Movies

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Rusty
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Re: Movies

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260 - Holy Matrimony (1943) - 8.5/10 - Priam Faril (Monty Woolley) is a famous artist who dislikes society and thus stays hidden away from it in remote areas to paint with only his long time valet for company. He receives a summons in 1905 that he can't refuse and travels back to London, but his valet dies unexpectedly. Through a case of mistaken identity, Faril assumes his butler's identity in order to stay out of the spotlight. A number of complications arise over time, including the woman (Gracie Fields) that his valet had been writing with for some time with the intent to marry. This is a very funny and entertaining film. Woolley is very good here and Fields holds her own as well.

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261 - Betrayal (1983) - 6/10 - Emma (Patricia Hodge) has been having an affair with her husband's (Ben Kingsley) best friend (Jeremy Irons) for many years. They even rented a flat so that they could be together. We follow the development of the relationship in reverse chronology back to its beginning. I thought the movie was serviceable, but dull.

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262 - The North Star (1943) - 7/10 - In 1941, the people in a Ukrainian village are happy and going about their daily lives with plans for the future. Then the Nazis invade and take over the village, bringing their brutality with them. Many of the men in the village have hidden away from their homes waiting for guns to come so that they can fight back. I enjoyed the movie, though some parts seemed to be out of the propaganda playbook and took away from the film.
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Re: Movies

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263 - Toute une vie (And Now My Love) (1974) - 7/10 - The film starts in France during WWI with a silent film section including title cards and takes place over the next 60 years. Sarah and Simon are the main protagonists in the 1960s and 1970s, but we also get to see how Sarah's parents and grandparents met in the earlier sections of the film. The film is interesting and the same actress plays Sarah, her mother, and her grandmother. Sarah's father and grandfather are also played by the same actor. It was a bit long and I lost interest a bit on occasion, but overall is a decent film.

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264 - Bloodbrothers (1978) - 6/10 - Richard Gere stars as the eldest son in a dysfunctional Italian family in New York. His father wants him to work construction, but he'd rather do something else. The younger son has stopped eating due to the anxiety brought on within the family. I didn't hate the movie, but everything seemed to be way over the top and Gere seemed (and was) too old to be the eldest son.

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265 - The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) - 6.5/10 - A cocaine addicted Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson) is lured to Vienna by Doctor Watson (Robert Duvall) so that he can be treated by Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin). Duvall is an odd choice for Watson and I don't think he was a very good fit here. I didn't like Williamson's Holmes at first, though it started to grow on me once he met Freud. I thought Arkin was very good as Freud, though. I enjoyed the tennis scene and the train chase and think the good outweighs the bad in this film, though there are many flaws.
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Re: Movies

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266 - One Potato, Two Potato (1964) - 7.5/10 - Barbara Barrie stars as Julie, a divorced woman raising her young daughter on her own after the father abandoned the family. She meets a man at work named Frank (Bernie Hamilton) and the two become friends and later fall in love and marry. There are obstacles since Frank is black, but they overcome them and form a happy family, living with Frank's parents. Julie's former husband returns to town and seeks custody when he finds that his daughter is being raised in an interracial household. The movie is a fairly stark look at the situation at the time, but is also a pretty well made and acted movie. Barrie and Hamilton each did an excellent job and the little girl was good in her small role, too.

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267 - The Angry Silence (1960) - 8/10 - An agitator works with the shop steward at a factory to create an unauthorized strike. A minority of workers don't agree with the manufactured reasons and cross the picket line. Most bow to pressure (broken windows, fires, etc.) from their coworkers and join the strike. One man with two kids and a pregnant wife stubbornly continues to go to work, even in the face of escalating harassment and things eventually come to a head. This isn't a strident anti-union film as one might expect. I thought it was pretty good.

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268 - Lies My Father Told Me (1975) - 7.5/10 - David is a small Jewish boy growing up in 1920s Montreal. His grandfather takes him in his cart drawn horse to collect rags, clothes, and bottles which is how he makes his living. His grandfather also tells him plenty of stories. David's father is a schemer with numerous plans and inventions to make money that never pan out. While David's father isn't a very good parent, David's pregnant mother is loving and caring. I thought that this was a very nice film.

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269 - The Four Days of Naples (1962) - 8.5/10 - In September 1943, many of the German forces have found their way to Naples as the Allied forces have advanced. The Germans start to round up all of the men in town in order to deport them for forced labor and the citizens of Naples revolt. They bring out cached weapons and fight the Germans in the streets and throughout the city. I thought this dramatization was very well done.

