Movies

[Rusty]

205 - Adventures of Captain Vrungel (1976) - 7.5/10 - A sea captain and his student decide to join an international regatta. The regatta turns into quite the adventure, especially after a thief joins them onboard, along with their stolen goods. The animation is a bit different, but good. There are plenty of fun twists and turns.


Lion Around
Crazy Over Daisy
Trailer Horn
Hook, Lion and Sinker
Bee at the Beach
Out on a Limb
Dude Duck
Corn Chips
Test Pilot Donald
Lucky Number
Out of Scale
Bee on Guard

[Rusty]

206 - Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022) - 7/10 - Drac is about to retire and give the hotel to his daughter and son-in-law, but gets cold feet and backs out at the last second. This leads to the son-in-law thinking that he needs to be a monster to fit in to the family. The plot is fairly simple, but there were a number of laughs mixed in and it was a decent enough film. I don't think there's much need for a fifth movie, though.


207 - Oliver & Company (1988) - 6.5/10 - Oliver Twist with animals. Oliver is a kitten who falls in with a group of dogs, led by Dodger. It wasn't great, but was serviceable. It certainly pared the story down quite a bit.


208 - Open Season (2006) - 5/10 - A tame bear finds himself stranded in the woods just three days before open season begins. His only companion is a misfit deer. This was pretty dumb for and not very funny most of the time.


209 - Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023) - 6/10 - Ruby wants to go to prom with the boy she likes, but it's being held on a party boat and her mom refuses to let her run the risk of going in the ocean because she's really a kraken in human form. I thought the trailer didn't look too bad when I saw it in the theater. The movie is kind of simple, though, and a bit of a disappointment. It's not bad and I did like the animation, but I was expecting better.

[Rusty]

210 - The Asthenic Syndrome (1989) - 4/10 - This is a weird film and not one I really enjoyed, though it's evident that a lot of thought and work was put into it.


211 - One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977) - 7/10 - Pauline is a teenager when she befriends Suzanne, a young woman who used to live nearby, but who now lives with her photographer boyfriend and two children. They keep up their friendship for the next 14 years, sometimes through postcards, and occasionally in person. Pauline is a singer while Suzanne struggles, but eventually builds a life for herself. The film is definitely pro-choice and abortion and family planning play a key role.


212 - The Meetings of Anna (1978) - 7/10 - A female filmmaker travels around Europe to publicize her new film. She seems distant and bored much of the time, perhaps having some difficulty (or lack of interest) in connecting with others. I would guess that this is a pretty personal film for Akerman and may reflect part of her life at that time. It was decent enough, though not one that I'd have any interest in revisiting.


213 - The Silences of the Palace (1994) - 7.5/10 - Alia is a singer who returns to the Tunisian palace where she grew up as the daughter of a servant. She has been away for many years and visits a palace that is almost empty after the death of the prince who lived there. She reflects back on her life growing up and her relationship with her mother. It's a pretty good film.


214 - The Night Porter (1974) - 6/10 - In 1957, a concentration camp survivor meets the Nazi officer she had a sado-masochistic relationship with during the war. They rekindle their relationship, but she is a threat to his friends who have been destroying anything tying them to their Nazi past.

[Rusty]

215 - Kosmos (2009) - 6.5/10 - A mysterious stranger shows up in a small town during the winter just in time to save a boy from drowning. The people in the town are grateful, but suspicious as well. The man seems to have the power to heal others and himself, but speaks mostly in 'wise sayings'. It's an odd film and I liked it, but didn't think parts of it totally worked. It was perhaps a little too enigmatic at times.


216 - Majority (2010) - 7.5/10 - Mertkan is a young man who lives with his parents and has been under his authoritarian father's thumb his whole life. He works for his father's construction company and seems to be downtrodden and lacks confidence. He rebels a little by getting a Kurdish girlfriend, but can't get away from following his father's orders.


217 - Masumiyet (1997) - 6/10 - Yusuf gets out of prison after serving his sentence, but is not looking forward to life outside. He was a quiet prisoner, but he will have no job or money and the only people he might go stay with are his sister and her husband, but he hasn't seen them in a long time. Not a great film, but not horrible either.


