Sorcerer (1977)

The Wages of Fear (1953) became one of my favorite movies when I watched, tho I might think differently upon a rewatch. When I learned that William Friedkin directed a remake right after The French Connection and The Exorcist, I was caught between "That sounds excellent" and "Can it possibly satisfy me after the original?" Further reading tells me it was a sleeper hit, partly because it had the misfortune to debut at the same time as Star Wars, but early critics were also unkind to it. Which way would I go?

TWoF has a rather simple plot: Four financially desperate foreign men take a job transporting two trucks of poorly preserved nitroglycerin hundreds of miles across South American wilderness to put out an oil company's fire. The most immediately obvious change Sorcerer makes to the story is in the details of the four men, all of them now criminal but previously unacquainted, having come to Colombia to hide: Jackie (Roy Scheider), an Irish-American mobster; Victor (Bruno Cremer), a fraudulent French banker; Nilo (Rabal), a Mexican hit man; and Kassem (Amidou), a Palestinian terrorist. Guess that's one way to ensure we don't feel too sorry for them if they don't make it.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

Yes, it was necessary to provide the director's name in the title. This same year saw a mostly live-action Disney remake. There's also Pinocchio: A True Story, which is officially dated 2021 but keeps getting counted with the others. Since del Toro's version is easily the most popular, I invited a friend to watch it with me.

The first distinctive thing about this retelling of the Carlo Collodi story is that it's set in World War II, with a brief appearance by Benito Mussolini (Tom Kenny, who also voiced Gepetto in P:ATS). Here, carpenter Gepetto (David Bradley) drunkenly creates a rather crude, asymmetrical pinewood puppet to replace his war casualty son, Carlo (Gregory Mann, whose voice had to be digitally altered as it changed during production). The fervency of Gepetto's desire persuades a wood sprite (Tilda Swinton) to infuse life in the puppet. Gepetto is initially scared and then frustrated that Pinocchio is nowhere near as ruly or considerate as Carlo (despite the same voice), but his care for Pinocchio is clear when cold-hearted men, namely Count Volpe the ringmaster (Christoph Waltz) and a fascist official (Ron Perlman), want to employ the puppet's unique advantages.

The Italian Job (1969)

When I selected this to follow a comedy, I had forgotten that it was another comedy. I must have known at one time, because I recognize the most famous (and IMO most overrated) moment from a YouTube excerpt. Only after a lot of humor had trickled in did I realize what I was in for. Kinda wish I'd do that more often, because humor is often funnier to me when I'm not primed for it.

Newly freed small-time Cockney crook Charlie (Michael Caine) learns that the Sicilian Mafia just offed his partner in crime (Rossano Brazzi), but that needn't stop him from carrying out the scheme the Mafia opposed. Eventually, he persuades still-imprisoned kingpin Mr. Bridger (Noël Coward, who had one foot in the grave) to lend his financial resources for a heist involving about as many people as Danny Ocean's. They are to engineer an enormous Turin traffic jam, take $4 million in gold from a scheduled convoy, and outmaneuver the police with multiple vehicles. Of course, the police aren't the only threat....

The Lego Batman Movie (2017)

I didn't get much out of The Lego Movie, and the surprisingly prominent Batman therein was not the highlight to my mind. This spinoff didn't promise as much focus on the Lego aspect, so I figured it wouldn't even be comparably creative. Nevertheless, a critic made it sound pretty heartwarming, so I didn't write it off altogether. Besides, after all the dark Batman flicks I've seen, I thought I'd try a popular example of the other extreme.

In a moment of distraction, Bruce Wayne (Will Arnett) agrees to adopt ambiguous-aged Dick Grayson (Michael Cera). Wayne butler Alfred Pennyworth (Ralph Fiennes) refuses to send Dick away and even lets him into the Batcave, without letting him know that Batman is Bruce. Batman reluctantly acknowledges that he'll need a little assistance to thwart the latest threat to Gotham City, yet he underestimates how much he could use not just a sidekick but family, especially when the curiously fangy Joker (Zach Galifianakis), with help from henchwoman Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate), assembles an army straight out of the Phantom Zone, an interdimensional prison for extra dangerous supervillains.

Reign Over Me (2007)

Another up-for-grabs DVD that I hadn't been planning to see. I almost passed over it, but then I checked its IMDB rating and looked at the back cover. It occurred to me that I had never seen a whole serious film featuring Adam Sandler, and this was one of his more popular ones. And hey, the price was right, no wait time or anything.

New York dentist Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) happens upon his former school roommate and friend, Charlie Fineman (Sandler), who doesn't appear to remember him. Alan already knows that Charlie's wife and kids died in the 9/11 attacks, but he's had no idea how poorly Charlie has coped for the last five years. We're not talking The Fisher King-level psychotic, just eccentric, irresponsible, unsociable, and brittle enough to worry his parents-in-law (Robert Klein and Melinda Dillon), yet he refuses all therapy. Fortunately, he soon welcomes Alan's company, and the feeling is largely mutual. Slowly, they inspire each other toward probably healthier behavior.

The Iceman Cometh (1973)

At 239 minutes, spread across two discs each with an intermission, this is probably the longest movie I've ever seen. (Don't you believe any list that claims Gone with the Wind is longest.) Add in the basis on a nonmusical play for adults, which usually means mostly talking in a single room, and you know you're gonna need patience. The fame of the title, the unlikelihood of me reading or watching the play, and the desire to challenge myself gave me the courage to sit through it across two nights.

In 1912 New York, the ironically named Harry Hope (Fredric March in his final role) owns a seedy bar/boarding house whose regular patrons/residents are a miserable bunch I wouldn't care to meet. Apparently the first out-of-the-ordinary event on screen is the arrival of a new guy (young Jeff Bridges), who's run into trouble and wants help from a former comrade in the anarchist movement with a death wish, Larry Slade (Robert Ryan, who did die before the film's release). Regardless, bartender Rocky Pioggi (Tom Pedi) and the other patrons look forward to Harry's 60th birthday party that evening, not least for the semiannual visit of their pal Theodore "Hickey" Hickman (Lee Marvin), whose past purportedly funny story about his wife's infidelity with an iceman partly explains the title. But Hickey's not the same man when he arrives. He'll still buy everyone drinks, yet he doesn't feel a need for any himself. He says he's found peace and wants everyone to do the same, by giving up their pipe dreams.

The Fabelmans (2022)

My first theater outing with my parents in 16 months had to be planned pretty far in advance. What could interest them this much without relevance to music? Why, my namesake, Steven Spielberg. And this is not just popular but loosely autobiographical.

In the early '50s, roughly seven-year-old Sam Fabelman (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord, later Gabriel LaBelle) nervously goes to a movie theater for the first time. The depiction of a train crash stuns him, and his coping mechanism is to replicate it with model trains. His mother, Mitzi (Michelle Williams), asks him to video-record the crash so he can watch repeatedly without further damages. Moviemaking, with help from his three younger sisters and fellow Boy Scouts, becomes his passion over the years, thanks to a sense of control. But as the title implies, this isn't just his story, and conflicts with his mom and dad, Burt (Paul Dano), threaten his trajectory.

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)

For foreign-language musicals on screen, mostly Indian movies come to mind. The only exceptions I could think of were Nosotros los pobres and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, both of them serious and the latter possibly qualifying as an opera with its nonstop singing. By contrast, TYGoR is more of a Gene Kelly-type vehicle; indeed, Kelly gets a supporting role as visiting composer Andy. And yes, most of his lines are in French.

The official English title is misleading in that the leads, sisters Delphine (Catherine Deneuve, also in TUoC) and Solange (Françoise Dorléac), are old enough to work as teachers. Delphine is on the verge of dumping her obnoxious gallery-owning boyfriend (Jacques Riberolles), and both sisters hope to find romance and move from Rochefort to Paris to pursue musical success. As it happens, showmen Étienne (George Chakiris) and Bill (Grover Dale) could use help with a town fair stage act. But they're not the true love interests. Solange will literally bump into hers (Kelly), and Delphine will keep missing Maxence (Jacques Perrin), the sailor and artist who already has a crush on her. Meanwhile, their café-owning mother (Danielle Darrieux) is thinking she broke up with the unfortunately named music shop owner Simon Dame (Michel Piccoli) too rashly.

