Movies

[Rusty]

12 - Strange Days (1995) - 8/10 - New Year's Eve 1999 is here and Los Angeles is a crime ridden battleground in many areas. Lenny (Ralph Fiennes) is a former cop who now deals in a fairly new type of illegal item which allows people to record memories, feelings, etc. to disc so that others can experience them. When a disc is given to him that contains the murder of someone he knows, his life and the lives of his friends are in danger. His main help comes from his limo driver friend, Mac (Angela Bassett). It took me a bit to get into this, but I liked it more and more as it went along.


13 - Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023) - 7/10 - The sequel wasn't as much fun as the first film and was a bit boring at times, but overall it was okay and somewhat entertaining.


14 - Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) - 6.5/10 - This is a pretty good adaptation of the book from what I can recall. However, I wasn't a big fan of the book and am also not a big fan of this film, though it was okay.


15 - Sleep Dealer (2008) - 6/10 - In the near future, borders are closed and companies use private military and drones to control what is theirs. A number of migrants survive by doing remote work through jacking into nodes implanted in their body to access robots elsewhere. The film follows one young man in Mexico. There are some interesting ideas here, but the film ends up being a bit less entertaining than it could have been.


16 - Last Night (1998) - 8/10 - The people in Toronto are going about their lives on the last day before some unnamed catastrophe will end the world at midnight. The rioting is in the past and people are dealing with it in a variety of ways. Some are meeting in prayer groups, another is pursuing his sexual goals, and one man just wants to spend the evening alone in his apartment. It's a pretty good film.


17 - The Road (2009) - 7/10 - A father and his young son travel across the countryside in a post-apocalyptic world where most plants and animals are dead and there are gangs of cannibals among the surviving humans. It's a decent film, but pretty bleak.

[Rusty]

18 - Flash Gordon (1936) - 6/10 - This is pretty dated with poor acting at times and flimsy monsters. It was probably exciting at the time.


19 - Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) - 7.5/10 - This was pretty entertaining with plenty of humor. Nothing really exceptional, but generally fun.


20 - Asteroid City (2023) - 6.5/10 - The setting is a televised broadcast of a stage play. I generally liked the full color sections in Asteroid City. The 'behind the scenes' scenes in black and white were not as interesting.

[Rusty]

21 - Three Poplars at Plyushchikha (1968) - 7.5/10 - Nyura is a mother of two who is sent into Moscow from the country by her husband to sell home made ham and to check up on her sister-in-law. She meets a taxi driver who takes her to the sister-in-law's home after driving her around Moscow for a while. It's a nice film, though it might have benefitted from a little more story in the middle.


22 - Don't Grieve / Ne goryuy! (1968) - 5/10 - A doctor returns home to his village in Georgia after studying in Russia. Lots of stuff happens, often with singing. It felt on par with a number of Turkish comedies from the 1970s.

[Rusty]

23 - Trial on the Road (1971) - 6/10 - In 1942, a former Red Army soldier who went over to fight for the Germans now wants to come back and fight with the partisans against the Germans. I found it difficult to remain engaged with the characters and story at times.


24 - Family Relations / Rodnya (1982) - 4/10 - A mother comes from the country to visit her daughter in Moscow and to try and help mend her marriage. I suppose the mother is meant to be endearing and funny, but I found her loud and annoying much of the time.


25 - My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1984) - 5.5/10 - Ivan Lapshin is the head of police in a 1930s Russian town around the time of 'The Great Purge". He is friends with a journalist named Khanin, and even takes him along on a raid in search of the leader of a gang of criminals. Pretty bleak looking at times and only occasionally interesting.


26 - Mirror for a Hero (1988) - 6/10 - Two men are walking through a park when they are somehow transported back in time to the late 1940s where they have to repeat the same day over and over again. It takes a while for the film to really get going, but I did enjoy the film after they were transported back in time, but started losing interest toward the end. On the whole, it's not bad, but is longer than need be.


27 - Blue Beetle (2023) - 7.5/10 - That was a lot of fun and better than I expected. Jaime, his family, and Jenny were all great. The villains were a bit cardboard and there probably should have been a bit more explanation about One Man Army Corps for those who don't read the comics, but the action and humor were good and I enjoyed it. It would be nice to get a sequel, but that seems pretty unlikely.

[Rusty]

Our Uniform (2023) (7 minutes)
Nai Nai and Wai Po (2023) (17 minutes)

[Rusty]

28 - Twenty Days Without War (1977) - 6/10 - A Soviet Major/war correspondent is given a 20 day leave after the Battle of Stalingrad and he uses the opportunity to return to visit Tashkent where a film is being made based on his stories.


29 - Fate of a Man (1959) - 7.5/10 - A Russian father of three has a happy life before WWII. He goes off to fight after the war starts and ends up spending a couple of years as a prisoner of war before escaping. His life back home is forever changed due to the events of the war.


