Come From Away (2021)

  I add things to my To Be Watched list with reckless disregard.  So sometimes I get surprised.  Like with this musical about 9/11.

The town of Gander, Newfoundland, is home to around 7000 residents and, at one time, the largest airport in the world before transatlantic flight was achievable.  In September, 2001, it suddenly became the emergency stopping point for 38 passenger planes diverted from U.S. airspace after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  With only hours to prepare, and a gridlock with the school bus union, the townspeople scramble to find accomodations, food, toiletries, and all the other necessary things.  There are language barriers, dietary restrictions, fear, panic, grief, and suspicions to overcome.  All conveyed through 16 songs by a cast of 12.

This is a filmed production of the original Broadway cast.  I literally knew nothing walking in and I was blown away by how easy it was to keep track of all the characters being played.  The entire cast was incredible.  Every person played at least four roles as well as all the background work in the chorus.  

I had never heard this particular 9/11 story before and it was extremely wholesome and Canadian.  A++.  Still not going to Newfoundland.  It looks really cold.  But the musical is warm and cozy and streaming on AppleTV.

Cop Car (2015)

  Content warning:  blood, child endangerment

Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford) are running away from home when they find a cop car in a field.  It's unlocked and the keys are inside.  Obviously, there's only one thing the boys can do.  Sheriff Kretzer (Kevin Bacon) returns from dumping a body in a convenient abandoned well to find his patrol car full of incriminating evidence gone.  Now it's a game of wits between a corrupt cop and two ten-year-olds.

First of all, THIS IS WHY GIRLS LIVE LONGER THAN BOYS.  The most harrowing moments in this film don't come from a desperate man threatening children, they come from the children themselves, blithely handling firearms, a portable defibrillator, and speeding down the center of a highway.  If you are a parent, this probably qualifies as a horror movie.  

However, I am just a cat lady so I thought this was hilarious.  It feels like a darker version of classic Disney children's adventure movies.  It makes great use of a very small cast, keeping the two boys centered in the action.  They seem absolutely real, from the dialogue to the general goofing around.  I don't know how director Jon Watts coached them, but he got the most natural performances I have seen in ages out of them.  

This was a Sundance darling but bombed at the box office.  It needs a second chance.  It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime, if you are in the mood for a tightly paced, black comedy that feels almost like nostalgia but isn't.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

  Another classic comedy that had aged like milk.  Content warning:  spousal abuse

Socialite Tracy Lords (Katherine Hepburn) is getting married... again.  This time to coal mine owner George Kittredge (John Howard).  It's set to be the social event of the season and the press are not invited. Except that publisher Sidney Kidd (Henry Daniell) has information on a scandal involving Tracy's father (John Halliday) and sends his best reporter, Mike Connor (James Stewart), and photographer, Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey), down to blackmail their way in with the help of Tracy's first husband, C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant).  But motivations shift as easily as sand as people's true natures are revealed.

This is just Pride and Prejudice with a Trans-Atlantic accent.  A lot of the gender politics are severely outdated, and not in a fun Oh-that's-just-the-times kind of way.  Apparently, Hepburn loved the scene where Grant shoves her to the ground by her face so much that she had him run it multiple times, but it no longer reads as comedic.  

A lot of the inter-character dialogue is still very sharp, and funny, like every line Dinah (Virginia Weidler) has is a scene-stealer, but overall this movie was tedious and grating.  It's streaming for free on Tubi.   Skip it and watch literally anything else.

The Good Earth (1937)

  Content warning:  starvation, war violence, infanticide (off-screen), animal death (ox, off-screen), bugs

Wang Lung (Paul Muni) is a peasant farmer in China.  He is very pleased when the local gentry offer him a former kitchen slave, O-Lan (Louise Rainer), to be his wife.  With her help, he navigates the harvest, managing to improve his station and buy his own land, until famine strikes and the family is forced to move south for work.  Still, Wang Lung stands beside his principle that the land will provide for them.  Thanks to O-Lan's good fortune and ruthless practicality, they are able to return and prosper, eventually buying the Great House and setting Wang Lung up as a lord, himself.  But wealth changes a man and Wang Lung begins to yearn for softer, prettier things like Lotus (Tilly Losch), an entertainer at a tea house.

This movie has become known only for the use of yellowface.  Which is valid.  Muni was Austro-Hungarian, Rainer was German, and Losch was Austrian.  There is some...creative...makeup use to make them look Chinese, but they are very much not.  Apparently, producer Irving Thalberg wanted to use an all-Asian cast but ultimately chickened out because he didn't think American audiences would go for it.  There are a number of prominent Asian actors in the film, including Keye Luke, who would go on to become famous as Kato in The Green Hornet serials, just not in the main roles.

