The Woman in Green

The Woman in Green (1945) starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Hillary Brooke, Henry Daniell. Sherlock Holmes (Rathbone) faces off against Professor Moriarty (Daniell) and his female ally (Brooke), who have concocted a scheme which involves hypnotism, blackmail and murder. It's a rather well made movie, but the sticking point for me was the hypnotism aspect, which I found totally hokey. And why the movie is called The Woman in Green makes no sense, since the film is in black and white and no reference is ever made to the color of anyone's clothes. I'm not an aficionado of Holmes movies, but this one definitely falls short. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B-  

Pollyanna

Pollyanna (1960) starring Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Richard Egan, Karl Malden, Nancy Olson. A young orphan named Pollyanna (Mills) arrives in town to live with her Aunt Polly (Wyman). Although the town is divided and contentious, Pollyanna gradually wins them over with her optimistic "glad girl" philosophy of always finding something in any situation to be glad about. When tragedy befalls Pollyanna, the people of the town rally round her and lift her spirits. This is a good Disney movie, suitable for family viewing. (Subtitles in English are available on the disc, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+     

42

42 (2013) starring Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Nicole Beharie, Christopher Meloni, Lucas Black. In 1947, Branch Rickey (Ford), owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, decides it is time for an African-American to play major league baseball. The prospect he picks is Jackie Robinson (Boseman), who goes on to be the first black major leaguer in the modern era, not to mention rookie of the year for 1947. For anybody who loves baseball and social justice, this is bound to be a deeply moving film. My only criticism is that Boseman, a first-time lead actor, is a little lacking in charisma. Plus, the film ends at the finish of his first season, and I would have liked to see a little more of his career. Still, it's an excellent film. (Subtitles in English for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc.) Grade: A-

The Bad News Bears

The Bad News Bears (1976) starring Walter Matthau, Tatum O'Neal, Vic Morrow, Joyce Van Patten, Jackie Earle Haley. Losing Little League team the Bears are taken over by Coach Buttermaker (Matthau), who brings in a ringer named Amanda (O'Neal) to pitch. He also brings in a ringer named Kelly (Haley) to play center field and hit, and the team actually makes it to the playoffs. There is no feel-good ending, however, and the team stays true to its basic character. The movie makes good use of musical themes from Bizet's Carmen. The script could use some work, but it's an entertaining and off-kilter sports film which is certainly worth seeing. (Subtitles in English are available on the disc.) Grade: B    

Woodstock

Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music (1970) Documentary. Performers featured in the film include Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Canned Heat, Country Joe McDonald, Ten Years After, Santana, John Sebastian, The Who, Janis Joplin, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. The music aside, the filmmakers interviewed young concert-goers as well as inhabitants of the surrounding area to get a balanced picture of what the experience was like. No movie can really hope to capture what it was like to be there, but this one comes as close as can be expected. Woodstock won the Academy Award for best documentary the year it was released. (Subtitles in English are included, and the songs are, blessedly, subtitled.) Grade: B+

Zodiac

Zodiac (2007) starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr., Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, Chloe Sevigny. Interesting drama about the so-called Zodiac killer, who terrorized San Francisco in the late 1960s, and the detectives and newspapermen who become obsessed with solving the case. Gyllenhaal in particular, as Robert Graysmith, the cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle who can't let go of the case years after the Zodiac has quit killing, stands out. Others in the cast give good performances, and the direction and attention to period detail is outstanding. This is a very involving movie which tells a riveting story. (Subtitles in English are available on the disc, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi, Lenore Aubert, Jane Randolph, Glenn Strange. Not only do Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein (Strange), they meet Dracula (Lugosi) and the Wolfman (Chaney) in this horror-comedy from Universal. I found it all rather silly, and the comedy routine of Abbott and Costello did not strike me as particularly clever or funny. Still, this is a film you almost have to see, just so you can say you've seen it. It's a classic of its type. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc.) Grade: B  

The Young Victoria

The Young Victoria (2009) starring Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent. During a few years in the early 1800s, there was some doubt as to whether Victoria (Blunt) would become Queen at all. Her uncle, King William, wanted her to succeed him, but her mother (Richardson), and her mother's lover, tried to force a regency on her. She refused to buckle under, and the rest is history. More than that, though, this movie tells the story of the romancing of Victoria by Prince Albert (Friend), who, as it turned out, really loved her. When they eventually marry, it is almost an anticlimax, but they, as a couple, form the heart of the film. It's a well told tale, beautifully mounted, which it was a pleasure to watch. (Subtitles in English are provided on the disc for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B+  

My Darling Clementine

My Darling Clementine (1946) starring Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Walter Brennan, Cathy Downs. Directed by John Ford. One of the great Westerns, stars Fonda as Wyatt Earp, Mature as Doc Holliday and Brennan as Old Man Clanton. Downs plays the Clementine of the title, and the woman Earp falls in love with. The movie is one long buildup to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, where Earp and Holliday wipe out the evil Clanton gang once and for all. An interesting feature of this disc is the Extra which compares Ford's original version to the cut that was eventually released in theaters. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: A-

Bride of Frankenstein

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) starring Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson, Ernest Thesiger, Elsa Lanchester. Sequel to Frankenstein picks up where the first film left off, with the monster (Karloff)  miraculously surviving the fire at the mill, and with the sinister Dr. Pretorius (Thesiger) proposing to Baron Frankenstein (Clive) that he should create a female version of the monster. This film is an improvement on the original in almost every way, adding a musical score and better quality picture and sound. The movie also has a dry sense of humor, something the original lacked. The scene of the monster encountering a blind hermit in the woods is a classic, which would later be spoofed to great effect in Young Frankenstein. In this movie, the monster even learns to talk. (Subtitles in English for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc.) Grade: B+   

Frankenstein

Frankenstein (1931) starring Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff. The original monster movie, with Clive as the mad scientist, Henry Frankenstein, and Karloff as the monster he creates from dead body parts. Of course, he doesn't intend the monster to be a monster, it's just that his assistant provides him with an abnormal brain to use in his effort to revivify dead tissue. This is a classic, almost must-see movie, with many memorable moments. (Subtitles in English are available for the hard of hearing.) Grade: B  

Young Mr. Lincoln

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) starring Henry Fonda, Alice Brady. Directed by John Ford. Surprisingly effective look at a few days in the life of a young Abe Lincoln. Most of the film is taken up with a jury trial, in which Lincoln defends two brothers who are accused of killing a man. Fonda does a good job of portraying Lincoln during the days before he even dreamed of running for president. (The disc includes subtitles in English, which is a good thing because it doesn't have closed captions.) Grade: B+  

You Kill Me

You Kill Me (2007) starring Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson, Philip Baker Hall, Dennis Farina. Lukewarm black comedy in which Kingsley plays a hit man who botches a job because he's an alcoholic. His Polish crime family banishes him from Buffalo to San Francisco, where he is supposed to dry out. There he meets a woman (Leoni) and falls in love. But there is still unfinished business in Buffalo, and he is obliged to go back and set things right. Attempt at comedy flops mostly because one has trouble feeling sympathy for a hit man. On top of that, it's just not believable, even if you accept the premise. (Subtitles in English for the hearing-impaired are available, which is a good thing because closed captions are not provided.) Grade: B-

