Mississippi Burning (1988)

I think I read that potential lawsuits meant the factual story of the FBI's investigation into the murders of three young civil-rights workers in Mississippi in the 1960s couldn't simply be told as it happened, and so the identity of the case's mysterious Mr X informant is altered, names are changed, and liberties are taken with the historical facts of who did what, reducing the impact of the movie-final series of stills telling viewers what happened after the story, but as a gripping, dismaying, maddening period crime drama, this Oscar-winner is star-studded, well acted and completely engrossing.

★★★★☆

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Nomadland (2020)

The underpaid and overworked man I'm friendly with in my supermarket didn't recognise the name of this movie when I told him it was the reason why I was passing through on the way home so much later than usual, so I told him, "A woman lives in a van and drives around America," and joked that that was everything, he didn't need to see it, he knew everything, but of course there is so much more to Nomadland than that: it is a poem, really, full of breathtaking moments, about the humans who out of necessity pare life down to its most simple form and push, drive on, and somehow manage to still find great beauty in things - say, broken eggshells - even when all else around them is broken.

★★★★☆

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

The three billboards that goad local police into taking more action in a cold murder investigation are the strategic efforts of a bereaved mother whose daughter was raped and killed, but progress in the case is slow, God may not exist, Life may be meaningless - certainly this movie is meaningless - and so it ends up being through blackly funny, shocking, increasingly violent anarchy that the mother and several of the townsfolk seek resolution.

★★★★☆

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Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Joel and Ethan Coen's movie about a 1950s Hollywood film studio is full of near versions of real Hollywood personalities from that era - Carmen Miranda, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Lash LaRue - embroiled in a plot ripped from 1950s celebrity tabloids and while it is certainly exuberantly acted and full of elaborate period detail, the movie's biggest problem is that it distances viewers looking for meaning - it's neither a light, frothy comedy spoof nor a biting political religious satire, but probably just a largely point-free Coen brothers indulgence - them revelling in the things they love.

★★★☆☆

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Something's Gotta Give (2003)

In this movie-length laundry detergeant commercial, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Amanda Peet and Keanu Reeves, clad in brilliant whites, float around what looks like Martha Stewart's house or an IKEA showroom and engage in romantic dalliances, come to terms with old age, get over their age biases and conquer their body hang-ups.

★★☆☆☆

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