Touchez pas au grisbi (1954)

I wondered why I found this DVD in the H section of my library. The answer came at the title screen when the British subtitles read, "Honor Among Thieves." (No relation to a recent movie.) To make matters more confusing, it was released in the U.S. as Grisbi but appears on IMDb by its literal translation, Don't Touch the Loot.

Big-time crook Max (Jean Gabin, long after his heyday) has recently stolen gold bars, planning to retire on them. Unfortunately for him, partner in crime Riton (René Dary) has an unfaithful girlfriend (Jeanne Moreau) who lets their secret slip to her other boyfriend, Angelo (Lino Ventura). Angelo's men abduct Riton for ransom, so Max enlists two more partners (Paul Frankeur and Michel Jourdan) to help confront them....

Heat (1995)

Another movie I liked before but couldn't remember well. This one stops streaming on Netflix at the end of June. Only after I started rewatching did I realize the appropriate timing: It features a public clash with authorities in L.A.

The story begins with an armored car heist led by Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro). Alas, one of his partners (Kevin Gage) is a loose cannon, so everyone from the armored car is unnecessarily killed. LAPD Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) heads a hunt for the robbers, who face quite enough enmity from fellow crooks already, not least a treacherous money launderer (William Fichtner).

Lost in Starlight (2025)

I don't think I ever saw a South Korean animation of any length before. This new one is presently the most popular on IMDb. I did not know it was Korean when I tuned in; I just thought it looked interesting.

In 2051, Nan-young (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) has been training for a mission to Mars, but since her mother died there 25 years ago and she keeps getting lost in flashbacks, she is not the space agency's top choice. In the meantime, she literally bumps into Jay (Justin H. Min), an amateur singer-guitarist whose music she digs. Gradually, they fall in love, despite her determination not to form an earthly attachment. He's none too keen on her following her dream either, tho she does inspire him to return to his rock band.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

This title had turned me off for a long time, especially with the silly punctuation, which does not appear on the poster. Nonetheless, it still enjoys fairly high ratings after 14 years. I chose it last night because it was the first movie to come up on my Netflix list and promised to be rather different from what else I'd seen lately.

In an unspecified town that might be in California, Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) is taken aback when his wife of 25 years, Emily (Julianne Moore), tells him she committed adultery with coworker David (Kevin Bacon) and wants a divorce. He wallows in self-pity in bars until annoyed lothario Jacob (Ryan Gosling) offers to teach him how to attract women again. Cal becomes a successful player, but he can't stop thinking of Emily.

Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning (2025)

So much for calling it Dead Reckoning Part 2. Just as well. Once again, I watched at the earliest opportunity, only this time, it was to celebrate my birthday.

The movie begins two months after the end of the previous. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has acquired a key for apprehending the Entity, but he doesn't know where to use it yet. Murderous Gabriel (Esai Morales), having fallen from the Entity's favor, now hopes to gain everything needed to control the Entity himself. Both had better hurry, because the Entity is gradually seizing all the nuclear missiles in the world, evidently planning to annihilate humans but not itself. The CIA director-turned-U.S. president (Angela Bassett) gives Ethan three days before she launches a preemptive attack on the other nations. To make matters more difficult, the chaos sown by the Entity's expert deep fakes has inspired a considerable pro-apocalyptic movement, and not all its members are overt....

Blue Giant (2023)

This title is better known for a manga series. Indeed, the film adaptation doesn't get its own Wikipedia page; it rates merely a few paragraphs on the manga's page. Nonetheless, it enjoys high ratings on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, so I got curious.

At 18, Dai (Yuki Yamada) moves in with long-time friend Shunji (Amane Okayama) in modern Tokyo, hoping to succeed as a largely self-taught saxophonist. He discovers Yukinori (Shotaro Mamiya), a same-age yet mature jazz pianist who started taking lessons at age four. They take to practicing together, and Shunji joins in as a complete tyro of a drummer. Despite Yukinori's misgivings, they perform publicly as a trio called JASS. (Hey, it's Japan, where many adults have never heard jazz.)

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023)

Judy Blume's classic was one of my favorite assigned reads in junior high. My sister probably liked it better still, and my mom has looked forward to seeing the movie. As it stands, I remembered enough to notice a few minor deviations, mostly to save screen time.

Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) is unhappy to move from New York City to New Jersey right before sixth grade begins, partly because it puts distance between her and her favorite grandma (Kathy Bates). In no time, classmate Nancy (Elle Graham) inducts her into a secret club with two other members (Amari Alexis Price and Katherine Kupferer). They mostly talk about matters of puberty, whether bodily changes or a growing interest in boys. Margaret also has a growing interest in religion, having been raised without one by a lapsed Christian mom (Rachel McAdams) and a lapsed Jewish dad (Benny Safdie). But it's hard for her to keep praying civilly when things don't go her way.

Thunderbolts* (2025)

When I first saw an ad for this, I didn't realize I already knew the teammates as prior supporting characters: Yelena (Florence Pugh) and the Red Guardian (David Harbour) from Black Widow; Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), most prominently from the Captain America outings; Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) from Ant-Man and the Wasp; and U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell) from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Most of them have only slightly enhanced abilities, and all have been jerks if not villains, but that didn't mean they wouldn't be fun to watch.

Another previous low profile comes to the fore as Val de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is on the verge of losing her CIA directorship due to growing, justified suspicion of unethical activity for "the greater good," like a smilier Amanda Waller. She tries luring Yelena, Ghost, U.S. Agent, and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) into a death trap to hide incriminating evidence. This scheme does not account for Bob Reynolds (Lewis Pullman), who initially appears to be a mere forgetful stoner mysteriously in the wrong place but has actually survived Val's otherwise abortive Sentry Project to attain untold powers. The gang shakily comes together in order to escape. Then they realize that with the Avengers scattered, they're the best hope for protecting Manhattan from Val's new wild-card superweapon.

Friday (1995)

Another movie starring a rapper already. It is the source of several memes and quotes I've known -- more than I realized, in fact. "Bye, Felicia" may be the most overrated line ever, but I still hoped to get something worthwhile out of the viewing.

In South Central L.A., Craig (Ice Cube) has just been fired, supposedly for an offense he didn't commit. Before he starts looking for work, his buddy Smokey (Chris Tucker) encourages him to relax for a day, partly with weed. This is a mistake, not least because Smokey, an ostensible dealer, has been using up his merchandise, and supplier Big Worm (Faizon Love) threatens to kill them both if he doesn't get $200 compensation in a matter of hours.

The King of Kings (2025)

Modern movies with a biblical focus tend to be either reputedly dippy or heretical if not blasphemous. From what I read, this would be neither. It gets high audience scores and mixed critic scores; Metacritic currently puts it below A Minecraft Movie. I figured I should watch it during Easter season, not knowing where it might stream later.

Charles Dickens himself (Kenneth Branagh) is reciting A Christmas Carol when his backstage family, especially King Arthur-obsessed son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis), accidentally causes disruptions. Wife Catherine (Uma Thurman) later talks Charles into telling Walter the story in a book in progress, The Life of Our Lord -- basically the Gospel packaged for children -- in lieu of punishment. The telling starts shortly before the birth of Jesus (voice in adulthood by Oscar Isaac) and ends right after the Resurrection, with brief interludes to explain the Fall and Passover.

Udaan (2010)

This is about the same length as my previous viewing, which makes it quite short as Indian movies go. It's also about as dramatic as my previous Indian viewing. Only afterward did I learn that the title means "Flight" in Hindi.

Upon expulsion from a boarding school, Rohan (Rajar Barmecha), 17, returns to widowed father Bhairav (Ronit Roy), whom he hasn't seen in eight years. Bhairav's minimalist annual letters had failed to mention his second marriage, the subsequent divorce, or Rohan's six-year-old half-brother, Arjun (Aayan Boradia). Rohan is jealously hostile to Arjun at first, but they bond in the shared crisis of their father's nastiness.

Apollo 13 (1995)

When I saw this in a theater at 13, I didn't like it much. It's big on crisis but not on visual spectacle, apart from a brief nightmare sequence. (The impressiveness of shooting in low gravity goes only so far.) Yesterday, I finally mustered the nerve to give it another try with adult eyes.

In 1970, Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), and Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) attempt to be the next men on the moon. They're not superstitious about the mission number, but Lovell expresses concern about Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) being swapped out for Swigert at the last minute because of a positive test for rubella. At first, the voyage is too plain for TV coverage. Things start going wrong on Day 3, when an oxygen tank explodes. Under flight director Gene Krantz (Ed Harris), NASA abandons hope of a lunar landing, and even getting them home alive looks highly improbable.

