Seshadri's Musings

Akira Kurosawa (March 23, 1910 – September 6, 1998) was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dynamic style, strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it; he was involved with all aspects of film production. Here is the list of all his movies ranked.  https://mubi.com/lists/kurosawa-ranked--3 I thought of seeing the top 10 movies of his.  I had already watched High and Low while watching the suspense movie series.  I had seen Rashomon earlier as Mani Ratnam’s Yuva was made on similar lines.  I saw Seven Samurai as it was his number 1 movie and supposedly Sholay was based on this 😊 !  But when I started to see Ikiru somehow it seemed too slow for my liking.  I then went to Wikipedia and read all the stories there.  Since I have seen 3 of his movi...

  Sorcerer – Came out in 1977.   Adapted from the novel The Wages of Fear which was made earlier in 1953:-)!   A gangster, a crooked banker, a hit man and an Arab terrorist are stranded and on the run in a small village in South America. Their only chance of escape is to drive two trucks filled with unstable dynamite (leaking nitroglycerin) up a long and rocky mountain road in order to plug an escalating oil refinery blaze. With their deadly cargo likely to explode at the slightest bump, the four men must put aside their differences and work together to survive. Trivia - Director William Friedkin initially wanted Steve McQueen to star in the film. McQueen accepted the part, but on one condition--he wanted a co-starring role for his then wife, Ali MacGraw. Friedkin would not accept his conditions, and McQueen dropped out of the film. Friedkin later went on record, regretting not accepting McQueen's conditions. He tri...

  The other day I came across a site which said 25 best suspense movies of all times ( https://flickside.com/best-suspense-movies/ ).  Naturally I was interested 😊 !!  While going through the list, I found that I had seen 17 of them!  One story, I didn’t find interesting.  I then wanted to see the balance 7.  I can now say that I have seen all of them.     These are movies that are not to be missed 😊 !! One of them was Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low.  Seeing this movie, made me want to see his Top 10 movies too.  High and Low is ranked 6.   Will write a separate blog on Akira Kurosawa’s Top 10 movies, once I finish seeing them 😊 ! So, here are more details on the balance 6 movies (spread across 2 blogs)… Cache – Came out in 2005 and it means “Hidden”.  Set in France, Georges is a TV Literary Reviewer and lives in a small yet modern town house with his w...

More web-series reviews… Wednesday – Came out in 2022.  A sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams' years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Wednesday's attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the supernatural mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago - all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships at Nevermore. One of the reviews from IMDB... I was definitely looking forward to the release of "Wednesday", though I didn't know that it was going to be a series. I had initially expected Tim Burton to deliver a feature length movie, not a series. Not that I am complaining or anything, because this was definitely entertaining. If you are expecting this to be an "Addams Family" thing, you're in for a surprise. Sure, some of the family members were in the show, but as the title of the show indicates, then this is a...