Movies

[Rusty]

674 - Crazy Love (1987) - 7/10 - The film follows one character during three parts of his love as he searches for love - as a boy learning what love is, as a teen whose severe acne repulses others, and as an alcoholic adult.


675 - Duelles (2018) - 7/10 - Two young boys are very good friends. Their families live next door to each other and are close as well. When one of the boys dies in an accident, the mother of the other boy starts to think that the mother whose son died is out to even the score. But is it paranoia or if it really happening? I don't think they quite pulled it off, but it is a decent film.


676 - Mr. Nobody (2009) - 8/10 - In the year 2092, humanity has achieved a sort of immortality, except for one unknown old man who is about to turn 118 years old. He is interviewed and reflects back on his life at ages 9, 15, and 34. However, his memories are contradictory and show the effects of different choices that he made or could have made. It's an interesting film with nice acting and special effects.


677 - Cooley High (1975) - 8/10 - In the mid-60s, Preach, a aspiring writer, and Cochise, a basketball star, are close friends in high school. They skip class, attend parties, hook up with girls, and so on. Things eventually turn a bit more serious, but a lot of the movie deals with everyday life of black kids in Chicago during that time period. It's a nice film and is still relevant today plus the soundtrack was pretty nice.


678 - The Spook Who Sat By the Door (1973) - 6.5/10 - A black man undergoes CIA training and becomes their first black agent, though they only put him in charge of the copy machine. After a period of time, he leaves the CIA and returns home to Chicago where he starts training freedom fighters for a new revolution. The ideas were much more interesting than the execution.

[Rusty]

679 - The Flash (2023) - 8/10 - The movie seemed a bit awkward early on, though there were still fun things there and it got better as it went along. I liked Sasha Calle as Supergirl and it was a fairly entertaining film. Michael Keaton was also good as expected. I don't know that non-DC fans will get much out of the film, but I enjoyed it.


680 - In Syria / insyriated (2017) - 7.5/10 - A woman tries to keep her family and guests safe while barricaded in her large apartment with a war raging nearby and a sniper operating in the vicinity. it's a fairly confined space and there is tension throughout.


681 - The First, the Last / Les premiers les derniers (2016) - 6.5/10 - Two men are searching the countryside for a missing cellphone. They encounter a group of thugs, a couple with some intellectual disabilities trying to find their daughter, and others including, possibly, Jesus. The film definitely has its quirks and I wasn't enjoying it all that much until things picked up in the last half hour or so.


682 - Our Struggles / Nos batailles (2018) - 7.5/10 - Olivier is a hard working foreman at an Amazon type warehouse. His world is severely affected when his wife suddenly leaves without telling anyone, leaving him alone to take care of his two young children while also managing a difficult situation at work. He gets support from his sister and mother and tries to track down his wife. The kids are also affected by all the turmoil in their lives.


683 - Steve + Sky (2004) - 5/10 - Steve is a small time crook who spent some time in prison. After he gets out, he starts a relationship with Sky, a drifter who has had a number of jobs, including as a prostitute. The actors weren't bad, but the story didn't do much for me.


684 - Super Fly (1972) - 6/10 - A successful drug dealer in New York City decides to make one last big deal and then retire from the life. However, he finds that getting out of the game isn't that easy. The music is very good, but the acting generally isn't.

[Rusty]

685 - The Ardennes (2015) - 5/10 - A home invasion goes wrong and Dave escapes while his brother Kenny is arrested and sent to prison. The getaway driver was Sylvie, Kenny's girlfriend. While Kenny is away, Dave and Sylvie start a relationship and each becomes sober and gets their lives in order. Kenny's release from prison upsets all of that. This is an ugly looking film and wasn't one that I really enjoyed all that much.


686 - La Promesse (1996) - 8/10 - Igor is a teenage boy who works for his father Roger. They provide homes for illegal immigrants until they get a chance to become legal and also use them for cheap labor. When one of the workers gets hurt, Igor wants to help him, but the father wants to protect his illegal enterprises. This leads to inner turmoil in Igor in terms of either obeying his father or choosing to follow his conscience.


687 - Madly in Life / Une vie démente (2020) - 8/10 - Alex and Noémie are thinking about having a child, but Alex's mother starts acting strangely and it turns out that she has early onset dementia that is causing this behavior and this throws their lives and plans into disarray. The performances here are pretty good all around. Sometimes these types of films are all sad and weepy, but this one was not and had plenty of humor as the family and caretaker they hire to help deal with the situation.

