In the Heights (2021)

That's right: For the first time in 16 months, I went to a movie theater. My parents went with me, making a point to pick the local theater most in need of support. They had already seen the play; I haven't.

The title refers to Washington Heights, a Manhattan neighborhood that's home to many from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and especially the Dominican Republic. The narrating protagonist is Usnavi de la Vega (Anthony Ramos), a struggling late-20s shopkeeper who, despite encouragement from teen cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV) and friend Benny (Corey Hawkins), can hardly work up the nerve to ask out frequent customer Vanessa (Melissa Barrera). Others have their own considerable troubles: Benny's employer, Kevin (Jimmy Smits), will do anything to pay Stanford tuition for his daughter Nina (Leslie Grace), but Nina would rather drop out; and Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega) has to move her salon for lower rent. Indeed, a recurring theme is that the block's culture is fading away as businesses close and people move out. And we viewers get plenty of advance warning of a multiday Heights-wide power outage, which sure won't alleviate anyone's stress during a heat wave.

Ministry of Fear (1944)

Woohoo, Fritz Lang and Graham Greene, together at last! Alas, neither one was happy with the output, which they could blame largely on writer-producer Seton I. Miller exercising too much creative control in his deviation from the novel. But the movie's still pretty esteemed, so I had to check it out.

At a British village fair, Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) accidentally says a code phrase and comes into possession of a cake containing a MacGuffin. Someone tries to make off with it by violent force, but the chaos of war ensures that nobody has it anymore. Suspecting the alleged charity that gave him the cake, Neale hires a PI (Erskine Sanford) to help investigate. Organizer Willi Hilfe (Carl Esmond) and his sister Carla (Marjorie Reynolds) appear surprised at the possibility of a spy ring in their ranks and offer their own cooperation. Of course, this wouldn't be the first Lang picture or the first Greene picture to feature major secret Nazi infiltration, so our heroes may have bitten off more than they can chew. It doesn't help that Neale wants to avoid contact with the police, because he was only recently released from an asylum....

The Small Back Room (1949)

This British production was released in the U.S. as Hour of Glory. I can see why the title changed: "Back room" had a slang meaning that didn't carry across the pond, denoting wartime scientific researchers. Not that directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger regularly did a good job with titles (e.g., The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp omits his death), but this time, they were adapting from a same-title novel.

In 1943, bomb disposal expert Sammy Rice (David Farrar), between pain from a prosthetic foot and apparent mismanagement in his line of work, is usually in a mood bad enough to strain his romance with Susan (Kathleen Byron). When pills don't dull the pain, he hits the bottle hard. But his career isn't over; they still count heavily on him when the going gets tough, especially when they're down a man from the latest failure.

Killer of Sheep (1977)

I've learned to approach low-budget indies with trepidation. No matter how popular they are, they hang by a thread, most likely appreciated for just one or two reasons; if those reasons aren't enough for you, your viewing may well feel like a loss. This indie was actually an M.F.A. thesis project, costing $10,000 (about $44,400 in today's economy) and not seeing a remotely wide release until 2007, partly because of soundtrack rights issues. Given its bleakness, the filmmakers might have chosen not to use color even if they could afford it.

The title character is L.A. slaughterhouse employee Stan (Henry G. Sanders). He does not consider himself poor, knowing people who have it worse, but others expect him to either do something for more income -- be it legit work or crime -- or live an even more austere life, as by not investing in a car. I'm not sure he makes the best choice; his current situation negatively influences his relationship with his wife (Kaycee Moore) and kids.

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)

I realize it hadn't been long since the last movie I saw to include heavy focus on a British royal -- indeed, Queen Elizabeth I in particular. But this one is 32 years older, so I figured it would feel rather different.

Robert Deveraux, 2nd Earl of Essex (Errol Flynn), has had a victory in the Anglo-Spanish War, but not enough to satisfy Her Majesty (Bette Davis). Insulted and sensing support only from Sir Francis Bacon (Donald Crisp), he leaves the court and doesn't return until ordered back for more military expertise in the Nine Years' War. In truth, that's largely an excuse for Elizabeth to be close to the man she craves. But Sir Robert Cecil (Henry Daniell), Sir Walter Raleigh (Vincent Price), and Lord Burghley (Henry Stephenson) see an opportunity to get him out of the way of her favor once again.

Mank (2020)

I was wrong: This 2020 Academy Best Picture nominee took even longer to come to fruition. Too bad the writer, Jack Fincher, father of director David, didn't live to see it. Anyway, once again, I gave it priority among the nominees only because of its availability.

We tend to think of Citizen Kane as exclusively an Orson Welles (Tom Burke) work, but Herman J. "Mank" Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) gets credit as a co-writer. Exactly how much credit he deserves is disputed, but in this telling, he writes the entire first draft. This is not easy for him to do in a timely fashion, because he has a drinking problem, a broken leg from a car crash, a half-estranged wife (Tuppence Middleton), the hostility of William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) over this imminent unflattering depiction, and general unpopularity for not opposing the California gubernatorial run of Upton Sinclair (Bill Nye).

Maria Full of Grace (2004)

Once in a while, I tell Netflix I'm not interested in a suggestion but later rent it anyway. In this case, I must have been turned off by the serious subject matter and then mustered the courage, partly because it got an Academy nomination for Best Actress (pretty rare for foreign-language fare) and an AFI Movie of the Year award. And I've enjoyed an unusually large number from 2004.

In a Colombian town, pregnant 17-year-old Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) quits her job at a florist sweatshop. Since there's not much else she can do for her family's much-needed funds, she agrees to traffic heroin to the outskirts of New York City, telling her family it's Bogotá office work. She is not pleased to learn that her friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) is coming for the same reason, along with two other "mules," but she'll have much bigger reasons not to be pleased before this is over.

Soul (2020)

Finally, I can say once again that I've seen all the Academy Best Animated Features! Back when it was advertised, this flick didn't tempt me as much as Onward, but I learned long ago that ads are a poor gauge for Pixar quality.

When New York middle school band teacher Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) has a fatal yet family-friendly accident, he's not ready to see what lies in store for him in "the Great Beyond." After all, his life just got a whole lot more promising when jazz sax diva Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett) invited him to accompany her on piano. His only hope for getting his blobby blue soul back to his still operable body involves serving as a mentor to a not-yet-born soul in "the Great Before." The soul assigned to him (Tina Fey) is designated "22," and her low number hints at how long she's been failing to find the motivation to get born. Joe does find a workaround of sorts, but things go sideways: 22 inhabits his body, and his soul...well, you've likely seen the cat in posters....