Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Till (Chinonye Chukwu, 2022) 7/10

Autobiographical story about an incident that helped to spawn the civil rights movement. In 1955 the 14-year old son of Mamie Till-Bradley (Danielle Deadwyler) was murdered in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era. Sent down South from Chicago to spend his holidays with his cousins the boy made the innocent but fatal error of whistling at a white woman cashier in her family's grocery store. The boy was picked up at night by the woman's husband and his half brother, abducted, lynched, shot in the head and dumped in a river. When the body was returned to Chicago his mother insisted the funeral be with an open casket so that the world could see how her son was killed due to racial hatred. This focused attention not only on racism but also on the vulnerability of American democracy. The two men were acquitted by an all-white jury and, protected by double jeopardy, admitted to a magazine for a fee that they had tortured and murdered the boy. His bereaved mother spent her remainder life as an activist to gain support for the cause of racial justice. Moving film rests on the shoulders of Deadwyler who gives a heartwrenching performance. Whoopi Goldberg, in addition to producing the film, also plays the victim's grandmother. Still hard to believe that only a few decades ago citizens of the United States were subjected to such violence and hatred based on the colour of one's skin.

Black Adam (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2022) 2/10

Good Lord not another one who can fly. They are like cockroaches. Lift a rock and a new one comes out. Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson), like "The Mummy", is awakened by a group of archaeologists from a 5,000 year-old slumber to come free the nation of Kahndaq from the crime syndicate Intergang. Don't ask. It's the usual superhero saga - this one is from the DC universe and a spin-off to "Shazam". Here an ancient crown is the object which everyone is after as it allows the owner to be a supreme power which is confiscated by an annoying kid with an accent who whizzes around on a skateboard. The Rock....err, Black Adam flies, stops bullets with his body, walks through concrete walls and wrestles with flying airplanes. Other superheros and characters from the DC universe appear - Hawkman, Viola Davis, Superman (Henry Cavill), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan). Lots of noise and CGI effects in this very boring entry.

Emancipation (Antoine Fuqua, 2022) 6/10

Fuqua presents black slave genocide in the form of an action-thriller with the main character - based on an actual slave from the 1860s - acting almost like a superhero as he escapes from a plantation in Louisiana and runs through swamps in the direction of President Lincoln's army. Fed up with being constantly beaten and degraded, and hearing that Lincoln has declared all slaves to be freed, makes a run for it when he sees his chance. In pursuit is the Nazi-like white overseer (Ben Foster) who is relentless in his attempt to capture the slave. The journey is fraught with danger - at one point he is attacked by and wrestles with an alligator under water - and has numerous open wounds on his body. The film segues from an escape saga into a war film showing a ferocious battle between the North and South. A number of critics have derided the film saying it manipulates emotions by getting too graphic. Well if the Holocaust can be shown on film time and again in graphic detail this genocide deserves to be also shown with every bit of brutality intact. We need to see this so we never forget what man was (and still is) capable of doing to his own specie. Having said that there is really nothing new here in that we have seen all of this before. Many times. Robert Richardson shoots the film in bleached-out monochrome with flashes of flames shot in colour not unlike how Spielberg presented colour in "Schindler's List". Smith, returning to the screen after his slapping skirmish at the Oscars earlier this year, underplays throughout while speaking almost in hushed tones - probably to disguise the Creole accent which comes and goes.

Four Guns to the Border (Richard Carlson, 1954) 7/10

This B western gets a high doze of sexuality courtesy of Colleen Miller playing the nubile young daughter of old cowpoke Walter Brennan. There are a surprising number of sexually charged moments between the wide-eyed ingenue, dripping wet in a skimpy nightgown, and the perpetually scowling and surly Rory Calhoun. A gang of four (Calhoun, George Nader, John McIntyre, Jay Silverheels), aimlessly committing petty crimes, run across an old gunfighter (Walter Brennan) and his daughter (Colleen Miller) who are on their way to their homestead in Indian territory. There is a bank robbery which leads to a showdown where Indians are involved and which in turn brings out the humanity in all the main characters changing their perspective about life. Tautly directed film gets a boost from Russell Metty's cinematography who uses light in inventive ways especially during a storm sequence. Miller, who made very few films, has remarkable screen presence and has great chemistry with Calhoun. Interesting little film.

Dead For a Dollar (Walter Hill, 2022) 7/10

Good to see Hill back in the saddle. He dedicates the film to the great Budd Boetticher who helmed many great B westerns during the 1950s. This too is a B with a plot as old as the hills - man hires a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to bring back his abducted wife (Rachel Brosnahan). This plot regurgitation was played out years ago so brilliantly in Richard Brooks' classic "The Professionals". However, one is so starved for films in this genre that it becomes a cause for celebration when one halfway decent film turns up. It is but a given that the wife was never abducted. She left on her own accord with a black army deserter to escape her crooked husband who finds his honour and pride wounded. There are also other characters saddling the screenplay - Willem Dafoe as a gambler and horse thief just out of prison who has a bone to pick with the bounty hunter who put him in prison and Benjamin Bratt as a rich landowner who moonlights as a vicious bandit. Both characters will end up coming against the bounty hunter. Hill does not move away from tradition and familiar tropes of the genre and shoots in an almost languid manner which adds layers to the familiar screenplay. The widescreen cinematography across the Santa Fe desert locations in Mexico along with an unintrusive music score add gravitas to the film and to the inevitable showdown at the end which 80-year old Hill superbly orchestrates.

Thick as Thieves (Scott Sanders, 1998) 5/10

After a heist a professional Chicago thief (Alec Baldwin) gets double crossed by a rising Detroit kingpin (Michael Jai White) but turns the tables on the two crooked cops sent to get him. A vendetta ensues between the two while a cop (Rebecca De Mornay), investigating the murder of the two cops, closes in during her investigation. The film played at Sundance but went straight to cable and video. The film is not a write-off by any means. White is great fun as the pretentious hood who likes talking about the finer things in life - dijon mustard for one - while Andre Braugher is equally great as the tart-tongued sidekick of the hood. Baldwin looks thoroughly bored and coked up as a connoisseur of Brazilian jazz - we get to see his huge record collection and his spinning turntable which in itself seems to be a relic from the past bringing back extremely fond memories to some of us who *are* also now relics.

Doctor G (Anubhuti Kashyap, 2022) 7/10

Chaos, embarrassment and confusion reigns supreme in a hospital when a medical student (Ayushmann Khurrana), desperate to pursue his post-graduation in orthopaedics, finds that the only space available for him is in the gynaecology department. He gets off to a bad start by getting ticked off by the stern head of the department (Shefali Shah) and bullied by his female colleagues. He pursues one colleague (Rakul Preet Singh) who only wants to be his friend, gets angry at his mother (Sheeba Chhadha) who he discovers in the company of her Tinder date, finds his inner female, helps a minor who has had an illegal abortion and realizes the importance of the department he had reluctantly joined. Khurrana creates yet another middle-class character who finds himself trapped in an extraordinary situation which he manages to conquer in a film that strongly resonates with its underlying social message.

Stowaway (Joe Penna, 2021) 7/10

A two-year mission to Mars is jeopardized when the three crew members on board discover an unintentional stowaway on board. The Commander (Toni Colette) and her crew - a doctor (Anna Kendrick) and a biologist (Daniel Dae Kim) - save the injured man (Shamier Anderson) only to discover that damage caused by his presence reduces oxygen which cannot sustain four lives before they dock in at Mars. So Mission Control on earth advises the Commander to sacrifice the stowaway in order for them to survive. The dilemma of "killing" a man who also happens to be black raises questions on racism which are quickly put aside when the crew try and use the biologist's algae specimens to raise oxygen. When that fails they try to retreive liquid oxygen from the spent upper stage rocket located at a perilous distance but are forced to return to the main dock as a deadly solar storm suddenly rages. Will the crew manage to retrieve the oxygen or will a sacrifice have to be made in order for the rest to survive. Suspenseful, well acted film, not unlike "Gravity", moves at a fast pace with a story centering on a difficult moral dilemma.