[Rusty]

688 - I Drink Your Blood (1970) - 5/10 - Satanic hippies invade a small town and go nuts after getting rabies. It was not very good, though it was watchable in its way.


689 - Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976) - 7/10 - An assassin who wields a 'flying guillotine' searches for the One-Armed Boxer in order to gain revenge. Throw in a somewhat random martial arts tournament and we get all sorts of kung fu action.


690 - Psychomania (1973) - 5/10 - The leader of a motorcycle gang that calls itself The Living Dead discovers that his mother made a pact with a frog god in the past and if he dies believing that he will come back, then he will indeed come back from the dead, stronger and near invulnerable. After following through with this plan, he convinces most of his gang to follow his lead and they start terrorizing the town. The film has a decent soundtrack, but is kind of boring


691 - Taking Off (1971) - 7.5/10 - A teenage girl runs away from home to attend an audition without telling her parents. Her parents then start searching for her and find themselves exposed to a number of things that help them loosen up and start having more fun. There is plenty of humor and I enjoyed the film, but wasn't really wowed by it. This was Miloš Forman's first film in the U.S.

[Rusty]

692 - Boy A (2007) - 7/10 - Andrew Garfield stars as a young man being released after a long stay at a juvenile prison for a crime committed as a child. His history is told in flashback as he tries to adjust to his new name and new life. Garfield gives a pretty good performance. The film has a very somber tone throughout.


693 - Ed Gein (2000) - 5/10 - The story of insane murderer Ed Gein including his youth and his interactions with the community prior to his arrest. The film does an adequate job, but isn't really all that interesting.


694 - Car Wash (1976) - 7/10 - A day in the life of the people at a car wash in the Los Angeles area. It has a nice soundtrack and was fairly entertaining.


695 - Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974) - 6/10 - Two men rob a supermarket by holding the manger's family hostage. Their getaway is complicated when a woman decides to tag along. Thus follows many chase scenes. The film was pretty boring through the first half, but then it started to become a bit more entertaining. I liked the ending.

[Rusty]

696 - The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) - 7/10 - Maria marries Hermann Braun during WWII, but only has a day or so with him before he is sent to the Eastern Front. After the war, she is told that he is dead. She survives by serving as a prostitute and falls for an American soldier, but her husband's return complicates matters, especially when he ends up in prison. The film seems to capture the period fairly well, but I thought the film was kind of lifeless at times.


697 - Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) - 6/10 - A Mexican crime lord is unhappy that his teenage daughter is pregnant and offers a large reward for someone to bring him the head of the man responsible. A couple of Americans recruit Bennie (Warren Oates) to procure the head without telling him what it is really worth. Oates is pretty good, but the movie is pretty slow and meandering. I liked it more toward the end, but overall it was kind of dull.


698 - The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1971) - 5/10 - A razor killer is killing women and a woman named Julie thinks that she is being stalked. I couldn't get into this one.


699 - The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971) - 5/10 - A fruit seller has problems with his family and his wife. Even success in his business doesn't make him feel better. Very boring.


700 - The Troupe / Ha-lahaka (1978) - 7.5/10 - The film follows an army singing group after the Six Day War. The singing is pretty good. The comedy and interactions among the members of the group are harmless enough and I was enjoying it more by the end.


701 - The Gore Gore Girls (1972) - 4/10 - A reporter and a private detective work together to try and solve gruesome murders of strippers. Lots of strip teases, bad puns, and bad acting. It's a pretty bad film.

[Rusty]

702 - I Spit On Your Grave (1978) - 4/10 - A young woman travels to a cabin on a lake to enjoy the summer and work on her book. After being violently raped and left for dead, she sets out to get her revenge. The actress who played the lead wasn't too bad, but the rest of the acting and story were.


703 - Cadena Perpetua (1979) - 6/10 - A reformed thief/pump who served his time and now works for a bank is roughed up and robbed by a couple of corrupt policeman. He wants to stay on the straight and narrow, but finds that things are stacked against him.


704 - Frenzy (1972) - 7.5/10 - Richard Blaney has a rough week. He loses his job and then is wanted by the police as a serial killer, even though he is innocent. It's a pretty good thriller, though not among Hitchcock's best.


