The Next Three Days (2010)

I had previously seen only one thing directed by Paul Haggis, Crash. Clearly, he's had trouble keeping up that kind of momentum. He hasn't even written or produced anything released since 2018. But this one looked halfway promising. It's also about to stop streaming on Netflix, so I gave it priority.

In Pittsburgh, Lara (Elizabeth Banks) gets arrested on the charge of murdering her boss, whom she didn't get along with. Few besides husband John (Russell Crowe) believe she even might be innocent, based on evidence and lack thereof. After three years, when it looks like there won't be another appeal, John starts plotting to bust her out, with no willful accomplices. His deadline moves up when she's set to be transferred in, yup, three days....

Maestro (2023)

My parents recommended this to me. I obliged partly because it was easy to find streaming. It actually has the lowest IMDb score of all current Best Picture nominees, but it still looked more promising for me personally than some of the others.

The story follows Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) from his big break conducting the New York Philharmonic in the 1940s to a retrospective interview in the 1980s, with a bit of skipping. The emphasis lies on his relationship with Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), whom he marries and has three kids with despite his preference for men. She's not just a "beard" to him; he does love her, at least sometimes. But his extramarital affairs aren't discreet enough to prevent rumors, and they and his heavy smoking and drinking start to drive a wedge between him and Felicia.

Mean Girls (2004)

That's right, the original, not the musical currently in theaters. I had no desire to see it when it debuted, but people have continued to make references to it. Then I put it on my Netflix list and kept passing it over. What finally persuaded me? A limited DVD selection at the Red Cross while I gave platelets. (That unit was having technical difficulties with streaming.)

Cady (Lindsay Lohan) has been homeschooled up until age 16, leaving her good at grades but naive about the social environment at her new high school. Her first friends are outcasts, Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese), who warn her about the elitist clique known as the Plastics, especially leader Regina (Rachel McAdams), Janis's former friend. Nevertheless, when the Plastics invite Cady to join, she doesn't resist. Janis sees this as a golden opportunity to gather dirt on them and possibly engineer revenge. Cady agrees after discovering how bad Regina is -- and then comes dangerously close to becoming just like her.

Elemental (2023)

This got such a lukewarm reception that I might have waited decades to watch if not for the Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination. Then I thought about how it's not reportedly controversial like Wish or Turning Red. At the very least, I knew it would be visually interesting in a way reminiscent of Inside Out.

Element City has long been home to beings made of liquid water, clouds, and a combination of soil and plants, but it has little accommodation or patience for its latest immigrants, the fire folk, who mostly live in a district on the outskirts. Protagonist Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis), a second-gen resident, expects to take over the general store that her ailing father, Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen), founded. But upon a surprise visit, Inspector Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), obviously a water man, discovers enough plumbing violations that he feels obliged to have the place shut down. Ember's pleading changes his mind only after he's sent his report, and together they take it up with his employer, cloud woman Gale Cumulus (Wendi McLendon-Covey), who agrees to ignore the report as long as they can finish Wade's assigned project of fixing a canal leak within a few days.

Nimona (2023)

My inclusion of this on my Netflix list was quite tentative. The ad had looked only so promising, and I hadn't heard of the graphic novel on which it's based. But the Academy has nominated it for Best Animated Feature, and I've seen only two other nominees for the year so far.

The main setting looks like a near-future metropolis, except that knights in shining armor are still around, sworn to protect the realm from magical threats. Sir Ballister "Bal" Boldheart (Riz Ahmed) stands out as the first commoner ever to be knighted, facing mixed reactions. At the knighting ceremony, his sword fires a laser beam and kills the queen (Lorraine Toussaint). Seemingly everyone else, even boyfriend Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang), presumes he intended as much. (It doesn't help that he sports black armor and facial hair.) Bal escapes and lies low, trying to figure out a way to clear his name. The first entity to find him is Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz), who usually presents as a fangy teen girl but is actually an ancient, super-speedy shapeshifter. As a fellow vilified outcast, she insists on being his sidekick in whatever he plans next.

DC League of Super-Pets (2022)

I didn't expect to see another movie that begins with the last day of Krypton so soon, but Netflix announced that it would stop streaming this month. (I get Max now; it just takes me a little longer to set up.) DCLoSP didn't tempt me when it was in theaters, if only because nobody I knew was talking about it, but it does get decent ratings across sites, along with a number of minor award nominations and one win. It seemed apt for light fare to pass the time.