Les soeurs Brontë / The Brontë Sisters (André Téchiné, 1979) 7/10

The film recreates mid-19th Century Yorkshire via production and costume design along with Bruno Nuytten's starkly beautiful cinematography which captures in astonishing detail the bleak moors with its strong winds, snow, grey sky and dirt. The screenplay presents the three sisters to seemingly have the characteristics of the literary heroines they wrote about in their novels. Charlotte Brontë (Marie-France Pisier) is strong, mature and responsible like "Jane Eyre". Emily Brontë is wild and brave with an identity that is seemingly a mixture of both masculine and feminine - like Catherine Earnshaw in "Wuthering Heights". Anne Brontë (Isabelle Huppert) is sweet, naive and sincere just like "Agnes Grey". All three sisters adore their brother Branwell (Pascale Greggory) who paints, drinks and has a tragic affair with an older woman. The sisters' difficulty in achieving their literary goals is continuously thwarted by publishers who refused to accept women as writers. This battle along with the effect of their brother's death on them forms the crux of the screenplay. The film's heavy, repressive mood evokes the harshness and injustice of the life the sisters endured. All three actresses give moving performances and despite a somewhat contentious offscreen relationship between two of them - Adjani was in a relationship with Nuytten while Pisier was close friends with Téchiné - their onscreen relationship as sisters is very believable.

Footsteps in the Dark (Lloyd Bacon, 1941) 5/10

An investment advisor (Errol Flynn) is suspected by his wife (Brenda Marshall) of being involved with another woman. However, unbeknownst to everyone he is secretly a writer of detective novels written under a pseudonym while he attempts to solve a murder on the side as well. Breezy comedy has Flynn away from swashbuckling as he knocks heads with Lucille Watson as his tart-tongued mother-in-law, Alan Hale as a police detective, Lee Patrick as a burlesque star and Ralph Bellamy as a dentist who could be the murderer. The screenplay tries to put Flynn in the shoes of Nick Charles (of "Thin Man" fame) but doesn't quite get there as his Nora Charles in the form of his wife merely frets about her husband's mysterious absences and late comings. Flynn, though, is quite comfortable in the comedy genre.

La città si difende / The City Defends Itself / Four Ways Out (Pietro Germi, 1951) 6/10

Four amateur criminals rob the cash till at a soccer stadium and go their separate ways. Each man is viewed as he interacts with family and tries to elude the law. Gina Lollobrigida appears briefly as the high class girlfriend of one of the robbers who rats on him to the police. Amongst the writers who assisted Germi on the screenplay were Luigi Comencini, Tullio Pinelli and Federico Fellini. Entertaining minor Euro crime drama which mixes elements of American film noir and Italian neorealism.

The Sin of Madelon Claudet (Edgar Selwyn, 1931) 5/10

The script throws everything but the kitchen sink at Helen Hayes in her first film. Country bumpkin Madelon Claudet (Helen Hayes) has an illegitimate son - her lover Neil Hamilton abandons her - and she becomes the mistress of a distinguished gentleman (Lewis Stone) who keeps her in jewels and ermine only to end up in prison after he is exposed as a crook and she is accused of being his accomplice. Out of prison she becomes a prostitute to survive and looks from afar at her grown son (Robert Young) who has become a promising young doctor. Sentimental film allows the first lady of the theater to run the gamut of every emotion known to mankind for which she won an Oscar. Hayes hated the film and herself in it and wanted to buy the film from MGM so she could destroy it. Her husband Charles MacArthur helped on the hoary script which was based on the play, "The Lullaby", by Edward Knoblock.

Westward Passage (Robert Milton, 1931) 2/10

For some strange reason Laurence Olivier, during his very early Hollywood phase, kept getting paired opposite leading ladies much older than him. Here Ann Harding plays his unsatisfied wife who divorces him. Years later they meet on a ship and he wants to rekindle their relationship even though she is married to a kindly man. Silly film is all the more hilarious to see Olivier sporting more makeup than his leading lady. He is a sight to behold with his heavily kohled eyes. A very calm Ann Harding is the model of prim propriety opposite the young and brash Olivier.

31st October (Shivaji Lotan Patli, 2015) 1/10

The film depicts the horrific after effects of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India by her Sikh guards. Sikhs in Delhi were targeted with the implied collusion of the police at the instigation of the Congress party. The plot revolves around a Sikh family who try to stay one step ahead of the brutal violence on the streets and in their neighborhood. Unfortunately an amateur cast give wooden performances, the direction is almost non-existent and the music score emphasises every brutal act with reckless abandon. Poor Soha Ali Khan, seemingly the only professional actor amongst the cast, tries to give some semblance of a performance in this shockingly tacky film. This important subject needs to be brought to the screen in a manner that is not shoddy like this film.

36 Quai des Orfèvres / 36th Precinct (Olivier Marchal, 2004) 8/10

Slick, hard-boiled police procedural that pits two senior cops (Daniel Auteuil & Gérard Depardieu) against each other as they vie to take the place of their boss (André Dussollier) who is being promoted. Each tries to bring in a gang of vicious crooks, involved in a spate of armoured truck robberies, in order to win the coveted position of the Chief of Police. The film is beautifully shot in hues of blue which make Paris look sinister and the film has a remarkable similarity to Michael Mann's "Heat", although this being a french film the characters internalize their emoting. The story's central set-piece involves a spectacular shootout that sets off a chain of events that are catastrophic for both the cops and the hoods. The screenplay, reeking of assorted potholes, neatly wraps up all loose ends yet remains gripping. Auteuil, playing against type, is superbly matched by Depardieu who underplays for once. Their prickly relationship, once bound by close friendship, involves Valeria Golino playing the wife of one and the former lover of the other. Mylène Demongeot is superb in a small part as an ageing prostitute informant. The film, Auteuil, Dussollier, Demongeot, Marchal, the screenplay, editing and sound were nominated for César awards.

Huo zhe / To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994) 10/10

Spirited and melodramatic epic covers three decades of Chinese history beginning during the early 1940s. The film is seen through the eyes of an average couple who undergo tremendous personal changes in their life because of the changing political situation in their country. During the 1940s the wastrel son (You Ge) of a rich merchant gambles away the family fortune and loses the valued family mansion. His father dies of grief and his wife (Gong Li) becomes a beggar with her adolescent daughter and baby son. The family is reunited when he swears off gambling but he gets caught up in the civil war between Chiang Kai-Shek's nationalists and the winning Mao Zedong's communists. He survives the horrors of the battlefield and upon returning home learns that his impoverished daughter has lost her voice and the family has to learn to survive anew amongst the harshness of the new Communist regime. The family remains hopeful despite bizarre twists and tragic losses as they simply want to live and don't really care about the politics they are surrounded by. You Ge, who won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes film festival, and Gong Li are both outstanding. Extremely moving film is a must-see.

The Yellow Ticket (Raoul Walsh, 1931) 7/10

Melodrama set during the time of Czarist Russia. During martial law jews are prohibited from traveling so when it becomes imperative for a young girl (Elissa Landi) to go to St. Petersberg to inquire about her incarcerated old father she is forced to get a "yellow ticket" which is issued only to prostitutes for easy travel. At her destination she comes up against the lecherous and corrupt police official (Lionel Barrymore) and finds a sympathetic friend in a British journalist (Laurence Olivier) to whom she provides information about the crimes being committed by the State. Atmospheric film has a flamboyant Barrymore, an enticing Landi and Olivier in one of his first film roles. Sharply directed (and acted) pre-code film has many moments (including very brief nudity) that would soon come under the scissors of the censors in Hollywood. The film, unlike most early talkies, is far from static (especially considering it is based on a play) with the camera moving continuously across many locations.

Moscow Nights / I Stand Condemned (Anthony Asquith, 1935) 5/10

WWI shenanigans in Russia involving delicate matters of the heart and dangerous matters relating to the State. A nurse (Penelope Dudley Ward), by way of family convenience, is engaged to a wealthy, much older peasant (Harry Bauer) but is secretly in love with a wounded soldier (Laurence Olivier). Jealous of her friendship with the young man - even though she is faithful to her fiancé - he entraps the soldier in debt in order to humiliate him. Coming to his help is a worldly old lady (Athene Seyler) who has ulterior motives of her own. Bauer, who played the same part in the french version of the film, is very good (he is dubbed here) but Dudley Ward is very stiff and totally miscast. Thin plot is interesting to see for Olivier in one of his early film roles and for the great Harry Bauer who here plays the unsympathetic hero. Athene Seyler's role seems to be a precursor to the role of Miss Froy in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes". Vincent Korda did the sets.

