World War Z (2013)

I chose this partly for being relatively popular and partly because Netflix will drop it at the end of the month. Aside from that, all I knew going in was what the Z stood for. The first question in my mind was how the story would differ from that of the quintessential Dawn of the Dead.

Well, for starters, there is an unambiguous protagonist, Gerry (Brad Pitt), whose background as a UN investigator makes him especially important to combatting the viral zombie outbreak. Only about half an hour in, he gets his wife (Mireille Enos) and daughters (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove) from overrun Philly to a reasonably safe outpost. But even favor from the UN deputy secretary-general (Fana Mokoena) won't let them all live there indefinitely; Gerry has to pull his weight by going back into danger for clues on how to vaccinate against zombification. And yes, the characters do say "zombie" eventually.

Bullet Train (2022)

Despite its fair popularity, I wasn't particularly eager to see this. Perhaps a brief clip intrigued me; more likely, I added it to my Netflix list largely for variety. In any event, I felt like watching an action flick last night, and this was the first to come up.

Most of the 126 minutes do indeed take place on a bullet train in Japan. Focus is divided among various career criminals, generally called by their code names. If there's a main one, it's Ladybug (Brad Pitt), an operative who wants to take a more peaceable course, not least because he's had a streak of questionable luck. His remote mission control contact, Maria Beetle (Sandra Bullock), tells him to swipe a briefcase full of cash -- which assassin duo Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) have been assigned to get to their ruthless boss, the White Death (Michael Shannon), in addition to delivering his wayward son (Logan Lerman). Meanwhile, gangster Yuichi (Andrew Koji) has boarded to kill the Prince (Joey King, heh) for hospitalizing his young son, but the tricky Prince plans to coerce him to kill the White Death -- using the same darn briefcase. And they're not the only ones who show up.

Legends of the Fall (1994)

No, it has nothing to do with The Fall. Reportedly, the title refers to the biblical Fall, but I'd hardly know from the movie itself: The characters aren't particularly religious and never say anything about the events of Genesis. Maybe the relevance is clearer in the Jim Harrison novella from which this is adapted.

The Netflix description makes it sound primarily like a war movie, but that's only for the first act. In 1914, Montana rancher William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins), despite having served as a colonel, is disillusioned with the government and doesn't want his three sons to fight in World War I, but Samuel (Henry Thomas) and Alfred (Aidan Quinn) insist. Tristan (Brad Pitt) feels obliged to come along to protect Samuel, not least for the sake of Samuel's intended, Susannah (Julia Ormond). Since Netflix hinted as much, I might as well tell you he fails. The rest of the story is shaped by this failure.

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019)

Ah, Quentin Tarantino, one of the directors I have the most mixed feelings about. As a rule, I take his name as a warning yet find his movies pretty good, if typically overrated. Why make this the second Best Picture nominee I see for the year? Well, it happened to be showing at a convenient time for me, I didn't trust either parent to want to watch with me, and I'd already watched the 1994 adaptation of Little Women twice.

Set chiefly in 1969, OUaTiH follows Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), former star of a western TV series; and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his buddy and former stunt double. The biggest contrast between them is in how they handle the decline of their careers: Rick cries at the realization of it and then struggles to recover, but Cliff is content to have become something of a butler to him. Also, Rick hates hippies while Cliff takes an interest in one of them -- until he discovers just how unruly she and her friends are. They are the Manson Family....

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Whew, glad this format allows titles of that length. Say what you will about that clunker; it did more than anything else to get me interested. Sure, Brad Pitt said this was his favorite of his own works, and it got many honors, but if not for the title, I would have neglected to put it on my queue.

The story begins shortly before 19-year-old "Bob" Ford (Casey Affleck) joins the James gang, of which his older brother, Charley (Sam Rockwell), is already a member. Bob has admired Jesse (Pitt) since childhood, but you know the saying "Never meet your heroes"? Between Jesse's behavior and Bob's unwanted entanglement with gang treachery, collecting a reward on Jesse starts to look like a good idea.

The Big Short (2015)

Ah, now I've seen all the Best Picture nominees from last year! I would've waited a while longer, but once again, my dad had made the rental and I decided to seize the opportunity.

Based on a mostly nonfiction Michael Lewis book, the story focuses on a few men in three basic groups that never come together. In 2005, number-minded hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale) discovers what a racket the allegedly stable U.S. housing market has going and then does what no one ever did before: a credit default swap that essentially makes a bet with several banks that the housing bubble will burst soon enough for him to profit overall. People who catch wind of the arrangement and decide to get in on the action include trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling); his associate, hedge fun manager Mark Baum (Steve Carrell); and relatively new investing partners Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jaime Shipley (Finn Whitrock), with help from trader Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt). It's no spoiler to say that they win in 2007. For the record, only Burry goes by a real person's name.

A River Runs Through It (1992)

This has to be the first movie I've seen because of its poster. Specifically, I learned of its existence from a large poster on a classroom door. While I haven't been in school since 2004 and I had no reason to value that one professor's cinematic taste, it just looked so pleasantly...peaceful. And that's what I was in the mood for.

Based on a semi-autobiography, it takes place in Missoula, Montana, for a good stretch of the first half of the 20th century. Minister John Maclean (Tom Skerritt) rather strictly home-schools sons Norman (Craig Sheffer) and slightly younger Paul (early Brad Pitt) with special emphasis on Presbyterian values and, almost equally, fly fishing. By adulthood, Norman comes a bit closer to the former of his father's ideals, taking a university position in Chicago. Paul, refusing to leave his hometown, boasts some important connections as a newspaperman but seems less respectable to polite society, with such habits as drinking and gambling into debt. When Norman returns, the brotherly love is a little shaky, tho shared fishing experience doesn't hurt.

Fury (2014)

I enjoy quite a few war movies, but recommending them is seldom easy. Battle-heavy ones in particular threaten to run together; if you don't crave mere violence in your viewings, they'd better offer something new. This goes double for depictions of WWII, since there are so many.

The most immediately distinctive feature of Fury is that the (anti)heroes ride a tank. You may welcome the inherent change of dynamics therein -- partly with a smaller, tight-knit group with more armor than usual -- tho if they spent any less time on the outside the tank, I'd get too claustrophobic. The next cinematic battle I see had better have more running around. As it is, I split my viewing over the course of two nights, which is not a good sign for a little more than two hours.