Collateral (2004)

Oops, already another noir about hit men. Well, this doesn't have much else in common.

Max (Jamie Foxx), an especially good taxi driver in L.A., agrees to bend the rules and hang around to take out-of-towner Vincent (Tom Cruise) to five destinations in one night, in light of a lucrative offer. But at the first destination, Vincent accidentally reveals that he's a hit man, with four more kills to make on a contract with a drug lord (Javier Bardem). Max wants no part in it, but he doesn't have much choice anymore. An occasional other focal character is Detective Fanning (Mark Ruffalo), whose connection to the first victim draws his attention quickly.

About Time (2013)

Ads hastened to point out that writer-director Richard Curtis wrote Love Actually, Notting Hill, and Four Weddings and a Funeral. If you think that necessitates a role for Hugh Grant, you're wrong. Instead, we get a couple of Harry Potter alumni.

At 21, the aptly named Tim (Domnhall Gleeson) learns a secret from his father (Bill Nighy): Thanks to an apparent Y-chromosome mutation, he and other male relatives can return to any point in their personal pasts, take a different route, and then snap back to the present. After Tim confirms that he can do it himself, he decides to use it to improve...his love life. And undo mistakes in other matters while he's at it.

The Enforcer (1951)

No, it has nothing to do with the threequel to Dirty Harry. It is a crime thriller about a series of murders with a gritty cop as the protagonist, but that's about where the similarity ends. Its alternate title is Murder, Inc.

In an unspecified U.S. city, Assistant District Attorney Martin Ferguson (Humphrey Bogart) has encountered plenty of evidence that Albert Mendoza (Everett Sloane), presently in jail, runs a ring of hit men, but evidence that will work in court is in short supply. In particular, witnesses have a habit of dying suspiciously before they can reach the stand. With mere hours to go before the trial, Ferguson struggles to ensure that Mendoza won't walk.

The Red Turtle (2016)

I hadn't planned on seeing two Japanese animations in a row; I just noticed that this one was playing at the theater and wouldn't be available on Netflix until May. Fortunately, it's only slightly Japanese: While the Studio Ghibli label turns up first, it's one of seven production companies. The director is Dutch-British, and most of the people involved are from France or Belgium. (That would explain the Tintin-like character designs.)

An adult male castaway on a bamboo-forested island shoves off on a raft, but the titular turtle bumps it to pieces from beneath. He finds the turtle on the beach and overturns her but then guiltily tries to keep her alive. Then, without explanation, she turns into a human in a half-shell. And eventually wakes up and gets out of it (off screen). No longer hasty to leave, the half-dazed man falls for the woman. They go on to have a son, who grows increasingly curious about the outside world....

The Boy and the Beast (2015)

Not long ago, Hayao Miyazaki was the only name in anime to mean anything to me. Then I became aware of his fellow directors and writers Isao Takahata and Satoshi Kon. Now I've finally seen enough of Mamoru Hosoda's work to keep an eye out for his style.

In a modern Japanese city by night, nine-year-old human runaway Ren happens to encounter Kumetatsu, a cloaked bear apparently vacationing from a secret magical realm of feudal-style anthropomorphic mammals. Kumetatsu will become the next lord of the Beast Kingdom if he can defeat crowd-favorite boar Iôzen, and the current lord has advised him to acquire an apprentice warrior in the meantime. He bucks the trend by inviting normally unwelcome Ren, who comes if only to avoid the human authorities. Ren doesn't immediately warm up to the idea of this new master — he won't even share his name with Kumetatsu, leading to the new dubbing "Kyuta" — but each sees untapped potential in the other.

The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

The recent death of Robert James Waller prompted me to check out the one screen adaptation of his best-known novel. It's unlikely that I'd ever have seen it otherwise: While it has more fans than haters, people have likened it to popular movies I deemed both dull and depraved—a deadly combination. It wouldn't be the first popular Clint Eastwood-directed movie I disliked either. And Meryl Streep has the odd distinction of very few great films despite consistently great performances. Nevertheless, my curiosity got the better of me.

After the death of Francesca (Streep), her adult children, Carolyn (Annie Corley) and Michael (Victor Slezak), learn that her posthumous wish deviates from the assumed plan to bury her next to late husband Richard (Jim Haynie). They are equally shocked at her reason: She wants to join her paramour from 1965, Robert (Eastwood). Details pour forth in a letter to them, and we're treated mostly to flashbacks to four days when Richard was away, starting with Robert's outsider status in rural Iowa prompting Francesca to offer some hospitality. He's a National Geographic photographer, see, hoping to snapshot the titular bridges....

Ixcanul (2015)

I think I put this film on my list for being different. Not only is it a rare entry from Guatemala; its main language is one I'd never heard of: Kaqchikel, of the Mayan family. It's also quite popular internationally but not widely discussed in the English-speaking world; neither IMDb nor Wikipedia presently tells us much about it. As for why I saw it last night, well, it's only 93 minutes.

In a mountain village, teen María has been promised in marriage to Ignacio, her father's employer at a coffee plantation, for the sake of job security. She'd rather welcome the advances of close-in-age Pepe, who plans to hoof it to the U.S. Pepe shows no such commitment to take her away, but he does put her "in the family way" before disappearing, thereby threatening her family's situation. The methods María and her parents have of dealing with the situation are highly informed by native traditions, which I can't recommend based on the results, but a trip to a Spanish-speaking city (with Ignacio as the translator!) doesn't help either....

