Category Archives: Movies & TV

Tales From Earthsea

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DVD, Studio Ghibli
Animation, loosely based on the books by Ursula Le Guin
Fantasy
English dubbing, very good
115m

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Studio Ghibli animated and produced my all-time favorite movies, but this one fell a little flat for me. It could be I had a choice of watching it in Japanese or English, there were no subtitles. I’m a subtitle geek, I love hearing the story in its original language and reading the subtitles. I know. I’m strange.

The story is loosely, very loosely, based on the Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin. I remember reading them when they first came out many years ago. I barely remember them, but this story didn’t fit my memory at all. Some judicial internet searches, and voila! I know why.

One of the nice things about Studio Ghibli movies, they can be enjoyed by any age group.  The English dubbing is by top notch actors—Timothy Dalton, Matt Levin, Mariska Hargitay, Cheech Marin, Willem Dafoe, and others. Watch the movie, see if you can recognize the voices.

Arren, the runaway prince, comes back to the castle and kills his father, the king, stealing his magicked sword, and runs away again. Sparrowhawk, the Arch Mage, rescues Arren from various horrible things, including a slaver. Arren rescues a girl who is not grateful, and when Sparrowhawk takes him to visit an old friend, there is the girl. Eventually, the evil wizard gets the old friend, Sparrowhawk, and Arren under his control, and the girl takes Arren’s sword to him in the castle of Cob, where she learns his true name, and tells him hers. 

It’s a fairy tale, it’s meant for kids as well as adults. You know it’s going to have my kind of ending, relax and enjoy the story. 

Tales From Earthsea Trailer

Sanjuro

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

DVD, Criterion Collection
Toho Film, 1962
96 min

Our hero, Sanjuro, the ronin returns in this second movie of the duology. Kurosawa and Mifune team up yet again for a delightful romp through Japan of the late 1800s. In both Yojimbo and Sanjuro, Mifune’s character is Sanjuro, which means 30 years old. He quips that he’s going on 40, and we’re never to hear his first name as when asked, he looks around and gives the name of whatever vegetation he sees and likes. In this movie he’s Sanjuro Tsubaki (camellia), in the prior movie he’s Sanjuro Kuwabatake (mulberry field). 

Sanjuro makes his entrance by overhearing, and entering, a meeting of clan samurai who are fairly young, hot headed, and determined to clean the upper ranks of perfidy, real or imagined. Sanjuro explains the error of their thoughts, saves them from a planned assassination, and helps them achieve their goals. Again, lots of good swordfights, with the final fight showing the horror of swordfights for all to understand. And again, Kurosawa’s choreography of the fights is pure art and gorgeous. 

If you miss the irony in the movie, watch it until you understand.

Sanjuro trailer 

Yojimbo

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DVD, Criterion Collection
Toho Co. Film, 1961
110m

Rating: 5 out of 5.

One of the many Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune movies, and the first of the duology of Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Kurosawa and Mifune made something like 16 movies together before parting ways, and every one of them are fantastic. 

Mifune play the title character of this movie, and is quite believable as a ronin samurai, who, like all samurai of the final years of the Edo period is down on his luck. (Samurai were disbanded in 1876) He wanders into a village where two men are fighting each other and hiring gangs to fight for them. 

Mifune, being a crafty ronin, sets it up so the two gangs will fight each other and kill each other. Alas, a government official comes, and the two warring gangs must appear to be getting along. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and ronin.

Lots of swordfights, although Mifune prefers to talk when possible. He saves a kidnapped woman, her husband, and their son. The husband lost everything, including his wife to gambling, and Mifune gets them reunited and they almost don’t make it out as they keep bowing to Mifune instead of running away. This, of course, causes some consternation with Ushitora as he wanted to keep her. 

If you liked A Fistful of Dollars, you’ll love the original, Yojimbo 😉

Trailer of Yojimbo

Mudbound

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Netflix, 2017
134m

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Yes, it’s one word.

A marvelous movie on the south (Mississippi Delta) shortly after two young men come home from fighting WWII. The black man was enlisted and a tank commander, the white man was a bomber pilot. Their families are bound by the mud of the delta, owned by the white family and sharecropped by the black.

The two veterans served with honor and have grown past the racism of their families and the local KKK. 

This movie should be seen by everyone. It is not a feel-good movie, it is what I would call American Noir. It shows life as it pretty much was, and in many places is regressing back to. We’ve come too far to regress back to that time. If you liked the movie The Help, you need to see Mudbound.

Sand Storm

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Netflix, 2016
1h 27m

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Somewhere I read where this movie was a collaboration between Bedouins and Israelis. Most places list it as an Israeli movie about a Bedouin family living in a settlement/ghetto someplace in Israel. The sand storm is not an haboob; it is the central family. The oldest girl learns to drive from her father, she goes to school, she dreams of marrying a man of her choice, of controlling her own life. Her parents have other ideas. Her father takes a second wife, mother is not happy, and when she fights for her older daughter, father banishes her back to her parents. Two women (mother daughter) fight to change the ways of their culture. 

I found this movie to be very interesting, a look inside a different culture of today, not times past. The ending, though not what I hoped for, nonetheless, is the perfect ending for this movie. Well worth the time to watch.

Trailer for Sand Storm 

Slumberland

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Netflix, 2022 PG
1h 57m

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Nemo and her dad live in a lighthouse. Mom is no longer living, and Dad goes out to rescue someone and is lost at sea. Uncle Philip, a staid, single man with no sense of adventure, becomes her guardian. Nemo discovers that if she dreams, she can find her dad again. While dreaming, she meets the outlaw, Flip, and the two of them search for, and find, a secret treasure map, and the magic pearl to grant their hearts desire. Flip wants to know who he really is so he can wake up, Nemo wants to see her dad. 

