Powerful and sleek, this compressed Macbeth begins in intensity and never lets up. Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand are good, not great, as the title couple (and closed captioning was an aid in following the dialogue). The black-and-white cinematography, modernist architecture and insistent score create an atmosphere of constant foreboding. Kathryn Hunter’s “Sisters” helps, too. The fault, if there be one, was in the play: we never understood why Macbeth turned on the king–a rather crucial point.

Cook-a-little, talk-a-little, cook-a-little, talk-a-little, cheep-cheep-cheep, talk-a-lot, cook-a-little-more. For a non-foodie, there was a lot of same in this documentary recounting of Julia Child’s admittedly amazing career. There were occasional plot twists–Julia’s derision of nouvelle cuisine, her support of Planned Parenthood–but they disappeared as abruptly as they arose. The movie announced its theme at the outset and replayed it all the way to its close.

This was Aaron Sorkin in overdrive, with every scene in a five-day period a crisis, and more issues than I could count. Unfortunately–and this was a big problem–I could never accept Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz (whom I don’t know).  He was too big, too physical, too much Javier Bardem, and I couldn’t sense any chemistry with Nicole Kidman’s Lucy. The gap between Lucille Ball offstage and on was also a bridge too far. Interestingly, my favorite parts of the movie were the black-and-white recreations of actual “I Love Lucy” episodes. I’m sure the threat of Communist exposure was as real as depicted, but everything about that plot seemed overdramatized. Partly this was the fault of the portentous score. Perhaps Sorkin was trying to recreate the feel of a 1952 movie, but if so, that just added to the confusion of trying to shoehorn ten stories into one movie. As a six- or eight-part miniseries, each plot would have had room to breathe. But still, there would be Javier Bardem.

A taut psychological thriller that played out, almost entirely, on Olivia Colman’s face, photographed in intense close-up the whole way. The setting and characters were wonderfully reminiscent of the other Elena Ferrante books I’d read, a surprising achievement for a first-time American director. Jessie Buckley was just as good as the young Leda, but I had trouble connecting the two characters–the physical dissimilarity didn’t help–and I almost felt I was watching two different films. The young Leda’s struggle with motherhood was convincing; but I could never figure out Colman/Leda’s deal with the doll. Did one story explain the other? If not, why not? Still, it was good to see a film that made you think and made you tense with anticipation, even though, like much of life, it ended in anticlimax.

A theoretically dramatic story of the cave-diving rescue of 12 trapped boys in Thailand in 2018, this documentary somehow left me cold. Maybe because I compared it to the superior Free Solo by the same directors. Visually, 40% was talking heads, 40% faceless swimmers in dark, muddy water. Many of the action scenes were unannounced re-enactments, which made you wonder, “how’d they shoot that?,” and left you a little confused (as opposed to Free Solo, where you asked the same question but then were amazed by the answer). The divers were worthy heroes, but once we met them there was little more to learn. It was a hard story to tell after the fact, with obvious restrictions. Although in both movies we knew the quest would succeed, I was tense through much of Free Solo, but never here.