Okay.  That being said, this is somehow waaaaaay less racist than Gone with the Wind or Cimarron.  It's a huge, historical epic that spans a period of major upheaval in China and it's handled shockingly gently.  O-Lan is basically the Ideal Patriarchal Wife, patient, supportive, obedient, and self-sacrificing even while her husband is being kind of an idiot.  Rainer won Best Actress for her portrayal, which she shouldn't have.  Mostly, she just stares vacantly into the middle distance while reciting the most mournful dialogue you've ever heard.  Muni is doing The Most Acting and didn't get nominated for jack.  It also won for Best Cinematography, deservedly.

I never read the book so I can't tell you if it's a good adaptation, but it was better than I thought it would be.  I thought it was in the public domain but it is apparently not.  You can rent it or stream through your favorite VPN-friendly site.

Backrooms (2026)

  This is one of the most talked about films of the year and I would like everyone to lower their expectations a little bit.

Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve) becomes concerned when one of her therapy patients, Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), claims that he's found a strange alternate space inside the lower level of his furniture store and then goes missing.  Mary follows the trail through a wall and into the backrooms, a seemingly endless labyrinth of strange rooms, some with twisted furniture, mirrored signs, and odd perspective shifts.  But what's a labyrinth without a monster in the center?

This is based on a web series in turn based on an Internet creepypasta.  You don't need to have any background or familiarity to understand the film, so don't feel like you need to do homework.  If you are Gen Z, you probably grew up with this as part of your Internet history.  

The acting is a good mix of A-list and no-name people.  Reinsve was nominated for an Oscar last year for Sentimental Value and uses her wet-eyed vulnerability to good effect here.  Ejiofor should be a bigger name than he is.  The man has consistently turned in incredible performances for the past 20 years.  Special effects are good.  The sets are mostly practical and you can really feel the weight of them.  There's no gore and very little horror imagery.  It is mostly just musical cues creating a sense of dread and claustrophobia.  I hate this style of music but it's used very well here.  

What I find most fascinating is the emergence of new folklore for the Internet age.  I spent a lot of time thinking about what fears this is highlighting and for whom.  It's not death or age or sickness.  It's more of the horror of the mundane suddenly becoming unfamiliar, of creeping mental illness, especially an inherited kind.  There's a word --glossolalia-- where you say something over and over until it loses all meaning and just becomes sounds, and this movie is like the visual equivalent of that.  

Unfortunately, it's still only available to rent or buy right now, but it should be coming to HBO Max on September 25.  Thematically, you wouldn't be wrong if you pirated a copy, but you might as well just wait a week.

Hadestown: The Musical (2026)

Happy Labor Day!  Here's a surprisingly related movie.  I like this trend of staged productions getting filmed.  It feels much more egalitarian.

Orpheus (Reeve Carney) is a starry-eyed cafe worker on the surface, working on a song to bring the world back into harmony.  He meets Eurydice (Eva Noblezada), who is homeless and hounded by the Fates (Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne, and Allie Daniel), and falls for her immediately.  Eurydice is skeptical and wonders why the climate has become so extreme.  Orpheus explains that Hades (Patrick Page) and Persephone (Amber Gray) have fallen out of love and Persephone resents having to spend six months in Hadestown, which is continually fortified by Hades' indentured workers.  During a snowstorm, Hades comes to Eurydice and promises her warmth and a cessation of suffering, so she signs one of his permanent contracts.  Distraught, Orpheus pleads with Hermes (André de Shields) for another way into Hadestown to retrieve her.

This is the exact same story you've always heard but it is nice to see new musicals.  The performances are top-notch, especially de Shields and Carney.  Apparently it was based on a concept album from a musician called Anaīs Mitchell, whom I've never heard of but good for her.  It's available to rent or buy from Amazon right now but I'm sure it'll be on a streaming service soon.

Hokum (2026)

  Content warning:  suicide (hanging), dead animal (goat)

Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) travels to Ireland to lay his parents' ashes to rest at the hotel where they honeymooned.  He learns that the honeymoon suite has been in disuse for years and the rumor is that a witch is trapped there.  Ohm obviously doesn't believe in that kind of nonsense.  He hangs himself in his room, but is saved by Fiona (Florence Odesh), the bartender.  After his recovery, he returns to thank her only to discover that she has been missing since the Halloween party.  Jerry (David Wilmot), the local homeless man/drug enthusiast, thinks Fiona is in the Honeymoon Suite and after the hotel closes for the season, he and Ohm break in to check.

This is by Damian McCarthy, the writer and director of Oddity, which was one of my absolute favorite movies from a couple of years ago.  And I just learned that the same guy directed Caveat, which I watched last year and loved.  He is three for three features for me, now.

This was missing the amount of emotional heft that I had in Oddity, but I am very partial to revenge stories.  Hokum is more about guilt.  Performances were excellent.  Scott has been killing it with the "depressed sad sack" roles lately.  Not sure what happened to him after Parks and Rec, but he's making it work.  I'm going to also give a lot of credit to the sound design.  This doesn't rely on jump scares as much as McCarthy's other films, which I appreciate, and instead layers voices to create a soundscape of horror.  

It's not available for streaming yet, only rental or purchase.  I bought it as a birthday present for myself.