This is a kid’s movie, so you know how it’s going to end. And you know there will be all sorts of adventures and dreams before that end. My friend and I thought it was a nice change of pace, we laughed, I cried, we totally enjoyed it. It was not at all difficult to get totally immersed in the movie.

Trailer for Slumberland

Chocolat

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Netflix, Miramax 2000
American, closed captions
2h 1m

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit! I don’t know how many times I’ve seen Chocolat, starring Johnny Deep, Judi Dench and others, and I just now learned it’s really a story of Paganism v. Christianity. Fortunately, the pagan has chocolate on her side 😉 All this time I marveled at Depp’s acting, at Judi Dench’s character and the stories that unfold in the village. And how a nomadic mother and her young 6-year-old daughter come to a French town that is pretty hide-bound and arrive at the beginning of Lent to open a chocolat shop. 

She shocks the Mayor of the village when she tells him she’s never been married and doesn’t attend church. The Mayor has his own problems as his wife has left him, but he won’t admit it. The old lady from whom the shop is rented is estranged from her daughter who won’t let her see her grandson. Gypsies arrive on river boats and are shunned. And no one understands our heroine who hires a Gypsy (Johnny Depp) to do some work, who attends a party the Gypsies throw, who works the magic of her chocolate on all in the little village. And that chocolat is magic.

If you haven’t seen Chocolat, or if it’s been a few years, it’s time to see it again perhaps for the first time. One of the all-time bestest movies ever! Oh, and the Priest. He’s wonderful.

This movie has an R rating for its positive messages about acceptance, living life to the fullest, and love. It also contains a wee teensy bit of sexual content and discussions of illegitimacy. Which really only exists in America and I imagine, Islamic countries. Other countries aren’t that hung up on whether the mother is married or not. A child is a child is a child. 

Chocolat trailer

The Old Guard

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Netflix, 2020
American, closed captions
125 minutes

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This was a total romp! It was magnificent. Charlize Theron is the star, and she stole the show. It’s about a 4-person group of immortal mercenaries who roam the world doing good. Okay, they aren’t really immortal, but they all have the ability to heal themselves until they don’t. Dreams play a part in the discovery of ‘new’ immortals, and they find one in Afghanistan, a Marine who should have died and came back. Of course, she’s going to be sent Stateside, probably forced to stay in a hospital while they run tests on her. But she’s a Marine. She follows orders. Until Andy shows up and kidnaps her. Andy is Andromache of Scythia, played by Charlize Theron.

And the fun begins. Nile, the newly discovered immortal doesn’t want to be part of the team. She’s a Marine. The team breaks its rule and works for the same person twice. Someone films them self-healing and wants to capture them, hold them prisoner until science can learn how they self heal, and save humanity, or indoctrinate the army of the highest bidder, whatever. Nile walks away. But–she’s a Marine.

The fight scenes are absolutely fantastic. Well, of course. It is a Superhero movie. The choreographer did an absolutely marvel-ous job of fights. (Didja notice my homage there to Marvel comics. Huh? Didja?)

In fact, this movie is a comic brought to life and is more fun than you can imagine. AND, next year, we get the next movie, it’s already “in the can,” as they say.

The Old Guard trailer

Kingdom: Ashin of the North

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Netflix, 2021
Korean, excellent subtitles
1h, 33m

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Ashin is probably 11 or 12 and her mother is dying. She goes into the forbidden forest to find the magical herb to save her mother. Her entire village is killed in her absence. When she returns home to find everyone dead, she goes for vengeance. I’m not normally fond of vengeance movies, but this one held me. She belongs to a tribe of, I believe, Jurchen, who were from China and looked down upon. The War Lord likes her father and holds out acceptance to him for some under-cover work. When Ashin goes to the War Lord and says she will do anything if he will look into the slaughter, he uses her as a spy. She has a place to sleep in a drafty barn, and is spurned by the villagers. Her father taught her martial arts, and she watches the soldiers, becomes proficient in the use of a bow and arrow. (for fun, count the arrows)

The horror part of the movie comes in rather early, but I was too naïve to see it—the magic herb she found, turns the dead into zombies. We don’t really see them, until she uses it for revenge, and then it’s a delightful twist, worth a couple of good laughs, and makes for the perfect ending.

Kingdom: Ashin of the North trailer



Lucid Dream

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Netflix, 2017
Korean, excellent subtitles
101 minutes

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This K-Drama is a science fiction thriller. Our hero is Dae-ho, a young investigative reporter and single father whose son is kidnapped from a park when turns his back while son is on the merry go round. No ransom note is received, and three years go by with no leads. Dae-ho learns of a new treatment for mental patients who need to relive important memories through chemical induced lucid dreaming. He knows one of the doctors involved and convinces her to give him the chemical so he can go back to that day and see if he can find the kidnapper. Of course, he goes back many times before he finally gets some solid leads, and one of the leads is dying in a hospital, and he must enter that person’s dream, he must go into the dreams of someone else and convince him to help find his son.

The story moved along quite well, I didn’t get up to do dishes while it was on, and the CGI were wonderful. My brother, Craig, could tell you all about the camera angles, the plot lines, all the things I probably should pay attention to, but if it’s a good story, I get sucked into it and am totally unaware of all that other stuff. My brother, Craig Good, reviews on https://letterboxd.com/clgood/ , if you want to check out his reviews. He’s in the business. He knows more than I do. We watch different movies.

Lucid Dream trailer