Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2002)

Cowboy Bebop is easily my favorite action anime series, partly for its relatively normal premises. I still had some trepidation in approaching the movie, released a few years after the last episode (but taking place in between two late episodes, AIUI). After all, Serenity disappointed many Firefly fans. And was CB:TM made only for people who'd seen the entire show, which I haven't yet? The answer turns out to be no, and I'll fill in the rest of you shortly.

In 2071, Mars is so terraformed that you could hardly tell it from a near-future Earth. In a Martian metropolis, terrorists spread an illness unknown to doctors and seemingly impossible to trace. With no leads, the authorities post an enormous bounty on the perpetrators, calling the attention of a ragtag band of perpetually underfunded bounty hunters (some of them slangily called "Cowboys") aboard the spaceship Bebop. Yeah, they ought to care anyway, but they try not to.

America America (1963)

My reviews have slowed because of a big project I'm doing (unrelated to movies). For this reason, it was an especially bad time to receive a 174-minute disc. Nevertheless, I was a bit curious to see Elia Kazan's favorite of his own oeuvre—realizing that it was less so for quality than for personal relevance as the history of his uncle.

The plot's actually rather plain: In the late 1890s, young man Stavros, like many other Europeans, wants to move to the U.S. But unlike in other such stories I've seen, he takes an awfully long time to acquire enough money for a third-class ticket. One disadvantage he has is in being a Greek in Turkey. Most of his comrades either don't want or can't hope to leave, but after witnessing some of the Armenian genocide and realizing the Greeks might be next, Stavros won't accept his dad's plan for him to gradually pay the family's way to Constantinople.

Rocketman (2019)

I've been listening to Elton John a lot lately, no doubt under the influence of ads for this. To me, even his more obscure songs are never worse than decent. The bio would have to be quite a bomb to keep me away. My folks came too.

The film begins with the artist (played in adulthood by Taron Egerton), in one of his wildest costumes, crashing a session of what might be Alcoholics Anonymous and announcing quite a few addictions and other behavioral problems. At the host's prompting, he starts telling his life story. From there, we mostly get unnarrated flashbacks, starting when he was five-year-old Reggie Dwight.

Booksmart (2019)

I wasn't particularly taken with what I knew of this movie going in. Sure, I was a high school nerd once, but it's not really my scene anymore, and modern comedies are always a gamble for me. But it had been a while since I last accepted a Meetup invitation. Besides, I liked Eighth Grade, and this might not be so different.

Valedictorian Molly and her one friend, Amy, feel pretty good about having prioritized study over everything else -- until they learn that their party-going classmates also got into prestigious schools. Now they, especially Molly, want to attend a wild pre-graduation party so they don't miss out on the experience altogether. Their first major obstacle is even finding the party they have in mind, since they received no personal invitation. Obviously, it wouldn't be much of a story if they didn't end up forming interesting memories, but will their efforts be worth the costs?

Paris Song (2018)

This is one of those films too obscure for its own Wikipedia page, tho it gets a brief mention on director Jeff Vespa's. I probably wouldn't have noticed it if not for its inclusion in a Jewish film festival. (Judaism doesn't really feature in the plot.) But the few dozen people to have rated it on IMDb had given it an 8.0, and the plot sounded interesting. Besides, Vespa himself would be at the theater to talk about it, so my parents and I went.

In 1925, Amre Kashaubayev is invited from the Kazakh Steppe to represent the USSR in a sing-off in Paris. He accepts, partly because he wants to call the outside world's attention to the Kazakh people, many of whom want independence. Of course, Soviet officials would prefer that Leonid Sobinov place higher. They don't want Kashaubayev consorting much with westerners like George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Lee Abbott. And they definitely don't want him making contact with Mustafa Shokay, exiled leader of the Kazakh independence movement. You should have a good idea what happens.

Foxcatcher (2014)

I've seen Steve Carell in semi-serious films before, most notably Little Miss Sunshine and The Big Short. This is my first time seeing him in something not remotely humorous. Between this, the character's mental issues, and the basis on a real person, I can only assume that he was trying for an Oscar. He did get a nod, but Eddie Redmayne had it in the bag that year.

Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and his slightly older brother, Dave (Mark Ruffalo), already have Olympic gold medals for freestyle wrestling by the start of the story in 1986. Out of the blue, Mark is invited to Foxcatcher Farm in Pennsylvania to join the new Team Foxcatcher under wealthy heir John E. du Pont (Carell) and hopefully win the World Championship. He accepts. Dave is less keen on coming, because he has a wife and kids with a life elsewhere, but John grows to want him at any price, partly because he's reputedly the better wrestler and partly because the team doesn't take practice as seriously as John wants. It seems that the three of them can hardly get along all at the same time, and especially with John's emotional issues, things will get ugly.

Top Secret! (1984)

In elementary school, I loved wacky nonstop comedies like The Naked Gun and Hot Shots. Today, I believe that Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker never quite recaptured the magic of Airplane! and all lost their momentum for good by the mid-'90s. But what about halfway between AP and TNG?

I'm guessing TS is set in the early '60s, based on protagonist Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer's screen debut) resembling an Elvis Presley character but clearly mocking the Beach Boys for his opening number. It's also set mostly in an East Germany that looks more like the Third Reich. As a guest singer, Nick enjoys a privileged status but is strongly advised to keep his nose clean. He stops doing so when he falls for Hillary (Lucy Gutteridge), a wanted member of the curiously French Resistance. Together, they seek to free her father (Michael Gough, 11 years before reuniting with Kilmer for Batman Forever), a scientist forced to make weaponry for the government.

The Old Maid (1939)

I've seen enough late-'30s and early-'40s dramas about the love lives of class-conscious 19th-century women to conclude that it was a fad. This one debuted in between Jezebel and Gone with the Wind and had at least three of the former's actors.

Charlotte (Bette Davis, 3 years before her turn as Charlotte in Now, Voyager and 25 before starring in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte) develops an interest in Clem (George Brent), an old flame of her married cousin Delia (Miriam Hopkins). Clem dies in the Civil War (the Union side, FWIW), and Charlotte opens an orphanage for children of war casualties, with a special fondness for one child, Tina (Marlene Burnett) -- short for Clementina, which should tell you why. Delia also finds out why and jealously talks Charlotte's rich fiance (Jerome Cowan) into calling it off -- with a lie about Charlotte's health, just in case he would've accepted her anyway. Unable to sustain the orphanage, Charlotte allows Delia to adopt Tina unofficially. After being widowed, Delia allows Charlotte to move in as well. By this time, Tina sees Delia as her mom and Charlotte as her aunt. This spells tension between the sisters.

Fast Five (2011)

The Fast and the Furious franchise never looked like my thing. Nevertheless, when a silver-screen series reaches eight entries and anticipates two more, my curiosity builds. FF is reputedly both the best of the bunch and a key turning point, with a reduction in focus on street racing in order to reach a broader audience. In fact, it was supposed to be a conclusion, but there was too much demand. I could only hope that forgoing my usual policy of watching the predecessors first wouldn't leave me confused.

Three U.S. fugitives -- Dom (Vin Diesel), Mia (Jordana Brewster), and Brian (Paul Walker) -- partake in an elite grand theft auto job in Rio de Janeiro, but when they find something fishy about the scenario and their other partners' priorities, things go rather sideways. In taking matters into their own hands, they make an enemy of Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), a criminal kingpin who practically runs Rio. Not having many good options for escape, they get the bright idea to steal all of Reyes' stockpiled cash -- what they don't destroy of it, anyway -- and split it with their six or seven accomplices. This would be challenging enough without the additional factor of Javert-like special agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) tracking them down, albeit with the help of more conflicted Officer Neves (Elsa Pataky).

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

I made a point to rewatch the 1964 Mary Poppins first. Good thing I did, because judging from my memory, I must have dozed off during "Stay Awake" and missed all the rest as a kid. Pity: It seems more enjoyable to an immature mind with little idea how actual adults behave. I feel like I got more out of Saving Mr. Banks. Still, there was enough of merit in MP to keep me interested in the sequel.

In 1934, some 24 years after Mary left the Banks estate, her former ward Michael (Ben Whishaw) is a flaky banker and widowed father of three on the verge of losing their old house if he can't find a share certificate. His sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) lives elsewhere in London but pays frequent visits to help. Michael's two oldest kids, tweens Annabel (Pixie Davis) and John (Nathaniel Saleh), have had to grow up a bit in the year since their mother died, and youngest Georgie (Joel Dawson) can be a handful. Before long, the titular event happens, and the ageless mage (Emily Blunt) intends to do the Bankses a good turn once again.