705 - The American Friend (1977) - 8/10 - Dennis Hopper stars as Tom Ripley, an American involved in art forgery in Europe. Bruno Ganz stars as Jonathan Zimmermann, an art dealer with a blood disease. Ripley recommends Zimmermann to an acquaintance as a likely hit man for a job that the acquaintance wants done and things progress from there. It was pretty entertaining.


706 - What Time Is It There? (2001) - 6/10 - I'm not a fan of Tsai Ming-liang, but at least this was better than The River.

[Rusty]

707 - The Long Farewell (1971) - 6/10 - A teenage boy returns home after spending the summer with his father and his mother has trouble dealing with how changed his behavior is since last she saw him. There were a few bits that I liked such as the mother writing the letter for the man who forgot his glasses and the acting isn't bad, but mostly I didn't care for the story or the characters.

[Rusty]

708 - The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) - 7/10 - Mario teams up with Princess Peach to try and save Luigi and the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser, King of the Koopas. It was okay, but not as good as I was expecting.

[Rusty]

709 - Stroszek (1977) - 6.5/10 - Bruno is a strange guy who gets released from jail, counseled by the guy in charge to give up alcohol since it was the cause of his troubles. He promptly stops at a bar for a drink and befriends a down on her luck prostitute. The pair eventually move from Germany to Wisconsin to start a new life, but run into financial problems. I didn't like the parts in Germany all that much, but it got better after switching to the U.S. I also liked the ending.


710 - Les Misérables (1934) - 8/10 - A nice French adaptation of the classic novel, clocking in at over 4.5 hours. Some of the acting wasn't all that convincing in the first part, but the man playing Jean Valjean was good as was the film overall.

[Rusty]

711 - The Women (1939) - 8/10 - There is a lot of cattiness and fast talking in this satire about a group of society women. All of them seem to be cheating on their husbands or are being cheated upon. It's dated, but very well acted. It seemed odd that Mary would still go by Mrs. Stephen Haines even after the divorce. The fight between Sylvia and Miriam was pretty funny.


712 - Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) - 10/10 - The film was a little slower than I remembered, but it is still excellent.


713 - Opening Night (1977) - 7/10 - A stage actress struggles with alcoholism and the death of a fan in a car accident. Meanwhile, the show must go on as she also struggles with her role. I liked the second half more than the first half and almost rated this a bit lower.


714 - The Party (1968) - 7.5/10 - Peter Sellers stars as an Indian actor who bumbles everything on set. He is going to be fired, but due to a mistake, he is accidentally invited to a big Hollywood party. Naturally, the bumbling continues to humorous effect. It's not really laugh out loud funny, but was amusing.


715 - Good Bye Lenin! (2003) - 7.5/10 - Alex lives in East Berlin with his mother and sister. His mother has a heart attack and goes into a coma just before the fall of the Berlin Wall and doesn't awake for eight months. Since she was a big supporter of the socialist state, Alex works hard to hide the changes that have taken place in East Germany for fear that it will trigger another heart attack, this one fatal.

[Rusty]

716 - A Flood in Baath Country (2005) - 6.5/10 - The filmmaker visits the site from his first film, the Euphrates Dam, and interviews villagers there about how their lives were affected and about the Baath party. The film was interesting at the beginning, but the interviews were much less interesting. I did generally enjoy the scenes of the kids in the school.


717 - Hayat ou maut (1954) - 7.5/10 - A man is out of work and has a heart condition. He sends his young daughter to get medicine, but she is accidentally given poison by a pharmacist. This leads to a citywide search for the girl and the man. Some of the acting was a bit amateurish in places, but I thought the movie was entertaining. The scene with the drunk was funny.


718 - My Father My Lord (2007) - 6.5/10 - A young boy lives with his extremely orthodox rabbi father and his mother. The father is deeply involved in his studies of the Torah and doesn't seem to really relate to his son very much. The movie is interesting and the actors do a decent job. The film is very slow as it takes you inside the religious home. It seemed to lack a bit of depth, though.


719 - Original Cast Album: Company (1970) - 6.5/10 - The music was good and the behind the scenes looks were interesting. I've never seen the musical, though, and I probably would have liked this more if I had.


