Easter Parade (1948)

What a ripoff: We never see the parade itself! ...OK, I didn't really come for that, and probably neither did others. In truth, the story doesn't have much to do with Easter festivities; it just happens to start on one Easter and end on the next, possibly because Irving Berlin didn't feel like stopping the theme with Holiday Inn.

Apart from Berlin, whose lyrics account for a large percentage of the dialog, the main draws are Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in her most attractive years. Fourth place might go to the employment of Technicolor to highlight the fashions, which were sadly anachronistic for the early 1910s. (Why did Garland keep playing characters from earlier generations, anyway?)

Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution (1965)

It wasn't long ago that I rewatched Blade Runner at a theater, only this time aware that it was intended partly as a film noir. Now I see that noir and sci-fi can combine pretty easily. (No wonder Fritz Lang directed Metropolis.) But few movies blur the line as much as the rather distinctive Alphaville.

Part of the blurring comes from the general lack of visual cues to sci-fi. It's not shoestring minimalist like Stalker. Once in a while, we see what's supposed to be a supercomputer. But we have to take characters' word for it that, for example, humans have colonized space. I don't fault Jean-Luc Godard for this approach; it befits a brooding art piece where people have to question their concept of reality.

A Night to Remember (1958)

Since Easter Parade understandably has had a long wait, I decided on another semi-timely viewing: one of the most popular depictions of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Like probably most modern viewers, I could hardly watch it without thinking of the 1997 depiction (which did draw inspiration from it), but this won't be another twofer review if I can help it.

It would not have been utterly out of character for a film that old to focus fictitiously on a handful of individuals, possibly as a love story, and then have an infamous disaster shake things up in the third act. Such had happened a generation earlier with In Old Chicago (1937, about the fire) and San Francisco (1936, about a more literal shakeup). Instead, ANtR pays more due to the main event and gives minor attention to a fair number of various characters, both on and off the crew.

Big Hero 6 (2014)

My previous meager knowledge of the Marvel Comics superhero team came from an X-Men video game that identified Sunfire as a former member. The rather dopey-sounding team name reflected a Japanese identity. Imagine my surprise that they would be getting an animated treatment that, from the trailer, looked very unlike other comic book adaptations these days. I wondered if this would be what Marvel fans had feared ever since Disney bought the company.

Well, as with many a modern Disney feature (more common with Pixar, which this isn't really), the trailer fails to capture the greatness. If I hadn't known the origin of the title, I would've thought that Baymax the robot was a "Big Hero" model with "6" as a numerical designation. We see one other teammate, early teen Hiro, and they don't show off any special abilities. I wasn't even sure that Baymax could speak. He can, quite well -- and while he doesn't match WALL-E in cuteness, I want one of him even more than I want a DreamWorks dragon.

You Can Count on Me (2000)

I'm pretty sure this used to be on IMDb’s top 250; that's most likely how I took notice of it. Nowadays it stands out as having the first major role for Rory Culkin. It's also the earliest I've seen of Mark Ruffalo and the latest I've seen of Matthew Broderick.

The opening establishes Samantha and Terry as having been orphaned when Sammy was a teen and Terry a bit younger. After a fast-forward, Sammy (Laura Linney) is a single mother of eight-year-old Rudy (Culkin). Her new boss at the bank (Broderick) is not very sympathetic to her need to leave early. But as luck would have it, Terry (Ruffalo) shows up just in time…to ask for money. Sammy makes him feel guilty for not replying to her letters for six months, so he agrees to stick around and help take care of his nephew. As you can imagine, the title is ironic.

Night Train to Munich (1940)

Fans of The Third Man may well lament that Carol Reed didn't direct much else anywhere close to its esteem. His next best-known work is probably Oliver!, followed by The Agony and the Ecstasy. Not much of a style or genre pattern here. Fortunately, nine years before TTM, he had made at least one other movie reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock.

Actually, the Hitchcock quality may not have been Reed's idea. The two screenplay writers had penned The Lady Vanishes two years earlier. NTtM even reprises the two British passengers Charters and Caldicott as understated comic reliefs with eventual importance to the story. Perhaps I'd do better to recommend it to TLV fans rather than TTM fans. Either way, I must add the caveat of a strong Nazi presence.

Marriage Italian Style (1964)

My parents plan to visit Italy soon, so when we looked for a streaming movie of reasonably short length, it didn't surprise me that they both wanted to see this Vittorio De Sica piece. At the same time, they expected it to show its age. After all, their parents' generation had crushes on Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.

Not that anyone's likely to crush on their characters in this comedy-drama. It's hardly a steamy or heartwarming romance. Rich man Domenico takes to much younger prostitute Filumena under unusual circumstances. For the next 22 years, he takes care of her financially but seldom shows up despite her strong desire for him, apparently regarding her as a treasure to show off only in certain company. Both of them continue to bed others. This is revealed in flashbacks, while in the present, she finally gets him to marry her by feigning terminal illness. As you might imagine, this does not improve his feelings for her...immediately.

Hercules (1997)

In the past year or so, I've increased my viewing of animated features from the late '90s and early 2000s, when Disney had taken a dive in popularity, not counting collaborations with Pixar. Why? Well, sometimes I want to see something not only short but colorful, whimsical, and unchallenging, and I've already seen the bulk of the most esteemed fare in that category. Oddly enough, I tend to like the "middling" stuff almost equally; it must be a matter of expectations and backlash.

As you may recall, Hercules came out after the double whammy of underachievers Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. One of their alleged problems was working with darker stories than the target audience was used to watching. So someone had the bright idea of turning to Greco-Roman tragedy for something more uplifting! OK, if you remember anything from the trailer and your own studies of ancient history and mythology, you know that Disney took possibly even more liberties with the source material than ever before or since, as if nobody bothered to review what they learned in junior high. (Kudos to the ad makers for conveying the feeling accurately while not giving away the best moments.)