Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)

I liked the three short Marcel web videos from the early 2010s, but the announcement of this movie caught me by surprise. The shorts mostly consisted of monologues with almost no plot and rarely a second character on screen. How could the makers fill 90 minutes? When I saw that the answer was streaming on Netflix, I immediately opted to find out.

Marcel (Jenny Slate) is a walnut-sized seashell with one eye, a mouth, two stubby legs, humanlike language capacity, and a childlike demeanor. He's been living with grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini) at an Airbnb, unnoticed by humans until amateur documentarian Dean Fleischer Camp (as himself, more or less) moves in, discovers him, and persuades him to star in the aforementioned YouTube series. After gaining a fandom, Marcel hopes anew to find the rest of his large family, who were accidentally packed up when prior tenant Mark (Thomas Mann) left in a hurry. Imagine his dismay to learn how large the world is and how unhelpful most fans are.

White Nights (1985)

The title refers to the far-northern phenomenon of sunlight way into summer nights. Sure enough, the story takes place in that setting, and while the white nights themselves are not important to the plot, they serve as a symbol of confusion and frustration. I had not known this when I saved the DVD for the start of daylight saving time.

Famed first-generation American dancer Nikolai (Mikhail Baryshnikov himself) has a stroke of bad luck when his malfunctioning commercial plane (I assume this was never an in-flight movie) has to make an emergency stop in the USSR, from which he defected. In his unsuccessful haste to hide his identity, he does not brace himself for a rough landing and thus gets injured and knocked out. When he wakes, he's not in prison in the conventional sense, but neither is he allowed to go much of anywhere unless he agrees with the proposal of Col. Chaiko (Jerzy Skolimowski) to dance for Soviets again. In the meantime, in addition to being on camera, he's supervised by roommates Raymond (Gregory Hines), a stage actor and tap dancer who defected in the opposite direction; and Darya (Isabella Rosselini's U.S. debut), Raymond's wife. Can Nikolai persuade them to take the risks needed to let him flee, bearing in mind that the KGB could very well claim he died from his crash injuries?

Incredibles 2 (2018)

I always liked The Incredibles, even before I developed a major interest in the superhero subgenre. At the same time, I've never been sure how to rank it among Pixar flicks. It was more mature than previous entries, clearly earning its PG for better and worse. Before long, I understood that it owed a lot to both the Fantastic Four and Watchmen, also for better and worse. I had trouble buying and being patient with some of the character actions. But nothing else from Pixar had me more interested in a sequel (at least until Inside Out), even if we had to wait even longer than we did for Finding Dory.

Viewers who wanted to see the Parrs/Incredibles years down the line may be disappointed that the action in I2 picks up where TI left off and the ending might be less than a week later. Matters had been even less resolved than I remembered: While the family has reached an agreement to keep using their innate powers for good, they still lack the legal right. And good overall PR. And a house. Early herein, things start looking up for them when hero-worshiping billionaire Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) offers them a spare house and a sponsored mission, involving hi-tech equipment from his sister, Evelyn (Catherine Keener), that might just change public opinion on supers. Unfortunately for Bob/Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson), his tendency toward collateral damage has cost him a favored spot in the mission, so for now, only Helen/Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) gets to do fieldwork; he'll have to make do as a househusband. But she might be in over her head when the Screenslaver, who specializes in hacking and mesmerism, singles her out for challenges in protecting the city.

Infamous (2006)

This movie was, if you will, infamously unfortunate in its timing: It came out months after Capote and had a very similar focus, so many dismissed it. It doesn't enjoy quite as high ratings from IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes. But maybe a decade of distance will help me evaluate it on its own terms.

As in Capote, Truman Capote (Toby Jones herein), already a bestselling author, gets engrossed in researching two men on death row who murdered a family after an unsuccessful burglary. Here, however, we get to see him express deeper feelings about one murderer, Perry Smith (Daniel Craig with an American accent). While partner in crime Dick Hickock (Lee Pace) is a mostly amoral motormouth, Perry is both morally and intellectually complicated -- and slow to trust anyone with his life story, tho Truman threatens to make stuff up for his new quasi-reporting style. In time, they almost develop a romance.