Down by Law (1986)

Yeah, another R-rated, male-heavy, female-nudity-including crime flick already. But that's about where the similarity ends. This one is directed by Jim Jarmusch, whom I hear about often enough that I wasn't content to have seen only his Broken Flowers.

Zack (Tom Waits, whom Jarmusch also directed in a couple music videos), a fired DJ in New Orleans, accepts an odd job delivering a car and then gets arrested, because the police knew of a body in the car that he didn't. He's soon joined in a cell by Jack (John Lurie), a pimp caught trying to do business with a girl he then learns is underage. Their next cellmate is Bob (Roberto Benigni), who did kill somebody, but he claims self-defense. They don't get along easily, but when Bob sees an opportunity to escape, they band together and brave the bayou.

The Bank Job (2008)

I chose this almost at random from my list, not knowing much about it. Obviously a heist flick, and the only actor's name I recognized offhand was Jason Statham. Well, I liked Snatch. Of course, this was bound to be a bit less ludicrous, since it claimed a basis in fact.

In 1971, Terry (Statham) and his petty criminal associates learn from his seductive friend, Martine (Saffron Burrows), of a rare opportunity to rob a London bank by stealth rather than threat of violence. They dig into a basement vault and raid the safety deposit boxes, the contents of which the owners tend to keep secret even afterward. Only in the vault does the gang discover that Martine isn't in this for general wealth; she has in mind a certain box with incriminating evidence. They soon realize that the police are not their biggest concern....

Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

My only prior taste of director Kenji Mizoguchi was Ugetsu, which I basically liked but would be very selective in recommending, because it's pretty sad. Well, in my experience, directors never stop at just one sad movie. I'd had my warning.

The title character is the villain and doesn't get nearly the most screen time. The main focus is on two siblings, Zushiō (male) and Anju (female). Their troubles begin when their father, a governor, is dismissed and exiled for showing too much compassion. When they are 13 and 8, respectively, slavers capture them and their mother, sending the latter elsewhere. Most of the film is set 10 years later, by which time Zushiō has lost all hope and a good deal of virtue. But after Anju hears evidence from a new slave that their mother is alive on Sado Island, she gives serious consideration to a risky escape attempt....

Life with Father (1947)

Nearly a year after my first Michael Curtiz comedy, I've tried a second. I'm afraid the restoration, at least on the DVD sent by Netflix, leaves something to be desired, less for the faded Technicolor than for the audio feedback that makes some dialog hard to understand. This probably has something to do with the movie passing into the public domain in 1975.

Based on a play based on a book based on the life of Clarence Day, Jr., this adaptation focuses more on his stockbroking father (William Powell) and his mother (Irene Dunne), somewhat peculiarly calling each other "Clare" and "Vinnie" respectively. The plot meanders, thanks partly to four sons having their own concerns, but an overarching theme is that Clare was never baptized and keeps rebuffing Vinnie's requests for him to rectify that. More broadly, he wants to run the household like he does the office, with little success. He's not the only stubborn family member.

Tully (2018)

Jason Reitman was my favorite director to rise to prominence in the 2000s, with the triple whammy of Thank You for Smoking, Juno, and Up in the Air. Alas, he couldn't maintain the momentum, leading to a series of less esteemed efforts. Tully looked like a partial recovery. I was also curious to see a second hit from writer Diablo Cody.

Middle-aged Marlo (Charlize Theron) starts the movie heavily pregnant for the third time, her other children being 8 and 6. Her rich brother (Mark Duplass) offers the gift of a night nanny, a concept she had never known before. At first she declines, but before long, she's too drained, and not just in the breast-pumping sense. Enter the title character (Mackenzie Davis), a 26-year-old nonconformist who proves quite competent at taking care of all infant nighttime needs other than nursing -- and goes above and beyond the call of duty for the family. Once Marlo gets past the discomfort of a rather intimate connection to someone she hardly knows, she values Tully tremendously.

Ex Machina (2014)

Generally, I like stories that focus on artificial intelligence, including, yes, A.I. So why did I put this one off so long? Probably because the ads made it look intense. More so than it turned out to be, I'd say. It's not the kind of movie that lends itself to sincere previews, which may be why it suffered financially from limited release.

Sometime in the very near future, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a sweepstakes to spend a week at the extremely private mountain facility where his tech company's CEO, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), has been secretly working alone on androids. It appears that only two are presently active: servile and silent Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) and the far more focal Ava (Alicia Vikander), who doesn't quite look human yet but has a lovely face. Nathan assigns Caleb to interact with Ava, albeit with a clear wall between them, to determine whether she's both conscious and relatable. Unfortunately, Nathan and Ava do not see eye to eye, and the latter badly wants to escape, so Caleb will have to pick a side. And of course, any movie set in a secluded area with no cell reception -- where a power outage means a lockdown, no less -- is bound to have something dreadful happen.