupe. A wealthy woman falls for the character that he plays, but only wants to see him while he is in costume. This leads to a son, but she will not let him see the boy. It's an interesting film with a good performance from the lead.


396 - Kanchivaram (2008) - 7.5/10 - Vengadam is a poor silk weaver who dreams of making a silk sari for his bride. The silk weavers of this era (1920s India) are kept in poverty by the men who control the product and amass fortunes at the expense of the weavers. Vengadam and some of the other weavers eventually fall under the spell of a communist organizer with hope that communism will bring them greater prosperity. Vengadam's life isn't easy, which is clear from the start as he is on a 2 day parole from prison with much of the story told in flashback. Prakash Raj gives a good performance as Vengadam.


397 - Kabuliwala (1957) - 5/10 - A nut seller from Afghanistan arrives in India to make some money to take back home. He becomes very fond of a little girl who reminds him of his young daughter back home. He gives her lots of free samples and seems to neglect his job to spend time with her. The acting isn't really all that great.


398 - Mrigayaa (1977) - 6.5/10 - In the 1920s, tribal villagers are taken advantage of in a number of ways by the Indians in charge of their area. One talented hunter befriends the new British administrator through his prowess at catching big game. This doesn't keep his wife from being a target. Mithun Chakraborty is pretty good in his film debut, but the film as a whole is only okay, though it has some nice moments.


399 - Seemabaddha / Company Limited (1971) - 7.5/10 - Shyamalendu is an executive for a British fan company based in India. He wants to keep moving up the corporate ladder and expects a promotion soon. However, a problem with a major shipment arises that threatens his position. To solve the problem, he may need to resort to unethical means. Complicating matters are his wife's younger sister visiting for a few days. This was good, but I'd rate it around middle of the pack for the Ray films that I've seen.


400 - The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) - 8/10 - Basil Rathbone stars as Sherlock Holmes with Nigel Bruce as Watson in this nice adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle story.


401 - Scream of Fear (1961) - 8/10 - Penny Appleby is confined to a wheelchair due to an accident years earlier. She has been away in Switzerland for some time, but returns home to her father's estate after receiving a letter from him. She meets her stepmother for the first time and is told that her father is away, but she starts seeing his dead body in different places on the estate. This was nicely done and pretty entertaining.


402 - The Tomb of Ligeia (1964) - 5/10 - Vincent Price stars as a man whose wife has died. At the funeral, a black cat jumps on the coffin. Price marries again, but his first wife's spirit seems to haunt them and that black cat hangs around, too. I couldn't really get into this one. It was pretty dull.

[Rusty]

403 - The Phenix City Story (1955) - 7.5/10 - Phenix City, Alabama is a cesspool controlled by organized crime. The police department is bought and paid for and all sorts of vice are rampant. A prominent attorney is reluctant to run for State Attorney General on a platform of cleaning up the city, but eventually runs and is murdered shortly after gaining the nomination. The film dramatizes the story and while I think they took a number of liberties, it's a fairly entertaining film.


404 - A Tale of Winter (1992) - 8.5/10 - Felicie had a romance with Charles over the summer holidays, but messed up when giving him her new address upon their parting. Fast forward five years and Felicie is living with her mother, working in a hair salon, and is raising her four year old daughter. She dreams of one day finding Charles again, but makes do with relationships with two very different men that she does not love. This was very nicely done.


405 - Camouflage (1977) - 5.5/10 - Tensions sometime run high at a summer camp for university linguistics students. One professor is easy going while the other is stricter and manipulative. Students are presenting papers and there is conflict over this as well. I had a hard time getting in to this one. I didn't really care for the characters and I also didn't care about much t hat they talked about (endlessly) over the course of the film.

[Rusty]

406 - Diva (1981) - 7.5/10 - Jules is a postman who rides a moped for work and loves opera. He is enamored with an American singer named Cynthia Hawkins who performs regularly in Paris and elsewhere in Europe. He makes a secret recording of one of her performances for his own use and this eventually leads to trouble with people who went to sell the recording. He also has problems when a woman fleeing from mob goons slips a cassette tape into his postal bag. This tape contains the name of the real boss of a large criminal ring. The film was pretty solid for the first hour, though it lost a bit of steam during the second hour. I still enjoyed it quite a bit.


407 - Larks on a String (1969) - 6.5/10 - A group of people are being rehabilitated in a junkyard doing menial labor in the early 1950s. This group includes a professor, a barber, a dairyman, and others. There is a bit of romance with a young male worker and a young female worker. The film is a satire, but it isn't really overly funny, though there are a few somewhat humorous bits here and there, such as washing the faces of others. It seems a bit of a misfire, though there is enough here of some interest that watching it is worthwhile. Perhaps if I had been living in Czechoslovakia when the film was supposed to have come out, it would have stood out more.