720 - Sing As We Go! (1934) - 5/10 - Gracie Fields stars in this musical about a textile worker who finds different ways to make a living after the mill closes. The music and story weren't that great, though it was kind of interesting to get a glimpse of some of the places of that era.


721 - Ansiedad (1953) - 5.5/10 - Twins are separated after their father dies when they are babies. One is raised by his mother and becomes a singer. The other is raised by a wealthy family and becomes a jerk who is a good shot with a pistol. The two meet as adults and take a dislike to each other and somehow don't realize how alike they look. It was kind of boring.


722 - Berliner Ballade (1948) - 7/10 - A narrator from the year 2048 looks back on life in postwar Germany, focusing on the life of one everyman soldier returning to his apartment after being released from the army. He finds two other people have taken up residence there while he was gone. He looks to find work and to get his life back on track. It wasn't bad.


723 - The Dove's Lost Necklace (1991) - 7/10 - A calligrapher's apprentice in a somewhat idealized medieval muslim city looks for the meaning of love with the aid of young enterprising boy who runs errands. I enjoyed this more for the characters and setting than for the story.


724 - Histoire d'une rencontre (1985) - 7.5/10 - A deaf American girl in Algeria with her father encounters a deaf Algerian boy and the too have a brief friendship. Each has problems with the life they have to lead, but relate to each other. It's a fairly simple story, but I liked it.


725 - A Thousand and One Hands (1973) - 7/10 - The story centers around the carpet industry in Morocco. We have a dyer and his son, a sweatshop where women and young girls are working with threading machines, and a wealthy French couple who profit from selling the completed carpets. I think the end of the film isn't really all that great, but the differences in the two worlds are pretty evident and there are some interesting images included here.

[Rusty]

726 - Le Million (1931) - 7/10 - A poor artist has racked up a lot of debts. His fortune seems to have turned when he wins a million dutch florins in the lottery, but his winning ticket is in the old jacket that his fiancée has just given away. Thus begins the search for the missing jacket. It's a pleasant enough film, though the stage roots are extremely evident.


727 - Volga - Volga (1938) - 6.5/10 - Two steamboats with competing sets of musicians are heading to Moscow on the Volga River. It's a musical comedy that may lose a bit in translation and has also aged a bit, but still has its moments and is somewhat entertaining.


728 - Golden Eighties (1986) - 8/10 - The story takes place entirely in an enclosed mall with the customers and employees at a hair salon frequently breaking into song. Robert, the son of clothing store owners in the mall has attracted the attention of several of the women at the salon. An American who loved Robert's mother back during WWII shows up in the mall one day and wants to rekindle the relationship. The songs are fun and there is plenty of humor.


729 - Street Angel (1937) - 6.5/10 - Orphaned sisters were taken in by a couple who own a teahouse. One of the sisters is forced to prostitute herself while the other is made to sing for customers. When the singer discovers that her adopted 'parents' plan to sell her to a man, she gets help to run away. It was okay.


730 - Sopyonje (1993) - 7.5/10 - A man searches for the adopted sister that he hasn't seen for many years. The man's adopted father was a pansori drummer and singer who raised the two children to perform - the son as a drummer and the daughter as a singer. During the search, we flashback to the man's childhood and youth with other flashbacks as he learns more of what happened to his sister after he left. I'm not really all that interested in pansori, but this was a good story and fairly well acted.


731 - Amreeka (2009) - 7.5/10 - A Palestinian woman emigrates to the United States with her teenage son to get away from the increasingly difficult challenges in her homeland. They move in with her sister's family in Illinois and she finds that there are plenty of challenges in the United States as well. While it only really touches on some of the challenges in a sort of superficial way, I still enjoyed the movie quite a bit.


732 - Wadjda (2012) - 8/10 - Wadjda is a young girl who wants to buy a green bike so that she can race the neighbor boy, but girls riding bikes is frowned upon. Wadjda is an enterprising and slightly rebellious girl and sets to earning money to buy the bike. She learns that there will be a competition to recite the Quran that comes with prize money for the winner and decides o give it a try. The girl who plays Wadjda is very good and the acting in general is pretty good. The film also puts a spotlight (in a non-confrontational manner) on some of the oppression that females go through in Saudi Arabia.


733 - Caramel (2007) - 6.5/10 - The film follows the lives of several women who work at a beauty salon plus one of their customers and a lady with a neighboring shop. We get to see their everyday lives and loves. The film is shot well, but the individual stories are of varying levels of interest and I don't think any of them were really explored that deeply. My favorite was the two sisters.