For intro paragraph brevity, I have skimped on the credits. Most of the above characters have alternate actors for singing voices: Anne Germain as Delphine, Claude Parent as Solange, Romuald Figuier as Étienne, José Bartel as Bill, Donald Burke as Andy, Jacques Revaux as Maxence, and Georges Blaness as Simon. Some of the less prominent characters do too, leaving me to wonder whether Darrieux was the only on-screen actress to sing.

About half the musical sequences focus on dance over singing. No, we don't get to see a lot of that from Kelly, who was in his mid'50s by then. But it's no La La Land either; the choreography is pretty good.

As for the songs, the melodies are fine, and I've grown fonder of the sound of French. Sometimes the subtitles try for rhymes, tho not consistently. One odd scene has characters talking in rhyme, in both languages, without music. Maybe more than one did and I was too caught up in other elements to notice.

What could distract me so? Well, the plot, which I also skimped on above. It may look conceptually basic, and the loves are certainly shallow, but events get pretty intricate, and the dialog isn't slow. Some of its humor may get lost in translation, though I perked up at an explicit reference to Jules and Jim. The rest of the humor is largely in situational improbabilities, along with the cute brattiness of the sisters' much younger brother (Patrick Jeantet on screen, Olivier Bonnet for singing).

Apart from Kelly's age, you could almost believe that this musical came out a great deal earlier. There are just a couple lines too risque for the Hays Code era, not that that ever applied in France.

Overall, I just kinda like it. I feel I would've gotten more out of it if I were better versed in French. And maybe more alert at the time.

Brother Bear (2003)

I didn't go into this with high expectations. Its middling reception aside, I've found that movies set in prehistory tend to have awfully simple plots. So do movies about animals at a low level of anthropomorphism. And for whatever reason, few 2003 titles, even among hits, have done much for me. But I rarely pass up an Academy-nominated animated feature, and what little I'd seen from this one didn't look bad. Besides, I wanted to see how it compares with Brave. If nothing else, BB runs a short 85 minutes and promised to be heartwarming.

In a fictionalized Alaska with both humans and mammoths, irresponsible adolescent Kenai (Joaquin Phoenix) pursues and kills a bear for questionable vengeance. Spirits of departed humans, particularly his eldest brother (D.B. Sweeney), see fit to teach him a lesson by turning him into a bear. He can now talk with all sorts of animals except humans, which doesn't stop a savvy shaman (Joan Copeland) from cryptically telling him where to journey for penance and restoration. He makes little progress until meeting cub Koda (Jeremy Suarez), who got separated from his mom and would like a companion as he heads to almost the same destination. They had better make good time, because Kenai's other brother (Jason Raize) has mistaken him for Kenai's "killer" and is on a similar vengeful quest.

Menace II Society (1993)

Odd choice for Thanksgiving, isn't it? I chose it mainly because it was on my list, runs only 97 minutes, and isn't another animation. Also, it had been a while since my last Black-centric viewing. (Does Hamilton count?)

Set in L.A., most of the story takes place shortly after the Rodney King riots, when protagonist Caine (Tyrin Turner) is 18. His grandparents (Arnold Johnson and Marilyn Coleman) are proud of him for graduating high school, but his future doesn't hold much promise. Against their pious Christian upbringing, he gets involved in armed robbery, drug dealing, and worse. A way out of his dangerous lifestyle presents itself when two friends offer to take him with them to Kansas, but while he'd like to escape, he has a hard time imagining that new life. Will he ever turn around?

Patema Inverted (2013)

Has it really been a year and a half since my last anime feature? I guess anime TV shows have tided me over. Well, I hope to see another one much sooner, because this one reminds me what I've been missing from TV.

Late in the 21st century, a team of scientists trying to tap energy from gravity (just roll with it) accidentally reverses gravity for a large number of people and objects. Some of the "inverts" manage to hold on, move underground, and establish a separate civilization there. Patema (Cassandra Lee Morris in the dub), teen daughter of the late invert chief, has spent her entire life underground. Bored of the cramped darkness, she visits a forbidden tunnel leading to the surface -- and almost falls into the sky. Fortunately, surface-dwelling teen Eiji (Michael Sinterniklaas) is there to catch her and slightly outweighs her once she drops excess baggage. He takes her to a shed, hoping to figure out how to get her home before less tolerant people find her.

The Tin Drum (1979)

I picked a war flick for Veterans Day, but it wasn't the best choice. The protagonist isn't a soldier, and the soldiers we see don't exactly look good to us. You'll understand why in a moment.

On his third birthday, Oskar (David Bennent, actual age 11 at the time) deliberately injures himself in a way that prevents him from growing physically anymore, which ensures that people never treat him as fully adult. That premise alone can be pretty disturbing, but it's also set in Nazi-occupied Poland. His own family sometimes supports the invaders, tho they learn better eventually.

Old Acquaintance (1943)

Had I realized that the title evoked "Auld Lang Syne," I would have saved this viewing for New Year's. But while the song is played at the beginning and ending, no part of the film takes place at that time of year. We are to think of its actual meaning, not its holiday association.

The story begins in 1924 small-town America, when Kit (Bette Davis) has become a celebrity for her first published novel. Her long-time friend Millie (Miriam Hopkins, not dissuaded by previous experience with Davis) takes inspiration and becomes a novelist in her own right, far less favored by critics but far more prolific and financially successful. Alas, by 1932, Millie's husband Preston (John Loder) feels neglected enough to leave her and daughter Deirdre (Francine Rufo, later Dolores Moran). He courts Kit, but she declines for the sake of Millie's friendship. Most of the rest happens in 1942, when Kit and Preston meet again through the war effort, by which time Kit is finally if tentatively dating someone, the younger Rudd (Gig Young).

The Bad Guys (2022)

It's not often that I think to watch a movie because Netflix advertises it as newly streaming, especially when I wasn't particularly sold during its theater run. But there's been plenty of fan art since, and enough people in my circles check out such fare, if not the book series on which it's loosely based, that I wanted a more informed opinion.

Before getting into the plot, let me describe the setting. For the most part, it resembles generic modern America, except that some anthropomorphic animals mix with the human population. We're not talking Bojack Horseman-level diversity here; only seven anthros appear at all, yet one of them is the state governor. They also evidently subscribe to different nudity taboos by species. I'd find it more awkward if I hadn't watched The Underdog Show as a kid.

Child's Play (1988)

This franchise has had eight movies, the 2019 one a remake/reboot, but nearly all have subpar ratings. I decided that the first and most popular entry must have something enduring about it if Hollywood keeps trying. Different people had told me that it was either scarier than other famed slasher films or just plain campy. Either could explain it.

In Chicago, after losing a police shootout, serial killer Charles Lee "Chucky" Ray (Brad Dourif) uses his voodoo training to possess a nearby robotic doll, ironically of the "Good Guys" brand. From there, he ends up as a sixth birthday present to one Andy (Alex Vincent). At first, the doll seems to do only what it should: say a few basic sentences (including stating its name), turn its head, and move its eyes. But Andy keeps denying responsibility for Chucky's apparent actions, especially when they turn deadly. Andy's mom, Karen (Catherine Hicks), begins to suspect that her son is neither lying nor insane. She appeals to Detective Norris (Chris Sarandon), incidentally the guy who shot human Chucky and thus is an intended target....

Arachnophobia (1990)

This feature gets a very mixed reception, as reflected by the disparity between critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes: 93% vs. 54%, respectively. Regardless, I'd heard enough good things about it, mostly pertaining to the humor, to give it a whirl.

