Watched and Learned: My Take on Films from Whenever and Wherever

To avoid my prior mistake , I watched this at the start of my flight home, when my attention wouldn't be flagging yet. I also had a stro...

I recalled almost nothing about this title except that it was nominated for Best Picture. It turns out to have had only one other Oscar nod,...

Before the next Academy Awards, I thought I'd catch up on previous winners and nominees. I had been putting this Best Picture off becaus...

In its homeland, this is called Sciuscià , a cognate, because that is what the shoeshiners say when trying to get customers. I guess post-WW...

Not once does anyone on screen mention licorice or pizza. The title comes from a real-life record store chain that existed in the story'...

This title translates literally to "One One," which could imply "One by One" or "One After Another." In Englis...

I've learned to approach low-budget indies with trepidation. No matter how popular they are, they hang by a thread, most likely apprecia...

Once in a while, I tell Netflix I'm not interested in a suggestion but later rent it anyway. In this case, I must have been turned off b...

I've heard that the latest crop of Academy Best Picture contenders is especially depressing. With that in mind, perhaps I should have gi...

All I recalled learning of this one was that my mom had seen it and reported that people in India apparently know how to put on lavish parti...

Gena Rowlands has been one of those actors I've heard of repeatedly but couldn't place. It made sense to remedy this by seeing the f...

It's a little strange that I should see this film in 2019. The last time I heard anyone talk about it was a decade ago, when it was nomi...

This is the type of movie I don't normally watch in a theater nowadays, barring group invitations or award nominations. But it seems bet...

The only other picture I'd seen directed by Wim Wenders was Wings of Desire , which is distinctive but seems weak on plot. I decided tha...

Do not confuse this with the first result when you look up the title. It has nothing to do with the 1982 Kathleen Collins pic. Instead, it...

No, it's not about Claudia Alta Johnson. We never do learn how the protagonist (Saoirse Ronan) chose her nickname, tho I wouldn't be...

The first strange thing about this pic is its nationality. AFI includes it in an Iranian film festival because of late director Abbas Kiaros...

The title alone made me a little reluctant to see this movie. The credit to  Kenneth Lonergan  didn't help. But it takes a lot to shoo m...

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 intere...

It's unlike me to go to a screening on a whim, but I had walked past the theater in the afternoon and made a note to see something in th...