A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Why didn't I see this sooner, perhaps in a theater? Probably because Won't You Be My Neighbor? came out not so long before. But now seems like a good time to explore promising stress relief.

In 1998, Lloyd (Matthew Rhys), an Esquire writer based loosely on Tom Junod, has such a reputation for scathing articles that almost nobody will agree to an interview with him anymore. His editor, Ellen (Christine Lahti), gives him a different kind of assignment: 400 words on Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), as part of a series on heroes. Lloyd is not happy about this; neither is his wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson), partly because he'll have to fly from New York to Pittsburgh, leaving her alone with their baby for a while, and partly because she worries what he'll write about her childhood icon. But Rogers has a way of helping people deal with their emotions more healthily, which is especially important when Lloyd holds a serious grudge against his own father, Jerry (Chris Cooper).

Cars 3 (2017)

I question the wisdom of keeping this franchise going. The first Cars was possibly the least popular Pixar feature at the time. The second broke a long winning streak as the first Pixar entry not to score an Academy nomination since the Best Animated Feature category began. The offshoot Planes (not sporting the Pixar brand but made by a lot of the same people) was unusually panned for Disney, and it still got a sequel. I'd ask whether this is really the hill they want to die on, except that the company may never die. Regardless, C3 looked like one of the more promising viewing options on my plane ride, so I gave it a shot.

You may have seen that fairly shocking trailer in which pro racecar Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) has a major crash. Well, this isn't a story about life-threatening injury. The next time we see him, four months later, you'd think he never got a scratch. But there are widespread doubts of whether he can compete with newer challengers, especially record-breaking Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer). McQueen checks into a new training center, whose owner Sterling (Nathan Fillion) and prime trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo) both admire his past but now see him as a geezer, probably fit for only one more race. Naturally, he aims to prove them wrong.

Matewan (1987)

I've reviewed political movies before, but this felt a little harder to approach. Part of it comes from having seen a special screening with a loudly pro–labor union audience, where writer-director John Sayles showed up with a lot to say. Still, I decided not to write it off for others right away. If you're like me, then you don't have to agree with a film's message to find it worth watching.

The title is the name of a West Virginia town, whose citizens pronounce it "mate-wan," because they have no regard for tribal origins. In 1920, union organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper in his first silver-screen role) comes to town and finds the coal miners disgruntled but rather weak in resistance to company pressures, particularly in the form of gunmen from the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency. Upon word that a "red" has arrived, Agents Hickley (Kevin Tighe) and Griggs (Gordon Clapp) take up temporary residence in the same boarding house to throw their weight around, not very daunted by the legalistic sheriff (David Strathairn) and mayor (Josh Mostel). Kenehan makes a name for himself within the budding union, but they don't always cotton to his pacifism, especially under C.E. Lively (Bob Gunton)....