An entomologist's (Julian Sands) research party enters a highly secluded area of Venezuela. The photographer (Mark L. Taylor) gets bitten by a tarantula and dies in seconds. The spider hitches a ride in his coffin to his fictitious little hometown of Canaima, California, where it reproduces with a local. Not only are the smaller hybrids just as venomous; they are extraordinarily eusocial, effectively taking orders from their hulking progenitor. The merciful news is that the first batch of hybrids is sterile and short-lived. But that could change soon, and given how the species dominated that secluded area...

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

I didn't think I'd be seeing any more old Frankenstein entries from Universal Pictures. Even The Bride of Frankenstein was more cheesy than scary or funny. But this one was on a list of horror recommendations, and I did want something older and more allegedly classic than I've been seeing this month.

Shortly after the natural death of Heinrich von Frankenstein (why he wasn't Victor is beyond me), his son Wolf (Basil Rathbone) moves into the castle, hoping to make use of the adjoining lab and restore honor to the family name. There he finds squatter Ygor (Bela Lugosi), who had assisted Heinrich; and Heinrich's infamous creation (Boris Karloff), who has been secretly alive but comatose for some time. Wolf performs a project to re-energize the monster, if only for scientific study. The monster does as Ygor bids, apparently out of sheer fondness for a fellow misshaped outcast. Alas, Ygor is vengeful....

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)

This was actually my first viewing this month, but I opted to wait until after a scheduled Meetup discussion to write my review. It's the kind of film I have trouble evaluating without a broader perspective.

In modern rural Thailand, Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar), around age 60, has a kidney disorder and knows he is not long for this world. Perhaps that's why the ghost of his wife (Natthakarn Aphaiwong) shows up and sticks around. Soon after, their long-vanished adult son (Jeerasak Kulhong) returns as a sort of glowing-eyed yeti, explaining that he got that way from sex with another such creature, which he calls a Monkey Ghost. Everyone in the homestead -- including Boonmee's nephew and caretaker (Sakda Kaewbuadee), who's not as prominent as the title implies -- acknowledges these surprise guests but is not alarmed. Indeed, things progress quite peacefully toward the conclusion, a mix of the inevitable and the unpredictable.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

I was only tentatively planning to see this someday and hadn't expected to right after another Disney movie about kids and non-evil witchcraft. But people have been bringing it up with the passing of Angela Lansbury, so I thought it a fitting way to honor her.

In World War II, Eglantine Price (Lansbury) is legally compelled to host three evacuated siblings in her rural English mansion, however unwillingly and temporarily (a scenario I hope never happens in the U.S.). She has been studing magic via mail-order instructions to help the war effort, but the course ends abruptly before she can learn a key spell. Since youngest child Paul (Roy Snart) has a habit of collecting random things and Miss Price wants to enchant a turnable object, he supplies a bedknob. From then on, he can make a certain large bed travel to any destination, which allows the party to hunt for the needed information.

Halloweentown (1998)

I hadn't heard of this when it was new, probably because it was showing only on the Disney Channel. Only now that I've seen it on a couple lists of favorites to stream this time of year did I take any interest, and still not much. Mainly, I wanted something short and readily available to kick off my October-appropriate reviews.

Every year, single mother Gwen (Judith Hoag) forbids her children from going out on Halloween night, but her mother, Agatha (Debbie Reynolds), pays a visit the kids welcome much more than Gwen does. What makes this year different is that Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown), 13, overhears an argument between the adults and learns that they are a family of natural-born witches, tho Gwen insists on raising them as mundanely as their late non-warlock father would. Furthermore, Agatha comes from a hidden town populated with all sorts of beings most humans don't welcome -- and its citizens have been turning suddenly hostile and vanishing to parts unknown. When Gwen refuses to help solve that case, Marnie sneaks aboard the magic bus that Agatha catches, along with Marnie's preteen brother, Dylan (Joey Zimmerman), and seven-year-old sister, Sophie (Emily Roeske).

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)

Looks like this is my first boxing movie viewing in two and a half years. Can't say I missed the subgenre, but this one has a little something extra to interest me: basis on the life of a real boxer I'd already heard of. Not that I could have told you anything else about him.

Rocco "Rocky" Barbello (Paul Newman) is a fairly violent Brooklyn thief. Fellow con Frankie (Robert Loggia) suggests that he box for money. Rocky does so only in desperation, adopting the last name "Graziano" to hide his criminal record. Once he realizes how far he can go without losing a match, he learns to love it. But his past threatens to catch up to him, particularly when Frankie tries bribery and then blackmail to get him to take a dive.

Imitation of Life (1934)

This is a bit lesser-known than its 1959 remake but almost as popular. At one time, it was widely preferred. I figured I ought to see both someday and might as well start with the first.

Delilah (Louise Beavers) goes to a wrong address to apply for a housekeeping job but persuades Bea (Claudette Colbert), broke widowed mother to toddler Jessie (Juanita Quigley, later Marilyn Knowlden and Rochelle Hudson), to let her work for room and board for herself and daughter Peola (Dorothy Black, later Fredi Washington). When Bea learns what uniquely excellent pancakes Delilah makes, she shows her own persuasiveness and opens a pancake restaurant, "Aunt Delilah's." After five years, fan Elmer (Ned Sparks) recommends selling the pancake mix; Bea hires him as an exec, and the brand takes off. She and Delilah have never been richer, yet money won't take care of their social difficulties.

The Judge (2014)

Perhaps the most notable thing about this flick is that it made Robert Duvall the oldest Oscar nominee yet, at 84. That record has since been broken. Of course, I was just as likely to have been drawn in by the lead actor, Robert Downey, Jr.

Hank (Downey) is an especially scuzzy lawyer, favoring guilty clients for profit, which may explain why he's getting a divorce and hasn't seen any of his birth family in ages. The latter changes when he attends his mother's funeral in her fictitious hometown of Carlinville, Indiana. He's eager to head back to Chicago -- until his father, Joseph (Duvall), a long-time judge, gets arrested for a fatal hit and run on an ex-con (Mark Kiely) Joseph might well have wanted to kill. Sensing how inadequate a local defense attorney (Dax Shepard) is, Hank reluctantly steps up to the plate, but Joseph, who can't remember hitting anyone, may prefer to be found guilty of second-degree murder if the alternative is to publicize his waning mental faculties. And the prosecutor (Billy Bob Thornton) is determined.

Paddington (2014)

I hadn't expected to see this, but people kept bringing up the title character in connection with Elizabeth II, because the filmmakers had them appear together in a short video to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee. While she is not in either of his feature films, this viewing seemed an oddly decent way to pay my last respects to her.

The sudden demise of his uncle (Michael Gambon) prompts his elderly aunt (Imelda Staunton) to send the iconic young bear (Ben Whishaw) from their Peruvian jungle to London, where she hopes he'll find succor from the anonymous explorer (Tim Downie) who befriended them 40 years ago. The first hospitable human he meets is one Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins, who would later take special interest in another nonhuman). Since his given name is hard for humans to pronounce, she dubs him after the train station where they meet. Her husband, Henry (Hugh Bonneville), is reluctant to house Paddington even for one night, citing stranger danger to their kids, but Mary can be persuasive. As they search for the explorer, the explorer's daughter Millicent (Nicole Kidman) searches for Paddington -- to make a museum exhibit of his corpse.

Predestination (2014)

No, it's not another flick with a religious focus already. It's an adaptation of the Robert Heinlein time travel short story "'--All You Zombies--'" (yes, that's how it's officially punctuated). I don't blame the studio for changing the title, partly because reaching feature length, specifically 97 minutes, required an extra plot element.

Despite being an Australian production, it's set in the U.S., primarily Cleveland and New York City, in various years between the 1940s and, I think, the '90s at latest. The secret Temporal Bureau has been attempting to prevent or reduce historical disasters, including attacks by the elusive time-traveling "Fizzle Bomber," who is set to kill 10,000 New Yorkers in '75. This alone is more than the Netflix summary will tell you, but don't get the impression that the plot is simple. It's just so full of twists that it's hard not to spoil.