Perfect Understanding (Cyril Gardner, 1933) 4/10

Gloria Swanson, then married to an Englishman, found herself in England trying to revive her once great silent career with this rather weak early sound film. Noël Coward suggested as her co-star his current amour - the young Laurence Olivier. Silly film involves a couple getting married with "perfect understanding" of allowing each other space without any jealousy. Naturally things don't go according to plan - he has a one-night stand with a former lover (Nora Swinburne) while she is suspected of an affair with an old friend (John Halliday). The film ends in a courtroom confrontation. The sophisticated Swanson is far too old to look convincing with a very young Olivier although she shines throughout with her strong voice and clothes-horse demeanor - ever the star.

Hausu (House) (1977) - 8/10 - This Japanese comedy horror film is pretty crazy and fun. Seven high school girls (Gorgeous, Fantasy, Melody, Kung Fu, Mac, Sweet, and Prof) go to visit Gorgeous's aunt. It's been 10 years since Gorgeous last saw her and she lives in a large, but strange house. It isn't long before the girls discover that some strange things take place there.

Rolling Thunder (1977) - 8/10 - Two Vietnam POWs (William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones) return home to a hero's welcome. Charles Rane (DeVane) finds himself emotionally detached from his wife and son. His son was just a baby when he was captured and doesn't even really know him. He tries to build a relationship, but four bandits who invade his home looking for money that he was gifted have other ideas. I thought this one was pretty good.

The Last Waltz (1978) - 8.5/10 - This concert film was directed by Martin Scorsese and centers around the last concert of The Band which also featured a number of other artists who were friends of the group. The music and performances were a lot of fun and the interviews were somewhat interesting as well.

Edifício Master (2002) - 8/10 - A film crew rented an apartment for a month in Copacabana. The building has hundreds of apartments and used to be rather seedy, but was now much more respectable. They interviewed numerous residents and got their stories. It was pretty interesting.

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987) - 8/10 - Kenzo Okuzaki is a 62 year old WWII veteran who suffered some traumatic things while stationed in New Guinea at the end of the war where food was in short supply. He blames Emperor Hirohito and calls him the worst war criminal. He even served time for using a sling to shoot pellets at the Emperor. Kenzo is determined to get to the truth as to who murdered two men in his unit shortly after the war ended. He is willing to use violence to force answers from the former soldiers who were involved. He seems a bit unhinged at times, but that could also be a result of what he experienced during the war.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003) - 8/10 - A documentary crew was in Venezuela gathering footage on President Hugo Chavez when a coup was attempted. They were inside the palace during much of the action while also capturing event in the streets during protests and counterprotests. It is pretty interesting.

Hope / Umut (1970) - 8/10 - Cabbar drives an old dilapidated horse cart and is deep in debt, barely able to support his family. When one of his horses dies in an accident, things get worse and he becomes desperate. I thought this one was pretty good.

9/11 (2002) - 9/10 - Filmmakers set out to make a documentary on a probationary firefighter in NYC and happen to capture events from 9/11, including the first plane hitting, the scene inside the towers, and the aftermath of the tower collapses. I remember that day very well and it is an interesting perspective.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) - 8/10 - Gordon Liu stars as San Te becomes a Shaolin monk after witnessing government oppression. While there, he becomes a master martial artist. Very entertaining training and fight sequences.

Delhi Crime (Tanuj Chopra, 2022) - Season 2 8/10

Delhi is rocked by a spate of serial killings where the crime resembles murders commited by the "Kaccha-Baniyan" gang of the 1990s. Affluent senior citizens are being systematically targeted, bludgeoned to death and their money and jewellery stolen. The murders are horrific in nature as the victims are killed by sharp and blunt instruments like hammers which are used to pummel the old men and women on their heads and faces. DCP Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah) and her team of cops come under intense fire as the case drags on and intimate details of the crime, including camera footage of the intruders killing their victims, are leaked to the press who play it on television creating panic in the city. Intense, riveting police procedural not only shows Delhi's crime underbelly but the screenplay also focuses on how the tension-laden job impacts the private lives of the police officers. Shefali Shah is the series' backbone and comes through with an intense performance. Tillotama Shome excels as one of the suspects. A worthy followup to Season 1 despite a rather hurried conclusion to the story here.

Mission Over Korea (Fred F. Sears, 1953) 3/10

Inferior war film has an American Army pilot (John Hodiak) taking under his wings a rookie pilot (John Derek). Their adventures in the air - dogfights - and on the ground - the veteran with his wife (Maureen O'Sullivan) and the rookie with an experienced nurse (Audrey Totter) - form the basis of the plot. Boring film comes to life briefly during a couple of dogfights with the North Koreans and a couple of crash landings during the obligatory heroics.

The Atomic Cafe (1982) - 8/10 - A collection of government propaganda and newsreels from the 1940s and 1950s related to atomic weapons, including their use in Japan, testing, the Cold War, and so on. It definitely paints a picture of a different time.

Koyaanisqatsi (1982) - 9/10 - Great footage from around the U.S. with an excellent soundtrack. I loved it and some of the shots certainly brought back memories, such as the ones in the arcade like the one I frequented when the film was made.

Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (1988) - 8/10 - Cane toads were brought to Australia in an attempt to control the cane beetle, but it turned out that cane toads came with their own set of problems. They multiplied quickly, were poisonous and potentially deadly to native wildlife, and were pretty much impossible to contain. Some people love the cane toad and some hate them. The film shows the humorous side as well as showing how dangerous they can be.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Runnin’ Down a Dream (2007) - 9/10 - I've been a Tom Petty fan since the early 1980s and loved this four hour look into his career. I thought it was pretty comprehensive and I loved all of the interviews and performances.

Pearl Jam Twenty (2011) - 8/10 - A look back at the origins of Pearl Jam and how it evolved over time. I liked Pearl Jam (and Temple of the Dog and Soundgarden and even Mother Love Bone, etc.), but I was never a really big fan. This was a nice behind the scenes look.

The films that I enjoyed the most over the last couple of weeks:

A Letter to Momo (2011) - 8.5/10 - An 11 year old girl moves to a small island with her mother after the death of her father. She's rather reserved, but starts to come out of her shell when she befriends three goblins who are also inhabiting her home. I thought this one was very nicely done.

Cry of the City (1948) - 8/10 - Richard Conte stars as Marty, a criminal who is in a secure hospital room after killing a cop. He escapes after a crooked lawyer threatens his girlfriend and he sets out to protect his girl and get out of town. Pursuing him is a police detective (Victor Mature) who was also a childhood friend. Conte did a very nice job and the film moved at a nice pace.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) - 8/10 - A cyborg detective and his new partner investigate a case where doll-like robots malfunction and kill before destroying themselves. The film has good visuals and a nice soundtrack. I liked it more than the first film.

Giovanni’s Island (2014) - 8/10 - At the end of WWII, Soviet soldiers land on a small Japanese island and disrupt life there where most of the residents are involved with fishing. A Russian girl and two Japanese brothers form a friendship that crosses various barriers, including language and culture.

Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984) - 8/10 - The film does a very nice job capturing the zaniness of the manga. I first started reading the series back in 1989 and have been reading the recent omnibus collections. I'll admit that the series is tough for me to binge read, but this film was a good length, though the first half was more fun than the second half.

Redline (2009) - 8/10 - In the distant future, the Redline is a top of the line and dangerous auto race that takes place in various places around the galaxy every 5 years. The vehicles have been souped up and even have weapons installed in some of them. This year it is going to be on Roboworld, whether the residents there want it or not. The animation and music were great and I enjoyed the story as well. It was a lot of fun.

Sword of the Stranger (2007) - 8.5/10 - A boy and his dog are on the run from a group of warriors who want the boy for an arcane ritual. The boy encounters a nameless ronin and the two eventually become friends. There is a good story here with nice animation, including decent sword (and other) fights.

