Am I Racist? (2024)

I have not seen Matt Walsh's first documentary, What Is a Woman?, partly because it requires a Daily Wire subscription and partly because I feel like I know enough from ads. Possibly everyone's opinion of it depends entirely on whether they already agreed with him on the issue. Meanwhile, his second doc, AIR?, is doing quite well at the box office for a non-Hollywood effort and has high marks on both IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, tho pro critics were slow to begin reviewing it. Since at least one theater stopped running it due to backlash, I decided not to wait long.

This time, Walsh acts like a cross between Michael Moore and Sacha Baron Cohen, only conservative. He goes on an "antiracist journey" that includes reading bestselling books on the subject, getting an online DEI certificate, meeting with self-styled experts as well as regular folk off the street, and eventually giving his own course that purports to make white people less racist -- until he "realizes" that such efforts appear to help nothing but the teachers' finances.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

I was a casual fan of the 1988 original, having regularly viewed the tamer TV adaptation before that. When I felt like going to a theater again, this sequel was the only feature to grab me. Ordinarily, I'd save its genre for next month, but that slipped my mind.

The decades have not been very kind to Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder). Her husband (Santiago Cabrera) died in an unlikely accident, and despite her success as a televised ghost whisperer, she hasn't been able to contact him. Disbelieving teen daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega, fresh off Wednesday) wants as little to do with her as possible. She still freaks out every time she sees someone wearing black and white horizontal stripes, rightly suspecting that the titular source of her PTSD (Michael Keaton) hasn't given up on coercing her hand in marriage so he can return full-time to the land of the living. In some ways, she has it together even less than her eccentric artist stepmother (Catherine O'Hara), who now reports that Lydia's father also died in an unlikely accident. At his wake, her unorthodox producer (Justin Theroux) aggressively talks her into an imminent Halloween wedding. And when Astrid gets involved with a local boy (Arthur Conti) who's not as harmless as he acts, Lydia fears that her worst nightmare has become her best hope.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

A preview for the threequel in this series has generated some talk in my circles, which encouraged me to check out the first entry. Sure, the second is a mixed bag and has the same IMDb rating, but my reaction to Paddington 2 didn't stop me from going back to its predecessor.

In early childhood, the super-fast blue alien biped (then voiced by Benjamin L. Valic, later by Ben Schwartz) is forced to go through a portal to Earth to escape enemies. Taking the final advice of his guardian (Donna J. Fulks), he lies low in the woods of the fictitious Montana town of Green Hills for a decade, until he accidentally causes enough trouble to garner the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense. Commander Walters (Tom Butler) authorizes the unpopular but resourceful Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to apprehend the perceived threat. I'm not sure what Walters has in mind, but Robotnik plans to take Sonic apart to see how he works.

Molly's Game (2017)

For me, stories that focus on poker are, well, gambles. I liked the 2006 Casino Royale overall, but I thought scenes at the namesake were the weak points. Maverick couldn't get me excited about the climax. Rounders dizzied me a little. Maybe that's why I put off seeing this recommendation. Nevertheless, it was one of the most familiar titles left on my Netflix list, and I was in the mood for a change of pace.

This is based on a true story, but only the protagonist is identified by her real name. In the 2000s, Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) becomes a secretary for "Dean" (Jeremy Strong), a real estate developer who also runs high-stakes underground poker games, where she collects huge tips. Since Dean is almost impossible to work with, Molly starts her own classy casino in a hotel room. She tries to keep everything strictly legal at first, but one desperate slip is enough to get unwelcome attention. Oddly enough, her worst legal trouble comes years after she discontinues her practice, when the FBI wants to strong-arm her into telling on criminal customers. Despite her lack of accessible funds, she persuades expensive attorney "Charlie" (Idris Elba) to defend her.

Drishyam (2015)

Can this really have been the first Indian production I've seen in two years? Guess I'd finished most of the promising ones I knew of. Anyway, I had a lot of time to kill, so I chose the longest feature on my Netflix list, at 163 minutes. It's a Hindi remake of a 2013 Malayalam pic by the same title, so be careful if you go looking for it. Then again, the two have nearly equal IMDb ratings.

Vijay (Ajay Devgn) runs a cable installation service in Goa. He tends to stay late at the office watching movies rather than spending time with wife Nandini (Shriya Saran), teen daughter Anju (Ishita Dutta), and single-digit daughter Anu (Mrunal Jadhav). But when Anju accidentally kills Sam (Rishab Chadha), a peer trying to blackmail her or Nanditi into sex, Vijay gets off his duff to obscure all evidence. Alas, Sam's mother, Meera (Tabu), is a hardened inspector general who will stop at nothing to find her son, and Vijay has been antagonizing the rather corrupt Sub-Inspector Gaitonde (Kamlesh Sawant) lately....