30 - Unfinished Piece for the Player Piano (1977) - 6/10 - Some Russian aristocrats spend a summer day in the country, but it isn't all fun and games.


31 - Five Evenings (1979) - 7.5/10 - It's the late 1950s and Sasha is back in his old hometown on business when he recognizes the apartment building where a woman he once loved lived before they got separated by the war. On a whim, he goes to the building to see if she still lives there and the two slowly rekindle their relationship.


32 - We'll Live Till Monday (1968) - 8.5/10 - Ilya is a middle aged high school history teacher who is well respected by students and coworkers, but appears to be suffering a bit of a personal crisis in terms of his profession. He may be disturbed, in part, by the rumors floating around about the young new English teacher, Natalya, who was once one of his students at the school and is thought to be in love with him. I enjoyed this one quite a bit and the performances by the students and the teachers were each pretty good.


Boom (2022) (7 minutes)
Eeva (2022) (16 minutes)
27 (2023) (10 minutes)
War is Over (2023) (11 minutes)
Smoke (2023) (12 minutes)
Red, White and Blue (2023) (23 minutes)

[Rusty]

33 - Russian Ark (2002) - 7/10 - A couple of men travel through the Hermitage and encounter people from different era. It's interesting to look at and technically impressive, but a bit boring at times.


34 - Hamlet (1964) - 8/10 - A good Russian adaptation of the Shakespeare play.


35 - Cloud-Paradise (1990) - 6.5/10 - Kolya lives in a small Soviet town. He struggles to make small talk and finds most people to be fairly indifferent about whatever he tries to discuss. He suddenly bursts out to a friend that he plans to move to the far East thaht day and finds himself the center of attention with a lot of people supporting his 'plan' to move. It's an odd film. I liked it more as it went along.


36 - Jules (2023) - 7.5/10 - Ben Kingsley stars as Milton, a 78 year old widower who lives alone, frequently attends and speaks at city council meetings, and whose daughter is worried that he may be showing early signs of senility. A spaceship crash lands in his back yard and a friendly, but mute alien starts living with Milton. When Milton tries to tell people about it, his daughter and others see it as a sign of his diminished mental capacity. It's up to Milton and two friends (Harriet Sansom Harris and Jane Curtin) to help their new alien friend. This is a pretty laid back comedy and I enjoyed it.

[Rusty]

37 - Future TX (2022) - 4.5/10 - Two kids get a sudden windfall and use it to purchase odd looking 'refurbished' phones which are able to receive phone calls from the future. The caller from the future guides the kids in saving the world. I saw this on the dvd shelf at my library and thought I'd give it a shot. Unfortunately, the acting and story aren't very good.

[Rusty]

38 - July Rain (1967) - 7.5/10 - Lena is a twenty-something who hangs out with her boyfriend and other friends when she's not at work or home. A man loans her his coat during a rainstorm one day and the two start talking regularly on the phone. It's a good film and the influence of the French New Wave on it is pretty evident.


39 - The Commissar (1967) - 7.5/10 - During the Russian Civil War, a tough Red Army Commissar finds that she is pregnant. She moves in with a Jewish family and is standoffish at first, but eventually warms and becomes one of the family. Trouble arrives in the form of the advancing White Army.


40 - The Red Snowball Tree (1974) - 6/10 - A thief needs to hide out for a while so he heads to the country where a woman lives that he exchanged letters with while he was in prison. He is tired of the criminal life and enjoys life out in the country, but his past life might not be done with him. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into this one very much.

[Rusty]

41 - Storm Over Asia (1928) - 7.5/10 - A Mongolian herdsman and trapper is cheated by a Western fur trader which leads to a fight. As a result, the man flees and eventually ends up fighting for the Soviets. There are some nice battles and fight scenes.


42 - Mother and Son (1997) - 6.5/10 - A man is caring for his dying mother and carries her outside for a walk. The grief and love that he feels is evident, but it is a pretty bleak film. Some of the scenery is interesting.

[Rusty]

43 - The Lady with the Dog (1960) - 7/10 - A banker on holiday in Yalta meets a woman who walks her dog every day. Each is married, but they begin a brief affair before heading to their respective hometowns. The banker can't get her out of his mind, though.


44 - Nine Days of One Year (1962) - 7.5/10 - Two nuclear physicists are friends, but each loves the same woman. One of the men is close to reaching his goal in experiments involving neutrons, but he has already received large doses of radiation in the past and his health could be further threatened if he does succeed. I enjoyed the scientific background to the film, the characters, and the occasional humor that is mixed in.

[Rusty]

45 - Werewolf by Night (2022) - 8/10 - Ulysses Bloodstone is dead and a group of monster hunters have come to compete for the Bloodstone itself. This is a fun, short film, done mostly in black and white.