Young Frankenstein

Young Frankenstein (1974) starring Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman. Directed by Mel Brooks. Frederick Frankenstein (Wilder), grandson of Victor Frankenstein, returns to Transylvania and again takes up the work of bringing the dead back to life. Once again, things go terribly, hilariously wrong. If you're familiar with the work of Mel Brooks, you know that his movies are laugh-out-loud funny, and Young Frankenstein is one of his more successful films. It's a delightfully daffy spoof of Frankenstein films, and every actor's work is spot-on -- especially Teri Garr, who gives a breakthrough performance. Shot in beautiful black-and-white, the movie captures the mood of an old monster movie, and then goes off on zany tangents. It's a great comedy, and holds up as well today as it did in 1974. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+  

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) starring James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien, Andy Devine. Directed by John Ford. Tenderfoot lawyer Ransom Stoddard (Stewart) arrives in the old west town of Shinbone aiming to help bring civilization to the territory, but he must contend with the evil Liberty Valance (Marvin), who challenges him to a gunfight. Luckily, Stoddard has the backing of he-man Tom Doniphon (Wayne). This movie got little respect when it was first released, but is now regarded as one of the great Westerns. One of Wayne's best performances -- he really dominates the screen in every scene where he appears. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired, as well as closed captions.) Grade: A 

You Can't Take It With You

You Can't Take It With You (1938) starring James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold. Directed by Frank Capra. Typical Capra fare has Stewart and Arthur falling in love -- but they come from contrasting households. Stewart works at his father's (Arnold) bank, while Arthur lives in a household, overseen by Barrymore, where free expression reigns supreme. The twist is that Arnold wants to buy Barrymore's property to cement a colossal business deal, but Barrymore refuses to sell. It all works out in the end, of course, but the ending seemed a bit contrived to me. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B 

The Searchers

The Searchers (1956) starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood. Wayne stars as Ethan Edwards, whose young niece Debbie is kidnapped by the Comanches during a raid on Edwards' brother's farmstead. Edwards, an avowed Indian hater, sets off on a mission to find Debbie (Wood) and free her from the Comanches. Widely praised movie strikes me as not that great. There are many fine sequences, the photography and action are good, but it just doesn't all come together for me. It's an epic Western, for sure, but the script seems lacking in clarity. (Subtitles in English, as well as closed captions, are available.) Grade: B  

Yes Man

Yes Man (2008) starring Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel. Carl (Carrey) attends a seminar and makes a pact to start saying "Yes" to everything. When a hobo asks him for a ride, he says "Yes." When the hobo asks him for all the money in his wallet, he says "Yes." And so on. Deschanel provides the romantic interest as a motorcycle-driving singer in a weird band. The movie moves along at a nice clip for about an hour, then hits a roadblock when the characters travel to Lincoln, Nebraska. Suddenly, everything goes wrong, and the film never quite recovers. Still, it's a sweet, likable movie. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc.) Grade: B 

A Year of the Quiet Sun

A Year of the Quiet Sun (1984) starring Scott Wilson, Maja Komorowska. In 1946, an American serviceman in postwar Poland finds himself attracted to a Polish woman who has been widowed by the War. He tries to take her back to America with him, but she says it is hopeless. What really irritated me about this film is that it is partly in Polish and partly in English, and there are no aids to help the hard of hearing to understand the English parts (the Polish sections are subtitled in English). So I missed a lot of dialogue. That aside, it was an intense, affecting film to watch. Grade: B-

Working Girls

Working Girls (1986) starring Louise Smith. A fictional film that takes a look at the lives of "high class" prostitutes in Manhattan. Don't let the setup fool you, this is a down and dirty film. The action almost all takes place in a small apartment where a number of prostitutes hang out and receive clients. There's  plenty of bare skin for people who are inclined to enjoy that sort of thing. For me, the movie was spoiled by the fact that there are no subtitles for the hearing-impaired, and no closed captions. For that, I give the film a Grade of D-

The Yearling

The Yearling (1946) starring Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, Claude Jarman, Jr. A boy named Jody (Jarman) becomes attached to a fawn whom he adopts and names Flag. But Flag grows into a yearling, who gets into Jody's family's crops and threatens their livelihood. Eventful, richly textured movie is definitely not just for kids. Shot in beautiful Technicolor on locations in Florida. Peck won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Pa, and Jarman won a special young-actor Oscar. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: A-

Yellow Sky

Yellow Sky (1948) starring Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark. In 1867, a gang of outlaws led by Peck turns up in a ghost town called Yellow Sky. Living in the town is a young women (Baxter) and her grandfather, who have a secret -- they have a gold mine up in the hills. The gang determine to steal the gold, and they fall out with each other over how to divvy up the booty. This is a serviceable Western, but a little too scattered to be first class. Its real assets are Peck and Baxter, who light up the screen with their chemistry. (Subtitles in English, as well as closed captions, are available on the disc.) Grade: B  

Ziegfeld Girl

Ziegfeld Girl (1941) starring James Stewart, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr. Three young women (Turner, Garland and Lamarr) find their lives changed when they become performers in the Ziegfeld Follies. There's lots of singing and dancing, and plenty of subplots, but for my money Garland is the star of the movie. She's also the one, thanks to her singing talent, who becomes a star in the Ziegfeld Follies. It's all good clean fun for the most part, it's just too bad it was shot in black and white. Such a subject seems to call for color. If you enjoy old movies, this one might be good for a look. (English subtitles, as well as closed captions, are available on the disc.) Grade: B   

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996) starring Janeane Garofalo, Uma Thurman, Ben Chaplin. An on-air radio veterinarian (Garofalo) gets a call from a man with a charming English accent (Chaplin), and he expresses a desire to meet her. But when he asks her what she looks like, she lies and says she is a tall, willowy blonde. Out of this lie grows all of the comedy of The Truth About Cats and Dogs. It's a slender deception, and it stretches the bounds of believability out of all proportion. On the plus side, Garofalo has never been more charming than she is as the self-effacing Abby. Thurman is serviceable as the tall, willowy blonde who steps in and pretends to be Abby, and the movie touched me even though it made no sense. (Subtitles in English, as well as closed captions, are available.) Grade: B-  

Love Finds Andy Hardy

Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) starring Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland. In a throwback to a more innocent time, Andy Hardy (Rooney) finds himself in a pickle -- he has two dates to the big Christmas dance. In the final reel, it's girl-next-door Betsy (Garland) who steps in and saves the day. Judy performs three songs, and is charming as heck in this movie made the year before The Wizard of Oz. Also featured is Lana Turner as one of the girls whom Andy has invited to the dance. Although some might find this movie corny, I found it lighthearted and somewhat charming. Even Mickey Rooney wasn't too terribly irritating. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+ 

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) starring James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston. Cagney won an Oscar for his portrayal of George M. Cohan, the hyper-patriotic king of Broadway from the early 20th century. Many singing and dancing numbers are featured, and Cagney shows a surprising ability as a hoofer. (Subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B 

