Went the Day Well? (1942)

Yes, another oldie that concerns World War II already, but that's about where the similarity ends. This one's serious, British, produced during said war, and devoid of any names familiar to me except writer Graham Greene.

In the fictional backwater English village of Bramley End (which Netflix misnames Bramley Green), German paratroopers show up disguised as British soldiers. Locals are just beginning to suspect them when they drop the act and capture almost the entire population in the church on Whitsunday. They demand complete obedience to give the outside world no clues, lest they kill more than the resisting parties. For about 48 hours (incidentally the title of another adaptation of the Greene story), the villagers do what they can to stop the invasion from progressing.

White Christmas (1954)

Why did I wait this long to see an old holiday classic? Mainly because I assumed that it was a remake of Holiday Inn, which I had already seen and found, well, far from timeless. It did have the same lead actor and stand-out song, after all. But it'd be unusual for a non-international remake to come out only 12 years later, especially when censorship standards hadn't changed much. Further research assured me it was no sequel either.

Former Army comrades Bob (Bing Crosby) and Phil (Danny Kaye) are major stage musical producers but not content; Bob keeps working them harder than Phil deems comfortable. Phil's solution is to introduce Bob to prospective wives, even if Phil can't see himself with a wife of his own. When they attend a duo act, Phil is quickly smitten with Judy (Vera-Ellen) and thinks that Bob is into her protective elder sister, Betty (Rosemary Clooney), but the latter two face complications, thanks largely to Bob having developed a cynical attitude in show business. Regardless, between antics and Phil's manipulation, all four head to a Vermont town, hoping for, y'know, the title thing. The town is surprisingly warm and emptied out when they arrive, but genre savvy should tell you something.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

You may think I prioritized this new Netflix release because it's popular right now and/or because it has the final role of the late Chadwick Boseman. In truth, I hadn't known about the casting. No, the main reason is that I was familiar with the title among plays and have been rather missing live theater this year. It hardly matters that I saw another August Wilson adaptation produced by Denzel Washington half a year ago.

In summer 1927, real-life singer Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (Viola Davis) and four instrumentalists gradually assemble at a Chicago recording studio to make a blues album. This is not as uneventful as it sounds. Ma is in full diva mode, upstart trumpeter Levee (Boseman) is possibly even more annoying in his cockiness, the ceiling fan doesn't work, and they are all keenly aware that social conditions aren't great for Black people even up north. Studio owner Mel (Jonny Coyne) and manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos) show no overt racism or rudeness, unlike the glaring bystanders outside, but you can bet they'd pay White performers better and put them in a more comfortable room.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

I don't recall when I heard about this movie or when I put it on my queue (probably the same time). All I knew when I moved it to the top was that it was a neo-noir and therefore unlike anything I'd watched in quite some time. Top billing to Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle didn't hurt either, tho Boyle's role isn't the second most prominent.

In the Boston area, Eddie (Mitchum) and Jackie Brown (Steven Keats, whose character name supplied the title of a Quentin Tarantino flick) are newly acquainted gun traffickers. Eddie enlists Jackie's help to outfit bank robbers. What Jackie doesn't know is that Eddie, having been caught hijacking, sees little choice but to serve as an informant to FBI Agent Dave Foley (Richard Jordan). What Eddie doesn't know is that Foley has an informant on him as well: mobster Dillon (Boyle), who had arranged the hijacking.

Dangal (2016)

I had a lot of time to kill last night, so I decided to watch a longer movie than usual. India's are quite reliable in that regard. This one runs 161 minutes, but the main reason I chose it over other options on my queue is its current placement on IMDb's top 100.

Retired wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan, who's also the producer) regrets his failure at an international championship and hopes to have a son finish what he started. After begetting four girls in a row, he becomes discouraged -- until the two oldest, Geeta (Zaira Wasim and later Fatima Sana Shaikh) and Babita (Suhani Bhatnagar and later Sanya Malhotra), beat up some offending boys. He then becomes their drill sergeant-like coach and forces them to pursue his dream, despite obstacles of poverty and any other dreams they had.

