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.   

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

I watched this years ago when I was in my early 20's.  It's still good.  Shah Rukh Khan falls for Kajol who his father Amitabh Bachchan disapproves of.  She's not the woman he chose for Khan's marriage.  He says she's not of the same breeding.  Shah Rukh Khan goes ahead and marries her, abandoning his former family. Hrithik Roshan, his younger adopted brother, seeks him out years later.  He also falls for their daughter.   Bachchan is good as a jerk.  (I've been watching his 70's movies as well lately.)  Do you know that Shah Rukh Khan is one of the highest paid actors in the world?  I find that intriguing.  

A story of Floating Weeds

I remember that I watched the remake made in the 50's years ago by the same director Yasuijiro Ozu.  I had to watch the earlier version.  What surprised me about this movie was that it was made in 1934 yet it was silent.  Sound films had been in style for a few years.  When I put it in the DVD player I was surprised.  It's about an actor and the son that he hasn't seen in years. (The mother sees his profession as an embarrassment.) His jealous mistress tries to make a plan where a girl seduces the actor's son, only the two end up falling in love.  I liked this love story in the movie.  I'm watching the remake next month.  

A Blueprint for Murder

When his niece dies Joseph Cotten begins to wonder if his sister in law Jean Peters did it.  He begins to worry about his nephew going through the same thing.  Joseph decides that he has to intervene.  He can't leave her alone.  Joseph even goes so far that he goes on their cruise trip to oversee her.  It was all right.  To be frank I wanted more but it was about average.  

Surprise Package

I'm a fan of Mitzi Gaynor.  I love the albums she did and her role in South Pacific.  This movie was one of her last and I can see why.  It's pretty mediocre.   It's about Yul Brynner being deported to a Greek Island and getting his girlfriend instead of the million he wanted.  Noel Coward and Mitzi sing a number together and it's easily the best moment of the movie.  Mitzi Gaynor fans can skip this one.