The Boy and the Beast (2015) - 8/10 - A runaway human boy follows two people from the beast world through a passage to their home and becomes the apprentice of a powerful, but ill-tempered warrior. The story isn't necessarily all that original, but I thought the movie was fun and I enjoyed it.

Crayon Shin-chan: The Adult Empire Strikes Back (2001) - 8/10 - Shin-chan and his family visit the Museum of the 20th Century which brings back feelings of nostalgia in his parents. Soon afterward, the director of the museum unleashes a plot to force adults to abandon their responsibilities and regress to how they were as kids in the 20th Century. The movie was a lot funnier than I was expecting.

Millennium Actress (2001) - 8/10 - A director tracks down a famous actress in order to interview her for a documentary about her life. He gives her a key that he found in the studio which used to belong to her and it sparks many memories which are shown interspersed with the present day. It's a very solid film.

Perfect Blue (1997) - 8/10 - A pop idol gives up her singing career to try and become an actress. She starts getting mixed up with her sense of reality when the roles she gets are demanding and an obsessed stalker starts killing people close to her.

Okko's Inn (2018) - 8/10 - A 12 year old girl survives a car accident that kills her parents. She moves in with her grandmother at her hot springs inn. The girl soon discovers that she is able to see the ghosts who inhabit the area. She also ends up training to be the junior innkeeper in order to help her grandmother out. The film has a lot of charm and has nice animation. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Barefoot Gen 2 (1986) - 8/10 - This takes place several years after the first film. Gen is living with his mother and adopted little brother, but his mother is sick. Gen becomes friends with a group of homeless kids and does his best to provide for his mother. This is more upbeat than the first film, though it still touches on a number of serious topics. The first film is better, but this was almost as good.

In This Corner of the World (2016) - 8/10 - Suzu is an 18 year old girl who liked to draw. She lives near Hiroshima in 1943 and leaves home to get married. The film follows her life over the next couple of years with various trials and tribulations. It's a nice film.

A White, White Day (2019) - 8/10 - The police chief in a small town in Iceland is on leave after his wife dies in a car accident. He spends his days remodeling a home for his daughter and her family while frequently taking care of his pre-teen granddaughter. There is grief and anger inside of him at the death of his wife and the turmoil increases as he finds signs of infidelity. The style here is pretty slow in parts, especially with the opening time lapse scene, but it worked for me and I enjoyed the film. I liked the dynamic between the chief and his granddaughter.

The Long Walk (2019) - 8/10 - A time travel ghost story with an old man who can see spirits. One of the spirits allows him to travel back in time 50 years to when he was a boy. I loved the atmosphere of the film, though the story could be a bit confusing. Around halfway through, I went back to watch the first part of the film again and it made a lot more sense the second time around.

Joyland (Saim Sadiq, 2022) 10/10

Heartbreaking look at a lower middle class family enslaved by old-fashioned notions of gender and duty and living within an atmosphere of toxic patriarchy. The family, living jointly together in a tenement inside the walled city of Lahore, consists of an old wheel-chair bound widower (Salmaan Peerzada), his elder son (Sohail Sameer) who is desperate for a son after three daughters, and younger son (Ali Junejo) who is a stay-at-home husband whose wife (Rasti Farooq) works as a beautician in a parlor. When the young man finally finds a job at a third-rate erotic theater as a background dancer to a transgender (Alina Khan) his wife is forced to give up her job and take her place as a homemaker and a hopeful mother. The perceptive screenplay paints each character with exceptional sensitivity - nobody is a villain and in fact they are all at heart good people but with shades of grey with normal desires and disappointments. The relationship between the childless younger couple is full of affection and respect yet both seem stuck in a marriage neither wants. When he finds companionship and love with the transgender - both are in a way outcasts who naturally gravitate towards each other - it has severe repercussion on his wife who was already distraught at having to give up her job and then finding herself pregnant while having no desire to have a child. The film is replete with many lyrical moments scattered throughout - the two young wives enjoying a brief joyous moment together on a fairground ride at Joyland the amusement park; the younger son on a scooter at night carrying a huge cardboard standee of the transgender; a quiet moment of wordless passion between the two lovers sitting across from each other in the dark as the perforations on a light shade casts dancing flashes on their faces and around the room. In fact the most telling aspect of the film are the many moments of reflective silence between characters which gives pause and allows the audience to put their thinking caps on to analyze these flawed and complex yet very relatable characters and their motivations. Superbly acted by the ensemble cast with special kudos to Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq and especially Alina Khan who is alternately ferocious and vulnerable - often at the same time. Also a loud shout-out to Sania Saeed as the lonely widow who has quiet designs on the equally lonely invalid patriarch. Human sexuality is such a huge part of this story just as it is in life for all of us. However, the ridiculous outrage over this film by a section of ill-informed anal religious fanatics in Pakistan is totally uncalled for. Run and watch this very mature film which shows a slice of life steeped in humanity, respect, love, longing and heartbreak.

Green Zone (Paul Greengrass, 2010) 8/10

"Does it make sense to you that we are coming up empty", is a repeated lament voiced by numerous confused characters throughout this riveting film. Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? That's the daring political question raised by Greengrass' film - which incidently flopped; wonder why? - and was a question raised by many around the world asking why the United States attacked Iraq. Based on a 2006 non-fiction book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which documented life within the Green Zone in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The screenplay follows a US Army Chief Warrant Officer (Matt Damon) who has been assigned to search for Saddam Hussain's hidden weapons but is confused that the majority of intelligence assessment given to him is inaccurate. The CIA (Brendan Gleeson) also suspects the US government (Greg Kinnear) is blocking the true story about the weapons which leads to suspicion that the invasion took place due to ulterior motives. The film is replete with the usual Greengrass style - staccato editing, hurtling hand-held camerawork, which causes equal doses of dizziness and nausea, but seems right for the story at hand as it accurately shows the chaos not only on the streets of Iraq but also within the ranks of the US servicemen who flit about like headless chickens. Facts, as we now know to be true, turns to fiction here as Damon evolves into "Bourne" while being hunted not only by the Iraqis but more shockingly by his own countrymen willing to withold the truth that has been discovered. It's a local Iraqi who tells Damon that "it is not for you to decide what happens here" - words that so many countries America has wrongly interfered with would for certain echo. Excellent conspiracy movie with Damon a supeb action hero (already proved via "Bourne" - the American version of James Bond). Gleeson, Kinnear and Amy Ryan (as a journalist) are all very good in important supporting roles.

The Woman King (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2022) 7/10

Historical action-adventure film is set in 1823 and based on true events about the Agojie who were the all-female military regiment of the West African kingdom of Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin). A fierce General (Viola Davis) trains the next generation of warriors to fight their enemies - the slave traders from the Oyo Empire and the Portugese - and has a strained relationship with an arrogant young recruit (Thuso Mbedu) about whom she harbors a secret related to her violent past. Epic film has superbly choreographed battle scenes with Davis giving a fierce performance ably supported by Mbedu and Lashana Lynch as another unflinching warrior. Colorful costumes and exceptional production design are also highlights.

Battle: Los Angeles (Jonathan Liebesman, 2011) 3/10

Meteors shoot down on earth and an alien invasion begins. The film focuses on marines, led by Aaron Eckhart, retaliating in Santa Monica. Predictable noisy war film is like a video game as all the action blurs in between a lot of shouting, explosions and the expected mayhem. America wins of course.