Calvary (2014)

I don't recall learning about this one before. Maybe Netflix recommended it based on my interest in vaguely similar rentals. Maybe I wanted another Catholic priest story, even if they're as hit-or-miss as anything. I doubt it was a desire to learn about director John Michael McDonagh.

In a small Irish town, Father James (Brendan Gleeson) hears an unseen man in a confessional booth promise to kill him, albeit with the courtesy of a week to set his affairs in order. With no seal of confession on a threat, James tells the bishop (David McSavage) but not the police. Nor does he flee. Indeed, for the next week, he barely says a word about it, instead dealing with various locals' troubles.

Shoeshine (1946)

In its homeland, this is called Sciuscià, a cognate, because that is what the shoeshiners say when trying to get customers. I guess post-WWII Italy had a pretty strong American presence. Regardless, shoeshine has vanishingly little to do with the plot. It's merely how homeless 15-year-old Pascuale (Franco Interlenghi) and younger housed but impoverished pal Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) make money early on, before things start happening. Perhaps the point is that they occupy a humble place in society. And/or that they soon come to wish they had stuck with their first job, which might have sufficed if they weren't saving up for a horse.

After unwittingly taking part in a scam, Pascuale and Giuseppe go to separate five-boy cells in juvie. Since one of the uncaught deliberate criminals is Giuseppe's older brother, Attilio (uncredited, like most of the cast), the duo agrees not to spill. This gets harder when Pascuale worries about Giuseppe's well-being, but Giuseppe is not apt to be grateful, or even forgiving, for being spared at the expense of Attilio. How well can friendship survive in this environment, even with the prospect of escape?

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Despite having seen Irene Dunne in starring roles before, I could not have named any of her titles without looking (ironic considering I Remember Mama). This was my remedy. The DVD also included her in Together Again (1944), but I felt like watching only the more popular option.

In the fictitious small town of Lynnfield, CT, Theodora (Dunne) seems innocent except for secretly writing hit romance novels that scandalize her stodgy aunts (Elisabeth Risdon and Margaret McWade) and most neighbors. When she visits her publisher (Thurston Hall) in New York, she catches the eye of illustrator Michael (Melvyn Douglas), who follows her without invitation even to her hometown. Under threat of blackmail, she hires him as a gardener. As obnoxious as his approach is, she allows him to draw her out of her tiny comfort zone, which rapidly leads her to fall for him. Alas, he wasn't that serious in his courtship. Well, now it's her turn to be aggressive, in a more public fashion....

RRR (2022)

This is the first Indian movie I've seen at my mom's suggestion; she'd read good things about it. Perhaps the strangest thing about it is the title. In the opening sequence, the letters expand to "Rise Roar Revolt," but it started as a working title based on initials of the director (S.S. Rajamouli) and leads (N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan). I went in knowing little more than its 185-minute runtime, as Netflix doesn't describe the plot. Nor does it offer audio in the original Telugu for some reason; I settled for Hindi.

In 1920, owing to a language barrier, the Hindu Gond tribe unwittingly sells preteen Malli (Twinkle Sharma) into slavery as a henna artist in the Delhi mansion of Governor Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson), who won't sell her back. Malli's adult brother figure, Komaram Bheem (Rao), assumes the alias of Muslim "Akhtar" and plots to bust her out. He befriends Rama Raju (Charan), an undercover cop assigned to arrest the mystery man alleged to be plotting against Buxton. Neither friend has the slightest suspicion at first....

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

I had found Rise of the Planet of the Apes "very Hollywood," by which I mean entertaining but geared toward the lowest common denominator. Of course, you have to expect a lot of simplicity in a story about apes with slightly enhanced brains who want to escape captivity. The sequel promised a rather different plot but had the same IMDb rating, so I decided to give it a try.

A detail I had missed at the end of Rise was the start of "simian flu." The opening herein might remind you uncomfortably of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this one is much worse, reducing the world's human population to the 0.2% who can resist it. The maybe hundreds of survivors in the San Francisco area hope to reach and restore a hydroelectric dam, which requires a handful of them to pass through the uplifted apes' claimed forest. Head chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) is pretty patient, having been raised by kind humans and sensing a similar type in Malcolm (Jason Clarke), but paranoid tensions mount on both sides....

The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)

So much for my earlier decision not to see this. Eh, I have changed some in seven years. Anyway, yes, that is the entire title, tho it's just Madam de... in the original French. Whenever her surname would be given, it is completely drowned out, interrupted, or visually blocked. I still don't know the purpose -- maybe trying to convey that all sorts of women are like her? At least we know her first name, and the significance of her jewelry becomes apparent almost immediately.

In what I take to be the 19th century, Louise (Danielle Darieux) has been so profligate in her Parisian decadence that she sees fit to sell the earrings her husband, André (Charles Boyer), gave her for their wedding. To save face, she claims to have lost them, but the jeweler (Jean Debucourt) sells them back to André, who gives them to his mistress (Lia Di Leo), who sells them to pay off her own debts. Their next buyer, Fabrizio (Vittorio De Sica), just happens to run into Louise and fall for her....

The Book Thief (2013)

From the title, I was not at all surprised to learn that this is adapted from a book. More surprising to me is the mixed response: Less than half the critics on Rotten Tomatoes like it, yet the mainstream audiences mostly do. And this isn't some dopey entertainment fest.

In the '30s, at age 12, Liesel (Marie-Sophie Nélisse) gets transferred from her mother to foster parents Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Rosa (Emily Watson) in a fictitious German town, for reasons she doesn't immediately understand. Having lost her kid brother to illness en route, she starts a habit of swiping fictitious books for comfort, despite being illiterate at first. That deficit and her habitual silence toward new acquaintances make it hard for her to make friends, and Rosa's cranky to begin with, tho at least neighbor Rudy (Nico Liersch) has a semi-requited crush on Liesel. But she gets a bit more practice with friendship when a nearly dead young Jewish man, Max (Ben Schnetzer), calls in a family favor for shelter from the Nazis.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

Ah, my first western viewing this calendar year. The timing felt right to me, since I was getting tired of foreign and indie flicks.

Shortly after Custer's Last Stand, Frontier Army Captain Brittles (John Wayne) is six days away from retirement. On screen, that can only mean that something eventful is going to happen first. Specifically, he receives orders to escort the commanding officer's wife, Abby (Mildred Natwick), and niece, Olivia (Joanne Dru), to a coach heading back east. Since several tribes are on the verge of war against the cavalry, this mission will require a larger party than usual.

Scandal (1950)

No, this has nothing to do with the 2010s TV series. This is an Akira Kurosawa film from the same year as Rashômon, which would explain why it gets overshadowed.

Somewhat famous painter Ichiro Aoye (Toshirō Mifune) and more famous singer Miyako Saijo (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) happen to stay at the same hotel, and they engage in friendly conversation on a balcony. Alas, it looks juicy enough for photojournalists to spin a tryst tale. Aoye threatens a lawsuit, but Saijo would rather keep quiet and wait for the whole thing to blow over. Editor Asai (Shinichi Himori) believes that Amour magazine will be most profitable doubling down on its false version of events. Aoye hires the first lawyer to approach him, Hiruta (Takashi Shimura), despite the latter having nowhere near the repute of the defense. Hiruta does sympathize, but he can hardly resist Asai waving money at him to take a dive....

Blind Chance (1987)

I don't recall ever learning about this movie before. It may have been recommended based on political controversy: The Polish government suppressed its release for six years, and part of it is still censored with a caption to indicate as much. I sure wasn't tempted by the Netflix description, which seemed way too vague and, in fact, illogical ("three diametrically opposite points of view"?). Regardless, the picture's popularity, including Martin Scorsese's endorsement, held promise.