Entergalactic (2022)

I found this non-sci-fi's seemingly irrelevant title confusing, until I learned that it shares the name of the Kid Cudi album that provides the soundtrack. Clearly, this is not my usual scene. I chose to watch for the sake of something different.

New York graffiti artist Jabari (Cudi) is about to get a comic book line for his signature character, Mr. Rager (Keith David), tho his excitement is tempered by the publisher's desire to tone down the darkness. Taking more of his attention is his new partying apartment neighbor, Meadow (Jessica Williams). Neither acknowledges their level of mutual attraction until friends egg them on. Alas, Jabari's ex, Carmen (Laura Harrier), is discontent to be just a friend....

Out of Africa (1985)

Of the 92 Academy Best Pictures I've seen, this was the one I remembered least -- mainly just that Meryl Streep's fake accent was so thick the DVD had subtitles on by default. You may take that as a reason not to rewatch it, along with its reputation as perhaps the weakest link in the weakest decade for Best Pictures. (Those who praise '80s cinema usually don't have award-winning dramas in mind.) But I wanted a refresher, especially now that I've visited the same area of Africa myself. This time, I forwent the subtitles, without trouble.

In 1913, Danish future writer Karen Dinesin (Streep) marries Swedish baron Bror Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) for convenience, planning to start a dairy in the Nairobi region of British East Africa. Bror alters the deal to a coffee farm without consuling Karen, unaware of the difficulty of growing coffee at high altitude. This is one of many signs that they will never fully love or trust each other. As Bror is rarely home and Karen finds undeniable signs that he sleeps around, she herself strays to his fellow hunter, Denys Hatton (Robert Redford).

Moana 2 (2024)

I would have seen this in a theater if only it had a better reception. Nearly everyone deems it not on the same tier as its predecessor, and some make it out to be borderline rotten. But since I enjoyed Frozen II for all its flaws, M2 looked like a fair bet for me.

Moana (Auliʻi Cravalho), now 19, retains popularity on Motunui as a successful wayfinder, but she won't rest on her laurels. A mystical message tells her to search for Motufutu, an ancestral island that storm god Nalo (Tofiga Fepulea'i) sank out of sheer spite. As soon as a human touches it, the curse will be broken and many Polynesians can unite there. Since divine hero Maui (Dwayne Johnson) isn't exactly on call, Moana sets out without him at first, albeit with a lot more company than before: Moni (Hualalai Chung), a Maui-idolizing young historian; Loto (Rose Matafeo), an enthused engineer who seems to have been born in the wrong century; and Kele (David Fane), a reluctant elderly curmudgeon who doesn't trust anyone else to keep the edible plants for the crew. Eventually, they'll go where the sentient ocean can't protect them.

The Look of Silence (2014)

Yet again, I chose a viewing based on what was about to drop off my Netflix list. It's another documentary with more talking than anything else, but at least it's on a subject I knew almost nothing about.

This is a companion piece to 2012's The Act of Killing, similarly directed by Joshua Oppenheimer (no relation) and an anonymous partner. Here we follow optometrist Adi Rukun, sometimes providing his services or hanging with his cheerful children, but mostly interviewing older Indonesians who remember the anti-communist purge of the mid-'60s, along with younger relatives. Many of the seniors had a hand in the massacre of hundreds of thousands and were never penalized for it, because they had the government's blessing then and ever since. Adi also watches an earlier video of two men who had killed his brother.

The Nice Guys (2016)

I was not planning to see this so soon after other action crime comedies. But once again, Netflix said it would stop streaming at the end of the month. (Also, my smart TV will stop including Netflix on April 17, presumably for planned obsolescence, but my Fire Stick should take care of that.)

In '77 L.A., a suspicious death leads politically active porn actress Amelia Kuttner (Margaret Qualley) to suspect that someone will try to kill her next. She hires thuggish Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) to protect her, and he attacks drunken, semi-competent PI Holland March (Ryan Gosling) for following her to try to resolve the first death's mystery. Nevertheless, Healy talks March into a team-up when they realize there are bigger threats to counter. Who's targeting all these folks in the porn industry, and why?

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Previous movies in the franchise (who knew there was more than one other?) bombed hard, but this reboot fares a lot better among critics and general audiences. It's worth noting that a tabletop role-playing game makes for a much more flexible source material than a video game -- no preestablished heroes, for one thing. To my mind going in, it was quite a gamble.

