Unbroken (2014)

For Veterans Day, I picked the first new-to-me war movie I found on Netflix. I did not know that it was directed by Angelina Jolie and co-written by the Coen Brothers, but those facts would have increased my curiosity.

In 1943, Olympic runner Louie Zamperini (Jack O'Connell) is serving as a U.S. Air Force captain when his plane gives out over the Pacific. For nearly half the movie, he and the other two crash survivors, Phil (Domnhall Gleeson) and Mac (Finn Witrock), are holding out on rafts. Then they get taken as POWs, which is a worse situation in some ways, particularly under the war crime-level command of "the Bird" (Miyavi).

Inside Out 2 (2024)

Why did I wait this long to see a well-received sequel I'd anticipated for nine years? Well, I've gotten squeamish about watching family fare in theaters, where kids might get noisy. Plus, my folks almost never join me at movie theaters anymore and are likely to be tired of Disney from looking after their grandkids. I opted for a Disney+ showing alone.

Shortly after Riley (Kensington Tallman) turns 13, a crew revamps the control center of her mind such that Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale, not Bill Hader), and Disgust (Liza Lapira, not Mindy Kaling) find the panel oversensitive to their touch. More importantly, a host of new emotions shows up: manic Anxiety (Maya Hawke), adorably tiny Envy (Ayo Edebiri), French-accented Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), near-mute galoot Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and elderly Nostalgia (June Squibb). Anxiety has a big plan to change Riley's behavior and sense of self, and when the first five emotions aren't on board, she literally bottles them up and banishes them to the vault of secrets. They spend most of the movie trying to get back before Riley's life is in shambles.