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270 - Freud (1962) - 6/10 - This is an earnest, but sometimes dull look at around five years of Sigmund Freud's career starting in 1885. During this time, he learns and starts to utilize hypnosis, particularly in the treatment of patients with hysteria. He achieves some success, though doesn't necessarily win over his colleagues. He also gets married during this time and develops his theories of the unconscious and child development. It wasn't a bad film, but not a great one either.
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Re: Movies

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271 - Marjoe (1972) - 8/10 - Marjoe Gortner's parents were deeply involved in Evangelical ministry and revivals. They arranged for him to be ordained as a minister at the age of four after noticing his skill at mimicry. They coached him through giving sermons, performing marriages, and more. They made a ton of money and he didn't see any of it. He fell into the hippie lifestyle in the 1960s, but the need for money led him back into doing revivals, though he tried to quit. This documentary gives a behind the scenes look at the business and he exposes some of the tricks of the trade. I thought it was very interesting.
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Re: Movies

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272 - The Secret of the Kells (2009) - 7.5/10 - The Book of Kells is an impressive 9th Century illustrated book containing the Gospels. This movie tells the story of how it may have been completed with a young boy and a master illuminator with the peril of Vikings sacking the abbey. It was pretty good, though I enjoyed Wolfwalkers a lot more.
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Re: Movies

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273 - Song of the Sea (2014) - 8.5/10 - Ben's mother disappeared shortly after his sister Saoirse was born. Years later, Saoirse still doesn't talk and when she shows an affinity for the sea, her father sends both kids to live with their grandmother. Ben accompanies his sister on a quest to return home and free a variety of fairy creatures. This is another Irish/Celtic tale from the director of Wolfwalkers and The Secret of the Kells. It was very good.

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274 - Ernest & Celestine (2012) - 8.5/10 - A little girl mouse named Celestine lives in an underground mouse community where the common wisdom is that bears are scary and that a mouse can't be friends with a bear. The bear community above ground has similar feeling about mice. Celestine dreams of being friends with a bear and gets her chance when she meets a hungry street performing bear named Ernest. I thought the film was charming and entertaining.

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275 - Boy & the World (2013) - 6/10 - We see the world through the eyes of a young boy in Brazil whose father has left home and gone to the big city. The film lacks dialogue, but has interesting art. The story didn't really make up for the art, though, and I found the overall product somewhat dull.

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276 - Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) - 7.5/10 - The sheep at Mossy Bottom are tired of the daily routine and decide that they'd like a day off. Things are going smoothly until the farmer is accidentally sent to the big city and the dog and the sheep head off in pursuit. It was a fun movie and a bit better than Farmageddon.
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277 - Anomalisa (2015) - 6/10 - An author named Michael Stone visits Cincinnati to give a speech about customer experience. Michael is lonely and thinks of everyone he meets as being the same, until he meets a woman named Lisa. The movie uses stop motion animation in a fairly realistic style. It is a highly acclaimed film, but one that I didn't really get into that much, though it was okay.

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278 - Persepolis (2007) - 8.5/10 - Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical comic books are adapted here in this excellent film. It shows part of her childhood in Iran around the time the Shah was overthrown. Her parents and uncle suffered some repression under the Shah, but also suffered under the new Islamic government. Marjane was attracted to western music and civilization and had trouble fitting in the tightly controlled society in Iran. The film follows her to school in Europe and then back to Iran and into the early stages of her adult life as she continues to chafe at the restrictions in place in Iran. It is very well done.

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279 - Ferdinand (2017) - 7.5/10 - The story of the bull who doesn't want to hurt anybody is updated and stretched out here and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a fun film.

I'm no caught up on the Animated Feature category of Academy Award nominated films.
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Re: Movies

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280 - Go Into Your Dance (1935) - 6/10 - Al Jolson stars as a popular Broadway singer with a habit of leaving successful shows to go on trips to gamble or engage in other vices. The various Broadway clubs finally have enough and refuse to do business with him anymore. He is tracked down in Mexico by his sister (Glenda Farrell) who enlists a friend (Ruby Keeler) to try and get him back on track and into the business again. The main attraction to the film is Jolson's singing and (to a lesser extent) Keeler's dancing. The movie isn't anything special, but the songs are okay and the overall story is adequate, if a bit uninspired.
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281 - Fiesta (1947) - 7/10 - Mario (Ricardo Montalban) has been raised since birth to succeed his father, Don Antonio, as a great bullfighter. However, Mario is much more interested in music and only goes along with the bullfighting for love of his father. Mario's twin sister Maria (Esther Williams) tends to get less attention from her father, but she has some interest in being a bullfighter herself. The movie itself isn't incredibly original, but I still found it to be pretty entertaining and there is good music and some dancing as well (including with Cyd Charisse).
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Re: Movies

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282 - The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story (2020) - 8/10 - I was a Nickelodeon kid starting around 1982 with You Can't Do That On Television. I also loved The Adventures of Pete and Pete which came about a decade later. There were other shows that I watched and enjoyed, but those are the two that stick out the most for me. This movie covers about the first 20 years of the kids television station Nickelodeon. There are a number of shows covered here that I am familiar with, but didn't watch such as Rugrats, Doug, and Ren & Stimpy, but I thought the movie was pretty interesting even during those parts, but I am probably a bit biased due to my enjoyment of the station primarily during the 1980s.

