Dil Se.. (1998)

To my dismay, my current Netflix list consists mostly of movies from the last few years. Guess I've seen most of their older promising streaming content. I chose this one (whose title means "From the Heart") partly to buck the trend a little and partly because it has been a while since my last viewing from India. To my surprise, I had seen a little of it before, having looked up the portion that amounts to a music video of "Chaiyya Chaiyya," a song strangely coopted for Inside Man (2006).

That number's cheeriness does not reflect the plot well. Delhi radio program executive Amar falls for a woman at a train station and happens to see her repeatedly, but she mostly resists his charms. Little does he realize that she walks a dark path that doesn't lend itself to attachments, tho she sometimes finds it advantageous to get close to someone in his position, under the pseudonym "Meghna." They develop complex feelings about each other, especially as Amar pieces together that she belongs to the secessionist forces whose leader he once interviewed.

The Lunchbox (2013)

Finally got around to another movie from India, albeit not the kind that comes to mind when I think of Bollywood. This one caught my interest because it relies on a real-life premise I'd never heard of before: a service that delivers lunches to office workers' desks, whether from a restaurant or their own homes. Not sure how many places outside of India offer this. Also, the "box" consists of five stacked cans held together by a wire mechanism, each can containing a different food, but that's not important.

Homemaker Ila tries a new recipe to rekindle her marital romance. The lunchbox comes home completely empty, which gives her hope; but when husband Rajeev reacts incongruously, she determines that the heretofore stellar modern Mumbai system finally mixed up the deliveries. Rightly anticipating indefinite repetition of the error, she includes a letter of gratitude to the accidental recipient the next day. He is Saajan, a government accountant planning to retire in a month. Thus begins an unusual pen-pal relationship.

Ilo Ilo (2013)

I'm quite certain that I'd never seen a Singaporean feature before. I'm less certain how I came to put it on my list. But when my DVD player stopped working and I saw fit to pick something of a modest length to stream, this looked different enough to try.

In 1997, Filipina migrant Terry starts work as a maid for a family of four (if you count the unborn). She must be quite desperate for money, because she has left behind a baby son whom she misses dearly, and she'll take a lousy second job. The recession clearly goes farther than the Philippines; neither parent has much job security or satisfaction, and they take gambles like the lottery seriously. Ten-year-old boy Jiale is troubled less by finances and more by a highly contrary demeanor. Nevertheless, his initial coldness to Terry gives way to an affection that makes his mom jealous.

The Science of Sleep (2006)

For all its peculiarity, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my favorite celluloid romances. When I learned that writer Michel Gondry had another cerebral sci-fi about a man in love -- with a focus on dreams, no less -- I decided to check it out someday, even if it was reputedly not the next ESotSM.

Stéphane (Gael Garcia Bernal) is tricked by his newly widowed mother into taking a lame job so he'll have a reason to move back into her apartment building. This annoys him, but he does discover something promising about the arrangement: attractive neighbor Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who shares his interest in quirky artistry. If only they weren't both introverts and had the social skills to make it work easily. Stéphane tends to let his imagination run away with him, with difficulty separating dreams, daydreams, and reality....

Contempt (1963)

I'm a bit wary of entries from the British Film Institute's "Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time." More than half the time, I find them OK at best. But Jean-Luc Godard hadn't let me down with Breathless and Alphaville, so this seemed a sufficiently safe bet. Besides, I had never seen the legendary Brigitte Bardot on film before.

It's one of the most international films I've seen, set in Italy but having more lines in French, English, and maybe German. Philandering Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) wants to produce The Odyssey on the big screen, with the one and only Fritz Lang directing. The main focus is on reluctant screenwriter Paul (Michel Piccoli) and his wife, Camille (Bardot), who find something coming between them -- and it may make the difference in whether Paul stays with the project. The other major character is Giorgia Moll as talented translator Francesca.

Omkara (2006)

Has it really been more than a year since my last Bollywood viewing? Well, the realization wasn't my reason for breaking the streak. I had hoped to see a Shakespeare-based movie around the 400th anniversary of his death, but Netflix had waits on the ones that interested me. This retelling of Othello just happened to become available last week.

