Taken (2008)

I had no interest in this flick when it was new. Only after seeing repeated references to it more than a decade later did I think it might be worth my time. Even then, I wasn't exactly eager.

In modern California, Bryan (Liam Neeson) has retired from the CIA, not because he's past his prime but because his job got between him and his family: His wife (Famke Janssen) divorced him, and teen daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) lives with her and a rich stepdad (Xander Berkeley). Kim's love for Bryan is precarious enough that he reluctantly agrees to let her go to Paris with only peer Amanda (Katie Cassidy) for company. But his honed paranoid instinct was right: During Kim's call to him, strangers kidnap her and Amanda. Bryan gets the recorded portion of the call analyzed and learns that the kidnappers belong to a gang of human traffickers lately with a sexual focus, bound to sell their captives who knows where within four days. Obviously, he won't rely on the authorities for that turnaround time....

Onward (2020)

This was probably the only movie I had been planning to see in a theater until the shutdown. I have since consoled myself by recalling how family fare tends to draw noisy kids.

The setting is populated entirely with the folk and fauna of European myths and legends, but the diverse civilization's modern technology has supplanted traditional wizardry, and the thirst for quests has given way to more secure living. On his 16th birthday, suburban elf Ian (Tom Holland) receives a posthumous set of gifts from his father, who died of an unspecified illness before they could meet: a staff, a phoenix gem, and instructions to cast a spell to let Dad materialize for 24 hours. Ian does turn out to possess an innate magical aptitude that his college-age brother, Barley (Chris Pratt), lacks, but something goes wrong with the spell, and only Dad's clad lower half appears, showing signs of intelligence but sensing the world only by touch. Unsatisfied, the brothers drive off with their leashed half-dad to hunt for a second phoenix gem before the next sunset, Ian half-trusting Barley's knowledge from a history-inspired role-playing game to have sufficient basis in their reality.

Metropolitan (1990)

I had not heard of this film until its silver anniversary silver screen re-release. Evidently, I had mixed thoughts on whether to see it; not only did I wait another five years, but I had marked "Not Interested" on Netflix and still had it in my queue.

In Manhattan, an odd confusion leads a group of young adult aristocrats to invite undergraduate stranger Tom to their party. Tom is not rich; he's just rented a tuxedo for a debutante ball, and his feelings about the rich are as mixed as mine were about this viewing. Nevertheless, he goes for it and fits in quite well, making a new set of friends. They even turn out to have a few acquaintances in common already. But the socialites' interactions do have their hurdles (not always involving Tom), especially when it comes to relationships, and sometimes they want to get away from each other.

Hunger (2008)

I knew going in that this would be gloomy. Nevertheless, I was interested to see something directed by Steve McQueen (the British one) other than 12 Years a Slave. He really hasn't done many feature-length films, before or since.

The first spoken line gives a good idea of the plot: "I will not wear the uniform of a criminal." In the early '80s, prisoners in Northern Ireland identifying with the Irish Republican Army want to be officially recognized as political prisoners and given more humane conditions. When the "dirty" protest doesn't work, they resort to -- you guessed it -- a hunger strike.

Clash of the Titans (1981)

Not the 2010 remake. It would take nothing short of a long plane ride with a poor entertainment menu to get me to watch that. Instead, in my quest for a summer-type viewing, I decided not to let Jason and the Argonauts be my only taste of Ray Harryhausen.

Perseus (Harry Hamlin), as a favored mortal bastard son of Zeus (Laurence Olivier), has grown up in peace. But through no fault of his own, sea goddess Thetis (Maggie Smith) has a bone to pick with him. He suddenly finds himself teleported to a kingdom where anyone courting the princess, Andromeda (Judi Bowker), must answer a riddle or burn to death. Already smitten with her, Perseus uses divine material gifts and the help of friends, including poet Ammon (Burgess Meredith), to protect her -- first from her former fiance, Thetis's son Calibos (Neil McCarthy), who forces her to ask the riddles, and then from Thetis's wrath in the form of the Kraken.

Pollyanna (1960)

In the interest of coping with a dark time, I picked the most famously optimistic movie I could think of. OK, all I really knew about it was the reputation of the title character.

The movie deviates a little from the book's setting and doesn't indicate the state or year, but it appears to be New England in the early 1900s. Preteen Pollyanna Whittier (Hayley Mills in her Disney debut) is moderately fortunate for an orphan in that she gets to live in the mansion of her Aunt Polly Harrington (Jane Wyman), but lest you think it a dream come true, the aunt is bigger on making sure the niece acts like a lady than on loving or spoiling her. Furthermore, Polly is effectively the town matriarch, which may explain the local prevalence of bitterness and hostility. But Pollyanna has embraced her late father's insistence on looking on the bright side, and she shows it to everyone she meets.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Just because I can't go to a theater doesn't mean I'm going to spend the whole summer without a typical summer movie! This one may have been the most popular superhero flick I hadn't seen yet, which, at this point, isn't saying much.

Most of the action takes place in 1983, a decade after most of the action in X-Men: Days of Future Past, which came out only two years earlier. The world at large has only recently discovered superpowered mutants, but it turns out that they predate civilization; they just became more common in the last century. One (Oscar Isaac) who would eventually go by "Apocalypse" had reigned as a god-king many times over, destroying nations when he saw fit, but an uprising in ancient Egypt resulted in him being buried and comatose for more than 5,000 years. It's not entirely clear what wakes him -- maybe a cosmic phenomenon or the mysticism of an inexplicable present cult -- but soon after, he decides the whole world is long overdue for a cleansing. No, he doesn't have halfway-noble reasons; he believes that the strong should rule. It doesn't take long for telepathic Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) to notice something's off, but while his school's students and staff are powerful, they haven't been training in combat for some time. They can barely be called X-Men. And the ensuing struggle is nothing to phone in.

Stray Dog (1949)

For my first Akira Kurosawa film in more than a year, I chose one that Kurosawa himself didn't think much of but that has enjoyed plenty of popularity, as well as at least one remake. It also reputedly was a lot of fun for the makers, which I find surprising for such a serious work.

Murakami (young Toshirô Mifune), a novice police detective in the Tokyo homicide division, has just bombed at a shooting range when his day gets worse: A pickpocket on the trolley takes his fully loaded compact pistol. Fearing for his career among other things, he tries to trace the gun himself. When a bullet fired in a crime matches one retrieved from a memorable misfire at his target practice, he asks to team up with a more experienced detective, Satō (Takashi Shimura).