Young man Witek (Bogusław Linda) has just lost his father and dropped out of med school, but those event have little bearing on the rest of the plot. From the moment he starts running for a departing train for whatever reason, we are treated to three alternate timelines based on what he may do next, particularly with regard to a stranger in his path. Each timeline sees him take a different political stance (communist, anticommunist, or neither) and a different love interest, two of them his exes.

Daughters of the Dust (1991)

I had rejected this option once before, but a Meetup group was set to discuss it. You can tell it's a small group, because they rescheduled when I couldn't get the disc as soon as estimated. I made a point to wait until the day of our session to watch so the details would stay fresh in my mind. Let's hope I remember enough of the discussion now.

In 1902, much of a large Gullah/Geechee family prepares to move from what is best known as St. Simons Island, Georgia, to the mainland for better opportunities. Among other things, this includes a visit from relatives who have already been away for quite a while, and it shows, especially with the Christian convert (Kaycee Moore). The old matriarch (Cora Lee Day) is too traditional to leave, and her grandson (Adisa Anderson) has trouble deciding.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Given how much I loved the first Doctor Strange outing, it would take an extraordinary misfire for his next eponymous feature not to be worth my while. This one is only moderately popular, probably below average for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (that term seems inadequate now), but hey, that didn't stop me from liking X-Men: Apocalypse.

Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has been having a glum but quiet time in New York when he and Wong (Benedict Wong) suddenly have to fight a giant demon targeting teen America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), who can open portals between alternate universes but manages to do so only when terrified. Noting signs that a witch summoned the demon, Strange seeks support from his old comrade-in-arms, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), now finally going by "the Scarlet Witch." Alas, she's the summoner. She wants to absorb Chavez's power through a method that would kill Chavez, just to try to be happy in a more promising universe with the option of moving again as needed. Strange can't abide that, but Maximoff is too powerful for him to take on alone. The answer may lie in another universe....

Starman (1984)

It took a gradual buildup of information trickling to me over the years to get me interested in this flick. Moderately good reception. The mid-'80s. Sci-fi. Romance. Jeff Bridges, with an Oscar nod. John Carpenter. Eventually, I got tired of seeing the title without knowing the rest.

Paranoid officials fire missiles at an alien ship, which crash-lands in the Wisconsin wilderness. The one alien aboard (Jeff Bridges) enters the nearest house, finds photos and DNA of a dead man, and assumes the man's shape, accidentally freaking out the man's widow, Jenny (Karen Allen). He strong-arms Jenny into helping him travel to Barrington Crater, site of a previous ET visit, within three days. It's not just the hostile government that worries him; apparently, something in the atmosphere is toxic to him, or else he's missing something vital. Jenny initially tries to escape her kidnapper but develops sympathy and eventually...well, see a hint in my first paragraph.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

When I saw Top Gun for the first time about a decade ago, I didn't get much out of it. I couldn't remember much later besides the control tower buzzing and the death of a wingman, and it seemed to me there wasn't all that much action for a designated action flick. But in light of the sequel's much better reception, I had to check it out. Maybe it would be like the later Mission: Impossible entries.

For decades, "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) has been content to turn down promotions above his U.S. Navy captaincy and serve as a skilled if rather unruly test pilot. But with drones being the apparent wave of the future, his superiors offer him only one choice for further flights in the service: teaching at the Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, a.k.a. TOPGUN. They wouldn't give him even that if not for his buddy-turned-admiral "Iceman" Kazansky (Val Kilmer). Mav has very little time to train a small group of aviators and pick the best for bombing a canyon base. And unlike supervising admiral "Hammer" Cain (Ed Harris), he wants to ensure they not only complete the objective but all make it home safe. He never was one to accept theoretical limits.

Public Enemies (2009)

This sat on my list for a long time before my friend and I were looking at possibilities. The same friend had rewatched Road to Perdition with me, so I'm not surprised he wanted another gangster flick that briefly includes Frank Nitti (Bill Camp herein).

As the title implies, the story concerns multiple notorious criminals, but they've been pared down quite a bit from the Bryan Burrough novel. Most of the focus is on John Dillinger (Johnny Depp in one of his last normal-looking roles), starting with his 1933 arrival at -- and immediate break from -- Indiana State Prison, so he's already notorious. When he's not committing armed robbery or having standoffs with law enforcement, he's wooing one Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) from the moment he lays eyes on her. The other major focal character is FBI Agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), in charge of the pursuit.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Not once does anyone on screen mention licorice or pizza. The title comes from a real-life record store chain that existed in the story's setting of 1973 SoCal. That's the kind of unappealing randomness I sooner expect from the Coen Brothers or Quentin Tarantino than from Paul Thomas Anderson. But Anderson was trying something a little more comedic than he ever directed before, so I'll give him that. And once I read a description, it seemed as good a place as any to start catching up on Best Picture nominees.

The Netflix jacket turns out to be misleading again. Yes, Gary (Cooper Hoffman) is a high-earning Hollywood actor in high school, but the focus is not on his acting career, his schoolwork, or even his classmate interactions. Rather, he aggressively courts Alana (Alana Haim), in her late 20s, as soon as he lays eyes on her, and then he recruits her assistance in business ventures unrelated to his acting, like waterbed sales. Basically, he wants to grow up even faster.

John Wick (2014)

Sometimes when traveling, I choose movies I expect not to get too invested in, just in case I miss part of it due to technical difficulties, lack of time, or tiredness. I had already heard this movie summarized as one man killing many men to avenge his dog, which probably wouldn't resonate with me. Nevertheless, it's pretty popular and will soon have a third sequel, so I thought there might be more to it than the summary suggested.

Well, yes, to a point. First, the dog killers also beat John (Keanu Reeves) up at his home and steal his rare fancy car. Second, the dog was a posthumous gift from his late wife (Bridget Moynahan) and thus something of an extension of her. Third, little did they know that John was a legendary hitman, an underworld bogeyman à la Keyser Söze, having retired only for the sake of settling down with his wife. Fourth, lead thug Iosef (Alfie Allen) is the son of a Russian mafia leader, Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), who tries to kill John preemptively to protect Iosef. Once you know all this, it's little surprise that John is willing to kill anyone who stands between him and retaliation.

Flee (2021)

I was not aware that a nearly fully animated feature with voice actors not all playing themselves could be called a documentary, tho some have come close. Waltz with Bashir may have been the first I saw that truly qualified. Anyway, I watched Flee partly to complete another year's worth of Academy Best Animated Feature nominees and partly because, on a flight where I had trouble hearing the dialog through earbuds, subtitles came in handy.

Amin (not his real name) lives in Denmark for quite some time without telling anyone, even his fiancé (not fiancée), what his life was like before. As the trauma interferes with his conviction to marry, he finally opens up to director Jonas Poher Rasmussen about how his family of six had to get away from the rigors of wartime Afghanistan and then Soviet Russia when he was a teen. For most of the story, they were not all together.

Minari (2020)

I regret that this entry has come so late. First I took a while to nudge Netflix for its unusual delay. Then I didn't make time for a review before my vacation, which ran longer than anticipated. And of course, I had higher priorities when I came back. Let's hope I don't forget any important details.

In 1983, a family of four, the parents originating from South Korea, moves to rural Arkansas. Having been poor in California, Jacob (Steven Yeun) hopes to make it big as a farmer, specializing in exotic crops like minari, which Americans call water celery among other names. His wife, Monica (Han Ye-ri), isn't nearly so gung ho about the move, not least because their young son, David (Alan Kim), has a heart problem and might need emergency care far from the nearest hospital. The parents make extra income with the same unglamorous work as before: separating male and female chicks for a hatchery. The plot thickens when Monica's oddball mother, Soon-ja (Oscar-winning Youn Yuh-Jung), moves in against Jacob's wishes.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)

When this came out, I figured I'd see it on my 40th birthday. I jumped the gun by two days, because a friend and I were perusing HBO Max, which puts numbers first in otherwise alphabetical lists. I wasn't big on the world of Judd Apatow, but it seemed appropriate. Besides, I tend to find comedies more enjoyable with company.

