Going in Style (2017)

I had not heard about this Zach Braff comedy when it was in theaters last year. The only reason I know about it now is that it was played on my tour bus. A few minutes in, I determined that it was one of those Hollywood pieces that doesn't bother trying to be better than run-of-the-mill, but the speaker was on too loud for me to tune it out, so I watched.

Friends Joe (Michael Caine), Willie (Morgan Freeman), and Albert (Alan Arkin) are all retirees in dire financial straits due to a seemingly unethical but fully legal move on the bank's part. I flashed back to I, Daniel Blake, up until a key difference arrived: the factor of armed robbery. Joe gets the bright idea to knock over the bank, and the others become desperate enough to go along with it. Of course, at their ages, they have more setbacks than average, so they need to practice first....

Cars 3 (2017)

I question the wisdom of keeping this franchise going. The first Cars was possibly the least popular Pixar feature at the time. The second broke a long winning streak as the first Pixar entry not to score an Academy nomination since the Best Animated Feature category began. The offshoot Planes (not sporting the Pixar brand but made by a lot of the same people) was unusually panned for Disney, and it still got a sequel. I'd ask whether this is really the hill they want to die on, except that the company may never die. Regardless, C3 looked like one of the more promising viewing options on my plane ride, so I gave it a shot.

You may have seen that fairly shocking trailer in which pro racecar Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) has a major crash. Well, this isn't a story about life-threatening injury. The next time we see him, four months later, you'd think he never got a scratch. But there are widespread doubts of whether he can compete with newer challengers, especially record-breaking Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer). McQueen checks into a new training center, whose owner Sterling (Nathan Fillion) and prime trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo) both admire his past but now see him as a geezer, probably fit for only one more race. Naturally, he aims to prove them wrong.

Night Moves (1975)

This makes five Arthur Penn movies I've seen, along with The Miracle Worker, Bonnie and Clyde, The Train, and Little Big Man. So far, despite the efforts of a documentary short on the DVD, I can't find a pattern to his style. They're of different genres and moods, they have different major actors and themes, and there are no obvious signatures. Maybe that's why I've had trouble remembering who Penn is. But I don't hold that against him; the important thing is that he has a good track record, right?

LA PI Harry (Gene Hackman) accepts a case from a retired minor actress: finding her runaway jailbait daughter, Delly (Melanie Griffith). He tracks Delly down to the Florida Keys, but she resents her mom too much to comply right away. After coming across a sunken plane with a corpse inside, she wants to go home. Harry's not keen on remaining a PI after that either, but that won't be the last corpse he sees. And yes, both Delly and the plane are relevant to the larger case.

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

This is one of those flicks I heard of long ago and was never sure whether it would be worth my time. It sounded like a lesser successor to King Kong, which I've long deemed overhyped and horribly dated, no matter which version. But it had to offer something different, or they wouldn't have remade it in '98. I took the chance.

The first key difference between Joe and Kong is that Joe has been raised from infancy by humans, particularly a girl named Jill Young, whose father came to East Africa from the U.S. After 12 years, he's extra enormous for no stated reason, but he mostly understands and obeys Jill. When showman Max O'Hara goes on an expedition to bring back exotic animals and exaggerated tales, he fast-talks Jill into signing a contract that has her and Joe performing in live Hollywood stage productions. Joe doesn't wear shackles like Kong, but neither does he enjoy his new environs. Jill seeks to get him home before he reaches a breaking point -- or before the authorities do....

Mirage (1965)

Judging from Hollywood, people in past decades (hopefully not today) had an overly broad idea of what constitutes a mirage. To them, it wasn't just a natural optical illusion, as when a desert horizon appears to ripple like water; it could be a detailed hallucination brought on by stressful conditions, as when one sees a nonexistent lemonade stand in the desert. That must be the kind intended for the title of this movie, which takes place in New York City with no evidence of high heat and no dialog about mirages.

It is fitting that the picture begins with an evening blackout in a tall office building, wherein David Stillwell (Gregory Peck) notes that people often act more depraved in the dark. Little does he realize yet how much in the dark he is. First a friendly woman named Shela (Diane Baker) has trouble believing that he doesn't recognize her; later, he can't find the path where he thought he followed her. He also has unfamiliar criminal enemies who expect him to have something of value to them. Is he losing his mind? Does he have amnesia, exacerbated by false memories for some reason? Or is there a conspiracy to make him think so?

The Shape of Water (2017)

I could tell from the preview that this would be...distinctive. Not necessarily smart or enjoyable, but surely interesting. I might've figured as much just from the title -- or the credit to Guillermo del Toro; even his schlockier efforts keep me engaged. To my slight surprise, both parents joined me and the Meetup group to see it.

In 1962, mute-but-hearing Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is a custodian at a U.S. government facility that starts housing a sensitive secret: an unnamed amphibious biped (Doug Jones, of course) reminiscent of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. He's dangerous to those he deems enemies, but Elisa senses a kindred spirit and treats him nicely, unlike the people in charge, particularly Col. Strickland (Michael Shannon). She resolves to free her friend/incipient lover before anyone can (a) vivisect him for knowledge that may help in the Cold War or (b) kill him, as Soviet agents hope to do first, tho their inside man (Michael Stuhlbarg) is too science-minded to approve.

Coco (2017)

Whew, I almost finished 2017 without seeing any of its animated features. Honestly, it was awfully low on promising ones. Even Coco seemed iffy to me, given its conceptual similarity to The Book of Life. Further research assured me that Pixar was planning it before TBoL got started. My folks joined me for the former in a theater.

The title oddly refers to a character with little screen time: the senile great-grandma of 12-year-old protagonist Miguel. Her father abandoned the family to pursue a career in music, so her mother, Imelda, banned music from the household. In what I take to be the present, albeit in a Mexican town poor enough to pass for the '80s, Imelda's rule is still in full effect, but Miguel loves music and has no use for the family business of shoemaking. Hoping to enter a talent show, he swipes a guitar from the local tomb of a celebrated musician. But grave robbing on the Day of the Dead takes him straight to the realm of the dead, and only a blessing from a dead relative by dawn can return him. Since the first dead relatives he meets include Imelda and don't dare bless him without a promise that he give up music, he sets out to find his estranged great-great-granddad....