Imitation of Life (1934)

This is a bit lesser-known than its 1959 remake but almost as popular. At one time, it was widely preferred. I figured I ought to see both someday and might as well start with the first.

Delilah (Louise Beavers) goes to a wrong address to apply for a housekeeping job but persuades Bea (Claudette Colbert), broke widowed mother to toddler Jessie (Juanita Quigley, later Marilyn Knowlden and Rochelle Hudson), to let her work for room and board for herself and daughter Peola (Dorothy Black, later Fredi Washington). When Bea learns what uniquely excellent pancakes Delilah makes, she shows her own persuasiveness and opens a pancake restaurant, "Aunt Delilah's." After five years, fan Elmer (Ned Sparks) recommends selling the pancake mix; Bea hires him as an exec, and the brand takes off. She and Delilah have never been richer, yet money won't take care of their social difficulties.

The Judge (2014)

Perhaps the most notable thing about this flick is that it made Robert Duvall the oldest Oscar nominee yet, at 84. That record has since been broken. Of course, I was just as likely to have been drawn in by the lead actor, Robert Downey, Jr.

Hank (Downey) is an especially scuzzy lawyer, favoring guilty clients for profit, which may explain why he's getting a divorce and hasn't seen any of his birth family in ages. The latter changes when he attends his mother's funeral in her fictitious hometown of Carlinville, Indiana. He's eager to head back to Chicago -- until his father, Joseph (Duvall), a long-time judge, gets arrested for a fatal hit and run on an ex-con (Mark Kiely) Joseph might well have wanted to kill. Sensing how inadequate a local defense attorney (Dax Shepard) is, Hank reluctantly steps up to the plate, but Joseph, who can't remember hitting anyone, may prefer to be found guilty of second-degree murder if the alternative is to publicize his waning mental faculties. And the prosecutor (Billy Bob Thornton) is determined.

Paddington (2014)

I hadn't expected to see this, but people kept bringing up the title character in connection with Elizabeth II, because the filmmakers had them appear together in a short video to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee. While she is not in either of his feature films, this viewing seemed an oddly decent way to pay my last respects to her.

The sudden demise of his uncle (Michael Gambon) prompts his elderly aunt (Imelda Staunton) to send the iconic young bear (Ben Whishaw) from their Peruvian jungle to London, where she hopes he'll find succor from the anonymous explorer (Tim Downie) who befriended them 40 years ago. The first hospitable human he meets is one Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins, who would later take special interest in another nonhuman). Since his given name is hard for humans to pronounce, she dubs him after the train station where they meet. Her husband, Henry (Hugh Bonneville), is reluctant to house Paddington even for one night, citing stranger danger to their kids, but Mary can be persuasive. As they search for the explorer, the explorer's daughter Millicent (Nicole Kidman) searches for Paddington -- to make a museum exhibit of his corpse.

Predestination (2014)

No, it's not another flick with a religious focus already. It's an adaptation of the Robert Heinlein time travel short story "'--All You Zombies--'" (yes, that's how it's officially punctuated). I don't blame the studio for changing the title, partly because reaching feature length, specifically 97 minutes, required an extra plot element.

Despite being an Australian production, it's set in the U.S., primarily Cleveland and New York City, in various years between the 1940s and, I think, the '90s at latest. The secret Temporal Bureau has been attempting to prevent or reduce historical disasters, including attacks by the elusive time-traveling "Fizzle Bomber," who is set to kill 10,000 New Yorkers in '75. This alone is more than the Netflix summary will tell you, but don't get the impression that the plot is simple. It's just so full of twists that it's hard not to spoil.

Calvary (2014)

I don't recall learning about this one before. Maybe Netflix recommended it based on my interest in vaguely similar rentals. Maybe I wanted another Catholic priest story, even if they're as hit-or-miss as anything. I doubt it was a desire to learn about director John Michael McDonagh.

In a small Irish town, Father James (Brendan Gleeson) hears an unseen man in a confessional booth promise to kill him, albeit with the courtesy of a week to set his affairs in order. With no seal of confession on a threat, James tells the bishop (David McSavage) but not the police. Nor does he flee. Indeed, for the next week, he barely says a word about it, instead dealing with various locals' troubles.