Yojimbo

Yojimbo (1961) starring Toshiro Mifune. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. An itinerant samurai (Mifune) wanders into a town where there are two warring gangs. He is instantly the best fighter in town, and he offers his services to both sides, playing them off against one another. This film was the inspiration for the spaghetti Western, A Fistful of Dollars. If you like Japanese films at all, this one's a gem. The photography is excellent, and Kurosawa's direction is nearly flawless. The movie is in Japanese, with English subtitles. Grade: B+  

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni. Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film is entertaining trio of tales featuring Loren as a woman who uses sex to get what she wants. In the first part, she's a woman who must stay pregnant to avoid jail. In the second part, she's a rich bitch. In the third, she plays a prostitute who chooses a seminary student over one of her favorite customers. In all cases, Mastroianni is the man whom she uses/victimizes. I found the film to be well made (in Technicolor, no less!) and amusing from start to finish. Maybe not a great film, but a fun one. In Italian, with English subtitles. Grade: B+ 

Yes

Yes (2005) starring Joan Allen, Simon Abkarian, Sam Neill, Shirley Henderson. A married Irish woman (Allen) falls in love with a Lebanese man (Abkarian), and their affair brings to the surface feelings about class, race and nationalism. The movie's most novel quality is that it  is written in rhyming verse, and the characters must seem natural while spouting poetry. It works pretty well, and is certainly well written. I didn't really get very emotionally involved in the movie, though. It's not an easy film to watch. I give it marks for originality, but it lacks naturalism. (No subtitles in English are offered, but closed captions save the day.) Grade: B   

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Season 2, Disc 1. Tom and Dickie Smothers perform in several episodes of their groundbreaking, heavily censored, short-lived late '60s TV show. It ran on CBS, and I remember it being really funny at the time. Today, it has lost a lot of its edge, but you can get a feeling for what things were like in 1967-69, when the show was on the air. My main objection to this DVD is that it has no subtitles for the hearing-impaired, and no closed captions. For that I should give it an F, but I just can't do that to the Smothers Brothers. Grade: B+

Saturday Night Fever

Saturday Night Fever (1977) starring John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney. The movie that ignited the disco craze and made Travolta a star. Travolta plays Tony Manero, a 19-year-old in a dead-end job whose self-worth is tied up in his weekly performances on the dance floor of a local disco club. He teams up with Stephanie (Gorney) to compete in a dance contest at the club that boasts a $500 prize for the first-place finisher. But there's more to this film than dancing; there's a lot of drama about Tony's family and about the small gang that he hangs out with. It's really a pretty entertaining movie, now that disco is just a distant memory. (Subtitles in English are offered, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B 

The African Queen

The African Queen (1951) starring Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn. Directed by John Huston. An unlikely duo -- riverboat scamp (Bogart) and missionary woman (Hepburn) -- team up to take the boat African Queen down a river in Africa with plans to torpedo a German gunboat during World War I. It was the first time Bogart and Hepburn appeared in a movie together, and the chemistry is good. The trip down river lets them go through some difficult times together, and the ending of the film is a slam dunk. I had seen this movie once a long time ago and remembered it as being good, but I had forgotten how the ending was resolved. The film was shot in Africa, in beautiful Technicolor, and in 1951 that was quite a feat. Bogart won an Oscar for his performance. (Subtitles in English and closed captions are both available.) Grade: A-   

Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine (1968) Animated. The Blue Meanies invade Pepperland and turn most of the inhabitants to stone, and it's the Beatles to the rescue. John, Paul, George and Ringo are recruited by one of the inhabitants of Pepperland, who fetches them in a yellow submarine. Best feature of the movie is the Beatles songs which are played frequently throughout, and the animation is ... psychedelic. It's certainly very colorful, at any rate. For fans of the Beatles, this is probably a must-see, and you've probably seen it already. I happen to know that the actual Beatles had very little involvement in this movie -- it's not even their voices that you hear when the animated Beatles talk. So I find it lacking in that respect. But it's an OK entertainment, and the kids might even enjoy it. (English subtitles are available, but not closed captions.) Grade: B   

The X-Files

The X-Files (1998) starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Martin Landau, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Blythe Danner, William B. Davis, John Neville, Mitch Pileggi. After surviving a bomb blast at a building in Dallas, Mulder and Scully (Duchovny and Anderson) set off on a quest to unravel a worldwide conspiracy involving extraterrestrials and a virus that invades humans and turns them into ... something not human. I think this movie will appeal mainly to fans of "The X-Files" TV show, and even they will be disappointed. Sure, it's nice to see all those  familiar faces again and to have some of the secrets of the conspiracy revealed, but this is basically a preposterous film. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B-  

The Wrestler

The Wrestler (2008) starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood. Over-the-hill professional wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Rourke) suffers a heart attack, and decides to try and deal with the mess he has made of his life. He tries starting a relationship with a stripper he knows (Tomei) and he tries to patch up his relationship with his daughter (Wood). He retires from wrestling and takes an extra shift in the deli section of the grocery store where he works. But nothing seems to go right. Rourke is pretty great in this role, and he and Tomei were both nominated for Academy Awards. Sadly, though, this movie just didn't grab me like it did the first time I saw it. It was good but not great. (Closed captions are available.) Grade: B+ 

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) starring Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones, Jennifer Grey. A flawed masterpiece of a film, with some great moments and some not-so-great. Most unforgettable is the scene where Ferris (Broderick) takes a place on a parade float and sings "Danke Schoen" and "Twist and Shout." It's a transcendent moment, and never fails to cheer me up. On the other hand, the film drifts at times, and it's hard to buy the cluelessness of Ferris's parents. All in all, this is a movie that I always enjoy, and who wouldn't want to be like Ferris? (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+   

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) starring Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas, Julieta Serrano, Maria Barranco. Directed by Pedro Almodovar. Interesting Spanish comedy about a rather eccentric woman (Maura) and how she reacts when she is abandoned by her longtime lover. The movie features a bright color palette and is peopled with odd characters. It's in Spanish with English subtitles, and I think a little something was lost in translation, still I will remember this movie fondly. It's definitely one-of-a-kind and worth seeing. Grade: B+

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) starring Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Mickey Rooney. Directed by Blake Edwards. Delightful story of country girl (Hepburn) who moves to New York City and goes "wild," with a cat named Cat. Peppard plays her neighbor, who falls in love with her. I've seen this movie before, but was surprised this time by all the clever twists and turns the plot takes. The only jarring note was the horrible racial stereotyping involved in having Rooney play a Japanese man who lives upstairs in the apartment building. That one misstep was not quite enough to spoil the film for me. Oscar winner for music by Henry Mancini and song ("Moon River"). (English subtitles are provided, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+   

World Trade Center

World Trade Center (2006) starring Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello. Directed by Oliver Stone. Tightly focused film looks at 9/11 from the point of view of two Port Authority police (Cage and Pena) who are trapped under tons of rubble when Building 5 collapses. Gyllenhaal and Bello provide the counterpoint as the men's wives, who agonize over whether their husbands will come home alive or not. Although calling the movie World Trade Center seems a bit grandiose to me, the film still succeeds in its main story-telling task, and the viewer does find him/herself caring about the people involved. The movie has the virtue of being based on the true story of two port-authority cops, John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno. (Subtitles for the hard of hearing are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B  

