Barbie (2023)

I was reluctant to try something so polarizing. If nothing else, I figured that seeing the largest amount of pink outside of a nudist community would sicken me. But on a tiny airplane-back screen, that's not so risky.

Here we see Barbieland, home to live humanoids who mostly go by "Barbie" and "Ken," who come into existence as Mattel makes their corresponding doll models, and who change based on how the dolls are played with. The focal characters are Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling), whom I'll call SB and BK for simplicity. SB starts to develop realistic flaws nearly unheard of in Barbieland, so she travels to real-world L.A., where Mattel is headquartered, in search of a solution. BK tags along and discovers that Barbieland could become a lot more fun for the men -- at the cost of the women. He returns before SB does....

Little Women (2019)

I saved this for last among 2019 Academy Best Picture nominees because I had already seen the 1994 adaptation twice, albeit long ago. I was not very fond of that one, leaving me of two minds about seeing the reputedly best version.

For those who aren't up on the Louisa May Alcott classic literature, the title characters are four sisters in 1860s Massachusetts, traditionally supposed to spend much of the story as teens (and one briefly a tween) but herein played strictly by twenty-somethings. From oldest to youngest, they are Meg (Emma Watson), Jo (Saoirse Ronan), Beth (Eliza Scanlon), and Amy (Florence Pugh). Jo gets the most focus, being an aspiring author with little regard for contemporary gender expectations, including marriage. More broadly, the sisters struggle with poverty, what with their father (Bob Odenkirk) away at war and neither any of them nor their mother (Laura Dern) in a good position to make money. They also face scarlet fever, a harsh teacher, and jealousy, not least with regard to the generosity and affection of comely male neighbor Laurie (Timothée Chalamet).

Isle of Dogs (2018)

This review is for those seemingly few who, like me, neither love nor hate the works of Wes Anderson (the rest have no need of a review in the first place). He displays no shortage of signatures, for better, worse, or both. I had expected to wait and maybe see this on DVD, but a Meetup invitation to the limited screening before wide release in the U.S. drew me in.

In either the near future or an alternate present, the dog-hating mayor of fictional Megasaki, Japan, exiles all dogs to the aptly named Trash Island, with popular support thanks to a worrisome flu epidemic among the dogs. After half a year of barely hanging on, a quintet of adult male dogs sees a jet crash on the island. Out comes Atari, an injured 12-year-old orphan and rebellious nephew of the mayor, in search of his beloved Spots. The quintet democratically votes to try to help him, with only long-time stray Chief (Bryan Cranston) against it.

Lady Bird (2017)

No, it's not about Claudia Alta Johnson. We never do learn how the protagonist (Saoirse Ronan) chose her nickname, tho I wouldn't be surprised if she, an apparent leftist, meant to honor the Democratic first lady. The important thing is that she refuses to go by her birth name, Christine, because she wants to assert her own identity.

I'd say Lady Bird is above average for 12th-grade rebelliousness, especially by Catholic school standards (she snacks on unconsecrated communion wafers, for example). Fed up with her hometown of Sacramento and California in general, she wants to go to college in New York City. Alas, her family is low on finances, so getting her mom (Laurie Metcalf) to agree is a challenge. In truth, getting her mom to agree on anything is a challenge.

Jackie (2016)

As a Xennial, I knew only so much about Jacqueline Kennedy. I had no mental picture of her and probably never watched any footage of her. Thus, Jackie could never mean the same thing for me that it does for my parents or many of the Meetup members who watched with us. But I'll remember her for sure now.

The movie begins with an oddly unnamed journalist (Billy Crudup, reportedly playing Theodore H. White) meeting the ex-First Lady (Natalie Portman) at her new house about a week after her husband's assassination. Having been a journalist herself, she takes a rather bitter approach to the interview, often accusing him of lurid motives and saying her most interesting things off the record. We may view their scenes as glue for the rest, as the flashbacks that make up about 90% of the runtime -- ranging from happy memories of the past year or so to the funeral -- do not follow chronologically.