408 - Paris Belongs to Us (1961) - 6/10 - Anne is a young woman who meets a group of people through her brother. One of their members died, but there is some dispute whether it was suicide or murder and if there is some dark, shadowy organization at play behind the scenes. Paranoia, uneasiness, and obsession seem evident. The film is well crafted, but I couldn't get into the story at all.


409 - Värvilised unenäod / Colorful Dreams (1975) - 7.5/10 - A little girl spends time with her grandmother out in the country during the summer. She plays by herself and with some of the boys in the area. Her grandmother gives her a kitten and that becomes part of the fun, too. Then she heads back to the city with her parents and things turn a bit more serious. There were some interesting camera shots and it's a nice film, though I did like the first half more than the second half.


410 - Striking Distance (1993) - 7/10 - Bruce Willis stars as a detective named Tom Hardy who is ostracized by many fellow officers for turning his partner (and cousin) for excessive force. Meanwhile, a serial killer has been terrorizing the city. After his father is killed, Hardy starts drinking a lot, has his detective badge taken away, and is demoted to waterway duty. Now the serial killer may be back and this time is targeting people Hardy knows. Is it a great film? No. Was it an entertaining enough action thriller? Sure.


411 - Terminal Velocity (1994) - 5/10 - Charlie Sheen stars as a skydiving instructor with a penchant for wild stunts. Nastassja Kinski costars as a woman who comes seeking a skydiving experience only to die during the lesson. Then things get complicated. This was a subpar thriller, though I did like the climax of the film.



April shorts
Mickey’s Man Friday (1935)
The Band Concert (1935)
Mickey’s Kangaroo (1935)
Mickey’s Service Station (1935)
Mickey’s Garden (1935)
Mickey’s Fire Brigade (1935)
Pluto’s Judgement Day (1935)
On Ice (1935)
Adventure in the Bronx (1941)
The Sea (1933)
Mickey’s Polo Team (1936)
Orphan’s Picnic (1936)
Prune. Flat. (1965)
Cheese (2008)
The Dead (1960)
Easyout (1972)
The Gordon Sisters Boxing (1901)
Wachsexperimente (1927)
Jan Palach (1969)

[Rusty]

412 - The Archies (2023) - 7.5/10 - I definitely seem to be in the minority here, but I enjoyed this take on the Archie Comics gang. The plot isn't anything special, but is serviceable. The costumes, sets, production design etc. are all pretty good and I liked the songs. There has been a big outcry about the nepo babies in the cast but I thought they were decent, though the actors who played Reggie and Jughead were a bit better. The scene where Betty and Veronica pressure Jughead was appropriate and funny. The film has its flaws, including a rather one note villain in Mayor Dawson plus a couple of other supporting characters, but overall, not bad.


413 - 12th Fail (2023) - 7.5/10 - This biopic is about a man named Manoj who grew up in poverty where the teachers helped the students cheat on their 12th grade exams and corruption was rampant among police and other officials. Manoj learned to avoid cheating, worked hard, and each time he failed, he kept pushing until finally managing to pass the several levels of examinations to become a member of the Indian Police Service. The film generally maintains a positive attitude throughout and moves fairly swiftly even though the runtime is close to 2.5 hours.


414 - Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003) - 4.5/10 - Murli runs a small gang of criminals, but once a year when his parents visit, they pretend to run a hospital with Murli as a doctor since that is what his parents wanted him to become. His secret comes out and he attends medical school only to find it run by the man who outed him to his parents. It's a pretty dumb movie and the acting isn't really very good, though I did like Chinki. I started liking it more during the second half even as bad as it was. There were a few nice bits here and there.


415 - Drishyam (2015) - 8/10 - Vijay runs a small cable company and the two things he loves are watching lots of movies and his family, which includes his wife and two young daughters. When his older daughter has a serious problem with a boy from a camp that she attended, he will take whatever steps are necessary to protect his family. The police in his town are known for their corruption and brutality and pose a threat to his family. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. I haven't seen the original version to compare the two (nor any of the other remakes).


416 - Kapurush (1965) - 7/10 - A man driving around the country to gather ideas for scripts has his car breakdown in a small town. He is put up for the night at a tea plantation and is surprised to discover that the man's wife is his old girlfriend. He remembers how he was a coward when they parted and hopes to win her back. This was decent, but is among my least favorite Ray films.

