Elio (2025)

As has become all too common for Pixar, this gets mixed reviews. From what I gathered, the strongest complaints pertained to earlier plans to gay-code the 11-year-old protagonist; people either resented the change or thought it wasn't complete enough. I decided that the best approach was to forget all about the reported rough draft while watching.

We don't know how Elio Solís (Yonas Kibreab) lost his parents, but he doesn't cope well, and caretaker Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) expresses so much frustration that he assumes nobody on Earth wants him. He repeatedly tries to signal for aliens to take him away -- and finally makes contact, via Olga's Air Force equipment, with the Communiverse, akin to a galactic UN. Believing that Elio leads Earth, the ETs beam him up and send a shapeshifting doppelganger back. But under the circumstances, they will not let him stay on as an ambassador unless he can talk envious warlord Grigon (Brad Garrett) into not taking over the Communiverse. Elio's best hope lies in Grigon's friendly young son, Glordon (Remy Edgerly).

Talk to Me (2022)

Normally, I'd save a horror for next month, but Netflix, in its unfathomable wisdom, will stop streaming this one by then. I approached with trepidation, partly because I have trouble liking A24 and partly because Australia can scare me good.

In modern Adelaide, there exists a disembodied hand covered in papier-mâché and written all over (we never get a good look at the messages). If you grasp it near a lit candle and say, "Talk to me," you alone will see a usually random ghost standing before you in an instant, looking as a body might shortly after death (less tastefully than in The Sixth Sense). If you then say, "I let you in," you get possessed until someone pries the hand from you and extinguishes the flame -- as long as they're fast enough. Some ghosts are tenacious. And malevolent, for reasons unknown.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

For ages, I felt like I knew enough about this movie already. I even described an outside character as "a Devil Wears Prada type," by which I meant a harsh female boss. But when the title came up on a Disney+ list, I opted for a more informed opinion. Hey, a sequel's slated for next year.

Recent college grad Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) applies for a New York City job as second assistant to Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) before ever learning that the latter runs the Runway fashion magazine. Andy stands out with her relative disregard for fashion -- and that's why Miranda hires her: to try something new after a string of failures. It's a tough job, but Andy sticks with it and becomes more like others in the industry, which drives a wedge between her and her old friends, not least her boyfriend (Adrian Grenier).

Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020)

I chose this largely because it was the shortest movie on my Netflix list, at 89 minutes, and I got a late start that evening. But there were other good reasons to watch. For one, I hadn't seen a documentary in nearly half a year. For another, DJID sounded singular.

Seventh Day Adventist documentarian Kirsten Johnson (whom I knew best as the director of cinematography for This Film Is Not Yet Rated) believes that her father, Dick, in the early stages of dementia, is not long for this world. Her way of coping with this is to have him and a bunch of professionals fake his death by several means, stage a funeral, and depict him in heaven.

Ne Zha (2019)

I had heard of this year's sequel only when looking up box office records, and then I saw that the original broke some too. I'm sure the vast majority of ticket sales for each were in their native land. Still, their ratings are strong, so I got curious how well they might appeal to an American animation fan. NZ1 is less popular, but I like to start at the beginning.

In old China, Taoist god Yuanshi Tianzun sees fit to split the Chaos Pearl, a powerful monster, into the Spirit Pearl and the Demon Orb, the latter of which he curses to celestial destruction in three years. He tells apprentice Taiyi Zhenren to infuse Ne Zha, the soon-to-be-born royal son of Li Jing and Lady Yin, with the Spirit Pearl. Jealous co-apprentice Shen Gongbao swipes that pearl for new dragon prince Ao Bing, leaving the Demon Orb for the other baby. Although Ne Zha is widely feared and apparently doomed to early death, his parents insist on raising him with Taiyi's training, albeit in isolation. They hope that shielding their son from the whole truth will make him better and happier, but lies rarely form an effective long-term solution, especially in the face of Shen's unorthodox approach to pursuing godhood....

Limitless (2011)

I didn't really know anything about this picture going in. Nor had I heard of its literary basis, Alan Glynn's The Dark Fields. I just thought it looked different enough from my recent viewings, possibly along the lines of Upgrade. OK, it's set in the present, but still a sci-fi thriller about enhancing oneself.

In New York, broke aspiring writer Eddie (Bradley Cooper) runs into his ex-brother-in-law, dealer Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), who gifts him a tablet of an unregulated drug so new it has no name other than NZT-48. It vastly improves Eddie's mental faculties for a day. He comes for more and discovers that someone has murdered Vernon and ransacked the apartment, evidently in search of the NZT stash. Eddie finds it nonetheless, along with significant cash, and uses them to do phenomenally in the stock market, garnering the attention of finance bigwig Carl (Robert De Niro) and reconnecting with ex-wife Lindy (Abbie Cornish). Of course, he also gains the attention of people who would kill for NZT. What's more, withdrawal means progressively serious symptoms....

