Dance Charlie Dance

This movie reminded me of The Producers.  It's about a guy who takes a local show and brings it to Broadway.  Some mobsters want to get rid of it and sell the rights.  Only when it becomes a hit (people think it's so bad it's good) they want it back.  However, there are other complications.  Glenda Farrell plays a small role.  

Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic

I like Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji but this was a piece of crap.  Saif gets in a car crash and accidentally kills a couple.  As a punishment, he has to take care of their children.  He gets a nanny Rani who is really sent from God to help him.  Then there's some forced chemistry between them.  This movie really wants to be Mary Poppins.  If it was trying to be something original maybe it would have been better.

High and Low

I had this mistaken notion that most of Akira Kurosawa movies were about samurais. Now that I'm watching them I realize he was more versatile than that.  He also did noir which is the genre of this movie.  A wealthy businessman gets a phone call about the kidnapping of his son. It's really the chauffeur's son though.  Nevertheless, there's panic.   He ends up giving the money to the crook and the rest of the film is spent as a police film.  It's over two hours so choose to watch this on a day when you have time on your hands.  It's a good movie.  Toshiro Mifune is the lead star.     

The Road Home

This G rated movie is proof that you don't need trash to have a good romantic story. The movie starts with a son thinking about his parents' courtship. A girl falls for the new school teacher in town. The lovely Zhang Ziy plays the girl.  While the town is constructing the schoolhouse she makes food for the man.  Eventually, the communists question him and he has to leave town.  She waits for him for years.  This movie was cute.  

The File on Thelma Jordon

This movie fumbles at the end with a rushed ending.  Overall though it's an ok noir.  Barbara Stanwyck has an affair with Wendell Corey.  Then she's convicted of murder.  He does everything possible to make sure that she wins the trial.  Is she innocent though or he is a chump?  Stanwyck is good as usual.  

Navy Blues

This was William Haines' first talkie.  He plays a sailor and his love interest is the lovely Anita Page, who I got this movie for.  The movie isn't that good though.  It's one of those ancient talkies that unfortunately have nothing really going for it.  You can pass.  

Caesar and Cleopatra

Vivien Leigh stars as Cleopatra and Claude Rains does Caesar.  I didn't much care for this movie.  It was slow and boring.  There were good performances though.  I liked how Cleopatra was an immature girl.  That was a different interpretation that I haven't seen before.  There's better George Bernard Shaw plays and other Vivien Leigh movies that are superior.

Late Autumn

I really like Setsuko Hara, a famous Japanese actress.  I saw her recently in The End of Summer where she played a widower too.  This is another Ozu movie that she starred in.  It's about a widowed mother and her young daughter.  The daughter doesn't want to leave her mother to marry.  However, some men in the town are scheming to get the mother married as well.  It was a good quiet movie.  I didn't like how love and marriage were treated as business plans in the movie though.  

Parineeta

I watched the old movie of this.  Unfortunately, it had edited 45 minutes of the movie.  So I liked this movie since this is their complete version.  It deals with a father asking for money from his neighbor.  Only there's no way that he can pay it back.  Lalita his daughter is in love with her the neighbor's son Shekhar.  However, an older man is interested in her.  That's the only way she can think of paying back that loan. Saif Ali Khan plays Shekhar and he's one of the best Bollywood actors of this generation but he is such a jerk here.  He plays hot and cold with her the whole movie.  For an Indian movie, this is short.  It is only 130 movies.

Stray Dog

This is a crime movie by Akira Kurosawa.  (I'm trying to watch his movies and also get into Asian cinema.  There is so much about cinema in general that I still have to learn.  This is despite being a film buff since I was 10.)  Toshiro Mifune plays a cop whose gun is pickpocketed.  He finds out that the gun was used in a crime.  So he goes on a search.  I liked it.  It wasn't a masterpiece like Kurosawa's Rashomon but it was a cool noir.