Black Panther (2018)

Two years ago, I would've had reservations about an adaptation of a character who clearly came out of the blaxploitation era. Thankfully, not only did his screen debut in Captain America: Civil War show how promisingly cool he was, but TV's Luke Cage reassured me that Marvel blaxploitation could avoid looking like old-fashioned moderate racism.

Although Prince T'Challa of Wakanda (Chadwick Boseman) had already donned the royal stylized catsuit, only in this movie does he officially become king and take the Black Panther title, along with a substance that enhances his physical abilities. Soon afterward, he learns of a murderous international museum heist that put secret Wakandan technology in the hands of smuggler Klaw (a hammy Andy Serkis), and he assembles a team to recover it at a rendezvous intended for a black-market sale. Naturally, a mere illegitimate businessman could hardly be the main villain in a work like this; he has a temporary partner with a vision for the global future....

Arrival (2016)

My poor dad wasn't feeling well enough to come watch this with me. I suppose I could've waited another week for him, but I've been getting antsy to see the most talked-about Academy Award nominees and hadn't given much thought to Lion yet. In retrospect, La La Land, which he's already seen, would've been a better choice, but I keep feeling reluctant: Ryan Gosling hasn't been in many movies I like, and Damien Chazelle is best known for something that disturbs me. Had I noticed that Arrival was directed by the ever-disturbing Denis Villeneuve, the latter reason wouldn't have worked for me.

Giant alien ships land at twelve seemingly random points far apart on Earth. U.S. Army Col. Weber (Forest Whitaker) invites renowned language professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) to translate messages from the two known aliens at the U.S. landing site. Unable to work remotely, she comes to meet them face to...face?...and slowly learn their reason for visiting -- hopefully before someone in power jumps to the wrong conclusion. Her biggest help in the endeavor is Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), who's more partial to science than language, but that doesn't stop the obvious signs of a budding romance.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

It's hard to get all five local members of my family to agree on a movie, as we do for Christmas. This was a bit of a compromise, with my mom expecting to be bored some of the time despite a female protagonist. (Hey, modern action scenes do go on rather long by older viewers' standards.) Afterward, she said at least she stayed awake and enjoyed some humor. So how does it stand up for a moderate SW fan?

Well, first, let me assure you that it's not the fanfic-esque retread that many viewers perceived Episode VII to be, for better or worse. Ending possibly mere minutes before the start of Episode IV (you know, the first SW film ever made), it tells the story of how the Empire began its Death Star and how the Rebel Alliance learned its key weakness. The title refers to an eventual call sign for a ship containing a handful of rebels on a secret mission. Chief among them is Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), who has a bone to pick with Imperial Commander Krennic (Ben Mendelssohn) for killing her mother and coercing her father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsen), to design the space battle station, starting when she was little.

The Great Debaters (2007)

Somehow, I hadn't heard about Denzel Washington's second directorial effort when it was new. Perhaps I just wasn't paying attention in the right circles yet, or perhaps the combination of old-time Black struggles and, well, college debates didn't lend itself to mainstream discussion, despite praise from Roger Ebert among others. But those defining attributes did pique my interest.

Inspired by true events -- too loosely for a good history lesson -- the story follows Prof. Melvin B. Tolson (Washington) and his Wiley College debate team in 1930s Texas. The team has such a successful track record that Harvard (rather than the University of Southern California as in real life) eventually accepts their challenge. Alas, Tolson's pro-union activities get him in too much trouble to be there for the team in Cambridge, and Harvard insists that the teammates write their own arguments. Difficult, but you can see the ending a mile away.

Ernest & Celestine (2012)

No, it's not part of the Jim Varney collection; just look at the year. I'm talking about an Academy Best Animated Feature nominee that, being foreign, went up against movies from the following year. That's almost all I knew when I chose to check it out.

It hadn't been long since my last French animation from the 2010s with talking animals, but that's about where the similarity ends. Unlike The Rabbi's Cat, E&C is indeed family friendly, having a basis in children's books. Probably the only reason for the PG rating is a handful of lines about ways to die. A sufficiently young viewer might cry over them, but I figure that if I could watch An American Tail many times around age 5, it's not that big a risk.

So how does E&C fare for older viewers? Let me begin my answer with "I WANT A CELESTINE DOLL! SHE'S ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE!" But since not everyone would decide on a movie for that reason alone, I'd better put more details below.