Come and See (1985)

Clicking my "ussr" tag at the bottom will show you how much trouble I've had appreciating Soviet filmography. When it's not disagreeably propagandist, it tends to be slow, ponderous, and cheap. But one coming near the end of the Soviet Union's lifetime might be different.

If the title evokes childlike innocence, that's appropriate yet probably unintentional irony: It comes from a Revelation line about apocalyptic destruction. CaS starts with teen boys digging in Belorussian mud for lost rifles so that they can join the Soviet militia. Yes, that was all it took. One, Florya (or Flyora, depending on the source), succeeds despite his family's strong wishes. As a junior recruit, he doesn't get the heavier duties like, y'know, battle. But in what seems like a couple of days, he comes to see quite enough carnage for one lifetime.

El Dorado (1967)

This could easily have been a flop. One of the last movies directed by Howard Hawks, it looked a lot like his earlier westerns, which didn't fit the mood of the late '60s. John Wayne was getting too old to pass for a hired gunman. He didn't get along well with Ed Asner and had previously given trouble to Robert Mitchum. The film took longer than projected to complete. And despite a delayed release in order not to compete with another Wayne film, it wound up competing with yet another. (Dude did have quite a run, even in later years.) But it still performed well at the box office and has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I had to check it out.

In and near the titular city, Cole Thornton (Wayne) gets caught up in a battle for territory between the rightful McDonald clan and the outlaws under Bart Jason (Asner), including noted sharpshooter Nelse McLeod (Christopher George). Between the influences of buddy Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Mitchum) and on-and-off lover Maudie (Charlene Holt), Cole picks the good side. He soon enlists the help of newcomer nicknamed Mississippi (James Caan), who does much better with a knife than with a gun. Unfortunately, as aged Deputy Bull (Arthur Hunnicutt) reports, J.P. is usually too drunk to be of any use. And a bullet near Cole's spine, which he hasn't found time to treat properly, sometimes paralyzes part of him....

Jules and Jim (1962)

I had not expected to see another movie set in a world war so soon. The next disc in my queue must have had an unannounced wait. Thankfully, only a small portion of this one takes place in war. It's mainly a romantic drama.

Jules is Austrian but, while in France at least, pronounces his name the French way. Jim is French but pronounces his name the English way, because it suits him. The fast-paced opening establishes them as friends via art appreciation. Two factors put that friendship to the test: They serve on opposite sides of World War I, and they both have feelings for a mutual friend and Manic Pixie Dream Girl named Catherine (Jeanne Moreau). Only Jules gets lucky with her, while Jim takes up with a Gilberte instead. None of them remains satisfied.

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

I opted not to offer to share this viewing with my Jewish dad. He later told me that he may be willing to forgive director Mel Gibson at this point, but I know he doesn't like Braveheart-level violence. I've had my own reservations, basically enjoying Gibson's early work while avoiding anything later than The Passion of the Christ. But this time the story intrigued me.

Country boy Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) gets caught up in his buddies' eagerness to serve in World War II. The only thing is, he has a personal rule against using violence for any reason. Unlike other medics, he won't even touch a rifle in practice. As you can imagine, this conscientious objector status causes a lot of strife with his peers and superiors. Only at the Battle of Okinawa do they understand that he's no coward; indeed, he rescues dozens of wounded, putting Forrest Gump to shame with a more fully earned Congressional Medal of Honor.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009)

Much as I dug Monty Python in my teens, I get nervous about checking out Terry Gilliam-directed movies. I liked Twelve Monkeys but found Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas unwatchable. This one, despite its so-so reception, intrigued me with the visual artistry shown in the preview; I could at least expect that much.

The titular object is a sort of magic mirror that allows you to step into a realm shaped by the imaginations of you and whoever else is there. Despite this fascinating quality, few modern Londoners show any interest in the old-fashioned carnival-style presentation by Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) and his comrades. Those who do enter tend to be given a choice between a tough self-improvement plan and the seductive path of sin...to death, which may explain why the police keep showing up. But these aren't the heaviest things weighing on Parnassus' mind: The devil (Tom Waits), going by "Mr. Nick," is about to call on him for an immortality fee, namely daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), because this is one of those stories where you can sell others' souls. Things start to look up when Mr. Nick offers a new wager: The first to draw five souls to the corresponding goal in the Imaginarium wins Valentina. And the souls start coming fast with an enigmatic new barker, Tony (Heath Ledger*).

Like Someone in Love (2012)

The first strange thing about this pic is its nationality. AFI includes it in an Iranian film festival because of late director Abbas Kiarostami, yet it's set in Tokyo with entirely Japanese dialog and was produced in large part by a French company. It gets stranger.

Akiko is a college student whose abusive self-described fiance, Noriaki, does not trust her, but neither does he know about her prostitution on the side. One client, retired prof Takashi, wants her only for platonic company. Noriaki takes him for her grandpa, and Takashi decides to keep up the charade, feeling protective toward Akiko in light of her precarious position.