In chatting about their sex lives, three electronics store clerks (Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, and Romany Malco) see through a weak lie by stock supervisor Andy (Steve Carell) and correctly infer that he's, well, the title character. They then throw everything they have into changing his status, whether he likes it or not. Fortunately, he develops an interest in nearby vendor Trish (Catherine Keener), who has her eye on him too. But she's no virgin, and he's having trouble mustering the nerve to tell her he is.

At the Circus (1939)/Room Service (1938)

These aren't among the most popular Marx Brothers movies, but it's hard for me to picture them ever completely failing to amuse me. Not sure I'd have time for both sides of the disc (165 minutes total), I gave priority to AtC, partly because it's a little more highly rated and partly because I had already seen the Flying Karamazov Brothers version of RS.

As befits the '30s, both comedies are about financial desperation. In AtC, a circus owner (Kenny Baker -- not that one) is secretly robbed by the guy he owes money (James Burke), who plans to use the "unpaid" debt as an excuse to take over the circus. Luckily, a circus employee (Chico) had already invited an attorney associate (Groucho), who could serve as a detective in a pinch. If they can't find the loot, they can try to make up the difference by selling entertainment to the owner's estranged rich aunt (Margaret Dumont). In RS, a struggling play producer (Groucho) and his troupe and friends have been freeloading at a hotel managed by his brother-in-law (Cliff Dunstan), but the irascible director (Donald MacBride) is about to kick them out. They persuade a newly arriving playwright (Frank Albertson) to feign illness, delaying the eviction until they hopefully make money from his play.

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

An old French classic is already iffy for me; one that gets reviled in some circles is iffier still. I had planned to skip this one, until I got invited to a Meetup group to discuss it. Hey, if it was bad, at least we could harp on it together.

None of the characters have given names, and the setting is ambiguous apart from a fancy resort. What's important to know is that a man (Giorgio Albertazzi) insists that a woman (Delphine Seyrig) had had a romantic liaison with him at a Czech spa and agreed to meet him again around this time, but she denies ever meeting him before. The other man of note (Sacha Pitoëff) evidently disapproves of the first man's actions and challenges him to games of Nim.

Lone Survivor (2013)

I don't know what possessed me to deliberately put this at the top of my queue right after The Lost Patrol, another war movie with, well, only one survivor. At least this time, we get fair warning on that score.

In 2005, four Navy SEALs (Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, and Ben Foster) are assigned to capture warlord Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami) in a mountainous region of Afghanistan, where radio signals are unreliable. When civilians happen upon them, they abort their stealth mission and try to get back to safety before the Taliban shows up in force. You already know they fail that too, and things don't go well for the first rescuers.

Turning Red (2022)

After my previous viewing, I wanted something lighthearted, preferably with a bit more femininity. This was the first option to come to mind. I'd heard mixed things about it, but none of the downsides sounded like dealbreakers to me. Besides, I wanted an informed opinion of the controversies.

Mei (Rosalie Chiang), 13, likes to think she's her own woman despite consistently following her mother, Ming (Sandra Oh). Alas, Ming's protectiveness can get horribly embarrassing, which awakens a female-only family blessing/curse that turns Mei into an eight-foot red panda when her emotions get the better of her. Calming down restores her humanity and clothing in a puff of smoke. Her new shape doesn't affect her behavior or even her voice, but she still tries to hide if not get rid of it -- until her peers enlighten her to enough upsides. If only Ming and other relatives who have suppressed their pandas would respect Mei's feelings...

The Lost Patrol (1934)

When a pre-Code movie is a remake, that can mean only one thing: The original was silent. Quite an understandable move when there's plenty of inaudible gunfire. This particular remake is more popular than the original and reportedly inspired many knockoffs, but it's had a pretty mixed reception over the decades.

If there's a moral to the story, it's "Share important information with your team before heading into danger." In the first scene, a British WWI lieutenant gets gunned down in the desert by an unseen Arabian sniper. Since he had refused to tell anyone else in his patrol where they were going or why, the remaining 11 wander. When they find an oasis with a curiously abandoned fortress, they can only hope another British patrol will reach them before the snipers get them all.

The Mouse That Roared (1959)

This is one of those eye-catching titles that I'd seen many times before bothering to find out what they meant. The combination of Peter Sellers and a middling IMDb rating didn't seem promising for my laughs, but at least it was sure to be lighthearted.

A fictitious, tiny, backward European nation, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, has put all its eggs in one basket by selling pinot to the U.S. When sales drop calamitously and no one takes protest letters seriously, the prime minister (Sellers) advises the duchess (Sellers in drag) to "go to war" and "lose," because the U.S. is uniquely generous to former enemies. They send 20 "troops" led by game warden Tully (Sellers still) to New York City with instructions to surrender at the first opportunity. But they arrive at an unusual scenario: Most New Yorkers are underground for an air raid drill, and the few who aren't include General Snippet (MacDonald Parke), eccentric physicist Dr. Kokintz (David Kossoff), his beautiful daughter Helen (Jean Seberg)...and Dr. Kokintz's way-too-insecure prototype of the world's most powerful bomb. Tully decides to pursue victory after all, to the dismay of superiors....

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

It's a pretty pathetic evening when the most promising showing at the multiplex is a video game adaptation sequel. I never even watched a whole video game movie before, because none had been reputedly better than mediocre. So why'd I go at all? Because my apartment building would have no power until at least 8 p.m., possibly 10, and I could think of no other way to fight boredom that long. Hmm, perhaps I'm pretty pathetic that way.

The teenage anthropomorphic hedgehog (Ben Schwartz) presently lives in a U.S. suburb with two quasi-parental humans, Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter). He wants to use his Flash-like speed for good but accidentally causes about as much trouble as he foils. Not feeling ready for heroic responsibility, he contents himself with partying while Tom and Maddie are attending a distant wedding. That's when his archnemesis, mad engineer Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik (Jim Carrey), returns from exile with the help of Knuckles the Echidna (Idris Elba), who considers Sonic a tribal enemy and the key to recovering the Master Emerald, an extremely powerful creation. Of course, Robotnik has his own priorities for the emerald. But lest you think that Sonic has to handle them both alone, in comes Miles "Tails" Prower (Colleen O'Shaughnessey), a two-tailed, aerodynamic fox wunderkind with engineering skills rivaling Robotnik's, who's admired Sonic from afar and knows a few things about Knuckles.

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids (2004)

I had seen my previous dead serious documentary feature (as opposed to kiddie fluff) more than two years ago. These viewings may not be fun, but I think they're enriching enough to be worth my unhappiness now and then.

It sounds like Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman did not set out to document the children in particular, let alone to change their lives. Zana wanted to photograph the prostitutes, who were disinclined to agree, since they feared legal trouble. To get on their good side, she launched a junior photography class. Then she realized that she might be able to help the kids have more of a choice for what to do in the future, whether that meant professional camerawork or just learning and living in a better environment.

The Great Lie (1941)

Hmm, Bette Davis and George Brent. When did I last see them together? Oh yeah. And before that? Yup. I think they were in a rut, because there are definite similarities herein.

Aviator Peter (George Brent) learns on his "honeymoon" that his marriage is null and void, partly because he was drunk but mainly because Sandra (Mary Astor) was mistaken on when her divorce from her prior husband could be finalized. Since she would rather go back to work as a concert pianist than hold another wedding at the first opportunity, Peter returns to his ex-girlfriend, aristocrat Maggie (Bette Davis). Sandra hopes to win back Peter all the same by having his baby, but then he and his plane go unaccounted for in a dangerous region. The two women agree that Maggie will meet Sandra's fiscal needs and raise the baby as her own. But you know what usually happens when someone is missing and presumed dead on screen....