[Rusty]

Mickey's Grand Opera (1936)
Thru the Mirror (1936)
Mickey's Rival (1936)

[Rusty]

417 - Child's Play (1988) - 7/10 - A serial killer's soul is stuck in a doll's body, menacing the people around him, including a young boy named Andy and his mother. I hadn't watched this in 30-35 years and wasn't a big fan then. It's not a favorite, but is pretty good.


418 - Child's Play 2 (1990) - 7/10 - Chucky's back and goes after Andy again. I'd put this on par with the first film with the first film maybe getting a slight edge.


419 - Child's Play 3 (1991) - 6.5/10 - Eight years have passed and Andy has been sent to live at a military academy. Chucky revives and comes after Andy, gaining a new target along the way. It's maybe a step below the first two films, though with some fun sequences here and there, especially toward. the end. It's still decently entertaining.


420 - Bride of Chucky (1998) - 7.5/10 - No Andy this time around, but Charles Lee Ray's girlfriend Tiffany resurrects Chucky before joining him in a doll body. There is plenty of humor and while not all of it quite lands, it is a slight step up from the earlier films.

[Rusty]

421 - Bakumatsu taiyoden / Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate (1957) - 6.5/10 - Much of the film takes place in a brothel where a number of clients are trying to enjoy the amenities without paying their bill, including a self styled grifter who extends his stay by doing odd jobs . We also have a group of nationalist samurai who want to expel the foreigners from Japan. We get to see a number of the ladies interact and they have their own schemes as well. It's a comedy and there are a few amusing bits. but some of it didn't quite land for me, perhaps because of cultural differences.


422 - Victoria (2015) - 6.5/10 - Victoria is a Spanish woman living in Berlin. One night while riding her bike, she meets four men outside of a club. They hang out the rest of the night, make a few minor thefts, and generally have a good time. Things turn more serious in the morning when the men have to go to a meeting and ask her to come along because one of the members is drunk/sick. The story itself was okay, though a bit dull at times. The gimmick of getting it all in one take seems to have been the priority.


423 - Wild Reeds (1994) - 7/10 - François has a girlfriend named Maité, but starts to have feelings for two boys in his school. Maité is supportive and the four students form a sort of love quadrangle. Meanwhile, the Algerian War is going on and it affects them. This is a decent coming of age story.


424 - Wooden Crosses (1932) - 7/10 - It's 1914 and new recruits sign up to defend France when war starts. Some of the soldiers are optimistic that the war will soon be over, but it isn't long before the realities of trench warfare set in.


425 - Intruder (1989) - 6.5/10 - A serial killer is loose in a grocery store after it has closed for the night for restocking and cleaning. The night crew is in serious danger. This was okay and I laughed when they referenced a place that I knew and realized that the story took place around 10 miles from where I grew up. It makes sense because that's where the director grew up. The Raimi brothers and Bruce Campbell have small roles in the film and they grew up in the area as well.


426 - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) - 5.5/10 - I'm not a fab of the tv show and wasn't really expecting to like this much. I was right. Some of the Lynchian weirdness was interesting, though.

Blues Highway (1994)

[Rusty]

427 - Creep (2014) - 5/10 - Aaron answers an ad that will pay him $1000 to spend the day with a guy in a remote cabin filming the guy throughout the day. He gets more than he bargained for. The acting is good enough, but I didn't really care for the story plus found footage movies usually aren't my cup of tea.


428 - Dead End (2003) - 5/10 - It's Christmas Eve and the Harrington family is on their way to visit relatives. Frank (Ray Wise) is driving and is the only one awake until he dozes off and almost gets into an accident. The family is on some remote back road that Frank took as a 'shortcut' and they have no idea where they are. Then a strange lady in white shows up and pretty soon people start dying. The acting here was generally pretty bad, especially the guy who played Richard. The reactions of the family members seem kind of off as well.


429 - Hush (2016) - 7/10 - Maddie is a published author working on finishing her next book. She had an illness when she was 13 that made her deaf and she is also mute now. A masked killer shows up at her cabin one night for whatever reason and decides to have some fun and games when he finds that she is deaf. She works hard to fight back. It's a fairly enjoyable film even if the killer is a bit lacking.


430 - Tales of Terror (1962) - 7/10 - Vincent Price stars in three stories adapted from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The first segment was the weakest with the last two segments being much more entertaining. Peter Lorre did a nice job in the middle segment.


431 - The Purge (2013) - 7/10 - The Sandin family is fairly wealthy and is prepared to wait out the annual Purge behind their high tech security system. Trouble arrives when the son lets in a stranger on the run from a Purge gang and the gang gives an ultimatum - hand over the man or they become the targets as well. Overall, this wasn't bad, though I really dislike shaky cam fights.