For those who don't remember the gist of Othello, it starts with the Moorish general's interracial elopement to Desdemona against her father's will. When he passes over Iago for an appointed lieutenant of sorts, Iago schemes a vengeful manipulation. Not content to dishonor his replacement, he convinces Othello that Desdemona has been unfaithful. It does not end well for any major character.

Of course, in a movie set in India, even modern India, a black citizen would look rather out of place. Omkara, a.k.a. Omi, is instead a half-caste, which puts him beneath the marital dignity of most devout Hindus. Also, his elopement to Dolly initially came across as an abduction from her intended wedding. But these are not the most important changes....

The Bridge (1959)

If I had realized that I was already seeing another movie set in the 1945 European Theater, I would have put this further down my queue. But it should be altogether fitting to watch some manner of war -- or antiwar -- film on Memorial Day, especially when it has an Oscar nomination and a high body count. Even if the focus is on a nation fighting against the United States.

Based on a novel by Hitler Youth veteran turned pacifist Gregor Dorfmeister (pen name Manfred Gregor) and directed by concentration camp survivor Bernhard Wicki, TB follows several teen boys in a small German town who get excited to be drafted. None of the older citizens share their joy. By this time, the military is desperate enough to put them on the front lines after one day of training. Their assignment is to guard (what else?) a bridge in town, despite rumors that it's slated for bombing by their own side.

The Enemy Below (1957)

I have discovered that despite my desire to mix old and new cinema, my streaming list is mostly new fare. Shall I blame Netflix's priorities? Anyway, I browsed the few 20th-century entries and picked one almost at random from a decade I hadn't tackled in a while.

Like some other war films I've reviewed here, it keeps the plot simple, even with its loose basis on a novel and its later inspiration of a couple TV episodes. In the South Atlantic, a U.S. destroyer under Captain Murrell (Robert Mitchum) battles a U-boat under Captain von Stolberg (Curd Jürgens). Each captain is impressed at the other's tactics and struggles to work around them.

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)

What does it take to get me to watch a documentary nowadays? Well, a focus on movies helps. I once watched the divisive David Lynch Dune flick (1984) and half-wished I hadn't. Sure, I got the gist of a space epic in which humans vie for control of a desert planet known for an enlightening drug called "the spice," but its unappealing presentation led me to postpone reading the first Frank Herbert book for many years -- after which I was impressed.

Alejandro Jodorowsky was a cult director in the 1970s and had his own ambitious designs on adapting Dune to the big screen, but no studio would take him up on it. This doc asserts that his storyboard, which later became a graphic novel, makes it the most influential movie never made. Scenes in many finished movies, including Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, echo it. Herein, the main focus lies on the work that went into the project.

Juliet of the Spirits (1965)

More than a week since my last review? Clearly, I was in no hurry to talk about another art film. The main reason I moved it to the top of my queue was the promise of a focus on a woman. In that regard, it delivers.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of plot progression. Juliet (Giulietta Masina, director Federico Fellini's wife and frequent star) has been leading an ordinary quiet, possibly upper-middle-class life. Before long from our perspective, two events start to make it more interesting for her: a seance followed by evidence that her husband is cheating on her. Juliet then spends much of her time exploring a more, shall we say, liberated lifestyle with the help of a friend (Sandra Milo) and hearing from exhorting spirits, real or imagined, whether she wants to or not. And somewhat like in A Christmas Carol, sometimes she sees her own past.

Bridge of Spies (2015)

You can't tell from any of my previous entries, but I'm a major Steven Spielberg fan. Maybe being named after him has biased me in his favor, but the projects that he directs and/or produces rarely disappoint me. I've seen nearly all his feature films to date, so don't expect me to review many more.

As in real life, in 1957, insurance attorney Jim Donovan (Tom Hanks) is asked to defend Soviet spy Rudolph Abel (three-time Tony winner Mark Rylance) in court. There's no getting Abel off the hook altogether, but Donovan persuades the judge to forgo a death sentence, not least because Abel could make a good bargaining chip. The opportunity for this comes before long, as two Americans become prisoners in rapid succession: a spy in the USSR and a mere student who attempted to break into East Germany for romantic reasons. Donovan once again steps up to the plate, this time in the even harder role of officially nongovernmental negotiator in Berlin. Can he get both communist governments to cooperate and trade two prisoners for one of questionable value?