The World's Fastest Indian

The World's Fastest Indian (2005) starring Anthony Hopkins, Diane Ladd. Hopkins stars as an old man in New Zealand who dreams of taking his 1920s Indian Scout motorcycle to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and trying to set a new land-speed record. Along the way, he meets and befriends a variety of characters, most of them American, and all of them interesting. This is a fairly entertaining, straight-line movie that provides an evening's divertissement and doesn't challenge the intellect too much. (Subtitles in English are not offered on the disc, but closed captions make up for the loss.) Grade: B

Side Effects

Side Effects (2013) starring Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Psychological thriller in which Emily (Mara) stabs her husband (Tatum) to death while taking an anti-depressant that has been prescribed to her by her psychiatrist (Law). The angle is that she was sleepwalking when she killed her husband, and she gets off on an insanity defense. This is a muddled movie in which some things happen for unexplained reasons, and the tangled plot becomes uninteresting about half-way through. It seems like it's going to be a good movie, but it just doesn't follow through. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc, but not closed captions.) Grade: B- 

The World of Henry Orient

The World of Henry Orient (1964) starring Peter Sellers, Tippy Walker, Merrie Spaeth, Paula Prentiss, Angela Lansbury. Mildly amusing comedy in which Sellers, as eccentric concert pianist Henry Orient, becomes the object of fascination for two 14-year-old girls (Walker, Spaeth). They follow him all over New York City, while he fruitlessly pursues the very married Prentiss. The movie has a simple story arc, and Sellers' more zany comedic talents aren't made use of much. In fact, the movie really focuses on the two girls, and neither one of them has much in the way of charisma. The film makes for a passable evening's entertainment, but it doesn't seem to aspire to, and certainly doesn't reach, greatness. (English subtitles are available, as are closed captions for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B  

Tampopo

Tampopo (1986) starring Ken Watanabe, Tsutomo Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto. Set in Japan, this is a movie about food in all its glory. This movie has been referred to as the first "noodle Western," because it shows properties of Western movies (one protagonist wears a cowboy hat) and because it is mostly about the search for the perfect recipe for a bowl of noodles, Japanese style. There are also several interesting vignettes about people interacting with food in various ways -- using it erotically, feeling it up in the store, ordering it at a fancy restaurant, learning how to eat it properly. In the main story line, two truckers (Watanabe, Yamazaki) pull up on a rainy night at the noodle shop of a recently widowed -- and none too skilled -- woman named Tampopo (Miyamoto). They become involved with her and set out to make her shop a big success by finding the perfect recipe for a bowl of noodles. It's a delightfully entertaining film with appealing characters, and it really makes you hungry to try a bowl of noodles. (In Japanese, with English subtitles.) Grade: B+

The Glenn Miller Story

The Glenn Miller Story (1954) starring James Stewart, June Allyson, Henry Morgan, Charles Drake, George Tobias. The music is the real star of this biopic about popular big-band leader Miller (Stewart), whose music was a smash in the early '40s. Some of the hits re-created for the movie include "In the Mood," "String of Pearls" and "Moonlight Serenade." Stewart is good as Miller, although his life is mostly fictionalized for this film. Allyson does a good job as his wife, Helen, in this sentimental movie. The film ends with Miller's death as he flies across the English Channel in 1944. He is officially listed as Missing in Action. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are included, although closed captions are not.) Grade: B+  

Working Girl

Working Girl (1988) starring Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Melanie Griffith, Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack. Directed by Mike Nichols. Although Griffith is listed third in the credits, this is her movie. She stars as Tess McGill, a New York secretary who has the ambition (and the intelligence) to want to be  more. She hooks up with Jack Trainer (Ford) to make a business deal she has cooked up, and falls in love with him at the same time. Weaver has a sly time playing the villain, Katharine Parker, an executive who tries to steal her secretary's idea. Music by Carly Simon, featuring Oscar-winning song "Let the River Run." This movie is truly a great entertainment, and really evokes the feeling of the '80s. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+   

Women in Trouble

Women in Trouble (2009) starring Carla Gugino, Connie Britton, Adrianne Palicki, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Sarah Clarke, Simon Baker, Josh Brolin. Directed by Sebastian Gutierrez. One day in the life of ten women in Los Angeles features high drama, soft-core sex, soap opera, and one pregnant porn star (Gugino). Large ensemble cast manages to make this movie entertaining, kind of in the mold of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. To be honest, I didn't recognize most of the actresses and actors in this movie, especially Gugino, who is a porn-star version of herself. I did recognize Britton and Baker, and I was glad to see the familiar faces among the ensemble. The film is not high art, nor does it aspire to be. I think Gutierrez was going for a fun romp with a few serious moments thrown in. At least, that's what he has delivered. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B  

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas (2012) starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess. Cloud Atlas is really six (or seven) movies in one, all interwoven through time by the fact that the same actors appear as different characters in different time periods. The action skips back and forth in time, from 1849 to the distant future. Several different realities are portrayed in a dazzling kaleidoscope that keeps the viewer guessing. Some viewers will be put off by the effort required to follow the six plot lines, but I was drawn in and, ultimately, moved. This is one of those movies that you have to see more than once, and I anticipate seeing it again -- when I have nearly three hours to devote to it. The disc I rented had no Extras. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available, but not closed captions.) Grade: A-   

Women in Love

Women in Love (1969) starring Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Jennie Linden. The novel by D.H. Lawrence is the inspiration for this movie, set in 1921, in which two men and two women fall in love. Their relationships go off in vastly different directions, one ending in marriage and the other in death. The British can be quite inscrutable, and I had rather a hard time figuring out what was going on in this movie. All the words were there, but they didn't quite fit together. Jackson won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance, but otherwise the film is undistinguished. It is, however, justly famous for a nude wrestling scene between Bates and Reed. (Subtitles in English are offered, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B 

Repo Man

Repo Man (1984) starring Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez. Repo Man is a cult film, which by definition means it has a small, rabid following, while everyone else is indifferent to it. Put me in the "indifferent" group. While the movie has some interesting scenes, and the basic premise is kind of fun, it doesn't hang together very well, the script is weak, and most of the acting is so-so. This is a low-budget film, with only one  interesting special effect. The premise of the film: A man is driving a 1964 Chevy Malibu to Los Angeles from Area 51, and he has something in the trunk (supposedly four dead aliens) that is lethal to anyone who opens the trunk of the car. Bud (Stanton) and Otto (Estevez) play two repo men whose job it is to find the car and collect the $20,000 reward. The film has a punk sensibility that I found off-putting, and a lot of scenes that go nowhere. Like I said, it's a cult film. (Subtitles in English for the hearing-impaired are available, but closed captions are not.) Grade: C   

The Women

The Women (1939) starring Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard. An all-woman cast makes up this film, and not a single man appears on screen. But all the women talk and think about is the men in their lives. In particular, Norma Shearer stars as Mary Haines, wife of Stephen Haines (who never appears on screen). When she finds out he's been having an affair with a chippie (Crawford), she divorces him. Quaintly, all the women who get divorces have to travel to Reno to get them. There's even a good cat fight, although I can't tell you why they were fighting. This is, perhaps, the ultimate chick flick, and as such my enjoyment was minimal. Still, it was interesting to see all those old-time actresses together on screen. (The film has subtitles in English for the hearing-impaired, and is also close-captioned.) Grade: B  