432 - Vacancy (2007) - 7.5/10 - David and Amy Fox are on their way to a family gathering late at night when they have car trouble along a deserted stretch of road. They walk to a gas station, but find it closed, and end up checking in at a nearby motel to wait out the night until the gas station reopens. Unfortunately for them, the hotel is used to make snuff films and they are the intended next victims. I enjoyed this more than expected and thought it was pretty good.


433 - Wrong Turn (2003) - 6/10 - Chris is on his way to a meeting in West Virginia when he runs into a traffic jam that will likely take hours to clear. In a hurry, he takes a dirt back road that he thinks will eventually reconnect with the highway. He ends up running into the disabled car of a group of college students and all of them become the prey of three inbred mountain men. The film isn't great, but wasn't as bad as I expected either.


434 - Sisters (1972) - 7/10 - Margot Kidder plays a model named Danielle who spends the night with a man she met as part of a tv show called Peeping Toms. In the morning, a reporter named Grace who lives in a nearby apartment sees a man being murdered in Danielle's apartment. When the police find nothing amiss in the apartment, Grace starts investigating on her own. I thought the film dragged a bit in the middle, but overall was good.

All the Boys Are Called Patrick (1959)

[Rusty]

435 - Jigoku (1960) - 6/10 - Shiro is a passenger in a car which is involved in a hit and run that kills a gang leader. He feels guilt and attempts to go to the police, but more misfortune strikes. A number of other unfortunate incidents follow as he and those around him seem destined to go to hell. The story itself is okay and some of the visuals in hell were good, but the film really drags throughout.


436 - Wrony / Crows (1994) - 8/10 - A young girl is neglected by her mother. She yearns for her mother's love and attention, but her mother is almost never there and the girl is left to fend for herself. She spends her days at the sea, wandering around the town, visiting the church, and playing by herself. One day, she decides to kidnap a happy little toddler and act as her mother. They spend the day together and the girl finds out that being a mother isn't easy and also isn't a substitute for her own mother. The actress who played the girl did a very nice job. The toddler was also good.


436 - An Enemy of the People (1989) - 7/10 - A doctor looks for the source of a rise in illnesses among the local people. He discovers that the temple holy water is contaminated and is the cause of the uptick in illnesses since many people drink the holy water each week. Some people believe him, but others refuse. to believe that holy water can possibly be contaminated and resist. The doctor's own brother acts against him. It's a decent film with a nice lead performance, but the film also doesn't quite feel real to life, probably due to its origin as a stage play.

[Rusty]

437 - Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) - 7.5/10 - This sprawling crime epic covers nearly 70 years of rival gangs going after each other with the occasional alliance. The police are often on the take and murders sometimes take place right out in the open. The acting is pretty good and it is an entertaining film. I liked the second part a little bit more than the first part.


438 - Damul / Bonded Until Death (1985) - 8/10 - Bonded labor has been illegal in India since 1976, but isn't always enforced, especially in rural areas. Wealthy landlords exploit the poor and uneducated, often framing them for small crimes and then 'protecting' them by allowing them to labor for extremely low wages that may not even by enough to survive. They have enforcers and all the power to rig elections and get the justice system on their side. I wish that the subtitles had been a bit more thorough, but it's a good film.

Françoise Hardy: Tous les garçons et les filles (Color Version) (1964) (3 minutes)
Girls Taking Time Checks (1904) (3 minutes)
Irena Kacírková a Josef Bek: Dáme si do bytu (1958) (2 minutes)
Eros Ramazzotti: Cose della vita (1993) (4 minutes)
Etienne Daho: Tombé pour la France (1985) (4 minutes)
Fiona Apple: Paper Bag (2000) (4 minutes)
Le grand nettoyage (1975) (5 minutes)
Face Like a Frog (1987) (5 minutes)
Laid Back: Bet It on You (1990) (4 minutes)
There's a Man in the Woods (2014) (4 minutes0
Happiness (2017) (5 minutes)
In Youth, Beside the Lonely Sea (1925) (5 minutes)
Jeune fille au jardin (1936) (4 minutes)
Untitled 77-A (1977) (6 minutes)
Baby Bottleneck (1946) (7 minutes)
Millhaven (2010) (7 minutes)
Castro Street (1966) (10 minutes)
Bloeistraat 11 (2018) (10 minutes)

[Rusty]

439 - Goodbye to Language (2014) - 2/10 - How can a 70 minute film feel like its longer than Gangs of Wasseypur?