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

I'm not sure what drew me to this pseudo-western (set in the modern West). Despite its recency and high ratings on multiple sites, I don't think I'd heard anything about it after seeing the trailer. Maybe the title alone got me curious.

"Mel," as his American rancher friend Pete (Tommy Lee Jones) calls him, is a Mexican farmer with no criminal past to our knowledge. Due to a forgivable misunderstanding, border patrolman Mike (Barry Pepper) shoots him dead. What's less forgivable is that when he realizes his mistake, he leaves the body in the desert and doesn't report it. After the authorities give him a slightly more dignified "second" burial, Pete does a little detective work and determines both who killed Mel and why the sheriff (Dwight Yoakam) isn't doing anything about it. Pete takes matters into his own hands and brute-forces Mike to give Mel a better burial -- well across the border, with the sheriff's department in pursuit.

In the Mood for Love (2000)

With a little more foresight, I would have followed my previous viewing with a movie that promised to be exciting, as with action. Instead, I chose something more popular but similarly simple in plot...and thus similarly slow.

My only prior experience with Wong Kar-wai was the singular Chungking Express, which, like so many accomplished foreign films, defies American genre standards. By contrast, ItMfL is a rather straightforward love story that could easily have been set in the modern U.S. instead of various parts of the Far East in 1962. Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) and Mr. Chow (Tony Chiu Wai Leung) live in neighboring apartments and come to keep each other company while their spouses are on vacation. After they develop strong suspicions of their spouses' prolonged adultery, they are tempted to do likewise with each other in spite of their resolve to be better than that.

United 93 (2006)

IMDb helpfully listed 50 movies with (vaguely) patriotic American themes for the 4th of July. As usual for cinematic lists, I'd seen most and was not interested in most of the rest. I considered Clear and Present Danger, but it sounds pretty run-of-the-mill and I'd seen Patriot Games last year. Besides, U93 is about a half-hour shorter.

In truth, it could've stood to shave off another half-hour. The story of the one American plane that got hijacked on 9/11 but hit only the ground starts with a peek at the hijackers getting ready and then spends a bit too long on the regular passengers getting ready. To anyone who's flown commercially before, it's an utterly familiar scene. Maybe we're supposed to learn to relate strongly to the ordinary people, but my attention wandered as easily as if I were on a plane myself. It takes about 17 minutes for a sense of conflict to kick in, and when it does, it's not on the plane.

A Wednesday (2008)

Another interestingly uninteresting title, this time with the partial excuse of coming from India, where the narrator pronounces "Wednesday" the way it's spelled (the dialog is about 20% English). I guess the idea is, in clickbaity terms, "It was just another typical Wednesday...or was it? You'll be surprised how much happened in one day!" The depicted events take place over a mere four hours, in fact, with a runtime of 104 minutes, counting the credits.

The relative brevity isn't the only factor to separate AW from other Bollywood works I've seen. It's a thriller with little comic relief and no musical numbers. Netflix describes it as "action-packed," but by modern American standards, that's misleading. We get a few acts of violence, especially consisting of a cop beating the daylights out of suspects until they spill the beans, but most of the thrill comes from bomb threats. Specifically, after about 20 minutes of four seemingly unrelated plotlines, a man tells police he'll blow up Mumbai if they don't deliver four al-Qaeda-linked prisoners.

Swades: We, the People (2004)

Modern Indian movies that find fan bases in the west have a good track record with me. It doesn't hurt that they pretty much all, whether comedic or dramatic, have musical scenes and happy endings. My main caveat is that they tend to run long -- in this case, 3 hours and 15 minutes. But I had a lot of time on my hands, so I actually chose Swades in large part for this reason.

Oddly enough, the story begins in my vicinity: NASA HQ in DC, where protagonist Mohan is a project manager. He soon takes a vacation to India to try to persuade his former nanny, Kaveri, to come back to the U.S. with him, ostensibly for her benefit but also for his own. Unfamiliar with her present home village, he nevertheless makes several amiable acquaintances before long, including an eight-year-old boy in Kaveri's care, a postman who wrestles, a cook who wants a business partner in the U.S., and a female teacher big on female advancement. That last one, Gita, introduces some...emotional complications.