Allegro Non Troppo (1976)

It's rare for me to take a movie suggestion from an anonymous online stranger, especially when I'm sure I won't have the same opinion. In this case, someone claimed that ANT is even better than Fantasia, which it openly mimics. I discovered that it's not available on Netflix but can be watched in its entirety for free on YouTube. And it's only 85 minutes.

To be honest, I didn't even watch all 85 minutes, because I skipped most of the live-action sequences, which run longer than in F. These sequences, depicting the filmmakers before and after the animations, are typically comedic, but they're certainly not the main draw (no pun intended). Just try finding those clips separate from the rest. As for the musical parts, well, they vary in mood as well as value. I'll review each in order of presentation.

Only Yesterday (1991)

Netflix confused me by stating the year of release as 2016. Turns out it was never dubbed in English or distributed in the West until the 25th anniversary. I find this strange, because the story isn't half as foreign to us as in many animes that reached the U.S. faster.

The setting alternates between the mid-'60s and early '80s as 27-year-old Taeko (Daisy Ridley) reminisces about her fifth-grade self (Allison Fernandez). She presently takes a "vacation" doing farmwork with a sister's in-laws, hard-pressed to say what about it reminds her of that particular year of her life. It wasn't especially good or bad, but the various episodes get her dwelling on what could have been -- and what may yet be. Farmhand Toshio (Dev Patel) starts to look promising....

The Batman (2022)

Despite my friend (that one) saying he could watch this repeatedly, I was not in a great hurry to see it. He told me it resembled Se7en, which is not what I look for in my fare, especially when others had made it sound like the darkest live-action Batman feature yet. Under most circumstances, I would wait and watch it at home. But when my Net went down and I decided to kill a few hours at a local theater, this was the most promising offering.

At the start of this story, Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) has been donning the cowl for about two years, so many no-name crooks flee at the sight of the Bat Signal, but some are more confident. Gotham City Police Lieutenant Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) trusts the vigilante, but higher-ups are leerier. Regardless, it makes a certain sense to call him in when someone assassinates the mayor (Rupert Penry-Jones) and leaves an envelope labeled, "To the Batman." It becomes clear that the self-styled Riddler (Paul Dano) has several more high-profile targets in mind....

Tunes of Glory (1960)

I haven't seen many movies that depict the military outside of wartime. This one is set in Scotland in 1948, so only the freshest soldiers wouldn't have seen action a few years earlier.

Maj. Sinclair (Alec Guinness) has had significant successes and honors, but instead of getting promoted to colonel, he learns that he will no longer be acting commanding officer of his regiment in peacetime. His replacement is Lt. Col. Barrow (John Mills), who's much bigger on discipline and thus less popular with the men. Sinclair finds himself under more stress than any of those men, not least when he illegally takes his anger out on a corporal piper (John Fraser) who's dating his daughter (debutante Susannah York) on the sly.

Hamoun (1990)

Allegedly, Iranian critics in 1997 selected this as Iran's best picture ever, tho I can't find a solid citation for this repeated claim. At any rate, it doesn't appear to rate that high on any international list of more recent vintage, but it still enjoys high esteem.

Hamid Hamoun (Khosro Shakibai) is already under a bit of stress -- amid work at an import-export firm, study for a Ph.D., and effort to establish himself as a writer -- when his wife of seven years, Mahshid (Bita Farahi), blindsides him by suing for divorce. Against lawyer advice, he doesn't acquiesce, hoping to rekindle her love or at least understand, partly via flashbacks, why that won't happen. People start accusing him of mental instability, and as he fails to find comfort or satisfying answers, that assessment becomes increasingly true.

White Nights (1985)

The title refers to the far-northern phenomenon of sunlight way into summer nights. Sure enough, the story takes place in that setting, and while the white nights themselves are not important to the plot, they serve as a symbol of confusion and frustration. I had not known this when I saved the DVD for the start of daylight saving time.

Famed first-generation American dancer Nikolai (Mikhail Baryshnikov himself) has a stroke of bad luck when his malfunctioning commercial plane (I assume this was never an in-flight movie) has to make an emergency stop in the USSR, from which he defected. In his unsuccessful haste to hide his identity, he does not brace himself for a rough landing and thus gets injured and knocked out. When he wakes, he's not in prison in the conventional sense, but neither is he allowed to go much of anywhere unless he agrees with the proposal of Col. Chaiko (Jerzy Skolimowski) to dance for Soviets again. In the meantime, in addition to being on camera, he's supervised by roommates Raymond (Gregory Hines), a stage actor and tap dancer who defected in the opposite direction; and Darya (Isabella Rosselini's U.S. debut), Raymond's wife. Can Nikolai persuade them to take the risks needed to let him flee, bearing in mind that the KGB could very well claim he died from his crash injuries?

The Adam Project (2022)

Having nothing to do with Adam, this brand-new release didn't tempt me until a friend and I were perusing our Netflix options. He's big on time travel stories (so I've recommended Time Bandits to him), and I hadn't seen one in more than a year. Plus, this one has several Marvel movie alumni.

Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds), son of accidental time travel inventor Louis (Mark Ruffalo), attempts to fly a time jet from 2050 to 2018, the last known time point for his wife, Laura (Zoe Saldana). The tyrannical Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) forbids him, and a gunshot from her right-hand man (Alex Mallari, Jr.) forces Adam to stop in 2022, too injured to fly unassisted for a while. There he meets his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell), whom he reluctantly needs to reactivate his jet. Their mission becomes bigger than rescuing one woman: As the trailer reveals, they may see fit to use time travel to prevent its own invention.

Shaolin (2011)

This must be the first movie I've seen because it was excerpted in a video where an expert rates on-screen kung fu veracity. I decided it had been long enough since my last martial art viewing.

In the 1920s, Hou Jie (Andy Lau) is a warlord as brutal and treacherous as the next -- until his daughter (Shimada Runa) gets killed, his wife (Fan Bingbing) walks out on him, and he becomes a powerless fugitive with a bounty on his head. Not knowing what else to do with his life, he joins Shaolin Monastery, which he had recently desecrated, the abbot (Yu Hai) being more forgiving than most of the monks. He finds a new level of emotional peace, but his fighting days aren't over: His former deputy and "sworn brother," Cao Man (Nicholas Tse), is perhaps even worse than Hou used to be, at least with regard to refugees. And these monks are not the hands-off, super-pacifistic kind of Buddhists.

Triple Feature: Smallfoot (2018), Missing Link (2019), Abominable (2019)

When I realized that I could watch all three of these dueling movies on one flight, I couldn't resist. They all came out within a year of each other and are animated adventure comedies involving humans who discover that bigfeet of some sort not only exist but are hardly monsters. Now I would know my personal preference among them.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)

For some reason, on my return flight, I felt like watching only animated features. Eh, different airline, different options. This animation hadn't especially tempted me before the Academy Award nomination announcement, tho I did have it tentatively on my Netflix list. Regardless, it was the first one I found available that I hadn't seen or rejected.

The Mitchells are all a little quirky, but that doesn't mean they get along swimmingly like the Addams Family. In particular, narrator Katie (Abbi Jacobson), who's about to start film school, has trouble finding common ground with her Luddite dad, Rick (Danny McBride). He decides to take the family on a long road trip to the school for bonding's sake. It's during this ride that an AI called PAL (Olivia Colman), shown as a crude face on a smartphone, goes Skynet and everything with an intact related chip -- which is nearly omnipresent, especially in the latest robots -- does her bidding. Thanks to sheer luck and an old car, the Mitchells are soon the last known uncaptured humans. Will they have the teamwork and other skills to save everyone else?

Star Wars, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Boy, how unpopular does a modern Star Wars movie have to be for me to wait more than two years to check it out? This isn't even a stand-alone; it's the conclusion of the numbered series, and I'd hate to end my knowledge with the unresolved prior episode. Well, what finally spurred me to watch it was a set of diminishing options for passing time on my flight. Most of the remaining movies were either unknown to me, even more panned, or not suited to my mood at the time.