Amsterdam (David O. Russell, 2022) 7/10

A David O. Russell film with shades of Wes Anderson has quirk and cult written all over it. A terribly busy hyperactive plot that goes from the battlefields of WWI to Amsterdam and onto New York with the tone shifting suddenly from screwball comedy to a crime thriller as we view murder, race relationships, suspense and a heinous plot to put a fascist government in the United States during the 1930s. A doctor (Christian Bale), a lawyer (John David Washington) and a nurse (Margot Robbie) form a strong bond of friendship as their lives converge during the horrors of WWI and later in Amsterdam. Years later the two men start their careers in New York where an autopsy on a senator reveals he was poisoned. His daughter (Taylor Swift), who suspects foul play, is killed in front of the boys and both are framed for her murder. Reunited with the nurse they learn her brother (Rami Malek) and his wife (Anya Taylor-Joy) are upto something nefarious wherein a General (Robert De Niro) is offered a large sum of money to make a speech advocating removal of President Roosevelt and taking over the country as a puppet head. The screenplay tries to cram in far too much and the film's tone vascilates between farce and drama which after a while becomes exhausting to watch. The incredible cast of stars is game but all their posturings as they try to keep up with the desperate shifts in plot instead end up making them flail about. What shines through it all is the film's outstanding production design by Judy Becker, the lovely costumes by Albert Wolsky and the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki. Confused effort by O. Russell that has a number of magical moments scattered throughout.

Murder at Yellowstone City (Richard Gray, 2022) 6/10

Solidly crafted mystery Western starts off very slow although covers most of the genre's tropes finally picking up pace mid-point onwards. When a gold prospector is shot dead the sheriff (Gabriel Byrne) of a small mining town in Montana automatically accuses and imprisons a stranger (Isaiah Mustafa) who has just come into town. He is a former slave and Shakespeare buff, innocent of the crime, who soon finds a saviour in the town's idealistic clergyman (Thomas Jane) who turns detective trying to prove the man's innocence. Like an Agatha Christie novel there are several more murders and a town full of eclectic characters - two aging gay saloonkeepers (Richard Dreyfuss & John Ales) who pretend they are just good friends, a young Lakota Sioux woman who tends the stables, a Mexican woman who overseers the town prostitutes and the sheriff's surly son. Like all good Westerns the last third of the film has a series of exciting shootouts with the preacher and his equally able wife front and center of all the action.

I'm not cluttering up the Official Review thread with this one.

I watched The People You Hate at a Wedding, an Amazon Original rom-com/family comedy, and that's the problem. It can't really decide what it is. Or rather, it refuses to be a romantic comedy at every turn in favor of grabbing its "most dysfunctional family ever" brass ring and it's far less successful in that mold. The film has a horribly miscalculated prologue setting up screw-up Mom and two grown kids plus the perfect sibling that Mom had with another guy before they came along, which makes it feel like a fairy tale. Afterwards, the three of them come together to be a part of successful sister's perfect wedding and shenanigans ensue. The film sets itself up like a triptych of romantic comedy stories as Kristen Bell (Sister) is strung along by her married-boss lover about whether or not he will join her at the wedding and proceeds to string along the sweet Midwesterner she's hooking up with about whether or not he can be her plus one. Ben Platt (Brother) is unsure about an open relationship but his boyfriend is interested and without his consent gets them a place with a rich older man who expects a threesome out of it. And Allison Janney (Mom) is high on weed gummies all the time and hooks back up with her ex who ran out on her years ago but eventually stands up for her own worth. And all of this coincides in London over the course of perfect sister/daughter's wedding as they make one lousy impression after another, secrets are revealed, etc.

On paper, the film deserves a fair amount of credit for trying to do something different. To freshen up the romantic comedy genre, it gives us three stories, and they're three varied stories. On paper, there is something for everybody who is a fan of this genre. It goes for a bitter tone and even though it comes off as sitcom-ish that's not a bad idea for this genre or this story. But it really doesn't work right out of the gate. The dysfunctional family stuff and the romantic comedy stuff just don't really go well together. It's a tricky balancing act and they don't pull it off. It needed to be more one or the other. Whatever worked about the book doesn't translate at all. Blame the writers, who are graduates from Bob's Burgers (you can actually really see the animated sitcom tendencies) or blame Claire Scanlon, the director, who helmed the delightful Set It Up but has similar sitcom habits. That material either worked well with or survived them. This material does not. It's a shame. There is something within this film that could've worked but it's something of an endurance test. That said, I'd almost always rather watch a romantic comedy or family story that doesn't work vs. any other genre because they always end up fascinating case studies in what went wrong.

The Devil to Pay! (George Fitzmaurice, 1930) 7/10

A cad (Ronald Colman) returns home and finds a young girl (Loretta Young), engaged to a Duke, fall madly in love with him. When her father threatens to disinherit her the cad promptly proposes marriage. However, there is the issue of the flamboyant actress (Myrna Loy) he is involved with as well which does not bode well with his fiancé. Bright breezy comedy with the stars in perfect sync and Colman at his most charming.

The Unholy Garden (George Fitzmaurice, 1931) 8/10

Not quite the Casbah but a much wanted crook (Ronald Colman) finds refuge on an Arab no-man land in a hotel in the Sahara where he joins a bunch of other crooks. The plan is to rob the blind owner (Tully Marshall) of the hotel who has his loot hidden on the premises. To get to it he first uses a femme fatale (Estelle Taylor) to get to the hotel and then decides to seduce the owner's daughter (Fay Wray). With other crooks breathing down his back there are assorted double crosses and the robbery doesn't quite go according to plan when love comes in the way. Colman is dashing, Taylor is sultry and this is Wray before she screamed before King Kong. Atmospheric early talkie moves at a fast pace with witty dialogue by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht (based on his novel). Unlike many early talkies the camera (courtesy George Barnes) is not static.

Bad Girl (Frank Borzage, 1931) 7/10

Girl (Sally Eilers) meets boy (James Dunn). She gets on his nerves. They go on a date and have a fine time. He proposes. She accepts but her brother throws her out of the house and calls her a bad girl and a tramp. They get married and she finds herself pregnant much to his annoyance. Both misunderstand each other, behave immaturely and have trust issues. The film has a timeless quality and the couple are very relatable as they struggle through their poverty to make ends meet while getting to know one another. Dunn, in his first major role, is outstanding and has superb chemistry with Eilers. Minna Gombell as a wisecracking friend is hilarious. Borzage and the screenplay won Oscars. The film was nominated for best picture.

Alone in Berlin (Vincent Perez, 2016) 5/10

True story that was fictionalized in the novel "Every Man Dies Alone", by Hans Fallada. The German couple (Brendan Gleeson & Emma Thompson) in the story are based on Otto and Elise Hampel. When their son dies they start writing cards protesting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. They wrote 285 cards which were distributed around Berlin during the period 1940-1943 and which were collected by the detective (Daniel Brühl) assigned by the Gestapo who painstakingly tries to find the perpetrators. The couple remain stoic through their grief and gradually get closer to each other as the years go by and they continue in their mission. Both Gleeson and Thompson quietly shine in this rather bland and dreary production. While the gesture at the center was enormous it does not quite translate as a screen vehicle.

The White Buffalo (J. Lee Thompson, 1977) 7/10

Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" gets transported to the Wild West as adversaries Wild Bill Hickok (Charles Bronson) and Chief Crazy Horse (Will Sampson) team up to go after the beast of their nightmares in this pure fantasy. Producer Dino De Laurentiis followed "King Kong" with another rampaging beast - a hokey mechanical giant buffalo that the film camouflages via a loud score (John Barry) and flashy editing as it charges and creates havoc killing Crazy Horse's daughter. Bronson, wearing dark spectacles courtesy of Hickok's glaucoma, takes on the task of confronting the beast and also gets to cuddle and kiss Kim Novak in one of her few latter-day film appearances. Providing strong support is an outstanding group of character actors - Jack Warden, John Carradine, Stuart Whitman, Clint Walker, Slim Pickens and Cara Williams. The film was a notorious flop but is actually quite good as the man vs beast plot plays out with underlying themes of race at its center as the white man and the Indian become honorary blood brothers.

The Road to Singapore (Alfred E. Green, 1931) 6/10

A notorious cad (William Powell) has an affair with the wife (Doris Kenyon) of a doctor (Louis Calhern) and also attracts his young sister (Marian Marsh). Set in a sultry British colony somewhere on an island in the Indian Ocean - Powell speaks in Urdu with the local Indians. Atmospheric film, with silly jungle drums beating in the distance no less, has an amusing Powell as the man with no scruples who revels in destroying marriages and Calhern spouting dated dialogue about women that would put him in the doghouse in today's climate. A variation on the then-hugely popular W. Somerset Maugham style commonwealth scandal dramas which reveal that white folk are racist (which was true) and that hot sultry weather cause women to react as if on heat with their hormones working overtime. Hilarious to think this was seriously believed to be true once upon a time.