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)

I wanted something different from my usual viewings, and I found it. It's rare enough to have movies set in Africa; it's rarer still that their protagonist is a Black African. This one doesn't even have any White characters to my recollection.

In the early 2000s, Wimbe, a Malawi village, is devastated by flood and then drought. The Kamkwamba family, headed by father Trywell (Chiwetel Ejiofor, who also wrote and directed for the first time), will have trouble farming enough food to get by, especially when neighbors resort to theft. They also can't afford the fee to keep 13-year-old William (Maxwell Simba) in school. But by sneaking into the school library, William learns enough to assemble a wind turbine, using a bicycle part among others, to meet both water and energy needs -- if only he can persuade Trywell and others to have faith and help him.

Superman (2025)

The reason I waited this long to watch was that the friend I wanted to accompany was busy. It was no longer in a nearby theater, so we streamed it. On the plus side, that let us pause as needed during the 129 minutes. I wasn't entirely sure we'd like it anyway; its reception has been mostly positive, but I knew of some complaints.

Little did I suspect that the previews starting with a badly wounded Superman (David Corenswet) reflected the actual start of the movie, in medias res. Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) has quite a few minions in play, including engineers and, well, the Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría), whose bodily nanomachines allow versatile abilities. Behind the scenes, Lex has been fomenting a war between two fictitious nations -- the invasive Boravia, led by Vasil Ghurko (Zlatko Burić), and poor Jarhanpur -- both to enrich himself selling weapons and to lure the Last Son of Krypton into making controversial interventions. But the general public doesn't turn against Earth's mightiest hero until Lex's discovery of a shocking message from the Kryptonian parents (Bradley Cooper and Angela Sarafyan)....

To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)

For some reason, it seems I've watched more comedy-dramas centered on girls or young women from 2018 or thereabout than from other periods. Here's one more. Only later did I learn that it launched a series.

The movie doesn't make the setting clear, but the Jenny Han novel specifies modern Virginia. Lara Jean Song-Covey (Lana Condor), 16, sometimes called LJ, has been largely keeping to herself. She used to write letters to multiple crushes and put them in addressed envelopes without sending them. To her mortification, the letters "somehow" get out, as she discovers when Peter (Noah Centineo) tells her he's not ready to date her. By this time, she's not that interested in him either. They nevertheless work out an agreement to fake a relationship, because he wants to make his ex, Gen (Emilija Baranac), jealous and LJ has almost the opposite goal: to dissuade Josh (Israel Broussard), recently dumped by her older sister, Margot (Janel Parrish), from pursuing LJ in the wake of the letter he received. Perhaps neither Peter nor LJ knows the phrase "Fake it till you make it."

LJ has had five crushes, but only two really matter for this story. Lucas (Trezzo Mahoro) turns out to be gay, so he serves only as a confidant for LJ. The other two don't go to the same school, and one doesn't even show up in the sequels. To me, this overcomplication was the main sign of a basis in a book.

I considered adding a "racial" tag, because a few moments call attention to the Korean half of LJ's heritage, but it doesn't affect the plot or even the humor much. Nobody alludes to Asian stereotypes, even when LJ drives poorly. Nor does anyone raise an eyebrow at the prospect of interracial romance. Only a conversation about the political incorrectness of Sixteen Candles stands out.

Cracked.com pointed out how many romantic comedies center on "monsters." I wouldn't go that far this time. In addition to the whole charade, LJ does wrong in effectively ghosting Margot and Josh, and she gets overly furious at her kid sister, Kitty (Anna Cathcart). I have some idea of why Josh sees Peter as a jerk jock. But neither member of the not-so-fake couple appalls me. Gen strikes me as meaner, and even she's not a caricature.

Things are so formulaic that I rarely came anywhere close to surprise. This might also explain why I rarely came anywhere close to chuckling. Fortunately, it works as a fairly credible love story. At any given time, it's hard to gauge how much LJ and Peter like each other unless they're being earnestly passionate. I did end up rooting for them to make it work.

TAtBILB earns its slightly above-average IMDb rating. None of it's likely to be new to you, but the 99 minutes won't drag.

Flushed Away (2006)

The very starting premise of a rat going down a toilet turned me off, but an acquaintance assured me the excremental gags are very few and relatively tasteful. He also found the movie moderately funny, especially for the running(?) gag of a cappella slugs. I still didn't get the gumption to watch until Netflix said it would stop streaming at the end of the month.

In modern Kensington, ratty Roddy (Hugh Jackman, playing at least two Brits that year) seems to enjoy life as a pet who gets the ritzy apartment to himself for most of the day. Then a slovenly sewer rat (Shane Richie) moves in, and Roddy's attempt to return him to the sewer backfires. Roddy ends up in a bustling underground town with a mostly rodent population. He takes advice to seek the assistance of sailor Rita (Kate Winslet) in getting home, but first they must contend with having run afoul of The Toad (Ian McKellen), a mob boss with a chronic hate-on for rats despite some of them (Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, and Christopher Fairbank) being his underlings.