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Boy, six years already? Well, as Deadpool himself points out, delays can happen when IP changes hands. A friend and I had tentatively planned to see this together when we heard the news, but he saw it ahead of me; now I got the initiative to catch up.

Wade "Deadpool" Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), divorced and unable to join an esteemed team of heroes, retires from merc work. He actually seems to be in a tolerable situation, until the secret yet powerful bureaucracy/cult called the Time Variance Authority captures him -- not for his past forbidden uses of time travel, oddly enough. TVA Agent Paradox (Matthew Macfayden) offers him an important role in "the Sacred Timeline," which sounds good to DP until he understands that he'd have to leave all his friends behind in a timeline doomed by the loss of its "anchor being," Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Indeed, Paradox, without his superiors' knowledge or consent, plans to euthanize that timeline with a special bomb instead of letting it dwindle for millennia. DP would rather save it. He travels to multiple timelines before he finds a version of Wolverine he can strong-arm into coming with him. Paradox deems him the worst of all Wolverines, a drunk who failed everyone he cared about, and says that even a good replacement wouldn't suffice. But DP's not giving up, even when the TVA sends both antiheroes to the Void, a Mad Max-type realm of rejects from various timelines.

Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022)

I chose this from my Netflix list largely for its relatively short 98 minutes. As for why I had it on my list in the first place, well, for all my appreciation of animation, I'd never seen anything fully rotoscoped before. Director-writer-producer Richard Linklater's big on that, I understand.

Stan narrates in adulthood (Jack Black) about his childhood (Milo Coy), specifically as an 11-year-old in a Houston suburb in 1969. His father (Bill Wise) works for NASA in a dull but pretty important capacity. Perhaps that's part of why NASA reps invite Stan to go to the moon a few days ahead of Apollo 11, because they've accidentally built a capsule too small for most adults. The mission is so secret that they fake photos to convince his big family he's going to a typical camp.

Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

This is one of the most polarizing movies I've ever reviewed, and not just because it's about a guy who's currently running for VP (and turned 40 today, FWIW). The fact that Glenn Close was nominated for both an Oscar and a Razzie for the same role tells me it was controversial on arrival. It's also significantly more popular with general audiences than with critics. So I decided to give myself an informed opinion.

The story alternates focus between Kentuckian-descended JD Vance in his Ohio teen years (Owen Asztalos) and in his late 20s (Gabriel Basso). In both eras, he has to contend with his troubled mother, Bev (Amy Adams). In adolescence, he sometimes relies on his fairly harsh but well-intentioned grandmother, Bonnie (Close). Since they can barely make ends meet, he'll have to grow up fast. In JD's adulthood, Bev's problems threaten to make him too late for a highly anticipated job interview, with his sister (Haley Bennett) able to provide only so much support. He's reluctant to let his girlfriend, Usha (Freida Pinto), know what kind of family she might be getting involved with.

Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)

A friend was hoping to watch Justice League Dark (2017) with me, but it wasn't on Max. He assured me that this sequel does not rely on viewers to know its predecessor. Indeed, Wikipedia's synopsis suggests only a tangential plot connection. Of course, familiarity with a lot of DC Comics characters helps.

Superman (Jerry O'Connell) leads Earth-affiliated heroes against Apokolips, home planet of Darkseid (Tony Todd), possibly the biggest threat in the DC Universe. They face an army infused with Superman's DNA and lose tremendously. Most of the movie takes place two years later, when a handful of still viable heroes, including a poisoned Superman, reluctant sorcerer John Constantine (Matt Ryan), troubled half-demon Raven (Taissa Farmiga), and a bitter Robin (Stuart Allen), band together to stop Darkseid from mining Earth's core to a deadly degree.

14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (2021)

It appears that most of the features left on my Netflix list are upwards of two hours long. That's one reason I chose this, at 101 minutes. Another is that it's set in cold areas, in contrast to the present weather where I live. Finally, it seemed the closest thing to another Free Solo.

Nirmal Purja, who's also an executive producer, is a high-altitude mountaineer (HAM?). In April 2019, he launches Project Possible, which entails scaling all 14 Asian peaks that exceed 8,000 meters above sea level -- by winter, dramatically breaking several records along the way. At one point, he and his team have to rally to persuade the federal government of China to let them proceed, but that may be the least of their troubles.