Isle of Dogs (2018)

This review is for those seemingly few who, like me, neither love nor hate the works of Wes Anderson (the rest have no need of a review in the first place). He displays no shortage of signatures, for better, worse, or both. I had expected to wait and maybe see this on DVD, but a Meetup invitation to the limited screening before wide release in the U.S. drew me in.

In either the near future or an alternate present, the dog-hating mayor of fictional Megasaki, Japan, exiles all dogs to the aptly named Trash Island, with popular support thanks to a worrisome flu epidemic among the dogs. After half a year of barely hanging on, a quintet of adult male dogs sees a jet crash on the island. Out comes Atari, an injured 12-year-old orphan and rebellious nephew of the mayor, in search of his beloved Spots. The quintet democratically votes to try to help him, with only long-time stray Chief (Bryan Cranston) against it.

Loving Vincent (2017)

This is the first time I've known an animated movie's DVD to show trailers only for non-animations. They don't even look similar in theme or genre. Either the distributor doesn't offer any other animations, or LV is really in a class by itself. I suspect the latter. Not many animations are so geared toward grown-ups (it's PG-13), and absolutely no others have been 100% hand-painted.

It's 1891, about a year after the untimely passing of Vincent van Gogh. His mailman, Joseph, who was also a friend and posed for portraits, has tried and failed to deliver his last letter to his brother, Theo. The protagonist is Joseph's son, Armand, who sees little point in the belated delivery and would rather drink all the time, but he still honors his dad's request. Theo turns out to be dead too, but instead of going straight home, Armand begins a series of interviews to try to figure out why "your loving Vincent," whom he barely knew despite posing in his teens, would commit suicide mere weeks after an optimistic letter -- if it even was a suicide.

La Bête Humaine/The Human Beast (1938)

This early or at least proto-film noir came out the year in between Jean Renoir's two most esteemed films, Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game. I recall vaguely liking both of them, but very few details have stayed with me. Perhaps a change of genre and a story by Émile Zola would make the difference for me. Of course, just having this blog reinforces my memories.

Engineer Roubaud jealously coerces his wife, Séverine, into aiding and abetting his murder of her erstwhile paramour, Grandmorin, in a shaded train compartment. Another engineer, Lantier, sees them go to and from the compartment but refrains from testifying against them. After all, Lantier has his own designs on Séverine....

The Cameraman (1928)

Buster Keaton may be my favorite silent star. He doesn't attain as much pathos as Charlie Chaplin, but he sure knows comedy, often with impressive stunts, and projects more innocence than Harold Lloyd. I hadn't seen any of those giants since I started this blog, so it was time for another go.

Here Buster (identified only by the same nickname) has been barely making ends meet as a portrait photographer. One customer, Sally, catches his eye, and he learns that she's a secretary for MGM Newsreels. That makes him want a job there, but he has too little experience with the kind of cameras they use. Sally still finds him endearing enough to date and even slip an advance notice of a story to cover, but Buster has competition, both professional and romantic, in the form of a handsome jerk at the company.

Dil Se.. (1998)

To my dismay, my current Netflix list consists mostly of movies from the last few years. Guess I've seen most of their older promising streaming content. I chose this one (whose title means "From the Heart") partly to buck the trend a little and partly because it has been a while since my last viewing from India. To my surprise, I had seen a little of it before, having looked up the portion that amounts to a music video of "Chaiyya Chaiyya," a song strangely coopted for Inside Man (2006).

That number's cheeriness does not reflect the plot well. Delhi radio program executive Amar falls for a woman at a train station and happens to see her repeatedly, but she mostly resists his charms. Little does he realize that she walks a dark path that doesn't lend itself to attachments, tho she sometimes finds it advantageous to get close to someone in his position, under the pseudonym "Meghna." They develop complex feelings about each other, especially as Amar pieces together that she belongs to the secessionist forces whose leader he once interviewed.

Black Panther (2018)

Two years ago, I would've had reservations about an adaptation of a character who clearly came out of the blaxploitation era. Thankfully, not only did his screen debut in Captain America: Civil War show how promisingly cool he was, but TV's Luke Cage reassured me that Marvel blaxploitation could avoid looking like old-fashioned moderate racism.

Although Prince T'Challa of Wakanda (Chadwick Boseman) had already donned the royal stylized catsuit, only in this movie does he officially become king and take the Black Panther title, along with a substance that enhances his physical abilities. Soon afterward, he learns of a murderous international museum heist that put secret Wakandan technology in the hands of smuggler Klaw (a hammy Andy Serkis), and he assembles a team to recover it at a rendezvous intended for a black-market sale. Naturally, a mere illegitimate businessman could hardly be the main villain in a work like this; he has a temporary partner with a vision for the global future....

