Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)

A friend was hoping to watch Justice League Dark (2017) with me, but it wasn't on Max. He assured me that this sequel does not rely on viewers to know its predecessor. Indeed, Wikipedia's synopsis suggests only a tangential plot connection. Of course, familiarity with a lot of DC Comics characters helps.

Superman (Jerry O'Connell) leads Earth-affiliated heroes against Apokolips, home planet of Darkseid (Tony Todd), possibly the biggest threat in the DC Universe. They face an army infused with Superman's DNA and lose tremendously. Most of the movie takes place two years later, when a handful of still viable heroes, including a poisoned Superman, reluctant sorcerer John Constantine (Matt Ryan), troubled half-demon Raven (Taissa Farmiga), and a bitter Robin (Stuart Allen), band together to stop Darkseid from mining Earth's core to a deadly degree.

14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (2021)

It appears that most of the features left on my Netflix list are upwards of two hours long. That's one reason I chose this, at 101 minutes. Another is that it's set in cold areas, in contrast to the present weather where I live. Finally, it seemed the closest thing to another Free Solo.

Nirmal Purja, who's also an executive producer, is a high-altitude mountaineer (HAM?). In April 2019, he launches Project Possible, which entails scaling all 14 Asian peaks that exceed 8,000 meters above sea level -- by winter, dramatically breaking several records along the way. At one point, he and his team have to rally to persuade the federal government of China to let them proceed, but that may be the least of their troubles.

The Imaginary (2023)

While IF has gotten more attention if only via star power, I took more immediate interest in another animation about "imaginary" yet actually existent companions. This is only the third Studio Ponoc feature ever and the second I've seen, once again based on a book.

The protagonist is Rudger (Louie Rudge-Buchanan), the made-up friend of maybe seven-year-old Amanda (Evie Kiszel). He takes the form of a same-age boy, and they have vivid adventures together while half-acknowledging the unreality of it all. Nonetheless, they develop interpersonal conflicts, especially as Amanda starts to feel isolated in sticking with someone even her mother (Hayley Atwell) doesn't believe in. When a car accident puts Amanda in a coma, Rudger fears he'll vanish by being forgotten. Fortunately, a talking cat (Kal Penn) leads him to a thriving secret community of abandoned imaginary friends, feeding off the imagination found in a common library. But unlike the rest, Rudger isn't ready to leave his real friend forever if he can help it, even knowing of an extra danger waiting for him: Mr. Bunting (Jeremy Swift), a real man who senses and consumes the imaginary in order to stay preternaturally youthful.

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

The only Godzilla movie I'd seen before was the 1954 original, which my dad and I found surprisingly serious. Most of the rest sounded schlocky, and Pacific Rim confirmed that I had little interest in kaiju. But GMO (heh, appropriate initials) got such a warm reception that I had planned to see it in a theater, only to discover that I'd waited too long. Once I saw that it was on Netflix, I pounced.

The story is really about Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a World War II pilot who first cheats his way out of a kamikaze mission and then is too scared to shoot the titular mutant dinosaur during an island rampage. He goes home to face poverty in a bombed Tokyo neighborhood where neighbors tend to blame his cowardice, tho one Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe) and an orphan in her care, Akiko (Sae Nagatani), shack up with him to improve their chances. He gets a job sweeping for naval mines -- and then sees that Godzilla has gotten even larger in the wake of Bikini Atoll experiments. As further devastation ensues, Shikishima and his compatriots (among them Hidetaka Yoshioka, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Yuki Yamada, and Munetaka Aoki) can see that the world's governments aren't helping, so they take it upon themselves to try to kill the beast.