Booksmart (2019)

I wasn't particularly taken with what I knew of this movie going in. Sure, I was a high school nerd once, but it's not really my scene anymore, and modern comedies are always a gamble for me. But it had been a while since I last accepted a Meetup invitation. Besides, I liked Eighth Grade, and this might not be so different.

Valedictorian Molly and her one friend, Amy, feel pretty good about having prioritized study over everything else -- until they learn that their party-going classmates also got into prestigious schools. Now they, especially Molly, want to attend a wild pre-graduation party so they don't miss out on the experience altogether. Their first major obstacle is even finding the party they have in mind, since they received no personal invitation. Obviously, it wouldn't be much of a story if they didn't end up forming interesting memories, but will their efforts be worth the costs?

Paris Song (2018)

This is one of those films too obscure for its own Wikipedia page, tho it gets a brief mention on director Jeff Vespa's. I probably wouldn't have noticed it if not for its inclusion in a Jewish film festival. (Judaism doesn't really feature in the plot.) But the few dozen people to have rated it on IMDb had given it an 8.0, and the plot sounded interesting. Besides, Vespa himself would be at the theater to talk about it, so my parents and I went.

In 1925, Amre Kashaubayev is invited from the Kazakh Steppe to represent the USSR in a sing-off in Paris. He accepts, partly because he wants to call the outside world's attention to the Kazakh people, many of whom want independence. Of course, Soviet officials would prefer that Leonid Sobinov place higher. They don't want Kashaubayev consorting much with westerners like George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Lee Abbott. And they definitely don't want him making contact with Mustafa Shokay, exiled leader of the Kazakh independence movement. You should have a good idea what happens.

Foxcatcher (2014)

I've seen Steve Carell in semi-serious films before, most notably Little Miss Sunshine and The Big Short. This is my first time seeing him in something not remotely humorous. Between this, the character's mental issues, and the basis on a real person, I can only assume that he was trying for an Oscar. He did get a nod, but Eddie Redmayne had it in the bag that year.

Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and his slightly older brother, Dave (Mark Ruffalo), already have Olympic gold medals for freestyle wrestling by the start of the story in 1986. Out of the blue, Mark is invited to Foxcatcher Farm in Pennsylvania to join the new Team Foxcatcher under wealthy heir John E. du Pont (Carell) and hopefully win the World Championship. He accepts. Dave is less keen on coming, because he has a wife and kids with a life elsewhere, but John grows to want him at any price, partly because he's reputedly the better wrestler and partly because the team doesn't take practice as seriously as John wants. It seems that the three of them can hardly get along all at the same time, and especially with John's emotional issues, things will get ugly.

Top Secret! (1984)

In elementary school, I loved wacky nonstop comedies like The Naked Gun and Hot Shots. Today, I believe that Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker never quite recaptured the magic of Airplane! and all lost their momentum for good by the mid-'90s. But what about halfway between AP and TNG?

I'm guessing TS is set in the early '60s, based on protagonist Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer's screen debut) resembling an Elvis Presley character but clearly mocking the Beach Boys for his opening number. It's also set mostly in an East Germany that looks more like the Third Reich. As a guest singer, Nick enjoys a privileged status but is strongly advised to keep his nose clean. He stops doing so when he falls for Hillary (Lucy Gutteridge), a wanted member of the curiously French Resistance. Together, they seek to free her father (Michael Gough, 11 years before reuniting with Kilmer for Batman Forever), a scientist forced to make weaponry for the government.

The Old Maid (1939)

I've seen enough late-'30s and early-'40s dramas about the love lives of class-conscious 19th-century women to conclude that it was a fad. This one debuted in between Jezebel and Gone with the Wind and had at least three of the former's actors.

Charlotte (Bette Davis, 3 years before her turn as Charlotte in Now, Voyager and 25 before starring in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte) develops an interest in Clem (George Brent), an old flame of her married cousin Delia (Miriam Hopkins). Clem dies in the Civil War (the Union side, FWIW), and Charlotte opens an orphanage for children of war casualties, with a special fondness for one child, Tina (Marlene Burnett) -- short for Clementina, which should tell you why. Delia also finds out why and jealously talks Charlotte's rich fiance (Jerome Cowan) into calling it off -- with a lie about Charlotte's health, just in case he would've accepted her anyway. Unable to sustain the orphanage, Charlotte allows Delia to adopt Tina unofficially. After being widowed, Delia allows Charlotte to move in as well. By this time, Tina sees Delia as her mom and Charlotte as her aunt. This spells tension between the sisters.