favorite Hitchcock films
North by Northwest

Rebecca
Foreign Correspondent
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Rear Window
Vertigo

Lifeboat
Rope
Strangers On a Train
The Birds

The Lady Vanishes
Shadow of a Doubt
Notorious
Dial M for Murder
To Catch a Thief
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Psycho
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283 - Mercy Island (1941) - 5/10 - A man takes his wife and a friend out on a fishing trip in the Florida Keys. He's kind of pigheaded and controlling and these traits get a bit worse after he is knocked unconscious when the boat runs ashore on an island and loses its propeller. He thinks that his wife is cheating on him with his friend and also becomes obsessed about the man they find living on the island. I thought the movie was watchable, but is also kind of shallow in terms of plot.

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284 - Women in War (1940) - 7/10 - A young British socialite named Pam joins the Auxiliary Forces as a nurse and is sent to the front lines in France. The matron is pretty strict, but Pam doesn't know that the matron is the mother that divorced her father 20 years earlier. There is a romance and the danger of war and I thought it was a pretty good movie overall. Peter Cushing has a small role in the film.

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285 - Hitchhike to Happiness (1945) - 7/10 - Dale Evans stars as a radio star named Alice Chase who returns home to New York for the first time in many years. She decides to go visit places she used to frequent and see what her old friends are up to, though they know her be her old name, not her stage name. She falls for a struggling songwriter who doesn't know her other identity. There's plenty of humor and music and I thought that it was a fun show.
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286 - Where Mountains Float (1955) - 8/10 - The movie shows how things are changing in Greenland for a 10 year old Inuit boy and his family as Denmark becomes more involved there. The seal catches are declining which causes hardship for the family and they have to decide whether or not to move and seek a different way of life in the city. I thought it was very good.

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287 - The Bolshoi Ballet (1957) - 7/10 - This was filmed while the Bolshoi Ballet was in England. I've never been that interested in ballet, but the music was very good and the dancing seemed decent. This is a good film, but probably more of interest to those interested in ballet or dance in general.

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288 - The Forth Road Bridge (1965) - 8/10 - This documentary covers the building of a suspension bridge across the Firth of Forth from planning to completion over 5+ years. At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge outside the United States. I thought it was an interesting look at many facets of the bridge construction.
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Re: Movies

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289 - Le Bal (1983) - 7/10 - The past 50 years or so of a dance hall is shown here with flashbacks to earlier periods with the same actors. It is pretty much all dancing and music, though stories are told in each era without dialogue. I liked it, but not as much as many others seem to.

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290 - Journey to the Outer Limits (1973) - 7/10 - A diverse group of young people participate in the Outward Bound program where they have to learn teamwork through various activities, culminating in climbing a mountain in Peru. It was interesting.

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291 - Against Wind and Tide: A Cuban Odyssey (1981) - 7.5/10 - This documentary looks at some of the people involved in the Mariel Boatlift which brought tens of thousands of refugees from Cuba to Florida in 1980. It looks at the struggles a few of the refugees had along with the conditions they found themselves in upon arrival. It was a good film.
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292 - Antarctic Crossing (1958) - 7.5/10 - This documentary covers the Commonwealth Antarctic Crossing expedition from 1955-1958 which was the first group to cross in 46 years. They did scientific work along the way. They did a decent job here.
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293 - Mysterious Castles of Clay (1978) - 8/10 - An interesting look at a termite colony in Africa along with the animals that use the termite mound as a home or who survive by eating termites.

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294 - Front Line (1981) - 7/10 - Neil Davis was a combat cameraman who spent 10+ years in Vietnam and Cambodia during the 1960s and 1970s. He is interviewed here on film and plenty of his footage is shown to illustrate what he saw during his time there. It was a decent film.

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295 - Ben's Mill (1982) - 7.5/10 - Ben Thresher owned a water operated mill in Vermont that dated back to around 1870. During the film, he explains a number of his processes and is shown working with metal and wood to build a tub and a sleigh. He also repairs tools and does other work. Perhaps not the most entertaining film for some, but I found it interesting and educational.

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296 - A Stitch for Time (1987) - 6/10 - A group of women from Boise, Idaho came up with the idea to make Peace Quilts back in the early 1980s. They traveled to Nicaragua, London, Geneva, and elsewhere. They made one quilt in cooperation with a group of Soviet women where 20 American children and 20 Soviet children each had their likeness stitched into one of the patches on the quilt and the resulting quilt was delivered to the United Nations during arms negotiations. I don't think the results were very effective, but the women involved seemed pretty dedicated.
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