Apollo 13 (1995)

When I saw this in a theater at 13, I didn't like it much. It's big on crisis but not on visual spectacle, apart from a brief nightmare sequence. (The impressiveness of shooting in low gravity goes only so far.) Yesterday, I finally mustered the nerve to give it another try with adult eyes.

In 1970, Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), and Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) attempt to be the next men on the moon. They're not superstitious about the mission number, but Lovell expresses concern about Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) being swapped out for Swigert at the last minute because of a positive test for rubella. At first, the voyage is too plain for TV coverage. Things start going wrong on Day 3, when an oxygen tank explodes. Under flight director Gene Krantz (Ed Harris), NASA abandons hope of a lunar landing, and even getting them home alive looks highly improbable.

Snowpiercer (2013)

This stops streaming on Netflix at the end of the month, but I hadn't noticed that when I chose it. Mainly, it was about the highest-profile title left on my list. And with the current weather, it seemed appropriate.

The starting event happens only the year after the film's release, so you might think of it as alternate history now: An anti-global-warming measure goes horribly right, rendering the earth nigh uninhabitably frozen. Fortunately, businessman Wilford (Ed Harris) had the foresight to create a somehow self-sustaining train that harvests water by plowing through snow, and it houses more life than you might expect. Unfortunately, those in the rear cars are impoverished and tyrannized, with small children taken away for secret purposes. Hard to retain gratitude for lifesaving at that point. After 17 years of this, Curtis (Chris Evans) leads the biggest lower-class revolt yet, heading for the engine room to seize control. Given the length of the train, the locked doors, and the brutal guards, this will take a while, but they enlist the help of a stoned lock specialist (Song Kang-ho) and his seemingly clairvoyant daughter (Go Ah-sung).

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

When I saw Top Gun for the first time about a decade ago, I didn't get much out of it. I couldn't remember much later besides the control tower buzzing and the death of a wingman, and it seemed to me there wasn't all that much action for a designated action flick. But in light of the sequel's much better reception, I had to check it out. Maybe it would be like the later Mission: Impossible entries.

For decades, "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) has been content to turn down promotions above his U.S. Navy captaincy and serve as a skilled if rather unruly test pilot. But with drones being the apparent wave of the future, his superiors offer him only one choice for further flights in the service: teaching at the Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, a.k.a. TOPGUN. They wouldn't give him even that if not for his buddy-turned-admiral "Iceman" Kazansky (Val Kilmer). Mav has very little time to train a small group of aviators and pick the best for bombing a canyon base. And unlike supervising admiral "Hammer" Cain (Ed Harris), he wants to ensure they not only complete the objective but all make it home safe. He never was one to accept theoretical limits.

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

While this movie came seven years after Gone in 60 Seconds and seven before Gone Girl, I couldn't have told you which was which. It was high time I saw one of them. I ruled out Gi60S for not being popular enough. Both GBG and GG involve Ben Affleck, but only GBG has him as director, and he seems less of a gamble than David Fincher.

The heroes are a pair of mainstays in Dennis Lehane's novels: Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and, with less focus, Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan). When a little girl gets kidnapped, her aunt hires the two private eyes, against the recommendation of the police captain (Morgan Freeman). Their main advantage is that Patrick knows almost everybody in the Boston slum, allowing him connections the cops wouldn't have. They still do some work with police detectives (Ed Harris and John Ashton), but with too much disagreement.

Enemy at the Gates (2001)

Yep, my final viewing before the New Year deadline was of another war film. Set in Europe during World War II, no less. Fortunately for my sake, that's about where the similarity ends.

For one thing, EatG has a much more individual focus, specifically on real-life Soviet sniper Vasily Zaytsev (Jude Law). Commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) notices his talent and writes about him in the news to increase morale on their side. It works, but the tradeoff for so much publicity -- a sticking point between the two friends -- is that the Germans know too much about Zaytsev and his whereabouts. Their own star sniper, Major Konig (Ed Harris), goes on a mission to take him down.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

I'd seen a few movies written by David Mamet before, but not based on a play of his. Oddly enough, the most oft-cited moment does not occur in the play: One-scene wonder Alec Baldwin features as a company-hired motivational speaker with the attitude of a prototypical drill sergeant (Baldwin did look to Patton for inspiration). In truth, he seems to be channeling Al Pacino, for whom he was something of an understudy herein. I had seen this part already, and it didn't exactly make me eager for more, but I value my cinematic education.

That early scene helps establish the plot. At a super-shady real estate agency that cold-calls individuals to sell them overpriced land, business has not been good lately. The agency offers prizes for the two salesmen who accomplish the most in the near future but will fire the other two. It feels unfair to the less successful, because they've done well in the past and have just fallen on bad luck with regard to sales leads, if "luck" is the right word. In desperation, two conspire to steal the good leads and make it look like a plain burglary.