Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

For all the praise heaped on this movie, for all the high ratings across different websites, I was reluctant to watch. The trailer made clear that it was full of anger, at an intensity I was unlikely to find comfortable. Still, I wanted to maximize my chances of seeing the Academy Best Picture ahead of the ceremony.

I'm not sure in what period the story takes place, but from the phones and a reference to 1986, I'd say the '90s or early 2000s. A little-used road with three long-disused billboards suddenly has a message: "Raped while dying/And still no arrests?/How come, Chief Willoughby?" In a town so small, everyone knows the event in question, and it's not hard to guess who paid for the message: bereaved mother Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand). Alas, for all the sympathy she'd gained, almost no one can get behind the challenge to a respected chief (Woody Harrelson), especially since he has terminal cancer. But Mildred insists on keeping it up until there's appreciable progress on the case.

Get Out (2017)

This may be the first horror movie of my lifetime that my parents saw before I did. Friends had recommended it to them, and they recommended it to me. They also thought I should expect a wait on it from Netflix, which is why I put it at the top of my queue for October, but it came on time. Truth be told, I had held off on it not just because it wasn't the right month for my horror viewing but because it sounded very iffy for my taste.

The main auteur is Jordan Peele of Key & Peele fame, so I rightly suspected a racial focus. Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) goes to meet the parents (Katherine Keener and Bradley Whitford, who looks nothing like Josh Lyman anymore) of his girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), who assures him they'd have nothing against her dating a Black man. Ooh, but there'd been some inadequate communication: This is the day of an annual family/friend reunion, so he'll meet far more than them. He's not exactly surprised at a lot of the awkwardness from people who try to be polite yet don't seem to know any Blacks personally besides servants, but things start to seem worryingly awry, especially the Stepford-like behavior of the few other Blacks around....