440 - Day of Anger (1967) - 7.5/10 - Scott does the dirty work in the town, picking up garbage, sweeping floors, etc., and is treated poorly by many of the residents as a result. About the only one who treats him kindly is Murph, the man who runs the stables. Scott falls in with a deadly gunfighter named Talby, becoming his apprentice and learning from him. This also causes quite a change in his demeanor. This was pretty entertaining right from the beginning. It's a fairly simple tale, but also very effective.


441 - Run, Man, Run (1968) - 7/10 - Cuchillo is a thief with a talent for throwing a knife. He ends up in prison with a poet revolutionary named Ramirez for a cellmate. Ramirez enlists Cuchillo's help in recovering $3 million in gold hidden in the United States so that it can be used for revolutionary purposes. This leads Cuchillo on an adventure where he has a number of allies and enemies along the way.


442 - A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969) - 9/10 - Charlie Brown enters the school spelling bee and has unexpected success, though that only brings added pressure. The first Peanuts movie is very good.


443 - The Long Riders (1980) - 7/10 - The film follows the rise and fall of the James-Younger gang over a period of time in the 1870s-1880s. The gang robs a number of banks, trains, and stagecoaches, but the Pinkertons are after them and sometimes the townsfolk are also ready. I thought it was a decent film and I liked the casting of actual brothers to portray the four sets of brothers shown in the film.


Artists and Orphans: A True Drama (2002)

[Rusty]

444 - Voyage to Nowhere / El viaje a ninguna parte (1986) - 8/10 - An aging actor looks back on his life, starting from the time he was a member of a touring company that went from town to town, playing in bars and small venues. A 17 year old son shows up that he didn't know about and joins the group, though he isn't interested in acting. This procession continues for a number of years with ups and down and changes along the way. The film kind of drew me in and it has a nice ending.


445 - Yellow Sky (1948) - 8.5/10 - Stretch Dawson (Gregory Peck) leads a gang that robs a bank and then flees into Death Valley to evade the posse that pursues them. Hungry, thirsty, and tired, they happen upon a ghost town where the only residents are a young woman (Anne Baxter) and her grandfather, each armed and not looking for company. The story, acting, and setting are all very good. The supporting cast of characters in the gang also features some nice talent to complement the leads.


446 - The Disenchantment / El desencanto - 6/10 - In 1962, the Spanish poet Leopoldo Panero passed away at the age of 52. He was apparently a pretty popular poet (as such things go) and two of his sons also became poets. That all sounds nice, but his widow and sons were interviewed 12 years after his passing and those interviews reveal quite a bit of dysfunction within the family, including jealousy between the two poet sons. The film is decently made and if I had any real interest in the family, I might have enjoyed it more.


447 - 10,000 Dollars for a Massacre (1967) - 5/10 - A bounty hunter called Django is hired by a man to rescue his kidnapped daughter and to take out the gang that took her. Unfortunately, this is pretty mediocre in terms of the story and acting. The music was kind of annoying, too.


448 - Paddington (2014) - 7/10 - A young (and rare) Peruvian talking bear travels to London to find a family. It wasn't bad and had some nice moments, but didn't exactly impress either.


449 - A Dog's Will (2000) - 7/10 - João and Chicó are two poor friends living in Northeast Brazil in the 1930s. João's got a quick tongue and Chicó's got the looks. A lot of shenanigans go on during the course of the film, involving the baker's wife, the local priest, the bishop, a wealthy landowner, and others. I thought the film was dumb at first, especially with the style of acting, but it grew on me as it went along and I found myself enjoying it by the end. I watched the mini-series version, too, and think it is a little better.

[Rusty]

450 - The Breaking Point (1950) - 8/10 - Harry Morgan (John Garfield) runs a fishing boat with a friend (Juano Hernández), but business hasn't been great and he is barely squeaking by. When he gets stiffed on a job and doesn't even have the money to get out of port, he starts considering other options. He's also prideful and doesn't win to give in and also doesn't like the idea of his wife helping make ends meet. This is a nice and entertaining noir.

Film-Noir


451 - The Grey Fox (1982) - 7/10 - Bill Miner had a career robbing stagecoaches and was known for doing it in a 'gentlemanly' fashion, perhaps even coming up with the 'hands up' approach. He also spent quite a bit of time in prison. After being paroled from San Quentin in 1901, he travels to Canada, adopts a different name, and takes up robbing trains. Richard Farnsworth gives a decent performance in a fairly laid back film.

History


452 - Django the Bastard / The Strangers Gundown (1969) - 6/10 - Django shows up in town with a list of names and a wooden cross for each name. There are flashbacks to the Civil War and a few decent scenes, but overall I thought it was kind of mediocre.

Horror

453 -