When Marnie Was There (2014)

I make a point to watch more than half the Academy Best Animated Feature nominees in any given year. I had seen two from 2015 already and may add Boy & the World, but Anomalisa sounds disturbing. Coming on the heels of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and The Wind Rises, WMWT marks the first time that Studio Ghibli got three back-to-back nominations, tho still no Oscar since Spirited Away.

The setting appears to be '60s Japan. Twelve-year-old Anna starts the movie as a self-loathing loner, stressed enough to compound her asthma. Her foster parents send her on a wellness trip to the country home of...let's call them her aunt and uncle. At first she's still depressed, but she takes interest in a reportedly abandoned mansion that somehow seems familiar -- and meets a same-age girl living there, eager to take a break from an oppressive home life. The two form a strong if secret bond in no time, but something seems off about Marnie's appearances and disappearances, as well as Anna's tendency to wake up a ways from where she thought she was. Anna starts to question Marnie's reality, and the plot gets a little more complicated....

Juliet of the Spirits (1965)

More than a week since my last review? Clearly, I was in no hurry to talk about another art film. The main reason I moved it to the top of my queue was the promise of a focus on a woman. In that regard, it delivers.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of plot progression. Juliet (Giulietta Masina, director Federico Fellini's wife and frequent star) has been leading an ordinary quiet, possibly upper-middle-class life. Before long from our perspective, two events start to make it more interesting for her: a seance followed by evidence that her husband is cheating on her. Juliet then spends much of her time exploring a more, shall we say, liberated lifestyle with the help of a friend (Sandra Milo) and hearing from exhorting spirits, real or imagined, whether she wants to or not. And somewhat like in A Christmas Carol, sometimes she sees her own past.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)

Despite being an acceptable age to have watched Pee-wee's Playhouse regularly in childhood, I never saw a complete episode. It didn't bother me; it just didn't draw me in much for whatever reason. By the time I knew about the innuendo catering to older viewers, it was long off the air. My main exposure to the character of Pee-wee Herman (as opposed to Paul Reubens in general) was Big Top Pee-wee, which, while panned, didn't bother me for one viewing either.

So why would I care enough to see another Pee-wee movie at this point? Well, an acquaintance called it Tim Burton's most underrated film (it was his first silver screen feature, so no wonder people rarely associate him with it), and I agreed with said acquaintance that Batman was his most overrated. Beyond that, people kept making reference to PwBA online, if only for one particular scene and a loose comparison to Bicycle Thieves. At 91 minutes, the last several of which I'd caught on TV once, it could serve as a pretty painless session in cultural education.