Manchester by the Sea (2016)

The title alone made me a little reluctant to see this movie. The credit to Kenneth Lonergan didn't help. But it takes a lot to shoo me away from an Academy Best Picture nominee in the long term, and Dad and I wanted to get one more out of the way in time for the ceremony. Lion, Fences, and Hacksaw Ridge were not immediately available.

Middle-aged Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) lives as a Boston handyman with basically no social life beyond the occasional unprovoked bar brawl. His life gets more miserable still when his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler, oddly enough) dies of a heart attack -- and to Lee's unpleasant surprise, Joe's will asks that Lee take care of Joe's 16-year-old son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Lee and Patrick have trouble seeing eye to eye on arrangements. For example, "Patty" would hate to leave his friends behind, but Lee can't stand to live in Manchester, where people whisper about him for reasons that take a while to become clear....

Picnic (1955)

For all my interest in old movies, I haven't reviewed many Academy Best Picture nominees from before 2014 on this blog. That's because I've already seen most of the promising ones and don't normally review what I saw years ago. But I got in the mood for another one.

Hal (William Holden) hitchhikes to small-town Kansas to ask old friend Alan (Cliff Robertson) to pull nepotistic strings and get him a job. It works, but their friendship gets put to the test, particularly at and after the titular picnic, when Alan's girlfriend, Madge (Kim Novak), gets too close to Hal for others' comfort. People are concerned about Hal's alleged past behavior....

The Lunchbox (2013)

Finally got around to another movie from India, albeit not the kind that comes to mind when I think of Bollywood. This one caught my interest because it relies on a real-life premise I'd never heard of before: a service that delivers lunches to office workers' desks, whether from a restaurant or their own homes. Not sure how many places outside of India offer this. Also, the "box" consists of five stacked cans held together by a wire mechanism, each can containing a different food, but that's not important.

Homemaker Ila tries a new recipe to rekindle her marital romance. The lunchbox comes home completely empty, which gives her hope; but when husband Rajeev reacts incongruously, she determines that the heretofore stellar modern Mumbai system finally mixed up the deliveries. Rightly anticipating indefinite repetition of the error, she includes a letter of gratitude to the accidental recipient the next day. He is Saajan, a government accountant planning to retire in a month. Thus begins an unusual pen-pal relationship.

Hell or High Water (2016)

Whew, now I've seen half the Academy Best Picture nominees in time for the awards show. This was the only one available to rent that I hadn't seen yet, and it's not showing in a theater near me. Fortunately, it doesn't lose much on a small screen.

In what I take to be present-day Texas, brothers Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) commit a series of bank robberies. Although Tanner's unhinged and Toby's a rookie, they're relatively careful as robbers go; for instance, they leave the larger bills behind and take too little at any given branch for the FBI to bother investigating. Nearly retired Ranger Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) decides he'll finally see some action, setting out with dubious comrade Parker (Gil Birmingham) to track them down. The title, which gets spoken at one point, refers to an imminent deadline for the boys to make a big payment....

Port of Shadows (1938)

Had I paid closer attention to both film similarities and Netflix waits, I would not have arranged to watch this right after Waterloo Bridge. It was made around the same time and involves a romantic drama with a soldier. Fortunately, that's about where the similarity ends. It's a stretch to lump one of the first designated films noir in the same group.

Jean deserts his army post and hitchhikes to the port city of Le Havre, which turns out to have a thriving criminal element. He gets caught up in the troubles of 17-year-old Nelly, who has been avoiding her sketchy, persistent godfather, Zabel. If that's not trouble enough, a mob led by one Lucien hopes she'll give them her absent ex-boyfriend, among other things. Jean uses some of his soldier skills to protect her. Of course, he can't very well let the authorities know about him....

Waterloo Bridge (1940)

The last time I saw Robert Taylor directed by Mervyn LeRoy, it was in Quo Vadis, which I dug. That may be the main reason I took a suggestion to see this. It was also the personal favorite of both Taylor and co-star Vivien Leigh, who had just made it big as Scarlett O'Hara at the time.

In World War I London, Capt. Roy Cronin (Taylor) escorts ballet dancer Myra Lester (Leigh) to safety during an air raid. They soon take interest in each other and are eventually engaged, but Roy gets deployed before they can marry. Myra's effort to give him a proper sendoff means missing a rehearsal and getting kicked out of the troupe. She later reads Roy's name in a list of fallen officers. Between financial desperation and romantic despair, she takes up the world's oldest profession -- only to run into Roy again, as he'd been a POW, not dead. (It's not a spoiler if other summaries say it, right?) He has no idea what she's been up to, and she'd rather keep it that way, but the secret complicates their engagement, particularly in light of his haughty aristocratic relatives....

La La Land (2016)

Between its record-tying Oscar nominations and its high ratings across the main review sites, you might think this the best movie not just of the year but of the decade to date. I went in with no such assumption. One family member had had high expectations and was disappointed; another had low expectations and was impressed. It seemed only fair that my expectations be middling.

I had heard that it pays tribute to old-school musicals but is not like Glee. Nor, it turns out, is it to musicals what The Artist is to silents. It follows two present-day people who love different aspects of the past: Mia (Emma Stone), a barista who wants to be an actress and covers her room with classic film posters; and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a pianist/keyboardist with little interest in things outside of jazz, which can make it difficult for him to stay employed. As circumstances repeatedly bring them together, they fall in love, but the relationship has an awfully shaky foundation, tested by the dilemmas of whether to follow their dreams or settle....

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.

There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)

The '70s were a strange time for westerns. After late '60s classics like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Wild Bunch, and the works of Sergio Leone, there must have been some pressure to try things a little differently. We got the kooky, offbeat Little Big Man and the contrary, brothel-focused McCabe & Mrs. Miller, both rather popular but neither up my alley. And sometimes quirks came together with R ratings, as in this, Joseph L. Mankiewicz's only effort at the genre.

Paris Pitman, Jr. (Kirk Douglas -- don't worry; I'll take a long break from him after this review) goes to a prison from which, according to an elderly cellmate known as the Missouri Kid (Burgess Meredith), no one has ever escaped with his life. But Paris has a lot of loot well hidden and would hate to let it go to waste. The first warden (Martin Gabel) offers to free Paris for 50% of it, but a more conscientious replacement (Henry Fonda) isn't on board. Paris uses the promise of riches to enlist the help of all his cellmates to escape, including a pathetic youth on death row (Michael Blodgett); a lazy swindler (John Randolph) and his effete, resentful, but loyal and talented assistant (Hume Cronyn); a strong, silent, seeming simpleton (C.K. Yang); and a violent drunkard (Warren Oates).

Young Man with a Horn (1950)

It's a little late for me to be continuing my celebration of Kirk Douglas, but why not do it anyway? Other people must be doing it too, because several of the films I wanted to see have a wait on Netflix. I made a point not to get a western this time, because my last viewing of him came awfully close. It's also from relatively early in his career, when he was not quite my current age.

Adapted from a novel based loosely on the life of Bix Beiderbecke, it centers on Douglas as Rick Martin (no, nobody calls him Ricky), who starts trumpet lessons as a tween orphan thanks to jazz band leader Art Hazzard (Juano Hernandez). In adulthood, he makes the professional and friendly acquaintance of narrating pianist "Smoke" (Hoagy Carmichael) and singer Jo Jordan (Doris Day). At first his main problem is a tendency to deviate from the sheet music, which doesn't sit well with most employers of the era. A bigger problem arrives in the form of Jo's friend Amy (Lauren Bacall), who draws his attention away from his music....