One of the first things we learn is something I never saw coming: Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is back, and not as a ghost. He claims credit for directing the First Order behind the scenes and corrupting Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), whom he now bids kill the last Jedi, Rey (Daisy Ridley). As impressive as Rey was before, she feels that she has a lot to learn before taking on Palpatine. Good thing she still has plenty of allies, old and new, and Kylo isn't as committed as he once was.

The Suicide Squad (2021)

Given the underwhelming performances of Suicide Squad (2016) and Birds of Prey (2020), I figured that this would be OK at best. I took more interest in it after seeing an episode of the ensuing TV series, Peacemaker. Then I learned that this was the kind of sequel that makes very few allusions to past events, so I wouldn't feel too left out.

The title refers to a ragtag bunch of talented convicts who have opted to do ostensibly heroic black ops in exchange for lighter sentences, albeit with the threat of remote execution if they don't follow orders (no actual suicides herein). Their current mission: Sneak onto the island of Corto Maltese and wreck the lab of a powerful secret project before the new tinpot dictator (Juan Diego Botto) can use it against the U.S. Don't get too attached to the first several squad members we see, because most don't make it past the beach. Fortunately, the B team hasn't been intercepted yet....

No Time to Die (2021)

So much for my prior perception that Spectre would be Daniel Craig's last turn as James Bond. Well, it makes sense that an agent like him wouldn't stop having adventures just because he had resigned from MI6 after capturing Spectre leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). Spectre holds a grudge, for one thing.

Bond's long-time CIA buddy, Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), first asks his help to locate abducted MI6 scientist Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik), whose work with nanobots could make it way too easy for terrorists to kill everyone with a genome sufficiently similar to a given target. Bond doesn't sign on until hearing from the new Agent 007, Nomi (Lashana Lynch). Blofeld is indeed still a player from within his prison, but there are more than two sides in play here....

Dune (2021)

When I selected this as my first viewing on a long plane ride, I knew it was pretty popular, but I had no idea it would be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. That's impressive considering past attempts to do justice to the Frank Herbert novel. And having read the book myself, I was aware of features that could make a screen adaptation difficult.

When humans have an intergalactic empire, desert planet Arrakis becomes noted for three things: an invaluable spice, giant sandworms, and primitive but dangerous locals called Fremen. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), son of Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) and Bene Gesserit religious acolyte Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), can't help but get caught up in the rampant jockeying for power among imperial elites. It becomes increasingly evident that his skills and temperament are key to forming a Fremen alliance against the forces of Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), who will stop at nothing to control spice traffic. Paul even shows signs of being the superpowered messiah long awaited by the Bene Gesserit, called the Kwisatz Haderach, tho he doesn't exactly see eye to eye with them.

Harry and Tonto (1974)

I had seen Art Carney a few times but had trouble remembering who he was. What better than his Academy Award-winning role to rectify that? That said, the bare-bones Netflix jacket description (which neglected to say Carney's first name) didn't inspire confidence in the plot. I'll give you a bit more.

Senior citizen Harry stays in his condemned New York apartment until removed by legal physical force. He spends a little while with extended family but feels a need for a place of his own, preferably in an L.A. neighborhood with less crime than his old one. The same stubbornness that kept him in that apartment now prevents him from taking a plane or bus the whole way, because he insists on the best for his cat, Tonto. Apparently, car vendors back in the day didn't have to check for expired licenses....

One Hour with You (1932)

So much for my prediction that if I ever saw another Maurice Chevalier movie, it would be from late in his career. I seem to have a poor memory for such resolutions. Regardless, I had wanted a '30s picture on the unserious side, and that's just what I got.

In Paris, Andre (Chevalier) and Colette (Jeanette MacDonald) are such passionate spouses that everyone assumes they're unwed or at most newlywed. Enter Colette's friend Mitzi (Genevieve Tobin), whose husband Adolph (Charles Ruggles) rightly suspects her of infidelity. She falls for Andre right away and doesn't even care that he's married to her alleged best friend. As Andre's resolve weakens in the face of Mitzi's aggressive advances, Adolph turns his attention to Colette.

The Summit of the Gods (2021)

The only reason I knew this title is that it was included on someone's list of best animated features from 2021. The exclusion of Luca was, well, fishy, but I didn't dismiss the whole list on that basis. I chose to watch TSotG when I did partly because it's only 90 minutes and partly because it looked different from anything I'd seen lately. Which it was.

In the '90s, a shady stranger in Tibet offers to sell photojournalist Makoto Fukomachi a camera allegedly belonging to George Mallory, who might have been the first to scale Mt. Everest in 1924 but didn't make it back. Fukomachi refuses, but then he sees the vendor get shaken down for the camera -- by none other than Habu Joji, another famous climber who has been missing for years. Could Joji have come across Mallory's remains? He makes himself scarce before Fukomachi can catch up to him. Anxious for a good story, Fukomachi does detective work on Joji's background. By the time they meet again, it's not just about solving the mystery of Mallory; it's about accompanying Joji to record his next attempt to climb Everest -- in the winter, with no third member of the team.

They Live by Night (1948)/Side Street (1950)

It makes sense that these two would be put on one DVD, being the only times Cathy O'Donnell and Farley Granger were paired in leading roles. Not to mention they're both semi-romantic noirs about criminals on the run. I was planning to watch only the more popular (but unprofitable) TLbN. Fortunately, they're pretty short at 95 and 83 minutes, respectively, so I made time across two nights.

In TLbN, three men escape from prison and team up for bank robberies. Circumstances split Bowie from the others, and despite his less criminal disposition, he develops a bigger reputation. He wants to give up on crime and settle down with his new girlfriend-cum-bride, Keechie, but an old comrade insists he owes them forever. In SS, mail carrier Joe tries to swipe $200 to help his pregnant wife, Ellen, but it turns out to be $30K -- in dirty money, so he's bound to get unwelcome attention from worse than the police.

WarGames (1983)

This is one of those movies with only one moment people are likely to reference, and it's at the end (albeit not a twist like in Soylent Green). At first, I assumed there was nothing else of value in WG. Then it occurred to me that viewers wouldn't know that much if the rest were boring, so I opted in.

David (Matthew Broderick in his first leading role) is too rebellious for school but has a way with machines. In an attempt to remotely hack into a computer game company database and sample an upcoming release, he inadvertently reaches a NORAD supercomputer nicknamed Joshua (voiced by John Wood) and starts a war-planning simulation. Wouldn't you know that the systems engineering chief (Dabney Coleman) had just arranged for Joshua to have full control because the human element was too unpredictable. Joshua's screen displays fool NORAD into thinking that the USSR is making highly threatening moves, and the American response raises Russian alarms. David gets in trouble, authorities believing he's either a prankster or an agent. Oddly enough, for a long time, he's the only one to take the Joshua threat seriously. The computer is more autonomous than widely assumed, makes no distinction between games and reality, and fully expects to launch missiles within a few dozen hours of strategizing. It's up to David, his girlfriend (Ally Sheedy), and Joshua's reclusive creator (also John Wood) to prevent WWIII and the presumed end of the world.

Encanto (2021)

I decided that my last feature of the year should be something that promised to be uplifting. And preferably short, since I got a late start. This one's 109 minutes, about 19 of which are end credits, with no mid- or post-credit sequence.

It's tricky to gauge the era -- we see donkeys and no cars -- but the place is a Colombian village. Thanks to what is attributed only to a miracle, the Madrigal family lives in a house with a life of its own, and not in a scary way. The Casita, as they affectionately call it, can also endow each Madrigal child with a different superpower in a sort of coming-of-age ceremony, but Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz) was denied for some reason. Now 15, she tries to maintain a positive outlook despite her relatives tending to feel ashamed of her. Then the miracle shows more compelling signs of fading, between the Casita developing cracks and the family powers gradually becoming unreliable. Will Mirabel save the day, or is she, as her matriarchal grandmother (María Cecilia Botero/Olga Merediz) believes, the cause of the trouble?