In a high fantasy setting, bard-cum-rogue Edgin (Chris Pine) and his barbarian partner in crime, Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), escape from prison two years after their arrest for helping to steal the fabled Tablet of Reawakening, hoping to revive Edgin's wife (Georgia Landers). They discover that Forge (Hugh Grant), a comrade to whom Edgin had entrusted both the tablet and care of his 12-to-14-year-old daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman), has betrayed them and convinced Kira that they abandoned her. They reunite with unconfident young sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith), who in turn recommends recruiting his unrequited crush, shapeshifting Doric (Sophia Lillis), to steal the tablet again, with temporary aid from obnoxiously awesome yet stuffy paladin Xenk (Regé-Jean Page). This will not be as easy as before, given Forge's defensive measures, not least Red Wizard Sofina (Daisy Head), who has a darker scheme cooking.

Brothers After War (2025)

This is the first documentary sequel I've ever seen. Brothers at War (2009) escaped my notice, but this one has a much higher IMDb rating, albeit with few votes yet. When I happened to be very close to the theater, I picked this viewing partly for a convenient start time and partly because someone I trust had endorsed it.

Director Jake Rademacher has surprisingly many literal brothers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here he pays visits to them and some veteran friends, including women, to see how they're doing. (None of my sources name them all.) Some are doing quite well; others are struggling on at least one front. They all know soldiers who died either in battle or later by suicide.

The Gentlemen (2019)

Wow, Guy Ritchie. I hadn't seen anything he directed since the 2009 Sherlock Holmes. This one looked more along the lines of Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and it has the third highest IMDb rating among his feature films.

Toward the beginning, PI Fletcher (a nearly unrecognizable Hugh Grant) crashes the English mansion of Raymond (Charlie Hunnam), right-hand man to expat marijuana kingpin Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), to tell almost the whole rest of the story, which Fletcher threatens to sell to a movie studio if Raymond doesn't pay him. The plot involves Pearson trying to sell his stash to billionaire Matthew Berger (Jeremy Strong) before it becomes legal in the UK, making an unlikely alliance with thug trainer "Coach" (Colin Farrell), and accidentally getting on the wrong side of mob boss "Dry Eye" (Henry Golding) and tabloid editor Big Dave (Eddie Marsan).

The Whale (2022)

Even before seeing the A24 logo, I knew that this would not be a fun feature. Having Darren Aronofsky at the helm wouldn't help. But it looked like one of the more intriguing offerings on my list, different enough from my recent viewings, and short enough (117 minutes) that I might not see fit to split it over two nights.

In modern Idaho, Charlie (Brendan Fraser) teaches online college literature courses with his camera off, because he'd rather hide his Class III obesity. In the first scene, he gets a heart attack but refuses to go to the hospital for financial reasons, even tho he can well afford it. The screen indicates each new day of the week, hinting that he really doesn't have long to live. Will he make peace with himself and his few acquaintances in time?

White Fang (2018)

This French-produced animation has more modest ratings than I usually go for, but it seemed my best bet for getting acquainted with another Jack London classic. The 1991 adaptation isn't as popular, and I wasn't likely to make time for the book. If nothing else, the Netflix cover image promised a cute puppy.

The pup lives in the 1890s Alaskan wild with his stray wolf-dog mother, until desperation drives her back to her owner, Grey Beaver (Eddie Spears), from an unspecified tribe. GB dubs the pup White Fang and raises him to lead a sled team. When the tribe's land is set to be sold out from under them because of the Klondike Gold Rush, GB sees little choice but to sell now-adult WF to shady Beauty Smith (Paul Giamatti), who makes a lot of money in dog fighting. Marshal Wheedon Scott (Nick Offerman) puts an end to that, and he and his wife (Rashida Jones), despite their fear, do right by WF. But Beauty and his thuggish comrades (Armando Riesco and Dave Boat) aren't finished with Wheedon or WF....

21 Jump Street (2012)

This stops streaming on Netflix today, hence my prioritization. All I knew going in was that it's a buddy cop action comedy based loosely on a same-name TV series -- a dramatic one, oddly enough. That didn't work well for Dragnet, but the movie and show of 21JS have the same moderately high IMDb rating. Hey, the central premise does sound ripe for laughs.

In an unspecified modern U.S. city, wimpy geek Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and book-dumb jock Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum) become unlikely friends as twenty-something cops. After an abortive drug bust, they are assigned to the titular address, where Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) orders them to pose as high school students to trace the source of a dangerous new drug among the students. Since the duo don't study enough in advance, they accidentally swap aliases, so Schmidt takes an acting class and runs track while Jenko has to learn AP chemistry. This works out better than you'd think, but they have trouble coordinating with each other, and Dickson is losing what little patience he had with them.

