Nightmare Alley (2021)

I had already heard of a 1947 film noir of the same title. This Guillermo del Toro project isn't a remake so much as a second adaptation of the novel. Alas, the original is more highly rated across sites yet much harder to find. Anyway, this is the only version that was nominated for Best Picture.

In 1939, shortly after covering up a murder, Stan (Bradley Cooper) finds work that will have no one inquiring into his background: a traveling carnival's barker. There he learns how to fake being a psychic, and he and stunt-performing girlfriend Molly (Rooney Mara) eventually leave for a classier venue. He then takes an unfaithful interest in a distinguished audience member, psychologist Lilith (Cate Blanchett), and asks her for confidential information that can help him fool a rich, widowed, somewhat unhinged ex-client of hers, Ezra (Richard Jenkins). Stan does not care about Molly's discomfort with his endeavors, nor does he heed the warning of his mentors (Toni Collette and David Strathairn) that moving from mind reading to seances is dangerous -- or Lilith's warning that Ezra is.

Nomadland (2020)

Before the next Academy Awards, I thought I'd catch up on previous winners and nominees. I had been putting this Best Picture off because some people made it sound depressing. Then I remembered that the same was true of No Country for Old Men, which I turned out to like just fine. Besides, after Johnny Got His Gun, how painful could it be for me to watch?

In 2011, the closing of a factory spells the emptying of its tiny Nevada town. Sixty-something widow Fern (Frances McDormand) stays as long as she can but then decides to live out of a van, seeing the countryside and taking odd jobs. She meets many other nomads in a mutually supportive community, including Dave (David Strathairn), who clearly has a crush on her, but commitment to anything other than preserving her husband's memory is far from her mind.

Dolores Claiborne (1995)

Of the nine movies I've seen based on Stephen King stories, Misery is in my personal top two. When I learned that Kathy Bates had starred in another King adaptation five years later, I took interest.

As is common for King, the action occurs primarily in backwater Maine. Selena St. George (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a young reporter in New York, gets wind that her mother, Dolores, is the prime suspect in the violent death of Vera (Judy Parfitt), a wealthy yet stingy, fussy old curmudgeon who hired her as a maid. Selena and Dolores have been out of touch for so long that Dolores does not recognize her daughter by sight, but Selena sticks around because she doesn't share her mom's seeming confidence in an acquittal, not least because the lead detective (Christopher Plummer) thinks Dolores got away with murder 20 years ago -- that of her abusive husband (David Strathairn). Between numerous flashbacks and reports, we and Selena gradually learn which allegations are true and which aren't.

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)....

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

I've been putting this off a long time, because unlike most viewers, I got very little out of the first two Bourne entries. The Bourne Identity struck me as an odd combination of stark and semi-comically unrealistic; despite my viewing in a theater, even the car chase failed to excite me. The Bourne Supremacy, which introduced more popular director Paul Greengrass to the franchise, was too bleak to provide much fun, and I kept getting déjà vu. Fans of the third have described it as almost too intense, and less generous critics have said it is too intense (and has no actual ultimatum). Nevertheless, between its Academy Awards and its continual placement on the IMDb top 250, the threequel seemed necessary for my cinematic education.

The Netflix jacket would have you believe that the only new elements are a few moderately famous actors and several major cities on three continents, but I can do a little better at summarizing. The titular rogue secret government assassin (Matt Damon) has apparently kept a low profile for weeks following the Moscow events in TBS. Then a Guardian journalist writing about him reveals insider knowledge of one Operation Blackbriar, getting his attention -- and, less welcomely, that of the CIA. With fresh clues and the cooperation of a disenchanted operative (Julia Stiles), Jason Bourne resumes his search to fill the sizable holes in his memory, all the while evading or fighting the agency led by Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) and, more sympathetically, Pamela Landy (Joan Allen).