Fast Five (2011)

The Fast and the Furious franchise never looked like my thing. Nevertheless, when a silver-screen series reaches eight entries and anticipates two more, my curiosity builds. FF is reputedly both the best of the bunch and a key turning point, with a reduction in focus on street racing in order to reach a broader audience. In fact, it was supposed to be a conclusion, but there was too much demand. I could only hope that forgoing my usual policy of watching the predecessors first wouldn't leave me confused.

Three U.S. fugitives -- Dom (Vin Diesel), Mia (Jordana Brewster), and Brian (Paul Walker) -- partake in an elite grand theft auto job in Rio de Janeiro, but when they find something fishy about the scenario and their other partners' priorities, things go rather sideways. In taking matters into their own hands, they make an enemy of Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), a criminal kingpin who practically runs Rio. Not having many good options for escape, they get the bright idea to steal all of Reyes' stockpiled cash -- what they don't destroy of it, anyway -- and split it with their six or seven accomplices. This would be challenging enough without the additional factor of Javert-like special agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) tracking them down, albeit with the help of more conflicted Officer Neves (Elsa Pataky).

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

I made a point to rewatch the 1964 Mary Poppins first. Good thing I did, because judging from my memory, I must have dozed off during "Stay Awake" and missed all the rest as a kid. Pity: It seems more enjoyable to an immature mind with little idea how actual adults behave. I feel like I got more out of Saving Mr. Banks. Still, there was enough of merit in MP to keep me interested in the sequel.

In 1934, some 24 years after Mary left the Banks estate, her former ward Michael (Ben Whishaw) is a flaky banker and widowed father of three on the verge of losing their old house if he can't find a share certificate. His sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) lives elsewhere in London but pays frequent visits to help. Michael's two oldest kids, tweens Annabel (Pixie Davis) and John (Nathaniel Saleh), have had to grow up a bit in the year since their mother died, and youngest Georgie (Joel Dawson) can be a handful. Before long, the titular event happens, and the ageless mage (Emily Blunt) intends to do the Bankses a good turn once again.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

What kind of Marvel Cinematic Universe fan would I be if I didn't see this, of all entries, in the theater? My dad finally came back, too. The main complaint I've seen about it is that it's hard to talk about without spoiling. Well, I'll give my typical level of skirting the edge. Chances are, if you have enough interest to see Endgame, you either already saw key previous entries or won't mind learning some of what happened in them, most notably the ending of Infinity War.

I had expected most of the movie to consist of the remaining heroes seeking out and fighting Thanos for the Infinity Gauntlet so that they could undo his sudden annihilation of half the life in the universe. Actually, they don't take long to overpower him, but the gauntlet has been emptied of the Infinity Stones, and Thanos probably isn't lying when he says he destroyed them. (What, no periodic repetitions in his war on overpopulation?) For the next five years, they have no hope of reversal -- until Ant-Man returns from the Quantum Realm and reports that it offers a possibility for time travel. (Told you he had weird physics.)

Mean Streets (1973)

Martin Scorsese is one of those people whose works I check out almost entirely because he's popular, not because I like his track record. It's a matter of cultural education. This time, I opted to check out his earliest collaboration with Robert De Niro and arguably his first hit feature.

Both IMDb and Netflix summarize the plot as a minor crook, Charlie (Harvey Keitel), working his way up the mob ladder, but that's not what I recall. Netflix adds that he's in Little Italy (no points for guessing which city) and dating a woman with epilepsy, Teresa (Amy Robinson), whom we never see having a seizure, but her condition is important insofar as other mobsters wouldn't approve the relationship. Neither summary mentions De Niro's character of Johnny Boy, who's a cousin to Teresa, a buddy to Charlie, and a debtor to dangerous men.