218 - My Only Sunshine / Hayat var (2008) - 7.5/10 - Hayat is a 14 year old girl who lives with her father and grandfather in a rundown shack by the river. She hums a lot, but doesn't really talk much and her life doesn't seem all that great. Her father goes fishing every day with smuggling on the side to help them make ends meet. The grandfather is bedridden and dealing with asthma, though that doesn't stop him from smoking a lot. Elit Iscan was good as Hayat.


219 - Neseli Günler (1978) - 5/10 - A couple with 6 kids are fighting all the time so they get divorced with each taking 3 of the kids. Years later, the two of the separated brothers (now adults) meet by chance and each set of siblings decide to meet the parent that they don't really remember. This is a pretty dumb 'comedy' that isn't very funny, except for a few random spots (mostly in the latter part of the film). The acting is also pretty bad.


220 - On Board / Gemide (1998) - 6/10 - A dredging ship has four crew members. One of them got mugged while out getting supplies and lost a week's worth of wages for the crew. The four of them go on shore to see about getting back their money. They end up attacking three men who may or may not have been involved in the mugging and take what money they have. They also bring back the woman who was with the men and are unsure what to do with her...at first. This film had some potential, but didn't quite achieve it.


221 - Sen Aydinlatirsin Geceyi (2013) - 7/10 - This film centers around an odd man named Cemal who works at his father's barbershop. I don't think the story quite worked, but there was a lot that I liked, including the cinematography and the magical realism aspects.


222 - Sonbahar / Autumn (2008) - 6/10 - Yusuf was arrested while at university and is released from prison after serving 10 years. He returns to live with his elderly mother and has to adjust to life outside. There are a lot of scenic shots and a fairly slow pace.

[Rusty]

223 - The Beaches of Agnès (2008) - 8/10 - Agnès Varda looks back on her life and career. She narrates and uses photos, clips from her films, recreations of past events, and more to tell the story. It's pretty good and I enjoyed it.

[Rusty]

224 - Daughters of the Dust (1991) - 6/10 - The film takes place on the Gullah Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia in 1902. The residents are descendants of slaves and maintain some of their own traditions. It's interesting for the setting and impressions you get, but not really as a narrative film.


225 - La Ciénaga (2001) - 7.5/10 - A number of people hang out at a place in the country with a dirty pool. The adults drink a lot and the kids are often left to fend for themselves. Not much ultimately happens, but it is still fairly entertaining.


226 - Raw (2016) - 7.5/10 - Justine is a vegetarian who is planning to be a veterinarian. She moves into vet school where her older sister is also a student and soon discovers that freshmen are subject to pretty severe hazing during their first week. She is forced to eat pieces of a rabbit's kidney and that night her body has a reaction to this which leads to further changes in Justine. It's a pretty good film, but there certainly are a lot of potential vets there based on the size of the student body.


227 - Red Road (2006) - 7/10 - Jackie monitors CCTV feeds for the city in Glasgow. If she sees someone in need of help, she'll call the appropriate services. She is surprised one evening when she sees a man on the feed that she never expected to see again. She uses the cameras to find out where the man lives and starts talking him. The reasons aren't clear until later in the film, but she definitely has an agenda.


228 - Somewhere (2010) - 7/10 - Stephen Dorff portrays a movie star who seems rather listless and is going through the motions of his life and job. He falls asleep to pole dancers in his room, puts minimal effort into promotional outings, and so on. He is occasionally visited by his 11 year old daughter (Elle Fanning) and he comes a bit more alive during those times. When his ex-wife goes away for a while, he has custody of his daughter for a much longer period. Dorff and Fanning each give nice performances, but the film only really comes alive when Fanning is in the scene.


229 - The Connection (1961) - 5.5/10 - This found footage film takes place in a junkie's apartment. We meet an assortment of people who are waiting in the apartment for the man to show up with their fix. Some of them play music while others read or just hang around. The director seems a bit high strung and everybody starts getting more anxious as time passes while they wait. I'm not a big fan of found footage films and this one was no exception. It was okay, but didn't really capture my interest.