[Rusty]

734 - Little Miss Devil / Afritah Hanem (1949) - 7/10 - A singer is not having much luck lately, neither with money or with love. He finds a magic lamp and the beautiful genie inside (Samia Gamal) helps him find success, though he finds it may not be exactly what he wants. The comedy is a bit hit or miss and there is plenty of singing and a fair amount of dancing. It's fairly entertaining, especially when Gamal is on screen.


735 - So Young, So Bright /Janken musume (1955) - 8/10 - Three 18 year old pop stars are brought together here in this musical. Two of the girls portray high school friends who visit Kyoto on a school trip and become friends with another girl while there. They then proceed to hang out, go to a concert, and have various adventures together. There is one scene that is fun where each girl imagines themselves up on stage performing a number, complete with supporting singers/dancers. The closing number on a rollercoaster is another one that is fun. These girls were very popular in Japan and it is a shame that two of them died relatively young. The subtitles I have are certainly adequate, but hopefully proper subs are issued someday in which case I'd like to revisit the film.


736 - 8 Women (2002) - 8/10 - Eight women gather at a big country house at Christmastime in the 1950s. They discover that the man of the house has been murdered during the night and that they are all suspects. Each woman's secrets are gradually revealed through song in this entertaining musical comedy. The songs and acting are all pretty good.


737 - Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996) - 7.5/10 - The film consists mainly of various short scenes that often are only barely related to each other, though there is more cohesiveness during the second half of the film. There is no real narrative thread, but the director, Elia Suleiman, returns to the West Bank and Israel after over a decade in New York City. The vignettes give impressions of life in the area during the peace process. There is plenty of humor and I found myself enjoying the film quite a bit by the end, though it does take a while for things to build up to that point.


738 - Coming Forth By Day (2012) - 6/10 - A day in the life of a woman and her mother who are caring for the father, an invalid who is unable to talk or do anything on his own. The daughter feels a need to get out of the apartment for a couple of hours and leaves her mother home caring for the father by herself. The film has minimal dialogue and features lots of inaction. This causes the film to move at an extremely slow pace, but it did give me a sense that both mother and daughter are suffering from extreme physical and mental exhaustion from the situation.


739 - Them (2006) - 7/10 - The film starts with a mother and daughter driving at night through a forest. They get into an accident and then their trouble really starts. Later, a young teacher and her husband have to deal with intruders in their home. It's a fairly effective and entertaining horror film.


740 - One Way or Another (1977) - 6/10 - A look at post-revolution Cuba, with a focus on poor minorities. It's a mix of documentary and fiction and I didn't really find it all that interesting most of the time.

[Rusty]

741 - Not on the Lips (2003) - 6.5/10 - In 1925 Paris, a woman harmlessly flirts with many men, though she loves her husband. Then an American shows up and he turns out to be her secret first husband. The opening scene in this musical comedy is great, but the rest of the film was generally less interesting for me, though there were a few songs/scenes along the way that I liked.


742 - Requiem from Java / Opera Jawa (2006) - 5/10 - I think that the film is well made, but I'm not a fan of opera and didn't care for the story here. There were only bits and pieces that I really enjoyed.


743 - Big Eyes (1974) - 7/10 - Benny is a basketball coach who balances his basketball team with his responsibilities to his wife and children as well as the two other women that he is having affairs with. Things seem to be going pretty well until one day when they start falling apart. His mistresses are unhappy with the situation, his wife discovers that he is sleeping around, and he starts having problems with one of his best players.


744 - Diary (1983) - 7/10 - David Perlov was an Israeli filmmaker ad professor whose ideas for films were getting shot down so he started filming the places and people around him. It eventually started focusing more on his family and on politics as well. This film covers the period from 1973-1983 and is interesting, though perhaps best taken in parts or the narration might get a bit old.


745 - The Big Dig (1969) - 7.5/10 - A lunatic escapes from an asylum and then steals a jackhammer and compressor. He proceeds to dig up a street in Tel Aviv, causing major headaches to nearby residents and those who drive through the area. Everybody assumes that he is on legitimate city business and the police and others even start helping him, turning it into a major project. It's amusing, especially in the big deal it turns into and in the end result.