Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

My friend and I were planning to see The Flash together, until he read some less savory reviews of it. I might still check it out, but for now, we chose this instead. Incidentally, the only other movie we attended at this theater together was Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Now that the other spider-themed heroes he knows have returned to their proper alternate worlds, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is lonely, especially missing Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld). He doesn't dare tell his mom (Luna Lauren Velez) or dad (Brian Tyree Henry) that he's Spider-Man, but they know he keeps secrets and never shows up on time, so they lock horns with him over it. Then Gwen proves she can pay a visit after all, thanks to the technology of an interdimensional society of hundreds of arachnoid heroes led by Miguel O'Hara (Oscar Isaac). But she's not here just for pleasure. The network's primary objective is to send "anomalies" back where they came from or, if dangerous enough, keep them captive at a base. Presently, the Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a criminal covered in portable space-time holes, has discovered how to hop dimensions.

Weathering with You (2020)

Another surrealistic Japanese film already, but that's about where the similarity ends. I was not at all surprised that many of the same people, including director Makoto Shinkai, worked on Your Name. Taki even gets a cameo.

Sixteen-year-old Hodaka runs away to Tokyo, which is experiencing record rainfall. The irresponsible Mr. Suga eventually hires him to write articles on the occult. In the course of this work, Hodaka learns of "sunshine girls" who can change the weather via Shinto prayer, albeit over a pretty small area for a short time -- and then meets one such girl, Hina, about his age. Since she's desperate for a job herself, he helps her start a freelance sunshine service. Hodaka develops a strong crush on Hina, but two factors threaten to pull them apart: Rapidly increasing business from a 100% success rate draws the attention of authorities who don't approve of minors living alone, and lore has it that sunshine girls who exercise their powers enough are destined to fly off into the sky before their time.

The Face of Another (1966)

Hiroshi Teshigahara directed this in the wake of Woman in the Dunes, also based on a Kōbō Abe novel, so it's considered something of a companion piece. It did not fare nearly as well at the international box office, probably because the modern urban setting felt a lot less exotic than the desert. Also, by that time, people were getting tired of artsy projects like Last Year in Marienbad. Still, I got curious.

Following an accident, Mr. Okuyama (Tatsuya Nakadai) keeps his head wrapped in bandages not for healing but to spare even his wife (Machiko Kyō) the sight of his burned face. Despite her and others trying to support him emotionally, he remains terribly bitter -- until his psychiatrist (Mikijirō Hira) gives him an excellently lifelike experimental mask. It looks nothing like his original face; they use a mould from a hired stranger (Hisashi Igawa), albeit with results that look rather different from him too. Okuyama takes a while to get used to the mask and tires of the doctor keeping tabs on him and expressing concern that the mask could influence his personality. Indeed, he deliberately hides his identity from everyone else as best he can. Whatever he was like before, he seems increasingly corrupt.

Battling Butler (1926)

I hadn't seen Buster Keaton in more than five years. BB was actually his personal favorite and his second biggest box office hit, greatly eclipsing the same year's The General when they were new. (Perhaps people weren't ready for a Civil War comedy.) So why had I learned next to nothing about BB before?

The protagonist is not a butler, but he may well have one: Alfred Butler is a spoiled aristocrat, albeit sometimes ordered around by his father, who sends him to the wilderness to man up. There he meets someone identified only as "the mountain girl," who finds him annoying at first, but they quickly fall for each other. Alas, her father and brother won't approve a marriage to an apparent wimp, so Alfred's valet (yes, there with him) claims that Alfred is lightweight champion "Battling Butler," who happens to look similar in addition to having the same first and last names. The ruse works, but Alfred must actually travel to the training camp and then the arena, all the while trying to persuade his bride not to watch because she wouldn't like that side of him. To make matters worse, the real Battling Butler is none too fond of this imposter, especially after a mix-up of their similar-looking ladies....

Angel Face (1952)

So far, my Otto Preminger viewings have been about half great and half mixed in my opinion. This one had the added appeal of Robert Mitchum to draw me in. He's not even the creepiest character this time.

Beverly Hills ambulance driver Frank (Mitchum) comes to a mansion where one Catherine (Barbara O'Neil) has had a close call with a gas leak. Circumstances suggest an attempt at either suicide or, as she claims, homicide, tho she names no culprit. Frank is smitten with the beauty of her stepdaughter, Diane (Jean Simmons), despite already having a girlfriend (Mona Freeman). Diane goes out of her way to make him her favorite, even persuading her father (Herbert Marshall) and Catherine to hire him as their chauffeur. Frank doesn't fully trust Diane after her insincere manipulations and contempt for Catherine, but he might just be game for whatever she schemes next....

Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)

This is pretty rare: a movie that was highly esteemed when new, both at home and overseas, but did so poorly at the box office that the production company folded. I don't recall how it got my attention, but it did receive a Best Actress Oscar nod, losing to Mary Poppins. Well, at least Julie Andrews didn't have to fake a British accent.

In London, alleged medium Myra Savage (Kim Stanley) badly wants money, which doesn't come easily when husband Billy (Richard Attenborough) is too asthmatic to hold a job. She persuades Billy to kidnap Amanda Clayton (Judith Donner), preteen daughter of aristocrats. Instead of the typical scheme of simply pocketing ransom money, Myra plans to fake a séance to determine where to find Amanda, hoping to gain renown and thus so much business that she can pay back the "borrowed" ransom. Charles Clayton (Mark Eden) doesn't believe in her powers, but his wife (Nanette Newman) does, and Charles has to admit that no other method is making headway.

The Harder They Fall (2021)

I would not have thought to see this if my friend hadn't asked to while visiting. I'm not sure I'd even heard about it before, despite a few familiar names involved (he knew the cast better). Some rating sites score it highly; others deem it fair to middling. At worst, we could enjoy snarking together, but we both hoped it wouldn't come to that primarily.

On-screen text warns up front that the story is fictitious, but the main characters -- seven of them, at least -- are not. The lead is Nat Love (Jonathan Majors), a late-19th-century outlaw who makes a point to target fellow outlaws, as by robbing robbers. Marshal Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo) ostensibly arrests him but means to enlist his help against a mutual foe: Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), who had killed Nat's parents in front of preteen Nat and carved a cross on his forehead. Buck has just been released, and while his intentions for the town of Redwood might be honorable, he will stop at nothing to acquire the money to fix it up, even at the citizens' expense.

Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)

OK, so I got a head start on my war movie viewing for Memorial Day. This one may have caught my attention because of John Wayne getting an Oscar nod for it when he thought his She Wore a Yellow Ribbon performance worthier. As it is, some viewers think SoIJ is great, and some think Wayne is the only great thing about it. I'm sure four years after World War II wasn't great timing for public interest either.

The story begins with some U.S. Marines arriving in New Zealand in 1943. Sgt. John Stryker (Wayne) strikes me as a typical harsh sarge, but his men deem him unusually so. Most personally hostile to him are PFC Pete Conway (John Agar), son of a colonel whom Stryker liked but who wasn't a kind father, so Conway tars Stryker by association; and PFC Al Thomas (Forrest Tucker), on whom Stryker had snitched in the past. As a former sergeant major with a drinking problem, Stryker doesn't have the cleanest record himself. Nevertheless, his overall approach gradually wins the men's admiration, starting with the Battle of Tarawa. And you can guess the climactic setting.

Christ in Concrete/Give Us This Day/Salt to the Devil (1949)

Yes, it's all one picture. The first title, used by Netflix, is from the adapted novel, but that wasn't allowed in UK theaters. The second appears on screen in the edition I watched, but with the blacklisting of director Edward Dmytryk, it was interpreted as anti-Christian, hence the third stab, which didn't really help. Perhaps it's just as well not to use the original title, because from what I read, the film ends about where the book begins.

In the 1920s, Geremio (Sam Wanamaker) lies about owning a home in order to persuade Annunziata (Lea Padovani) to move from Italy to Brooklyn and marry him. They still hope to scrimp and save for one, thanks to a generous realtor (Karel Stepanek), even as their apartment-dwelling family gets bigger. They almost make it before Black Friday. After that, Geremio and his buddies in the bricklaying business get desperate enough to take on a low-safety demolition project....

Conan the Barbarian (1982)

This is one of those movies I watched for education more than entertainment. It still gets cited now and then, particularly for a handful of quotable lines, but I was warned that it could really use a best-of cut. If it weren't streaming, I probably wouldn't have bothered checking it out.

In an unspecified land and century evocative of early medieval Europe, young Conan (then Jorge Sanz) sees the army of Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) slaughter all the adults in his village and sell the children into slavery. Between manual labor, pit matches, and oriental training, Conan becomes quite the brawny fighter (now Arnold Schwarzenegger in his star-making role) before his voluntary release. He allies himself with two thieves, archer Subotai (Gerry Lopez) and fellow swordmaster Valeria (Sandahl Bergman), in his quest for vengeance. But Doom is worse than a mere warlord; he leads a snake-themed cult whose adherents readily kill themselves at his bidding, even tho he himself is reportedly more than a millennium old.