[Rusty]

230 - Takva (2006) - 8/10 - Muharrem is a simple and devout man whose life changes when the Sheikh at his holy place asks him to start collecting the rents for the places owned by the institution. This pushes Muharrem out of his comfort zone and into the wider world. He starts being plagued by materialistic dreams and is confronted by the cynical attitude of the Sheikh and his subordinates that the rents must be collected, even from those who cannot afford to pay. All of these various forces act on Muharrem and cause him a number of problems.


231 - The Breath (2009) - 6/10 - A unit of Turkish soldiers need to defend a relay station against their Kurdish enemies. The enemy is led by a man known as The Doctor who remains somewhat mysterious and out of sight throughout most of the film, heard over the radio/phone from time to time. There are some nice bits here and there and the acting isn't bad, but the story and style didn't really appeal to me.

[Rusty]

232 - Dune Part Two (2024) - 7.5/10 - This had great visuals like the first part and is a decent film, but it also had me a bit bored at times like the first part as well.


233 - The Broken Landlord (1985) - 6.5/10 - Things seem to be going pretty well for a village landowner. Then his father dies, the peasants steal the crops and leave the village, and he is forced to sell his property and move to Istanbul. He has trouble adjusting to life in the city.


234 - Don't Let Them Shoot the Kite (1989) - 7/10 - Baris is a little boy who is growing up in a women's prison since his mother was sentenced there for drug smuggling. Some of the women dote on him, but others are resentful of his presence. His childhood is confined to the walls of the prison with nobody but the prisoners for company. It's decent enough and has a nice ending.


235 - Vavien (2009) - 7/10 - Celal has a lot of debts and is a bit of a scumbag. The shop that he and his brother run isn't doing well and Celal likes to visit night club, especially to visit one particular woman, even though he is married. Celal's wife has thousands of euros hidden in the basement that were sent by her father from Europe. She doesn't know that Celal is aware of this and makes occasional withdrawals. Celal decides that killing his wife and taking all of the money is a good solution to his problems and makes a plan.


236 - Vizontele (2001) - 8/10 - A small village in a hilly region of Turkey finally gets their first television set in the early 1970s. The mayor is happy because it will stick it to a local businessman that he doesn't like who runs an open air theater. The mayor asks an eccentric technician for help and they go to many lengths to get it to work.

[Rusty]

237 - Trolls World Tour (2020) - 7/10 - The Rock Trolls are trying to take over the whole Troll world and make them all the same. This was fun, like the first film.


238 - Trolls Band Together (2023) - 6.5/10 - One of Branch's brothers is being held captive and drained of his musical talents to feed a pair of giant pop stars. Branch reunites with his other brothers to try and make a rescue. This wasn't as much fun as the first two films, but it was okay.


239 - Unicorn Wars (2022) - 7/10 - Teddy bear cubs are training as soldiers with a goal to eradicate unicorns from the neighboring forest. There's plenty of violence plus some humor as well. It's an odd and often entertaining film.

[Rusty]

240 - Dalva (2022) - 8.5/10 - The film starts with a young girl being taken away from her home by police in the middle of the night as they arrest her father. Dalva is 12, but dresses and acts older. She is taken to a shelter where she struggles to learn how to be a girl rather than trying to be an adult. Zelda Samson is very good as Dalva.


241 - Marianne and Juliane (1981) - 6/10 - Marianne and Juliane are sister who were very close growing up. They each care about women's rights, but have taken different paths as adults. Juliane is a reporter and tries to influence the government and society through her stories. Marianne has become part of a terrorist group that uses bombings and other tactics to try and get what they want. Juliane's life is upended when her sister is arrested and thrown into prison. I found the flashback scenes to their growing up more interesting than the 'present day' scenes. This is a fictionalized account of a true story.


242 - The Rider (2017) - 7/10 - A young rodeo star is recovering from a serious injury where a horse cracked his skull and he needed surgery. He's unable to ride or compete and has to figure where he's going to go from there. It's a decent film.


