In 1960s Maine, Anthony Hopkins, an older man with mysterious powers, takes up lodging in a home owned by Hope Davis where he befriends her 11 year old son Anton Yelchin. Based on a Stephen King novella, it definitely shares many of his non-horror signatures (nostalgia, a Maine setting, etc.), but it doesn’t really go anywhere with it. I was surprised to discover that Hopkins’s character ties into the Dark Tower series as the mysteries that surround him seem like they would fit in with that narrative, but in this film, they remain mostly underdeveloped and unexplained. The strength in this film lies in the scenes between Hopkins and Yelchin. Even at such a young age, it was obvious that Anton had the skills to keep up with the veteran.

Arriving in Paris with only the clothes on her back, American showgirl Claudette Colbert convinces cab driver Don Ameche to drive her around looking for jobs. She eventually gives the smitten Ameche the slip and finds herself joining a well-dressed crowd going to a concert, convincing the other patrons that she’s really a rich baroness. I’m not generally a fan of Colbert but still attracted to the roles she plays. Here she’s quite the heroine who knows what she wants and unabashedly goes for it. The film really picks up when Ameche relocates Colbert and the two constantly one up each other to the confusion of their high society hosts.   

Ben Foster stars as Lance Armstrong, the seven consecutive Tour de France winner who was stripped of his titles after it became clear he was using performance enhancing drugs the entire time. The film follows Armstrong’s career from his testicular cancer diagnosis to the doping scandal that led to his downfall. I don’t know if Armstrong is an asshole in real life, but Foster certainly portrays him that way, intimidating and berating anyone who got in his way or threatened his rise to the podium. Just like it seems in Armstrong’s career, there isn’t much room for anyone else but the Armstrong character in this film, though Jesse Plemons as teammate Floyd Landis does his best to stand out in his role as a whistleblower. 

Unable to fly to the United Kingdom to receive a literary award, writer Meryl Streep travels aboard the Queen Mary 2 inviting along her nephew Lucas Hedges and her somewhat estranged college friends Candice Bergen and Dianne Wiest. Traveling on a cruise during a pandemic is a bit foolhardy, but this was interestingly filmed right before it started alongside actual passengers. The film itself is fairly hollow, serving mostly as a travel brochure for all the incredible features on board. The best parts are watching Bergen and Wiest playing board games in various areas of the ship, dishing on their mutual friend and past experiences more than actually playing the games.

New Jersey trucking magnate Danny DeVito arrives in Hollywood determined to make it big writing scripts for television. Despite being turned away by almost all the major networks, he manages to sell a series and make it big with the help of his girlfriend Rhea Perlman, an underappreciated employee at the biggest ratings company. As director, DeVito plays to his strengths here and he works delightfully with wife Perlman. It offers plenty to amuse with its occasionally scathing view into the television industry, especially when the networks had more power. 

At her father’s diner in the Arizona desert, Bette Davis falls in love with intellectual drifter Leslie Howard, but their romance is short lived when Humphrey Bogart uses the diner to hide from the police with his gang. I liked the setting, but Howard comes across as so spineless that it’s hard to see him as a love interest even when stuck in Nowheresville Arizona. The usually formidable Davis is similarly soft which leaves Bogart to carry the bulk of the film in a rather small role though Genevieve Tobin offers a moment or two of poignancy in her roles as one of the additional hostages.