Lost In Translation

Tora-san's Salad Day Memorial (40)

In Yoji Yamada's 40th episode in the Tora san series, Tora-san's Salad-Day Memorial (1987) Tora (Kiyoshi Atsumi) finds himself in Komoro, Nagano where he meets a kindly old lady who puts him up for the night. Through this incident we learn that the kindly lady is sick and needs to go to the hospital for treatment by her equally kind doctor Machiko (Yoshiko Mita)-Tora offers to go with her because she wants to die at home. It turns out Machiko has a young daughter, Yuki (Hiroko Mita) attending Waseda in Tokyo. When Tora returns to Tokyo he goes to visit the campus for Mitsuo, his nephew who doesn't really want to go to college. Later when granny is on her death bed she requests to see Tora, so Yuki brings him to Komoro again only to find that she has died. Later Machiko and Tora spend a tender moment but Tora moves on as usual. In the final sequence which mirrors the first, a thin man with a Hitler mustache steals goods from Tora and another peddler friend at a festival in another castle town-Shimbara in Kyushu.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) was a new made for Netflix film that I enjoyed very much as a Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fan. There's plenty of fan service with appearances from several Breaking Bad regulars including Mike (Jonathon Banks), Todd (Jesse Plemmons), and Walter "Heisenberg" White (Bryan Cranston) himself. The story has flashbacks but mostly follows Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) on the run as he has Mexican three gun shootout and quick draw pistol shootouts with other villains as he tries to buy a new identity from Ed (the always reliable Robert Foster). There's lots of great sound track music and New Mexican landscape scenery throughout the film as well. A very satisfying return to the Breaking Bad universe.

Zardoz

Zardoz (1974) is a cheesy sci-fi film from John Boorman. It stars Sean Connery as Zar-as A Brutal and a barbaric killer.  There is another group of people called Immortals who suffer from being over-civilized. The god 'Zardoz' is taken from The Wizard of Oz. Zed is on a quest but doesn't realize that he is being manipulated. He is the Chosen One introduced into the Vortex for only one purpose, to destroy it. The Immortals can't kill themselves. They need an outsider, and his fellow Exterminators, to destroy them. In the process, Zed will escape with Consuella (Charlotte Rampling), who initially opposed Zed, and start a new human community. The complex is actually more complex than this bu these are the highlights-some real 70s cheesiness in costuming and set design-an unlikely Boorman film in my opinion.

Whistling In Kotan

Whistling In Kotan (1959) is a rare color film from master director Mikio Naruse about an Ainu family living in Hokkaido. Shinobu Hashimoto (Rashomon) wrote the screen play adaption from a novel by Nobuo Nobuo. A boy and girl live with an alcoholic father (Naruse regular Masayuki Mori) and are taunted at school for being Ainu. It is a humanist portrayal of the discrimination but somewhat didactic in tone. It was difficult to watch the version I had since there were English subtitles over Cyrillic ones. Catherine Russell notes form her book The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: "It suggests how Naruse's affinity for women's social subordination could be adapted to other oppressed groups, and how he remained flexible and open to the winds of change."

Tora-san Plays Daddy (39)

Tora-san Plays Daddy (1987) is the 39th episode in the series where we see Tora (Kiyoshi Atsumi) taking care of a child, the son of a peddler friend, who shows up at Toraya after his father dies. From there Tora takes the boy to Kansai to look for his missing mother who is still alive in the area. While staying at an inn the boy gets sick and Tora becomes acquainted with an inn neighbor, Takako (Kumiko Akiyoshi) who helps nurse the boy from sickness. This pre-credits opening shows Tora as a child of a historical period running off to be his own man after being scolded by his harsh father.

The Last Man In San Francisco

The Last Black Man In San Francisco (2019) directed by Joe Talbot is a meandering love letter to the city. Jimmie Falls is a young man attracted to San Francisco's elegant past. It questions whether you can go back home once you've lost it. Once a week, he and his friend Montgomery (Jonathan Majors) head to a beautiful old home in the Fillmore district, where they of their own volition paint and otherwise try to fix up the house, at least until they’re run off by one of the current occupants. There are many detours and digressions in the two hour long film.

Book Smart

Book Smart (2019) directed by Olivia Wilde is a great coming of age teen comedy-much better than expected. Two book smart girls, Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) who eschewed partying to study in order to get into good colleges realizes that many of their classmates who didn't follow suit still got into great schools. So they deiced to have an epic night out the night before graduation and have many adventures-some of them quite funny as well-color me surprised.

It Was A Faint Dream

Akio Jissouji's first film following the Buddhist trilogy was A Faint Dream (1974) set in the Kamkura era named after a Heian era Buddhist ode to transience. Shijo (Janet Hatta)was a peasant girl sold to a daima as a concubine. Bored by her life in seclusion she starts an affair with a state councilor. Finally realizing that she is only a play thing of the court, she becomes a nun and wanders the countryside. Once again there is exceptional cinematography this time from Masao Nakabori who also was behind the camera on This Transient Life. It is included as a bonus film that belatedly added to Arrow Buddhist Trilogy box set.

The Bigamist

Ida Lupino who directed and acted as Phyllis Martin in the entertaining B picture The Bigamist (1953) was a woman with two talents. I wanted something not too complicated, and she delivered-but with style. Emand Gwenn, a sort of hapless salesman with a frigid with somehow ends up marries to two women. Harry (Edmund Gwen) and Eve Graham (Garham) are trying to adopt a baby. The head of the agency senses that Harry is keeping some sort of a secret and decides to investigate. He soon discovers that Harry has done an unusual amount of traveling from his home in San Francisco to Los Angeles. Harry gets tracked down in LA where he has a second wife and a baby. His story is told through flashback and tells the adoption agent how he ended up in two marriages.