243 - The Virgin Suicides (1999) - 8/10 - A group of men reminisce about the summer of 1975 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan (which is actually only a few miles from where I live). They were teenage boys at the time and they were enamored with the mysterious Lisbon sisters, especially after one of the (five) sisters tried to commit suicide. The girls have little to no social life thanks to their religious and repressive mother. The film is pretty well acted and has a nice atmosphere.

[Rusty]

244 - White Material (2009) - 7.5/10 - Isabelle Huppert stars as a white woman trying to save her coffee plantation in colonial Africa amidst a civil war. The workers are abandoning the plantation, her son is mentally unstable and useless, and violence and corruption seem to be everywhere. Huppert gives a nice performance and it's a good film, but a little more context in terms of why she is potentially committing suicide by staying might have been helpful, apart from just being stubborn.


245 - You Were Never Really Here (2017) - 6/10 - Joaquin Phoenix plays a veteran who specializes in rescuing girls who have gone missing. He is also doing with his own personal traumas. He is hired by a senator to rescue the senator's daughter who was taken by a human trafficking ring. There's certainly plenty of violence as he goes about his business. I liked the second half more than the first half.


246 - 35 Shots of Rum (2008) - 8/10 - Josephine is a 20 something woman who is studying anthropology. She has a close relationship with her widowed father Lionel and the two live together in an apartment. It eventually becomes evident, though, that the time is fast approaching where Lionel will have to let her go and move out into the world without him. It's a nice film.


247 - Chocolat (1988) - 8/10 - A woman named France is walking along a road in Cameroon when she is given a ride by a friendly African American who emigrated to Cameroon. France reflects back on her childhood in Cameroon where she was often cared for by a house servant named Protée.


248 - The Apple (1998) - 6.5/10 - Massoumeh and Zahra are 12 year old twins who have been kept locked in their house by their parents for their entire lives. The father spouts some rationale about protecting them from boys climbing the walls of their courtyard to retrieve their ball. The girls can barely talk and their walking isn't much better. A social worker is determined that they will be able to go outside and play freely. This is supposed to be a re-enactment of actual events and it stars the actual girls and their father.


249 - Happy as Lazzaro (2018) - 7/10 - The residents of a small, remote Italian village in 1977 are sharecroppers who know nothing of the outside world and are perpetually in debt at the hands of the woman who owns the estate. Lazzaro is a young and simple man who gets caught up in a fake kidnapping plot at the behest of the spoiled son of the landowner. This leads to a big change for the village and villagers.


250 - Girlhood (2014) - 8/10 - Marieme lives in an apartment in a tough neighborhood near Paris. Her mother works a lot and her older brother is usually in charge and is not always nice about it. Marieme wants to go to high school and improve her situation, but a counselor informs her that vocational school is her only option. She soon falls in with a gang of girls and finds friendship and camaraderie there. It doesn't bring an end to her struggles, but perhaps it will help provide a way out. This is well acted and makes good use of music.

[Rusty]

251 - By the Bluest of Seas (1936) - 6/10 - Two sailors are shipwrecked on an island in the Caspian Sea near a fishing village. They make themselves useful by working for the the fishing boats. Each sailor falls in love with the same woman which causes some minor tension. The acting is kind of stilted at times and it seems to be a cross between silent film and talking film with intertitles at various points.


252 - The Legend of Suram Fortress (1985) - 5/10 - This is an adaptation of a Georgian fable. It looks nice, but I didn't care for it.


253 - Times and Winds (2006) - 8/10 - The film takes place in a small mountain village in Turkey and focuses on three children and their families. One boy named Yakup is in love with his teacher. His best friend Omer wishes his father (the Imam) was dead and thinks of ways that he might help make that happen. Omer's cousin, Yildiz, studies, but likes to wander around the nearby terrain, to the chagrin of her mother. All three kids seem to be able to sleep anywhere at anytime and have problems with at least one of their parents. The fathers of Omer and Yildiz are brothers and each is still cowed by their father. I liked the sound design, the acting of the kids, the school scenes, and so on. It's a nice film.