Krypto (Dwayne Johnson), the last dog of Krypton, likes saving the day with owner Superman (John Krasinski) but becomes overly jealous of the attention Supes lavishes on Lois Lane (Olivia Wilde). In his sulking, he's late to notice Superman's abduction by Lulu (Kate McKinnon), a hairless guinea pig who'd been a like-minded lab subject to Lex Luthor (Marc Maron). Lulu has gotten her paws on orange kryptonite, which bestows random superpowers -- in her case, strong telekinesis -- on nonhuman animals, and tricked Krypto into swallowing just enough green kryptonite to depower him for most of the 105-minute runtime. Her platoon of guinea pigs with other powers apprehends the rest of the Justice League in a bid to take over the world. Fortunately, she has betrayed four other critters in the pet shop, who are now willing to use their incidental powers to team up on Krypto's rescue mission. They just have to get the hang of it fast, because Lulu will wait only so long to kill the Justice League.

The Boy and the Heron (2023)

I wanted to see this the moment I learned that it was the first feature directed by Hayao Miyazaki since he semi-retired a decade ago. I didn't bother to look up much else about it. The reputed semi-autobiographical nature led me to suspect another realistic story like The Wind Rises, but only the first act could pass for realistic.

In World War II, when Mahito is a preteen or early teen, his mother dies in a fire. Following Japanese tradition, his father marries her pregnant sister, Natsuko, and moves from Tokyo to her country home, where a bunch of seniors also live. Traumatized Mahito isn't keen on his new classmates or his new maternal figure, but he does take interest in a ruined building in the nearby woods. Moreover, a mysterious gray heron seeks his attention with increasingly abnormal behaviors, provoking curiosity and spite. When Natsuko disappears into the woods and no one can find her for hours, Mahito decides to follow the heron, fully expecting a demonic trap.

In the Line of Fire (1993)

I had seen a few allusions to this picture, primarily back in the '90s. Perhaps it would prove no more of a classic than the same year's Cliffhanger. But it was one of the few titles on my Netflix list to grab me at the moment and not be too much like anything I'd seen lately. Besides, it was due to stop streaming soon.

Decades after not preventing the JFK assassination, Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) is still in the Secret Service. He and junior Agent Al D'Andrea (Dylan McDermott) investigate the apartment of a man (John Malkovich) who has reportedly shown signs of plotting a new presidential assassination. That man goes by multiple names but prefers "Booth" -- as he tells Horrigan in one of many hard-to-trace calls. Seems Booth is even more obsessed with Horrigan than with the commander in chief (Jim Curley), claiming a sort of kinship with an agent who got a raw deal but also taunting him for potential cowardice. As Horrigan struggles to find out who Booth is and when he'll strike, the chief of staff (Fred Thompson!) opposes the security measures Horrigan wants, because it's a bad look for the presidential campaign.

Man of Steel (2013)

When this came out, I got the impression of a middling reception that didn't live up to the hype. More recently, I've seen it counted among the more popular DC Comics non-Batman movies. Perhaps Dark Knight Trilogy writers Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer helped. It was time for an informed opinion.

You might see this as something of a remake of both Superman: The Movie and Superman II, minus Lex Luthor. It begins with the birth of Kal-El shortly before riding away from the explosion of his home planet, Krypton. When we first see him as an adult on Earth going by Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) among other names, he hasn't started calling himself Superman, wearing the iconic costume, saving the day regularly, or even reporting news for the Daily Planet; he's just working odd jobs and vanishing whenever someone catches him using his powers. Reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) tracks him down just as he discovers the answers of his origin left for him by his father, Jor-El (Russell Crowe). But her testimony isn't what really draws the world's attention to the existence of ETs, because a group of renegade Kryptonians under General Zod (Michael Shannon) publicly demands that Kal-El be turned over. You see, Jor-El sent a crucial MacGuffin with him to prevent Zod from kickstarting a "pure" society....

Wish Dragon (2021)

While others may or may not watch another animated family feature with "Wish" in the title around now, I opted for something a little more popular if less discussed. Mainly I chose it because it was one of the few movies on my Netflix list that promised to be both cheerful enough for the season and not too insipid. A 98-minute runtime isn't bad either.

In a modern Shanghai slum, Din Song (Jimmy Wong) has been working in food delivery -- at the expense of his education, to the outrage of his mom (Constance Wu) -- in order to afford an appearance upper-class enough to gain entrance to the 19th birthday party of aristocrat Li Na Wang (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), who was his best friend before her father (Will Yun Lee) forced her to move away so he could chase his economic dream. One day, an eccentric customer (Ronny Chieng) pays Din with a jade teapot, which turns out to contain a dragon, Long (John Cho), who's obligated to grant the bearer three wishes. Din has a fair idea of how to spend one wish, but he'll have to watch out for some thugs hired to grab the teapot.