Woman of the Year

Woman of the Year (1942) starring Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn. First on-screen pairing of Tracy and Hepburn is a disappointment. Episodic plot wanders from one scene to another, not much happens. The pair play rival journalists who meet and fall in love, and soon get married. That's when the trouble starts. Her career gets in the way of the marriage, and she doesn't really know how to be a wife. Various complications ensue, but really the only reason to watch this is for the star power of the legendary duo. They would go on to make nine movies together, and have a storied relationship off-screen. But this film doesn't live up to the hype. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available, and the movie is closed-captioned.) Grade: B- 

White Hunter, Black Heart

White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Fahey, George Dzundza. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Eastwood is always watchable, and here he portrays John Wilson, a thinly disguised version of John Huston, during the days leading up to the filming of The African Queen. It's based on a 1953 novel by Peter Viertel about his experiences during the making of Queen. The film's main thrust is to portray Huston, er, Wilson as a monomaniac who becomes obsessed with shooting an elephant while on location in Africa, to the detriment of the movie he is supposed to be shooting. It's fairly entertaining, but mostly just filled me with a desire to see The African Queen. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B 

The Woman in the Window

The Woman in the Window (1944) starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Dan Duryea. Middle-aged psychology professor (Robinson) kills a man in self-defense, then tries to cover it up instead of calling in the authorities. One of his friends (Massey) is the prosecutor, and the bodyguard (Duryea) for the dead man tries to blackmail the professor. Tension-packed film concludes with surprise ending that totally changes things. Very enjoyable entertainment. (Subtitles in English are offered for the hearing-impaired, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Andy Serkis. Directed by Peter Jackson. Frodo Baggins (Wood) continues his quest to destroy the evil One Ring, accompanied by Sam Gamgee (Astin) and Gollum (Serkis). Meanwhile, the forces of men, led by Aragorn (Mortensen) and Gandalf (McKellen), take on the armies of Sauron in battle after battle. It's hard to say enough about this movie, which is so beautifully rendered and faithfully adapted from the book by J.R.R. Tolkien. It won 11 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. It's long at three hours and twenty minutes -- something I usually object to strenuously -- but in this case I think every minute is justified. This movie has no boring stretches, and I would gladly sit through it at a theater if my bladder would hold out. (Subtitles in English are available on the disc for the hearing-impaired, as well as closed captions.) Grade: A   

A Woman in Berlin

A Woman in Berlin (2008) starring Nina Hoss, Yevgeni Sidikhin. In May of 1945, near the end of World War II, the Russian army advances into Berlin. All the German women who remain in the city are subject to being raped, including the protagonist (Hoss). She realizes that the only way to survive is to find a Russian protector -- a lover of high rank who can prevent her being gang-raped. This movie is based on an anonymous diary published in 1959, purportedly  written by the  woman of the title. It was condemned at the time as an affront to German women, because so many of them had gone willingly with Russian soldiers. The film is rather depressing and not uplifting in its portrait of the human spirit. It's in German and Russian with English subtitles. Grade: B-

Wolfen

Wolfen (1981) starring Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Gregory Hines, Edward James Olmos. A previously unknown species of predator is prowling the streets of New York City, and detective Dewey Wilson (Finney) is on the prowl trying to find out what's going on. Suspenseful, occasionally gruesome horror flick has its moments, but fails to fully capture the spirit of the book (The Wolfen, by Whitley Strieber) on which it is based. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B   

Wolf

Wolf (1994) starring Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, Kate Nelligan, Christopher Plummer, Richard Jenkins. Mild-mannered book editor (Nicholson), going through personal and professional crises, is bitten by a wolf. Suddenly his senses are heightened and he becomes very aggressive on the job and off. Far from sensational, this movie is a thoughtful examination of what life would be like if you were bitten by a (were)wolf. Nicholson is restrained in his role, and only Spader goes over the top. (Subtitles in English are not offered, but closed captions are.) Grade: B

Seabiscuit

Seabiscuit (2003) starring Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Banks, Gary Stevens, William H. Macy. Set in the late 1930s, this movie tells the true story of how a horse named Seabiscuit provided inspiration to a nation going through the Great Depression. Three men -- jockey Red Pollard (Maguire), owner Charles Howard (Bridges), and trainer Tom Smith (Cooper) -- came together and took a horse that everyone had given up on and made him into a champion. The movie can't measure up to the book, of course, but writer and director Gary Ross makes a valiant effort to bring the spirit of the story to the screen. I found that, having read the book by Laura Hillenbrand (who also acted as an advisor on the film), I was able to appreciate the movie more than I did the first time I saw it. It makes for very enjoyable viewing. (English captions for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc.) Grade: A-    

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (1997) starring Steve Coogan, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Antony Sher, Nicol Williamson. Children's movie in which Rat, Mole and Badger team up to save Mr. Toad from losing his estate to the weasels, who want to blow it up and replace it with a slaughterhouse. I found that this film had little to offer for adults, and was mostly just silliness. Fans  of the Monty Python troupe might be more amused, as practically all the Python members make appearances in this movie. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: C

The Witches

The Witches (1990) starring Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher, Rowan Atkinson, Brenda Blethyn. After his parents die in an accident, young Luke (Fisher) and his grandmother (Zetterling) go on vacation to a seaside hotel in England. But not before Luke's grandmother tells him all about witches, and how they love to do harm to children. Much to Luke's dismay, the hotel is hosting an all-England witches' convention, and the Grand High Witch (Huston) is in attendance. She has a plot to turn all the children of England into mice, and Luke is one of her first targets. This is essentially a children's movie, based on a book by Roald Dahl, and it takes twists and turns that adults probably won't buy. I know I didn't. It's not even one of those children's movies that is fun for adults -- it's strictly for the kiddies. (Subtitles in English are not offered, but closed captions are available.) Grade: B-

Witness for the Prosecution

Witness for the Prosecution (1957) starring Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich. Directed by Billy Wilder. Based on an Agatha Christie play, this movie tells the story of a man (Power) accused of murder. It's a courtroom drama, with Laughton as Wilfrid Robarts, the defense attorney, and Dietrich as the wife of the accused. The twist is that the wife of the accused takes the stand against him and gives damning testimony. It's a great performance by Dietrich, and Laughton is also excellent as the barrister, who is recovering from a heart attack. In the final analysis, though, all the parts didn't fit together for me, and I felt ever so slightly manipulated. (English subtitles are not offered, but closed captions save the day for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B  

The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (1939) starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Frank Morgan, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton. Directed by Victor Fleming. A great American movie, in which Dorothy (Garland), a young teen from Kansas, goes "over the rainbow" to the magical land of Oz. Grade: A

