20th Century Women (2016)

I felt I'd seen enough comedies or semi-comedies in a row. This movie looked suitably serious, not least with A24 distribution. Turns out it's a dramedy. Oh well, I hardly noticed.

Apart from brief flashbacks and flash-forwards, the setting is 1979 Santa Barbara. Dorothea (Annette Bening), 55, feels inadequate as the single mom of Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), 15, and doesn't count on middle-aged tenant and potential boyfriend William (Billy Crudup) to supplement her efforts. She asks her other unrelated tenant, 24-year-old Abbie (Greta Gerwig), and Jamie's closest female friend, 17-year-old Julie (Elle Fanning), to help him grow up healthily. But Jamie's not keen on this arrangement, and the ladies have conflicting ideas of how to go about it.

Public Enemies (2009)

This sat on my list for a long time before my friend and I were looking at possibilities. The same friend had rewatched Road to Perdition with me, so I'm not surprised he wanted another gangster flick that briefly includes Frank Nitti (Bill Camp herein).

As the title implies, the story concerns multiple notorious criminals, but they've been pared down quite a bit from the Bryan Burrough novel. Most of the focus is on John Dillinger (Johnny Depp in one of his last normal-looking roles), starting with his 1933 arrival at -- and immediate break from -- Indiana State Prison, so he's already notorious. When he's not committing armed robbery or having standoffs with law enforcement, he's wooing one Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) from the moment he lays eyes on her. The other major focal character is FBI Agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), in charge of the pursuit.

Jackie (2016)

As a Xennial, I knew only so much about Jacqueline Kennedy. I had no mental picture of her and probably never watched any footage of her. Thus, Jackie could never mean the same thing for me that it does for my parents or many of the Meetup members who watched with us. But I'll remember her for sure now.

The movie begins with an oddly unnamed journalist (Billy Crudup, reportedly playing Theodore H. White) meeting the ex-First Lady (Natalie Portman) at her new house about a week after her husband's assassination. Having been a journalist herself, she takes a rather bitter approach to the interview, often accusing him of lurid motives and saying her most interesting things off the record. We may view their scenes as glue for the rest, as the flashbacks that make up about 90% of the runtime -- ranging from happy memories of the past year or so to the funeral -- do not follow chronologically.

Spotlight (2015)

Not since No Country for Old Men (2007) had I been so reluctant to watch an Academy Best Picture. It's a rather disturbing subject, especially to a member of the Roman Catholic Church congregation (I've lost faith but still sing in the choir). Besides, with only one other Oscar, how deserving could it be?

Set mainly in 2001, when allegations of child sexual abuse by priests were nothing new, this drama puts the, y'know, spotlight on The Boston Globe, particularly its four "Spotlight" section team members. New editor-in-chief Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) thinks they've given too short shrift to such scandals, not least because local Cardinal Law (whose name confused me for a while) has been implicated in trying to hide a recent one. Remember, cardinals rank higher than archbishops, just short of the Pope. If the Globe finds compelling evidence of systematic cover-ups, it'll be big news indeed. But this endeavor faces a lot of obstacles, and not just in the form of direct Church power -- which, surprisingly enough, never really issues a threat.