Shoeshine (1946)

In its homeland, this is called Sciuscià, a cognate, because that is what the shoeshiners say when trying to get customers. I guess post-WWII Italy had a pretty strong American presence. Regardless, shoeshine has vanishingly little to do with the plot. It's merely how homeless 15-year-old Pascuale (Franco Interlenghi) and younger housed but impoverished pal Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) make money early on, before things start happening. Perhaps the point is that they occupy a humble place in society. And/or that they soon come to wish they had stuck with their first job, which might have sufficed if they weren't saving up for a horse.

After unwittingly taking part in a scam, Pascuale and Giuseppe go to separate five-boy cells in juvie. Since one of the uncaught deliberate criminals is Giuseppe's older brother, Attilio (uncredited, like most of the cast), the duo agrees not to spill. This gets harder when Pascuale worries about Giuseppe's well-being, but Giuseppe is not apt to be grateful, or even forgiving, for being spared at the expense of Attilio. How well can friendship survive in this environment, even with the prospect of escape?

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Despite having seen Irene Dunne in starring roles before, I could not have named any of her titles without looking (ironic considering I Remember Mama). This was my remedy. The DVD also included her in Together Again (1944), but I felt like watching only the more popular option.

In the fictitious small town of Lynnfield, CT, Theodora (Dunne) seems innocent except for secretly writing hit romance novels that scandalize her stodgy aunts (Elisabeth Risdon and Margaret McWade) and most neighbors. When she visits her publisher (Thurston Hall) in New York, she catches the eye of illustrator Michael (Melvyn Douglas), who follows her without invitation even to her hometown. Under threat of blackmail, she hires him as a gardener. As obnoxious as his approach is, she allows him to draw her out of her tiny comfort zone, which rapidly leads her to fall for him. Alas, he wasn't that serious in his courtship. Well, now it's her turn to be aggressive, in a more public fashion....

RRR (2022)

This is the first Indian movie I've seen at my mom's suggestion; she'd read good things about it. Perhaps the strangest thing about it is the title. In the opening sequence, the letters expand to "Rise Roar Revolt," but it started as a working title based on initials of the director (S.S. Rajamouli) and leads (N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan). I went in knowing little more than its 185-minute runtime, as Netflix doesn't describe the plot. Nor does it offer audio in the original Telugu for some reason; I settled for Hindi.

In 1920, owing to a language barrier, the Hindu Gond tribe unwittingly sells preteen Malli (Twinkle Sharma) into slavery as a henna artist in the Delhi mansion of Governor Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson), who won't sell her back. Malli's adult brother figure, Komaram Bheem (Rao), assumes the alias of Muslim "Akhtar" and plots to bust her out. He befriends Rama Raju (Charan), an undercover cop assigned to arrest the mystery man alleged to be plotting against Buxton. Neither friend has the slightest suspicion at first....

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

I had found Rise of the Planet of the Apes "very Hollywood," by which I mean entertaining but geared toward the lowest common denominator. Of course, you have to expect a lot of simplicity in a story about apes with slightly enhanced brains who want to escape captivity. The sequel promised a rather different plot but had the same IMDb rating, so I decided to give it a try.

A detail I had missed at the end of Rise was the start of "simian flu." The opening herein might remind you uncomfortably of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this one is much worse, reducing the world's human population to the 0.2% who can resist it. The maybe hundreds of survivors in the San Francisco area hope to reach and restore a hydroelectric dam, which requires a handful of them to pass through the uplifted apes' claimed forest. Head chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) is pretty patient, having been raised by kind humans and sensing a similar type in Malcolm (Jason Clarke), but paranoid tensions mount on both sides....

The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)

So much for my earlier decision not to see this. Eh, I have changed some in seven years. Anyway, yes, that is the entire title, tho it's just Madam de... in the original French. Whenever her surname would be given, it is completely drowned out, interrupted, or visually blocked. I still don't know the purpose -- maybe trying to convey that all sorts of women are like her? At least we know her first name, and the significance of her jewelry becomes apparent almost immediately.

In what I take to be the 19th century, Louise (Danielle Darieux) has been so profligate in her Parisian decadence that she sees fit to sell the earrings her husband, André (Charles Boyer), gave her for their wedding. To save face, she claims to have lost them, but the jeweler (Jean Debucourt) sells them back to André, who gives them to his mistress (Lia Di Leo), who sells them to pay off her own debts. Their next buyer, Fabrizio (Vittorio De Sica), just happens to run into Louise and fall for her....