Hitler's Children

Hitler's Children (2012) Documentary. Descendants of Himmler, Hans Frank (governor general of occupied Poland), Hermann Goering (founder of the Gestapo), Amon Goeth (commandant of Plaszow concentration camp), and Rudolf Hoess (of Auschwitz) come forward and are interviewed about what it is like to carry such a heavy heritage. It turns out that it is not an easy thing, in fact can be very painful. The descendants of these Nazi monsters feel, largely, a profound sense of guilt, even though it was not they who carried out the evil acts of their fathers or grandfathers. This is an effective, though brief, documentary which has the power to make you cry. (Subtitles in English, as well as closed captions, are available.) Grade: A-

Wise Blood

Wise Blood (1979) starring Brad Dourif, Daniel Shor, Amy Wright, Harry Dean Stanton, Ned Beatty. Directed by John Huston. Southern Gothic story, based on a novel by Flannery O'Connor, in which Dourif plays a military man returning home from duty who decides that he will become a preacher of the "Church of Jesus Christ Without Jesus," or something like that. He travels to the nearest large town, where he meets up with various weird characters. Wright plays the young girl who initially falls for him, and Stanton and Beatty play rival preachers. It's all very amusing, in an odd sort of way, and if nothing else it's watchable. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B 

Winchester '73

Winchester '73 (1950) starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally. Directed by Anthony Mann. Classic Western in which Stewart plays Lin McAdam, a man who is searching for the man (McNally) who killed his father. He rides into Dodge City and enters a shooting contest, in which he wins a prize rifle called a Winchester '73. The priceless gun is soon stolen from him, and his search now becomes two-fold: find the gun and the man who stole it. In 1950, Westerns were on the wane, and this movie is credited with giving the genre a big boost, giving rise to the many great Westerns that were made in the '50s. Winters supplies Stewart's love interest, and it's interesting to see her in an early movie, before she lost her looks. This movie is beautifully photographed and directed, and the acting is fine. (English subtitles are available, but not closed captions.) Grade: A- 

Angels in the Outfield

Angels in the Outfield (1951) starring Paul Douglas, Janet Leigh, Keenan Wynn, Donna Corcoran. The Pittsburgh Pirates are sinking towards last place in the league, but fortunately for them a little orphan girl (Corcoran) has been praying for them. Their manager, Guffy McGovern (Douglas), is visited by an angel who tells him that if he cleans up his language and stops slugging people, the Heavenly Choir will help out his team. Meanwhile, a lady journalist (Leigh) has been assigned to cover the team. This is a feel-good movie in which everything works out for the best. It's a lot of fun to watch, and it's also good family entertainment. (Subtitles in English are available on the disc, as well as closed captions for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: A- 

The Witches of Eastwick

The Witches of Eastwick (1987) starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer. Three women in a picturesque New England town summon the man of their dreams and -- surprise! -- he turns out to be the Devil (Nicholson, of course). This movie was one of the most sloppily made I have ever seen. The stars are first-class, but the script is a mess. The magic that takes place isn't adequately explained, and scene follows scene in a disconnected, chock-a-block fashion. It really wasn't enjoyable to watch. (Subtitles in English are available, as are closed  captions.) Grade: C

The Terminator

The Terminator (1984) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton. Arnold is perfectly cast as a cyborg from the future who is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Hamilton), mother-to-be of the leader of the future human resistance to the rise of the machines. Biehn is a standout in his role as Kyle Reese, the soldier from the future sent back to defend Sarah Connor from the terminator. This is a classic science-fiction movie made on a small budget but very tightly scripted and directed by James Cameron. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: A- 

Winning

Winning (1969) starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Richard Thomas, Robert Wagner. Frank Capua (Newman) is a race-car driver who meets and marries a woman (Woodward) and adopts her son (Thomas). He is so focused on winning that he neglects his wife and she ends up in another man's (Wagner) arms. Big climax of the film (and much screen time) is provided by the running of the Indianapolis 500, with Capua trying to win and beat the man who took his wife. This is a pretty good movie, with the impact somewhat diluted by the knowledge that Newman and Woodward are happily married in real life. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available.) Grade: B  

Broken Arrow

Broken Arrow (1950) starring James Stewart, Jeff Chandler, Debra Padget. In 1870 in Arizona, war rages between the white man and the Apaches. One white man, Tom Jeffords (Stewart), becomes intrigued with the idea of making peace with Cochise (Chandler), the great Apache leader. Along the way, Jeffords falls in love with an Apache girl (Padget). Sincere film has authentic feel, is said to be based on true events. All that's lacking is a truly happy ending. (Subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) starring Jayne Mansfield, Tony Randall, Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell. Directed by Frank Tashlin. A convincing case can be made that this is a clever satire of 1950s morals, television, sex and business. In fact that seems to be the prevailing opinion. However, I can't help but treat it as a viewing experience, and from that angle I find it highly lacking. It's a silly movie, and Mansfield is supremely irritating with her constant squealing. I really just didn't enjoy it, although I found it memorable. (Subtitles in English are offered, as are closed captions.) Grade: C  

Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire (1988) starring Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk. A pair of angels wander around the streets of Berlin and wonder what it would be like to be human. One of them (Ganz) finally decides to take the plunge and takes human form, falling in love with a beautiful human woman. The movie has many good parts, switches back and forth between black-and-white and color, and shows people at their best and worst. But it didn't really work for me. Perhaps it was all that translation from German to English that threw me off. It's mostly in German, with English subtitles. Grade: B-

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) starring Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham, Orla Fitzgerald. In the 1920s in Ireland, a young doctor (Murphy) is radicalized by the fight against the British oppressors, and gradually goes over to being a Republican guerilla fighter. Frankly, I found the politics hard to follow, and the uniforms of the British hard to distinguish from the later uniforms of the Irish. This is an intense drama, with deep feelings on both sides, but here we are clearly supposed to sympathize with the Irish. I did. (Subtitles in English for the hearing-impaired are available.) Grade: B+

Will Penny

Will Penny (1968) starring Charlton Heston, Joan Hackett, Donald Pleasence, Lee Majors, Bruce Dern, Ben Johnson. Aging, loner cowboy Will Penny (Heston) is thrown together with a woman (Hackett) and her young son in a remote cabin. They fall in love, but can Penny change his ways at this late stage in his life? The answer may surprise you. Well written, well acted movie hardly sounds a false note; cowboys and the cowboy life are as accurately portrayed as is possible for us in modern movies. One of the great films about cowboys on the frontier. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: A- 

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick. A "good" terminator (Schwarzenegger) is sent back in time to protect John Connor (Furlong) against the bad terminator (Patrick) that Skynet has sent back to kill him. The action is practically non-stop, and the movie almost lives up to the original "Terminator" film. What it lacks in freshness it makes up for with special effects, especially the liquid-metal terminator effects of Patrick. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired, but not closed captions.) Grade: A- 

The Bravados

The Bravados (1958) starring Gregory Peck, Joan Collins. Jim Douglass (Peck) rides into a small town to witness the hanging of the four men who raped and killed his wife. But the four who are to be hanged manage to escape, and Douglass joins the posse that is chasing them. As he hunts them down, the truth slowly emerges, and after he kills three of them, he learns that reality is more morally ambiguous than he had imagined. An interesting movie with a thought-provoking ending. (Subtitles are available in English, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+