Cry of the Hunted (Joseph H. Lewis, 1953) 7/10

Cop (Barry Sullivan) relentlessly chases crook (Vittorio Gassman) from the streets of New York to the Louisiana bayou. The crime is never mentioned as the chase plays out between the two men who respect each other yet are hell bent on achieving their individual goals. There is a hilarious gay subtext during the opening scene in a prison cell where both men beat each other up and then exhausted sit side by side on the floor and almost as if in a post-coital moment light up and smoke cigarettes. Also memorable are Polly Bergen as the cop's wife whose every dialogue seems like a sexual innuendo and William Conrad as the cop's sadistic junior partner ever looking to take the place of his boss. Solid action film is a real sleeper.

The Prince and the Pauper (Giles Foster, 2000) 6/10

Oft-filmed tale by Mark Twain gets yet another spin - a Hallmark tv production - as street urchin Thomas Canty (Robert Timmins) and Edward Tudor (Jonathan Timmins) - son of King Henry VIII (Alan Bates) - exchange places and both are thwarted in their attempts to attain their rightful positions. The urchin has to deal with the Prince's wicked Uncle who wants to usurp the King and get the throne while the Prince finds an ally on the filthy streets of London in a young man (Aidan Quinn) just returned from Spain. Minor swashbuckler is surprisingly good with Alan Bates having a field day as the rambunctious King. The film was shot in Hungary.

Impossible Object / Story of a Love Story (John Frankenheimer, 1973) 3/10

Frankenheimer who specialized in making political thrillers, came up with this tediously vacuous film when he and his wife settled in France for a while. It is based on the novel by Nicholas Mosley who also wrote the screenplay. The story revolves around a British writer (Alan Bates) with a wife (Evans Evans - Frankenheimer's wife) and three sons, who falls head over heels in love with a married woman (Dominique Sanda) he meets in a museum. But is the affair real or a figment of the writer's imagination? Lushly shot by Claude Renoir with a score by Michel Legrand which accompanies the romance of Bates and lovely Sanda. There is a strange sub-plot involving Lea Massari who plays a rich woman who frolics beside a swimming pool surrounded by nude men and women. Kama Sutra style love making between Bates and Massari are the film's highlight if you would like to call it that because nothing really makes much sense in the film.

Rough Night in Jericho (Arnold Laven, 1967) 4/10

A plot straight out of the western plots of old - nasty villain (Dean Martin), with boys in tow, takes over a town, a gold mine, a ranch full of cattle and a saloon. However, he cannot take over the stagecoach line which is owned by his feisty former lover (Jean Simmons) who brings in a gunfighter (George Peppard) and a grizzled ex-sheriff (John McIntire) to run him out of town. Predictable film even has Slim Pickens who does his usual shtick. The only novelty here is in seeing Martin play his first all-out villain - he viciously thrashes Simmons in one scene - and so sadly doesn't sing while Peppard is a very bland lead. Only Simmons shines bright and is a delight from beginning to end.

Showdown (George Seaton, 1973) 5/10

Sheriff (Rock Hudson) goes after his former friend (Dean Martin) who has robbed a train. The film uses flashbacks to show their close friendship since childhood which broke up over a woman (Susan Clark) who became the Sheriff's wife.
Innocuous old fashioned western with old fashioned stars who by the 1970s were both relics who had seen much better days on the big screen. Hudson comes off better than Martin who is rather long in the tooth. It was the last western for both stars. It was also Seaton's last film and has Ernest Laszlo on camera and a score by David Shire.

The Forgiven (John Michael McDonagh, 2022) 5/10

This adaptation of Lawrence Osborne's highly acclaimed novel has the vibe of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky, Anthony Minghella's The English Patient and some sequences in Brideshead Revisited (1981) that were set in Fez, Morocco. The backdrop of this story is set in Morocco and there are stunning shots of the desert and arid mountains in the interior of the vast country superbly captured by Larry Smith's cinematography. An alcoholic society doctor (Ralph Fiennes) and his wife (Jessica Chastain), in the midst of a marital discord, arrive at a debauched three-day party hosted by a gay couple (Matt Smith & Caleb Landry Jones) at their lavish estate in the desert. En route they run over a young man who is killed and take the body with them. The man's father demands that the doctor accompany him and the body to his village for burial which he reluctantly does. Meanwhile his wife stays back and watches the festivities in progress - lavish food and drinks, cocaine snorting, nude swimming, and has an affair with one of the guests (Christopher Abbott). In the novel all this decadence is weighed subtly against the reaction of the local Moroccans, who both envy and despise the insouciant infidel westerners. However none of that comes across in this lifeless film which is purely seen from the perspective of the white folk. For a story with so much colour and drama it is unfortunately presented in a rather stiff manner. Fiennes brings compexity and depth to his character and the film soars briefly during the sequence where he is driven across the vast desert landscape. Chastain is wasted in an underwritten role.

The Sons of Katie Elder (Henry Hathaway, 1965) 6/10

When Katie Elder dies her four ne'er-do-well sons - an infamous professional gunman (John Wayne), a gambler (Dean Martin), an unsuccessful hardware dealer (Earl Holliman) and the youngest, a reluctant college student (Michael Anderson Jr.) - reunite for the funeral and try to solve the mystery of their father's death by a bullet in his back. Their ranch has been taken over by a gunsmith (James Gregory), who claims he won it from their father in a game of cards, and has brought in a hired gun (George Kennedy) for protection. With the whole town against them they only have each other and their wits to survive. Rugged Wayne is too old for the part but surprisingly robust after having just had his cancerous lung removed. Martin is wasted in a supporting role but Martha Hyer and Dennis Hopper shine in bit roles.

5 Card Stud (Henry Hathaway, 1968) 6/10

A murder-mystery set within the western genre. When a stranger is caught cheating during a poker game he is lynched by the players at the behest of one of the volatile players (Roddy McDowall). A professional gambler (Dean Martin) who sat out during the last round tries to prevent the hanging but is knocked out. One by one the players at the table end up getting strangled. Is the killer the volatile young man or the newly arrived unorthodox preacher (Robert Mitchum) who is also a sharpshooter? The two leads carry the film with Mitchum almost doing a parody of his memorable work in "The Night of the Hunter". McDowell is surprisingly quite effective as the sadistic runt and Yaphet Kotto steals the film as a bartender. Inger Stevens, in one of her last roles, is wasted playing the cliché whore with a heart of gold. One of numerous old fashioned westerns that turned up during the 1960s with the leads often played by two ageing male stars paired opposite each other.

Twenty Plus Two (Joseph M. Newman, 1961) 6/10

One of numerous failed attempts to make David Janssen into a movie star. He was a huge star but only on television. This murder-mystery is a lot like one of the television detective-cop shows from the 1970s. An investigator (David Janssen) finds a connection to a long lost heiress when a murdered victim is found. He meets assorted suspicious characters along the way including two women - a former lover (Jeanne Crain) who comes onto him again, and her friend (Dina Merrill) who looks suspiciously like a woman he fell in love with years before in Tokyo. Talkative screenplay has two glowing moments as Janssen comes across two veteran actors in brief but memorable parts - Agnes Moorehead as the tart-tongued mother of the missing heiress and William Demarest as a gruff alcoholic former journalist who worked on the missing heiress case years before. The stars and the 1960s atmosphere make this an easy watch.

The Plague Dogs (1982) - 8/10 - Two dogs escape from a research facility and struggle to survive in the countryside while also eluding the search teams that are after them. The film is pretty serious and bleak, but is also very good.

When the Wind Blows (1986) - 8/10 - An elderly British couple follows government pamphlets in preparing for a possible nuclear war which the news says may come in only a few days. They think it will be like WWII which they have fond memories of, not realizing the altered nature of war atomic weapons bring. The couple is charming, though this isn't exactly a happy film. It does have a nice soundtrack.