My Octopus Teacher (2020)

My Netflix list has gotten too samey. I poked around for something short (85 minutes) and unlike what I'd seen lately. It occurred to me that not only had I not seen a documentary in months; I hadn't seen a nature documentary in years. Why not one with an intriguing title?

In 2018, naturalist Craig Foster goes diving near Cape Town and discovers a common octopus covered in shells for deception. He decides to watch her daily for a year. At first she shies away from him; then she sometimes clings to him in apparent playfulness. He is tempted to protect her from predation and starvation, despite the widely accepted rule against interference. Of course, a year is a long time for an octopus....

Snowpiercer (2013)

This stops streaming on Netflix at the end of the month, but I hadn't noticed that when I chose it. Mainly, it was about the highest-profile title left on my list. And with the current weather, it seemed appropriate.

The starting event happens only the year after the film's release, so you might think of it as alternate history now: An anti-global-warming measure goes horribly right, rendering the earth nigh uninhabitably frozen. Fortunately, businessman Wilford (Ed Harris) had the foresight to create a somehow self-sustaining train that harvests water by plowing through snow, and it houses more life than you might expect. Unfortunately, those in the rear cars are impoverished and tyrannized, with small children taken away for secret purposes. Hard to retain gratitude for lifesaving at that point. After 17 years of this, Curtis (Chris Evans) leads the biggest lower-class revolt yet, heading for the engine room to seize control. Given the length of the train, the locked doors, and the brutal guards, this will take a while, but they enlist the help of a stoned lock specialist (Song Kang-ho) and his seemingly clairvoyant daughter (Go Ah-sung).

Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

I did not know until last night that this was a biopic, nor was I familiar with the fictitious Dolemite or his actor/creator, Rudy Ray Moore. My prior knowledge of blaxploitation flicks was largely limited to the original Shaft and the genre parody Black Dynamite. If nothing else, I'd learn a few things herein.

In '70s L.A., Moore (Eddie Murphy) struggles to make a name for himself in show business, whether singing or standup. His first success comes from inspiration by street poets, telling naughty stories in rhyme over instrumental music. He develops his Dolemite persona and grows popular enough to launch the career of partner Lady Reed (Da'Vine Joy Randolph). Then he decides to star in an action comedy movie, Dolemite, which doesn't come together easily without major studio support.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)

I had enjoyed all the WaG shorts as well as The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Alas, their only outing since (Shaun the Sheep doesn't count) had been World of Invention, a 2010 documentary miniseries that doesn't match the rest in humor, let alone adventure. Well, my parents wasted little time in inviting me to see this new addition to Netflix with them, and I wasted little time in saying yes.

In case you need a refresher on The Wrong Trousers from 1993, goofy inventor Wallace (Ben Whitehead, replacing the late Peter Sallis) and especially his mute but hypercompetent pooch, Gromit, foiled thieving penguin Feathers McGraw, who got sent to a zoo. Now Wallace has created a mechanical gnome, Norbot (Reece Shearsmith), who does well enough at gardening to make local news, gaining Feathers' attention. Thanks to both overreaching and lax policing, Feathers can hack Norbot remotely, making him build a platoon of gnomes who pretend to help the neighborhood but swipe yard implements for machine parts. The scheme is to bust Feathers out, steal the soon-to-be-exhibited Blue Diamond again, and frame Wallace.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

This has the same IMDb rating as The Last Jedi, which puts it a little below the median for the franchise. For years, if anyone in my circles talked about it, they were complaining. Since the stand-alone prequel wasn't integral to understanding the overarching story, I saw no need to tune in. Then I heard a positive review from someone I trust, so I finally gave it a try.

The film begins with Han (Alden Ehrenreich) as a young adult street thief for a harsh gang leader. He pays his way off planet with loot, but crush Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke) gets apprehended. Han joins the Imperial Navy -- where, being an orphan, he is assigned the surname Solo -- in order to learn pilot skills and use them to rescue Qi'ra. Of course, he's too unruly for a good soldier and finds the missions questionable, so that's another group to escape. For much of the plot, he's involved in a heist with fellow ex-soldier Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) for Crimson Dawn, a syndicate under Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), who just so happens to have enlisted Qi'ra. But once again, Han has more of a moral compass than he likes to let on....