Willow

Willow (1988) starring Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis, Jean Marsh. A little person named Willow (Davis) becomes the protector of a baby who is destined to overthrow the Evil Queen (Marsh). Of course the Evil Queen is pursuing the baby throughout her kingdom with the object of killing her before she can grow up. Willow gets the help of a human-sized person named Madmartigan (Kilmer), who turns out to be a great warrior. He also has magical help from the queen of the fairies. This film is targeted mostly at a young audience, not adults, but suffers from the flaw of having some scenes that might be too intense for younger viewers. For adults, it is a little too silly to be taken seriously. The movie's main distinction is that it contains the first known instances of morphing, wherein a character changes shape onscreen -- e.g., from a human to a tiger, or the like. The Extras  make much of this fact, but of course it seems rather passé now. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B

Wild Reeds

Wild Reeds (1994) starring Elodie Bouchez, Gael Morel, Stephane Rideau, Frederick Gorny. Four young students at a rural French boarding school in 1962 come of age and explore their sexuality. Set against the backdrop of the Algerian war, the students experience ideological and emotional turbulence related to the war. Frankly, I didn't totally "get" this movie. I think it's because it involves so much of French politics in the 1960s, a subject which I am totally unfamiliar with. The film is in French, with English subtitles. Grade: B- 

Broken Lance

Broken Lance (1954) starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner, Jean Peters, Richard Widmark. So-so Western in which Tracy plays the patriarch of a cattle empire, and his four sons fall out with him and among themselves. Shades of King Lear! Tracy is in fine form as the father of the clan; Widmark is especially good as the ungrateful son who turns out to be evil. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook (2012) starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Jacki Weaver. Pat (Cooper) comes out of a mental hospital after being institutionalized for eight months for beating up his wife's lover. He meets Tiffany (Lawrence) and they seem to clash, while also seeming to be attracted to each other. Meanwhile, Pat's father (DeNiro) has become a bookie, and believes that Pat is his good-luck charm. Complicating everything is the fact that Pat is bipolar, and refuses to take his medication. He longs to get back together with his wife, Nikki, but she has a restraining order out against him. This movie deserves credit for treating mental illness with neutral respect. Lawrence won an Oscar for her portrayal of the maybe-crazy Tiffany. Grade: B+  

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm. Frodo Baggins (Wood), a hobbit, sets off on a quest to destroy the evil One Ring. He is joined by Gandalf, the wizard (McKellen); Aragorn, son of Arathorn (Mortensen); a dwarf, an elf, a man, and three other hobbits. They journey through dangerous lands to find shelter in elf lands, then through the mines of Moria, where Gandalf battles with a balrog. It's all executed with the greatest of the cinematic arts, and the movie's only flaw is that it is so long, at three and a half hours. Yet even at that length, I never grew bored.  Grade: A

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (1991) starring Gabrielle Anwar, Michael Schoeffling, Cliff Robertson. Based on the real-life story of Sonora Webster, a teen-age girl (Anwar) during the Depression runs away from her aunt's house to apply for a job as a girl who rides diving horses. Through pluck and persistence, she gets a job with the man who owns the act (Robertson), and when the regular diving-horse riding girl quits, Sonora gets the job. She also falls in love with Al (Schoeffling), the son of the owner. I found this movie, in the beginning, to be off-putting, but as I watched it grew on me. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good, inspiring family movie. The plot takes some unexpected turns, so it is definitely not boring. (Subtitles in English for the hearing-impaired are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+  

The Wild One

The Wild One (1954) starring Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Robert Keith, Lee Marvin. A motorcycle gang, led by Johnny (Brando), roars into a small town, bent on raising hell. Strangely enough, it is Johnny who ends up seeming like the victim, as a mob of townspeople chase him down and beat him up. This is the original biker movie, but it doesn't follow the trajectory one would expect. The bikers seem really tame compared to today's breed. The film is worth watching to see the young Brando. (Subtitles in English are available, as are closed captions.) Grade: B 

The Wide Blue Road

The Wide Blue Road (1957) starring Yves Montand, Alida Valli. An Italian fisherman (Montand) persists in the practice of dynamite fishing, even though it is against the law and the other villagers don't approve of it. This movie is a lovely slice-of-life style flick in which the lives of the people in an isolated Italian fishing village are portrayed. The focus is on Montand and his family -- his wife Rosetta (Valli), his beautiful  daughter Diana and his two young sons, whom he takes with him when he goes fishing. It's shot in expressive color, and the photography is striking. I really got absorbed in this movie, and found it highly entertaining -- even though it ends tragically. (In Italian, with English subtitles.) Grade: A-

The Impossible

The Impossible (2012) starring Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland. A family, consisting of husband Henry (McGregor), wife Maria (Watts) and their three young sons, is vacationing at a resort in Thailand in 2004 when the tsunami strikes. This movie tells the story of how they survived and were (eventually) reunited. The focus of the first part of the film is on Maria and her oldest son Lucas (Holland), who get swept away but somehow hold on to each other. But they are separated from the rest of the family, and the bulk of the movie consists of the different parts of the family searching for each other in Thailand, a land where they don't know the language. I found this film to be pretty much a standard disaster movie, well executed but with not much original to distinguish it. Still, it made for a tolerable evening's entertainment. (Subtitles in English are available on the disc, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+

Les Miserables

Les Miserables (2012) starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried. This movie was a big disappointment. Of course, I've listened to the London stage  production soundtrack for years, so my expectations were that this film would measure up. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Director Tom Hooper's decision to record the actors as they sing just doesn't work. Crowe and Seyfried, in particular, don't seem to have the chops to sing in a musical, while Jackman is just passable. Also, a lot of detail had to be left out to get the film to a watchable length, and the plot suffers because of it. And yet ... despite my criticisms, the movie did bring me close to tears a couple of times, especially in Valjean's (Jackman) death scene. All in all, I can't recommend this film. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are offered, but not closed captions.) Grade: C+ 

Django Unchained

Django Unchained (2012) starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson. Directed by Quentin Tarantino. In 1858, two years before the Civil War, a slave named Django (Foxx) is bought and later freed by a bounty hunter named Schultz (Waltz). Django learns how to handle a six-shooter, and they go into business together as bounty hunters. But Django's one overriding concern is to get his wife, Broomhilda (Washington), out of the hands of an evil slaver named Calvin Candie (DiCaprio). Schultz and Django concoct an elaborate scheme to buy Broomhilda from Candie, but in the end they have to resort to violence to free her. The violence in this film is trademark Tarantino -- when somebody gets shot, blood spurts or sprays out of him. And a lot of people get shot, mostly by Django. It's an extremely violent movie, but Django and Broomhilda have been badly mistreated and the shooting seems justified. Basically, it's a revenge flick and can be enjoyed on that level. (Subtitles are available for the hard of hearing, but not closed captions. There are several songs in the movie that could have profited by being subtitled, but they are not.) Grade: B+

South Pacific

South Pacific (1958) starring Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, John Kerr, Ray Walston. In the early days of World War II, on a Polynesian island, American sailors and nurses and French plantation owners pursue romance. Every once in a while, someone breaks out into song. The cast gives it their best shot, but the star wattage is low. You'd almost hardly know there's a war on, since about 90 percent of the movie is about two romances. The songs, by Rodgers and Hammerstein, are fine (highlights include "Some Enchanted Evening," "There is Nothing Like a Dame"). This is a likable movie, just not quite as great as it could have been. (Subtitles in English are available, as are closed captions.) Grade: B  