46 - Little Vera (1988) - 7/10 - Vera is a young woman who lives in a small apartment with her parents. Her parents want her to go to university, but she's more interested in hanging out with friends and partying right now. Her life gets more complicated when she gets a new boyfriend who soon moves in with her and her parents, but there is a lot of tension.


47 - Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998) - 5/10 - The film looks nice, but the story is pretty crazy and I couldn't get into it,

[Rusty]

48 - Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) - 6/10 - This film jumps ahead a few years to a world where dinosaurs are living in the world around us. A genetically altered plague of locusts threatens crops (and people). The film is pretty boring during the first half hour and gets a little better after that when the action starts. It's another step down for the franchise.


49 - Moonshot (2022) - 5/10 - Walt is a college student who is hung up on Mars and wants adventure. Mars has been terraformed and colonized, but his applications to go there have been rejected. He sneaks on board a flight to Mars and gets some help from a girl who he convinced to follow her boyfriend to Mars. It's a dumb film, but does get a bit better toward the end.


50 - The Green Knight (2021) - 7.5/10 - It took me a while to warm to this one. It was certainly atmospheric, but it wasn't until almost halfway through that I actually became interested in the story.


51 - Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023) - 7/10 - Autobots and Maximals versus Terrorcon in a fight for the Transwarp key. The human characters were fine and the transformers were as expected. It's a decent enough film with a nice soundtrack.


52 - Scarecrow / Chuchelo (1984) - 9/10 - Lena is a 12 year old girl who is being bullied by her classmates at school. She moved to a msall town to live with her grandfather and tells much of the story in flashback. The bullying started on the first day of school, but got worse when she covered for a boy she liked. The students in her class can be very cruel. It's very well acted, especially by the girl who plays Lena.

[Rusty]

53 - River (2023) - 8/10 - Another time loop story from the group that brought us Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes. The setting this time is a Japanese Inn where the staff and guests discover that they are repeating the same two minutes over and over again while retaining their memories of each loop. At first it is kind of fun, but soon they would like to get out of the loop. This was a fun outing and I would put it on par with the previous outing. The cast is fun and does a nice job, especially Riko Fujitani who has the lead.


54 - Polite Society (2023) - 7.5/10 - Ria Khan is a British teenager who wants to be a stuntwoman. She practices martial arts and makes stunt videos with the aid of her older sister, Lena. When Lena seems to be ready to throw away her dreams of being an artist and marry Salim, a man she only recently met, Ria thinks that Lena needs to be saved. Is it only Ria's selfishness at play or something more? There is some decent action and a fair amount of humor here.


55 - A Haunting in Venice (2023) - 6.5/10 - Poirot is retired and living in Venice when an author he knows brings him to a Halloween party in a mysterious building where spooky things may be happening. It was adequate, though not great. I liked it about as much as Death on the Nile.


56 - Fast X (2023) - 7/10 - Jason Momoa joins the series as the villain who is out for revenge against Dom. His plan is to make him suffer by hurting all of those that he cares for. There's plenty of unrealistic, but fairly entertaining action scenes mixed in with this rather thin plot. Still, not really any better or worse than other recent entries in the series.

Mickey Mouse Shorts watched in January
Plane Crazy (1928)
The Gallopin' Gaucho (1928)
Steamboat Willie (1928)
The Barn Dance (1929)
The Opry House (1929)
When the Cat's Away (1929)
The Barnyard Battle (1929)
The Plow Boy (1929)
The Karnival Kid (1929)
Mickey's Follies (1929)
Mickey's Choo-Choo (1929)
The Jazz Fool (1929)
Jungle Rhythm (1929)
The Haunted House (1929)
Wild Waves (1929)
Fiddling Around (1930)
The Barnyard Concert (1930)
The Cactus Kid (1930)
The Fire Fighters (1930)
The Shindig (1930)
The Chain Gang (1930)
The Gorilla Mystery (1930)
The Picnic (1930)
Pioneer Days (1930)
Minnie's Yoo-Hoo (1930)
The Birthday Party (1931)
Traffic Troubles (1931)
The Castaway (1931)
The Moose Hunt (1931)
The Delivery Boy (1931)

[Rusty]

57 - What Happened Was... (1994) - 6/10 - Jackie and Michael work together at a law firm and they meet up for dinner one night in Jackie's apartment. It's a pretty awkward evening with two pretty awkward people. This was well done, but this type of film doesn't really work that well for me most of the time, though I did start liking it a bit more in the second half.



Spacy (1981) (10 minutes) - #364
The Bloody Olive (1987) (12 minutes) - #448
Go West (1923) (12 minutes) - #370
The Secret Garden (1988) (18 minutes) - #680
Plastic Bag (2009) (18 minutes) - #180
The Fountain of Youth (1958) (27 minutes) - #942