High Sierra (1941) - 8/10 - Humphrey Bogart stars as a man who gets an early release from a prison in Indiana. He heads west and takes part in a jewel theft at a resort. Ida Lupino costars as the lone female member of the gang that robs the resort. Bogart's character shows a softer side at times and is not one dimensional. There's a fair amount of action and good scenery as well.

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) - 8/10 - This low budget sci-fi film takes place at a cafe where people discover that two monitors are connected, but are two minutes apart so one is two minutes in the past and the other is two minutes in the future, depending on your perspective. The repetition of scenes from different points of view could have gotten pretty old, but fortunately they mostly moved on from that. It was well acted and funny.

Roujin Z (1991) - 8/10 - The Ministry of Public Welfare chooses an elderly widower to test their new robotic bed which is supposed to provide all the care that a bedridden patient needs. However, he doesn't like it and the student nurse who cared for him previously sets out to help him, but things spiral out of control. There is plenty of humor and action and I thought it was a lot of fun.

I Wake Up Screaming (1941) - 8/10 - A sports promoter (Victor Mature) is a prime suspect in the death of an actress named Vicky (Carole Landis) that he helped promote on a bet with a newspaper friend. The movie flashes back to how he met Vicky and also proceeds in the present as he gets to know Vicky's sister (Betty Grable). Meanwhile, a detective continues to hound the promoter even after he is released from custody. I thought this one was lots of fun. Laird Cregar makes a good foil as the detective who isn't afraid to break a few laws.

Patlabor: The Movie (1989) - 8/10 - Some sort of malfunction is causing Labor robots to go haywire, even if they are unmanned. Members of the police whose own Labor robots are unaffected so far investigate the malfunctions and try to find the reason and a way to stop them. The film has a nice story and sort of fits into the police procedural category as well.

Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993) - 8/10 - This movie is much more serious and political than the first entry in the series. In this film, Tokyo is the target of terrorist acts which include blowing up bridges and other activities. Blame is assigned to a rogue air force jet, but there is more to it than that and the police unit from the first film tries to track down the culprit. This is probably a better film than the first one in a number of ways, but I liked the first film more.

Barefoot Gen (1983) - 8.5/10 - The film depicts the life of Gen, a boy living in Hiroshima with his family in 1945. The first part shows their family life before the atomic bomb is dropped and then we see the effects of the bomb and the aftermath. It's very well done. I read the first two Barefoot Gen manga volumes (based on the experiences of the author) back in the late 1980s. I read through all 10 volumes in 2010 after the translation into English was finally completed. It is a very good series.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) - 8/10 - A member of a counter-terrorism group freezes when a girl carrying a bomb decides to commit suicide rather than being captured. He is disturbed by this and later becomes close with a young woman who may be the sister of the girl who died. There are plots within plots in this alternate history tale and it is a pretty good film.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) - 8/10 - A 17 year old girl named Makoto discovers that she has the ability to leap through time. At first, she uses the ability to enjoy life and make things better for her. She eventually learns that the ability can be a bit more serious than what she has been using it for. The film is a sequel to a novel from the 1960s. I haven't read that book, though I did read the manga adaptation back in 2008. This film was better than the manga, though.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Ryan Coogler, 2022) 5/10

King T'Challa aka Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman who died in 2020 of colon cancer) is dead leaving his mother (Angela Bassett), sister (Letitia Wright) and kingdom to mourn him. The film painstakingly but unsuccessfully tries to keep the franchise alive despite there being no clear leader. Wright as the heir apparent to the kingdom tries to carry this extremely tedious and overlong film on her slender shoulders and is only halfway successful despite an attempt to don the famous mask and costume and take over from her late brother. Too much time is spent explaining the back history of Namor (Tenoch Huerta) - the king of Talokan, an ancient civilization of underwater dwelling people, who is the main antagonist and who captures a young MIT student who has invented a vibranium-detecting machine. The precious metal found only in Wakanda becomes a bone of contention with various factions (including the CIA) vying for it to use as a deadly weapon. Despite outstanding production values - the film's costumes deserve an Oscar - the film is rather painful to sit through as the battle scenes become repetitious. Bassett is forceful as the Queen while it's a shock to see the botoxed face of Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the CIA head. There is a surprise revelation during a mid-credits scene which sets up the franchise on a continuing path where sequels will most probably appear at a steady pace down through the upcoming decades.

Bros (Nicholas Stoller, 2022) 2/10

So-called gay rom-com about two commitment-phobe men which has zero romance and even less comedy. The entire film's tone is set by the main character (Billy Eichner) who comes across as rude, obnoxious and a total douche bag constantly whining. Luke Macfarlane who has the clichéd role of the blonde bimbo lover comes off better. At least he smiles which is an emotion Eichner could have tried as well. Extremely boring film is a complete waste of time. Go watch Taxi Zum Klo instead. At least you will experience glimpses of laughter and romance. Harvey Fierstein is fun in a brief appearance while Debra Messing, playing herself, rightfully gives Eichner a deserved mouthful.

Time After Time (Nicholas Meyer, 1979) 5/10

British author H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) uses his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper (David Warner) who has escaped from 1893 London to 1979 San Francisco. Amusing but far fetched premise has McDowell donning his staid Victorian duds while Warner is the epitome of hip in disco-era Frisco where he continues to slash female throats. Helping Wells and falling in love with him is a prim banker (Mary "annoying-voice" Steenburgen) who ends up a hostage of the Ripper while Wells is detained by the police who find his truth totally unbelievable. Pleasant if silly little fluff became the meeting point for McDowell who ended up married to Steenburgen......for awhile.

The Omega Man (Boris Sagal, 1971) 5/10

Post-apocalyptic thriller is based on the novel, I am Legend, by Richard Matheson which was first filmed in 1964 as The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price and later with Will Smith in 2007. Biological warfare between China and Russia wipes out most of the population of earth. A scientist (Charlton Heston) in Los Angeles saves himself by injecting an experimental vaccine and spends his time talking to himself or hunting down members of "the family" - survivors of the plague who have turned into albino mutants who wish to kill him because to them he is a symbol of all that is evil as science destroyed the world. Later he runs into a woman (Rosalind Cash) and a group of kids who survived but are gradually turning into mutants. As he tries to cure them by injecting them with a serum made from his blood the mutants gang up and are hell bent on destroying him. What starts off as a promising fast paced film quickly devolves into something quite absurd - the mutants (Anthony Zerbe plays their deranged leader), with silly white faces, make lousy villains while the screenplay completely bungles up the ending which is far removed from the book. Heston, gritting his teeth, goes through the motions as a bare-chested action star and gets to perform a sex scene with a black actress (Cash's gratuitous nude scene is totally uncalled for and purely shot in order to tittilate) which was still a daring sight on the big screen back then.

Goodbye, My Fancy (Vincent Sherman, 1951) 5/10

Typical Crawford vehicle during the 1950s where in direct contrast to her strong power/man-hungry female characters of the 1930s she here plays the woman of steel who hides it from men under the facade of a "vulnerable lady". An aggressive congresswoman (Joan Crawford) accepts an invitation from her alma mater to receive an honorary degree. In reality she is more curious to check out the President of the College (Robert Young) with whom she had a fling twenty years before and with whom she hopes to rekindle a relationship. Romantic competition comes in the form of a photo-journalist (Frank Lovejoy) with whom she had an affair between the years she was expelled from college and the start of her political career. The hectic weekend has her parrying with her blunt secretary (Eve Arden), being a role model for the President's daughter (Janice Rule in her film debut with whom Crawford clashed on and off set due to jealousy) and blackmailing the College President when he refuses to show a controversial film she feels every graduating student must see for their future life education. Crawford overdoes it with the "noble lady" persona while both her leading men are boring and annoying. Only Eve Arden comes through with flying colours doing her usual smart-ass shtick which remains hilarious despite that routine being repeated in almost all her films. The ponderous plot was based on a play by Fay Kanin which saw success on Broadway with Madeleine Carroll.