The Professionals

The Professionals (1966) starring Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Burt Lancaster, Jack Palance, Ralph Bellamy, Claudia Cardinale. Rich man (Bellamy) hires four mercenaries (Marvin, Ryan, Strode and Lancaster) to save his wife (Cardinale), who has been kidnapped by the Mexican bandit Raza (Palance). Unfortunately, when the gringos get to Raza's camp, they discover that the lady does not wish to be rescued.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) starring Martin Freeman, Ian Mckellan, Richard Armitage, Andy Serkis, Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Elijah Wood. Directed by Peter Jackson. The decision was made by Jackson to turn The Hobbit, a fairly long novel, into a three-movie extravaganza. This first installment proves to be a slight disappointment, since we've seen many of the tricks in previous Lord of the Rings films. Jackson does manage to get to the crucial encounter between Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) and Gollum (Serkis), in which Bilbo acquires the One Ring around which the entire set of books revolves. There are also some good action scenes, mostly battles with Orcs, but for my taste the fight scenes were a bit too "busy." They might have looked better in a movie theater, rather than on my 22-inch TV screen, so I can't really hold that against him. All in all, I love the Hobbit and all things Middle Earth, so this movie succeeded in pleasing me despite its shortcomings. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc; closed captions are not.) Grade: B+   

The Wild Bunch

The Wild Bunch (1969) starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson. Directed by Sam Peckinpah. A gang of outlaws, led by Holden, works the Texas-Mexico border during the time of the Mexican Revolution. The movie is marked by several big shoot-outs between the outlaws and the "good guys," who really aren't all that good. The film generated controversy when it was released because of the realistic depiction of violence, but doesn't seem so bad today. My problem with the movie was that there really aren't any "good guys" -- nobody with whom we can identify and root for. But that is only a minor complaint about what is a rip-roaring classic of a Western, and I would recommend that you see this movie and decide for yourself. (Subtitles in English are available; closed captions are also offered.) Grade: B+ 

Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Maximilian Schell, Montgomery Clift, William Shatner. Directed by Stanley Kramer. A judge, played by Tracy, journeys to Nuremberg, Germany in 1948 to preside over a tribunal passing judgment on several German judges. The judges presided over trials in Nazi Germany in which innocent people were sentenced to be sterilized or put to death, or were sent to concentration camps. The movie has a powerful impact, although perhaps its power has been reduced somewhat with time. The performances of all the principles are good, and the script is top-notch. The film won two Academy Awards. (Subtitles in English are available, as are closed captions.) Grade: A- 

The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man (1973) starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento. Upright Scottish policeman (Woodward) travels to an isolated island to investigate the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl. He is shocked to discover that the people on the island are pagans who no longer practice Christianity. Continuing his investigation, he searches the entire island for any sign of the missing girl. The people of the island seem to be curiously unwilling to cooperate in his search, and he finds increasingly disturbing evidence as he keeps on investigating. The ending of the movie has a surprising twist. I found the film disturbing but ultimately satisfying, in a perverse sort of way. (Subtitles are not provided, but closed captions are available.) Grade: B+

Life of Pi

Life of Pi (2012) starring Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Adil Hussain, Tabu. Directed by Ang Lee. Life of Pi is the curiously disappointing story of a boy named Pi (Sharma) who survives a ship's sinking and is stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger named Richard Parker. We know that he is going to survive, because the story is told in flashback by his adult self. The section of the film that covers the time spent at sea in the lifeboat is great -- lyrical and richly imagined -- but the last part of the movie, which is a sort of coda, dilutes the power of the story and brings it back to earth with a thud. While I enjoyed the film, I was not transported. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are provided, and closed captions are also available.) Grade: B 

Manon of the Spring

Manon of the Spring (1986) starring Yves Montand, Emmanuelle Beart, Daniel Auteuil. Ten years after his death, Jean de Florette's daughter, Manon (Beart), still lives and tends goats on the land where he died. When she learns that the source of water was cruelly hidden from her father by her neighbors (Montand and Auteuil), she is heartbroken. But then one of her goats wanders into a cave, and she finds the secret source of the spring -- giving her the power to exact revenge, not only on her two neighbors, but on the whole village which helped them carry out their plan. In its last third, the film takes an additional twist which absolutely blows away all that went before. Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, taken together, make up one of the most powerful and moving movie-viewing experiences I have ever had. They are simply two great films. (In French, with English subtitles.) Grade: A 

Jean de Florette

Jean de Florette  (1986) starring Yvez Montand, Gerard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, Elisabeth Depardieu. When Jean de Florette (Depardieu) and his small family move to the farm he has inherited, he is unaware that his evil neighbor (Montand) has secretly blocked his spring so that he cannot get water. Jean ends up praying for rain when the dry season hits, but rain does not come. This is a beautifully shot, well scripted story that really has the power to draw the viewer in. It's continued in Manon of the Spring, so don't be disappointed that the end of this movie isn't the end of the story. (In French, with English subtitles.) Grade: A-

What a Way to Go!

What a Way to Go! (1964) starring Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, Bob Cummings, Dick Van Dyke. MacLaine stars as serial widow who marries four different men for love, each of whom ends up dying and leaving her ever richer. All she wants is the simple life, and she tries to give her money away. But this gets her sent to a psychiatrist (Cummings), to whom she narrates her marriages in flashback. Fairly entertaining movie, with film parodies thrown in to enhance the experience, but suspense is nonexistent since we know each husband will die. The four husbands are played by Van Dyke, Newman, Mitchum and Kelly. (English subtitles are available for the hearing-impaired, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B

Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981) starring Richard Dreyfuss, John Cassavetes, Christine Lahti, Bob Balaban. A talented sculptor (Dreyfuss) is injured in a traffic accident and ends up paralyzed from the neck down. After six months in the hospital, receiving the best of care, he realizes that he is, for all intents and purposes, already dead. He decides to fight for his right to be released from the hospital and allowed to die. Well acted drama features plenty of humor as Dreyfuss interacts with hospital staff, fellow patients. In fact, he doesn't seem depressed, although the court case deciding whether he should be freed hinges on that question. This is an excellent film about a serious subject, and I liked it a lot. (English subtitles are available on the disc, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+ 

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) starring Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Cassidy. Humans and cartoons co-exist in the universe of this noir comedy, which has Hoskins playing Eddie Valiant, a Los Angeles detective who "doesn't work for toons" after a toon killed his brother. Delightful mixture of live action and animation has you really believing the the animated characters are as real as the humans. Many funny sequences and inside jokes make for a most enjoyable evening's entertainment. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+

Lincoln

Lincoln (2012) starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Day-Lewis won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in this movie, which is mostly about the passage in the House of Representatives of the 13th Amendment, outlawing slavery. Sometimes the subject matter of a movie elevates it to greatness, and I think that is what happened here. Though it is mostly about parliamentary maneuvering and the procurement of votes, this film shows Lincoln's greatness and highlights a moment in out history which will always stand out as a proud one. A thoroughly enjoyable movie. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: A