The Player (1992)

The main thing I knew going in was that lots of familiar names were attached to it. But only a handful of famous people in the "all-star cast" get important roles; most have walk-ons as themselves, and I'm afraid many of those have not had enduring star power. Regardless, it's also highly rated across sites and boasts a few awards and nominations, so I had better reasons to check it out.

Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is a Hollywood producer as sleazy as any. One of the writers he brushed off starts sending anonymous, increasingly threatening postcards. He tracks down a likely candidate, David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio), and offers to make it up to him, but Kahane rudely declines, having read that Mill is losing pull, if not his job, to an up-and-comer (Peter Gallagher). With that nerve struck, Mill accidentally kills Kahane. He obscures the evidence, but it doesn't take long for the police to suspect him. And then the postcards continue....

Arlington Road (1999)

Hmm, I probably shouldn't have picked two movies in a row in which the FBI doesn't look so good. And it's not like I couldn't tell as much from the Netflix description. Well, at least this time, the agents make honest mistakes, albeit without apology. Also, their role is small enough to omit from the first paragraph of my summary.

In a Virginia town near D.C., Michael (Jeff Bridges) finds fourth-grader Brady Lang (Mason Gamble) badly hurt from a firework mishap. After reaching a hospital in time, he realizes that he hardly knows the Langs despite living across the street and having a son about the same age as Brady, Grant (Spencer Treat Clark). The grateful Lang parents, Oliver (Tim Robbins) and Cheryl (Joan Cusack), seem eager to befriend Michael and his girlfriend, Brooke (Hope Davis). But before long, Michael notes something fishy, and further investigation indicates Oliver's dishonesty. Could he be, y'know, the sort of criminal who can easily inspire a son to experiment with explosives?

The Secret Life of Words (2005)

I had an unusual reason for moving this to the top of my queue: At some point, I had rated it accidentally, never having seen it. Netflix, alas, doesn't allow removal of ratings, only re-rating. Well, worse things have come of accidents. Besides, Pedro Almodóvar produced it, and I hadn't seen any of his work in five years.

In Northern Ireland, unsociable nurse Hanna (Sarah Polley) never has a day off until her employer, under union pressure, orders her to take a month's paid vacation. Instead of heading to a tropical island as suggested, when she overhears in public about trouble finding a nurse for an emergency at an offshore oil rig, she offers her services. The patient, Josef (Tim Robbins), got badly burned and temporarily blinded. In the face of his persistent attempts to break the ice, she gradually opens up to him like she has to no one this side of therapist Inge (Julie Christie).

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

Fifteen years ago, I did a project on films about mental disorders. That was when I first learned of this one. Despite its honorable rating on IMDb, I decided not to include it among the 20 I would watch, because it sounded too intense. Even this week, the thought of it gave me pause. But then I considered all the disturbing fare I'd seen since 2003. I could probably handle this and might just enjoy it.

The protagonist, aptly enough, is Jacob (Tim Robbins), whom we first see as a Vietnam War soldier in a scene that quickly goes from quiet to confusingly hectic. This then appears to be a flashback, with him now a New York City postal worker. He has his peaceful times thereafter, but by and by, he finds a lot of details not adding up. At worse moments, he perceives seemingly random malevolence from strangers or even the presence of monsters. The bulk of the plot involves him figuring out what to make of it all.