My Policeman (Michael Grandage, 2022) 6/10

Slow-moving rather tedious memory piece is based on a book by Bethan Roberts but which is also partly a fictionalized version of the love life of writer E.M. Forster. A retired school teacher (Gina McKee) allows into her house a long-lost friend (Rupert Everett), now a wheelchair-bound stroke victim, much to the consternation of her husband (Linus Roache) who wants nothing to do with the sick guest. This is surprising considering the trio were the closest of friends four decades before. The story comes alive via numerous flashbacks to the 1950s as the teacher reads the invalid's private diaries. As a young woman (Emma Corrin) she is swept off her feet by a young policeman (Harry Styles) who introduces her to his witty and worldly friend (David Dawson), a musuem curator. At first confused by his lack of sexual attention towards her she nevertheless agrees to marry the policeman. However, his growing friendship with his friend causes confusion in her mind leading her to take a step that has devastating repercussions for all three. The flashback images recall moments from Merchant-Ivory's "Maurice" - based ofcourse on the E.M. Forster novel - and looks into Britain's repressed and dangerous past where homosexuality was a crime and men and women caught faced stiff prison sentences. Of the trio of actors in the flashback sequences Dawson stands out while the weakest link in the present is McKee who doesn't quite click with her younger self as played by Emma Corrin. Unfortunately Rupert Everett has mostly a silent part although the film's last image of him with Roache speaks volumes. It is a brief moment of only a few seconds but vividly manages to encapsulate what love, passion and forgiveness is all about.

Black Rain (Ridley Scott, 1989) 7/10

The film's overall palette and visual style is taken by Scott from his own past career as a director of extremely flashy television commercials and from the futuristic neo-noir Blade Runner (1982). Osaka, in this film, is presented as a neon-lit nightmare - dark, wet and sinister. A New York City police officer (Michael Douglas) and his partner (Andy Garcia) witness a Japanese man (Yūsaku Matsuda) rob and kill a man in a restaurant, give chase and catch him. The cops are asked to accompany the killer to Osaka and hand him over to the Japanese police. However, they inadvertently hand him over to imposters who escape with the prisoner. Forced to stay as mere observers they are both frustrated to see the local cops' by-the-book style of investigation. Gradually the cops manage to convince their local counterpart (Kan Takakura) to let them investigate on their own terms as they receive additional help and information from an American nightclub hostess (Kate Capshaw). Accompanied by a pulsating Hans Zimmer score and Jan de Bont's slick cinematography this fast paced thriller goes through its paces with more style over substance in its plot which reeks of deja vu. Douglas and Garcia have great screen chemistry and they get wonderful support from both Takakura and especially Matsuda as the vicious killer. The latter shot the film without telling anyone that he was suffering from terminal bladder cancer and died shortly after the film's completion. Scott dedicated the film to his memory.

47 Meters Down: Uncaged (Johannes Roberts, 2019) 7/10

Four teenage school friends scuba dive to a sunken Mayan city, only to be trapped by a group of sharks that are swimming in it. One of countless films that came in the wake of "Jaws" with seemingly similar plots that have stupid humans trapped under the sea while letting sharks loose on them. Sistine Stallone (Sylvester's daughter) and Corinne Foxx (Jamie's daughter) make their film debuts. The film manages to create suspense, claustrophobia and horror in equal doses.

Monica O My Darling (Vasan Bala, 2022) 7/10

Monica (Huma Qureshi), who is pregnant, blackmails three men at the Company she works at - the young robotics expert (Rajkumar Rao) who has ass-licked himself up the Corporate ladder and is dating the Boss's daughter, a lowly accountant and the Boss's son (Sikandar Kher). When the latter plans to murder Monica he involves the other two men in the plot as well. However, the dead body turns up to be someone other than Monica who is still alive and kicking. Soon people start dying left right and center as the robotics expert tries to stay one step ahead of the murderer and prove to the suspecting cop (Radhika Apte) that he is not the killer. Black comedy has some hilariously chilling moments along with a blow out fight sequence between Rao and Qureshi that has to be seen to be believed. For the most part it's a fun ride although it begins to drag towards the middle. The iconic Asha Bhosle song - "Monica O My Darling" - is heard on the soundtrack but thankfully nobody dances to it allowing memories of the great Helen to remain from the original film "Caravan".

Tum Mile (Junal Deshmukh, 2009) 5/10

What do you get when you mix a rom-com with a disaster film? This corny romantic film segues into the disaster film genre - the 2005 Mumbai Monsoon floods. A flashback explains how a couple, who through chance, re-connect on a plane to Mumbai after six years. Poor artist (Emraan Hashmi) and rich girl (Soha Ali Khan) meet cute and move into a swanky South African apartment. The relationship soon sours after his ego - she pays for everything - comes in the way. Now years later they meet on a plane which lands in Mumbai during a brewing storm. The disaster aspect of the story leaves much to be desired as the film's budget obviously does no justice to the scenes that involve her trapped in a bus with rising rain water all around. The two leads are better than the project they are stuck in as (during the flashback) they sing, make love and argue.

Awarapan (Mohit Suri, 2007) 6/10

Touted as Emraan Haashmi's best performance until that time although what passes for supposed good acting has him spending most of the film brooding and staring straight into the camera while an intense drama plays around him. A gangster (Ashotosh Rana) asks his henchman (Emraan Hashmi) to keep an eye on his Pakistani sex slave (Mrinalini Sharma) while he is out of town. He suspects her of having a lover. Following her he discovers that the Muslim woman not only strictly follows her religion (hijab, namaz) but also has a playful streak where she frolics around town (in mini skirt and stilleto heels) with her friends - cue to the hit song "Mahiya". Seeing her also triggers in him memories of an affair he had with a Muslim girl (Shriya Saran) which did not end well as her strict orthodox father does not approve of an atheist Hindu chasing his daughter. The screenplay brings a touch of sufism into the plot along with a religious metaphor about releasing caged pigeons - the caged mistress whom he is commanded to kill but who he wants to release instead as related to him in a story by his former lover who spoke about gaining God's favour by releasing caged pigeons. As with most of Hashmi's films there is exceptional music and an exotic backdrop (Hong Kong) while his character struggles with inner demons hoping to find redemption. His leading lady is wooden beyond belief but he is no better despite the positive reviews he indespicably received. This was the first Bollywood film to release in Pakistan after decades of prohibition which two years ago took place yet again.

April and the Extraordinary World (2015) - 8/10 - In this steampunk world, scientific advancement was essentially halted in the 19th Century as scientists disappear. In 1941, a girl named April is still searching for her scientist parents who disappeared a decade earlier. This was fun and had the feel of a number of European graphic novels that I've read over the years.

Sita Sings the Blues (2008) - 8/10 - Nina relates the story of Sita, Rama's wife in Hindu mythology, along with an autobiographical story with some parallels. The film uses 1920s musical recordings along with a contemporary discussion about Sita and Rama mixed with a variety of animation styles. I thought it was pretty lively and enjoyable.

Tower (2016) - 8.5/10 - An excellent documentary about the University of Texas Tower shooting on August 1, 1966 which features archival footage, rotoscope animation, and contemporary interviews.

Son of the White Mare (1981) - 8/10 - This film is based on Hungarian myths and has an excellent visual style and animation. It took me longer to warm to the story, but I eventually found that interesting as well.

Summer Wars (2009) - 8/10 - Kenji is a high school math whiz who spends much of his time in an online world known as OZ. He does a favor for a girl in his school and accompanies her to a family gathering for her great-grandmother's 90th birthday. There is family drama before he gets drawn into a problem revolving around OZ. I read and enjoyed the manga nearly a decade ago and don't know why it took me so long to watch the movie. I thought it was pretty good.

Gilda (1946) - 8/10 - Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is a small time gambler who gets a job working for the owner of a casino in Argentina. Then one day the boss returns home from a trip with a new wife named Gilda (Rita Hayworth) who happens to be Johnny's old flame. It is soon apparent that Johnny and Gilda hate each other. Ford and Hayworth are each pretty good here and while I wouldn't rank this as one of the very best noirs, it's pretty solid.

Stray Dog (1949) - 9/10 - A rookie detective has his gun stolen from him by a pickpocket. He becomes obsessed with getting it back and is partnered with a veteran detective to track it down. Kurosawa does a great job establishing mood and building tension. We also get a look at postwar Tokyo, including it's seedier side. It's a very nice film.