254 - The Herd (1978) - 5/10 - Two families have had a blood feud going for some time. It seemed to be settled somewhat when the daughter of one family married a son of the other family, but the couple have had bad luck in terms of health and having children. Now the feud is on with the father wanting to expel his daughter-in-law. The couple set out on a long journey to sell their sheep, but are met with misfortune. I didn't enjoy this one very much.

[Rusty]

255 - Orion and the Dark (2024) - 7/10 - Orion is a boy who is afraid of pretty much everything. One night, the supernatural entity Dark has had enough of the kids screaming and fears at night and shows up in Orion's bedroom to take him on a trip to try and help him get over his fears. The ending didn't totally work for me, but I did enjoy most of the film. It wasn't great, but it was decent enough.

[Rusty]

256 - Double Happiness (1994) - 7.5/10 - Jade Li (Sandra Oh) is a young Chinese-Canadian woman whose parents want her to meet a nice Chinese boy and keep setting her up for dates. She is more concerned with getting her acting career off the ground. She meets a nice young white man and the two hit it off, but she knows that her parents won't approve. Oh is really good here in one of her early roles.


257 - Priest (1994) - 6.5/10 - A young priest has to deal with a number of issues, including a girl who tells him about her father's incestuous behavior under the seal of the confessional. The priest also has to deal with his own secret homosexuality. The film isn't bad, but I thought it was a bit too blunt/obvious in its messages.


258 - A New Leaf (1971) - 8/10 - Walter Matthau stars as Henry Graham, a spendthrift heir who lives beyond his means and eventually exhausts his inheritance. Rather than give up his lifestyle, he determines to find an extremely wealthy single woman to marry, but he only has a limited time to make this plan work. This was dry, but pretty funny.


259 - Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009) - 5.5/10 - Dave ends up in the hospital so Alvin, Theodore, and Simon end up in the care of his nephew as the chipmunks are enrolled in high school. A rival female chipmunk group comes on the scene as a contest approaches that could raise money needed for the school's music program. It isn't a great film, but it was a lot more entertaining than I expected and about on par with the first film.

[Rusty]

260 - Obvious Child (2014) - 7/10 - Donna (Jenny Slate) is a stand up comic who is struggling to make a living, but finds herself pregnant after a one night stand. She decides to have an abortion, but struggles to tell her mom and the man she had a one night stand with, even though he seems interested in starting a relationship. Slate was pretty good here and I also liked Jake Lacy as Max.


261 - Heat Singers (2019) - 6/10 - The employees of a district heating company in Ukraine go about their daily business. Some of them answer calls from irate people. Others go out on jobs to try and fix long neglected pipes, though only temporary measures are possible at times. During their free time, some of them join in with the company choir. It's only mildly interesting.


262 - No Obvious Signs (2018) - 6.5/10 - This documentary follows a female Ukrainian Army Major who is dealing with PTSD. It's an interesting story that is not always told in the most interesting way.


263 - The Earth is Blue and an Orange (2020) - 7/10 - A single mother raises her four children in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine (prior to the current war/invasion). There is shelling on occasion and the war isn't too far from their lives. The daughter has an interest in filmmaking and is working on a film during the course of the documentary about their life in wartime .


264 - To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018) - 7/10 - Lara Jean is a 16 year old girl whose older sister is moving away to college. Lara Jean has had crushes on a few boys over the years, including her sister's (recent) ex-boyfriend, and has written secret love letters that she keeps hidden in her room. Her younger sister decides one night to mail these out and it makes a big change in Lara Jean's life. This is kind of formulaic, but it was still fun, due in large part to Lana Condor as Lara Jean.


265 - The Cuenca Crime (1980) - 6.5/10 - A woman searches for her son after he didn't return from selling his sheep. Rumors are spread that two local men killed him for his money. Nothing much comes of this for a couple of years until an eager new judge pushes the matter and torture is used to extract confessions.


266 - Appropriate Behavior (2014) - 6/10 - Shirin is a bisexual Persian-American who is getting over a recent breakup with her girlfriend and is afraid to tell her parents about her sexual orientation. She seems filled with self-pity and has a number of (generally short) relationships. She also gets roped into teaching a filmmaking class to disinterested 5 year olds. The film is occasionally mildly amusing