Nomadland (2020)

Before the next Academy Awards, I thought I'd catch up on previous winners and nominees. I had been putting this Best Picture off because some people made it sound depressing. Then I remembered that the same was true of No Country for Old Men, which I turned out to like just fine. Besides, after Johnny Got His Gun, how painful could it be for me to watch?

In 2011, the closing of a factory spells the emptying of its tiny Nevada town. Sixty-something widow Fern (Frances McDormand) stays as long as she can but then decides to live out of a van, seeing the countryside and taking odd jobs. She meets many other nomads in a mutually supportive community, including Dave (David Strathairn), who clearly has a crush on her, but commitment to anything other than preserving her husband's memory is far from her mind.

Pocketful of Miracles (1961)

This film is probably best known as Frank Capra's last, not for reasons of health so much as interpersonal frustration on set and dissatisfaction with the end product. It also might mark the first use on screen of the criminal slang term "godfather."

In the early '30s, mobster Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford) practically has the run of New York City, and he credits his success to the lucky apples he buys regularly from an old peddler, "Apple" Annie (Bette Davis). Annie learns that her daughter, Louise (Ann-Margret in her Golden Globe-winning screen debut), who hasn't seen her since infancy but has corresponded with her regularly by mail, is about to visit, because Louise is engaged to the son (Peter Mann) of a Spanish count (Arthur O'Connell). This causes Annie a lot of stress, because she's been lying about her financial situation and even her name all along. Dave thinks it's not his problem, until his on-and-off fiancée, Queenie (Hope Lange), points out what it could mean for his luck. Since Dave has a big deal with Public Enemy #1 (Sheldon Leonard) in the making, he will reluctantly pour his ill-gotten resources into passing Annie off as an aristocrat for the duration of the visit.

Dodge City (1939)

The year after The Adventures of Robin Hood, Warner Bros. wanted another Technicolor picture directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. But to call it a companion piece or a spiritual successor would be a stretch. Flynn, at least, had never done a western before, nor had he practiced much with an accent appropriate for one. Nevertheless, the formula intrigued me.

Wade Hatton (Flynn), a cowhand and comrade of Col. Grenville M. Dodge (Henry O'Neill), visits the young namesake town for the first time in years, partly to escort westward settlers, including Abbie Irving (de Havilland). Little did he know that the gang of Jeff Surrett (Bruce Cabot) effectively runs the place. It takes a few tragic violent crimes to convince Wade to put on a sheriff badge and deputize his buddies, Rusty (Alan Hale) and Tex (Guinn "Big Boy Williams"), aware that things didn't work out for the last few guys who tried it. (Ann Sheridan gets third billing, but her character does little more than sing and dance on a stage.)

Marshland (2014)

The original Spanish title literally translates to "The Minimal Island." Either way, the point is to call attention to a remote setting, possibly with a symbolic status in light of the bleakness.

Specifically, it's set in or near Spain's Guadalquivir Marshes, reputedly akin to the U.S. Deep South, in 1980. Two promiscuous teen sisters who wanted to move away are soon found murdered in one marsh, having been treated worse than the girls in The Last House on the Left, albeit thankfully not on screen. The two Madrid-based detectives assigned to the case, Juan (Javier Gutiérrez) and Pedro (Raúl Arévalo), have not worked together before and espouse rather different worldviews, but they're both determined to catch the killer(s) before another girl meets a similar fate.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Here it is, folks: the first movie I've seen set during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically May 2020. That said, we don't see people wearing masks or keeping apart for long, thanks to an oral spray that supposedly protects everyone from infection. Either they put too much confidence in a dubious treatment, or it's a sci-fi premise. It wouldn't be the only one herein, despite the previous Knives Out not having any.

Eccentric industrialist Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invites five pretty close acquaintances, along with a couple plus-ones, to a weekend on his private island, home to a mansion aptly called the Glass Onion, to solve the mystery of his "murder." PI Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), the only returning character, also gets an invitation, tho Bron didn't intend it. Almost equally out of place is Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), Bron's former business partner, who's bitterly disenchanted with him and all his suck-ups in attendance. Blanc notes that every guest besides himself has a motive to make the pretend murder a reality. Well, someone dies before long....