Mr. Blandings Build His Dream House (1948)

I may have first known this title from a bookshelf, but what got me interested in the movie was its inclusion in AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs at #72. Of course, I always took that list with a grain of salt; some of its entries do little to nothing for me, but that's likely to be true of anyone's 100 favorite comedies. Regardless, Jim Blandings is played by Cary Grant, who, tho previously unmentioned on this blog, has starred in 20 films that I've seen and has a fine track record in my view.

Tired of having little space for four in their New York apartment, Jim and wife Muriel (Myrna Loy) jump at the chance to move to rural Connecticut. Despite Jim's experience as an advertiser, he doesn't see through a slick pitch, and they buy a house fit to be condemned. This could be a blessing in disguise, as they now have the excuse to rebuild entirely to their specs. But that, too, is not their strong suit....

Titanic (1953)

You may wonder why I bothered watching this a few years after another '50s British account of the event, A Night to Remember (which I do remember). Between that and the '97 blockbuster, hadn't I had my fill of the general history? Well, given the extremes of praise and backlash for the James Cameron epic, I remained curious how else it could have gone. Besides, unlike ANtR, this predecessor won a writing Oscar and stars Barbara Stanwyck.

Also in contrast with ANtR, it takes a more personal approach to the story. There is in fact a budding romance between a teen girl in first class and a teen boy from a lower deck, but they're not Jack and Rose; nobody regards their relationship as scandalous. Nor do they get the lion's share of the focus, which goes to a more troubled relationship between two parents. The ritzy, spoiling dad (Clifton Webb) seems to be a bad influence on both kids, so Mom (Stanwyck) wants to take them from Paris back to Michigan. Dad's not ready to part from them, so he buys a ticket just in time.

The Breadwinner (2017)

Nice to have finally seen a second Best Animated Feature nominee for the year. It had also been a while since I last saw an entire movie streaming on Netflix. Now I have an idea of what it takes to get me back in the habit.

From the beginning, things look bad for the Afghani family of preteen Parvana: They're trying to sell "the only thing of value" they have left. It gets worse when the Taliban arrests her father, Nurullah. With her older brother Sulayman dead, her younger brother Zaki still a baby, and no other male relatives in town, there is no legal option for anyone left in the household to go out in public. Parvana has her hair cut short, dresses as a boy, and works odd jobs. And despite her mother's admonition to give up hope, she plans to secure Nurullah's release one way or another.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

For all the praise heaped on this movie, for all the high ratings across different websites, I was reluctant to watch. The trailer made clear that it was full of anger, at an intensity I was unlikely to find comfortable. Still, I wanted to maximize my chances of seeing the Academy Best Picture ahead of the ceremony.

I'm not sure in what period the story takes place, but from the phones and a reference to 1986, I'd say the '90s or early 2000s. A little-used road with three long-disused billboards suddenly has a message: "Raped while dying/And still no arrests?/How come, Chief Willoughby?" In a town so small, everyone knows the event in question, and it's not hard to guess who paid for the message: bereaved mother Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand). Alas, for all the sympathy she'd gained, almost no one can get behind the challenge to a respected chief (Woody Harrelson), especially since he has terminal cancer. But Mildred insists on keeping it up until there's appreciable progress on the case.

Videodrome (1983)

My past exposure to David Cronenberg consists of The Dead Zone and A History of Violence, which I liked; Eastern Promises, which I found OK but unmemorable; and eXistenZ, which I thought ill-executed and needlessly disgusting. I was also aware that he did the 1996 Crash and Naked Lunch, suggesting that he has a thing for drugs and "trips" as well as (anti?)violence. He's something like David Lynch and something like Darren Aronofsky. So I approached with some trepidation a movie whose premise would not be used nowadays.

Max (James Woods) runs a niche Toronto cable station always looking for shocking material. One day he sees a video, allegedly a pirated TV series, showing people chained and whipped to death for hours. He figures that's right up his target audience's alley, so he plans to air it. A correspondent traces it to Pittsburgh, and Max's masochistic girlfriend (Debbie Harry) goes to audition...and doesn't return. Another correspondent says the program involves actual murder. Max seeks further answers in person, despite the obvious risk. No, nobody seeks to give him the torture shown on TV; they have a much more insidious agenda, starting with the hallucinations he experiences right after his first viewing....