Cries and Whispers (1972)

Ingmar Bergman, why haven't I given up on you yet? Your works are prized in intellectual circles, but I've seen plenty by now and even my favorite feels hit and miss to me. I knew going into this that my chance of enjoying the viewing, or even feeling that I didn't waste my time, was less than 50%. Still, if I had to try it, immediately after two uplifting features was the right time.

Like in Autumn Sonata, the focus is on the interactions among mostly related women, with only occasional male input and very little plot progression. Basically everything happens inside the mansion where three sisters grew up, to which they have returned because one of them, Agnes (Harriet Andersson), has uterine cancer, in an era when not much could be done about it. Maid Anna (Kari Sylwan) can't be the only caretaker anymore. As they wait for the dying to end, Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin) also reminisce.

Chef (2014)

This week, I checked out The Great British Baking Show for the first time -- not bad, but I get tired of focusing on pastries after a while. So when I perused my list and found an entry about cooking, I thought it might be something of an antidote.

In L.A., amicably divorced head chef Carl (Jon Favreau, who's also the director) gets panned by a critic (Oliver Platt) for a culinary rut brought on by a restrictive restaurant owner (Dustin Hoffman). When his angry reaction goes viral, he loses his job. Unwilling to capitalize on his infamy with reality TV, he picks an option he'd long rejected: traveling the country in a food truck, accompanied by pal and ex-line cook Martin (John Leguizamo). Not only does Carl have his creative freedom back, but he makes more time than ever for his 10-year-old son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), who comes along for the summer and bonds with him in a big way.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Why didn't I see this sooner, perhaps in a theater? Probably because Won't You Be My Neighbor? came out not so long before. But now seems like a good time to explore promising stress relief.

In 1998, Lloyd (Matthew Rhys), an Esquire writer based loosely on Tom Junod, has such a reputation for scathing articles that almost nobody will agree to an interview with him anymore. His editor, Ellen (Christine Lahti), gives him a different kind of assignment: 400 words on Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), as part of a series on heroes. Lloyd is not happy about this; neither is his wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson), partly because he'll have to fly from New York to Pittsburgh, leaving her alone with their baby for a while, and partly because she worries what he'll write about her childhood icon. But Rogers has a way of helping people deal with their emotions more healthily, which is especially important when Lloyd holds a serious grudge against his own father, Jerry (Chris Cooper).

Source Code (2011)

This is one of those titles that automatically turned me off: "I'm not enough of a computer geek to get into this." But such snap judgments lose their effectiveness with time, and the continuing popularity of SC was hard for me to ignore. Besides, I liked director Duncan Jones' work on Moon, and here was another sci-fi.

Twenty minutes into the future, if the already dated phone tech is any indication, a terrorist bombs a train in the Chicago area. An experimental government program under Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) retrieves the last eight minutes of memory from one of the victims and sends the mind of biologically similar U.S. Army CPT Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) into it, enabling him to spend eight minutes finding the bomb and its planter however he can. He can retry any number of times, but the sooner he succeeds, the better their chances of preventing the bomber's next attack.

The Sapphires (2012)

My best guess for how I ever learned about this film is that it was advertised as I prepared to see another. Based on the subject, I'm not surprised it hasn't been talked about much in the U.S., despite financial success within its home country. Still, stories about singers tend to draw me in, so I chose it from my list.

Based on a play based very loosely on a true story, it takes place in 1968, starting at an Aboriginal Australian reserve. Three adult sisters -- in descending order of age, Gail (Deborah Mailman), Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), and Julie (Jessica Mauboy) -- gain the attention of talent scout Dave (Chris O'Dowd), probably the first White person to recognize their merit as singers. He gets them on a tour -- along with their semi-estranged cousin, Kay (Shari Sebbens) -- performing soul classics for U.S. troops in Vietnam. Their most immediate concern, of course, is that the army can't fully guarantee safety.