Sixtysomething Victor (Daniel Auteuil) is officially a grumpy old man, and his marriage is on the rocks because of it. To cheer him up, his son buys him an experience with his friend’s company, who stage bespoke historical reenactments as a form of time travel. When Victor’s wife finally has enough and throws him out, he uses his experience to revisit 1974, when they first met and fell in love.

To oversimplify things, it’s kind of like Groundhog Day by way of Charlie Kaufman: the immersive theatrical experience recalls Synechdoche, New York (in a superficial way, I guess), and Victor’s desire to live it over and over again is, well, obvious. Except he’s not stuck there, but choosing it. It’s a mix of nostalgia and melancholy, because, of course, he’s not actually reliving that day, however much he comes to believe in it.

Advance reviews led me to believe La Belle Époque would be little more than a pleasant diversion, but there’s a lot more to it than that. It clearly has something to say as regards the power of nostalgia and the need to live in the present. But, deep thoughts aside, it’s also a charmingly romantic film — sharply witty, unexpectedly beautiful in places, and genuinely emotional by the end. It’s a shame that it seems to have had half-hearted distribution outside of France (perhaps the fault of it being acquired by Disney, I suspect with an English-language remake in mind, rather than a ‘proper’ distributor of foreign fare who would’ve shown it more love) because I think it deserves, and would reward, a wide audience.

La Belle Époque was #140 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2019. It placed 7th on my list of The 15 Best Films of 2019.

When Leo McCarey received his Best Director Oscar for this film, he said that he got it for the wrong film — a clear reference to his fondness for Make Way for Tomorrow, which he made the same year. I’m not wholly sure I agree with him, although Tomorrow’s is clearly the ‘worthier’ picture — but that doesn’t always mean better.

The Awful Truth was the first of three screen pairings of Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, and the film that refined the latter’s famous screen persona. Here, the duo play a married couple who begin to divorce, only to then interfere with each other’s further romances. When it’s on form, the film is up there with the best of its subgenre: a sparkling screwball comedy with glorious dialogue, a pair of splendid lead performances, and a magnificent dog. Unfortunately, it goes on a mite too long and begins to lose steam in the final act. While that might hold the film back from perfection (and so open the door to the idea that Make Way for Tomorrow is somehow superior), the magnificence of what comes before means it’s still a must-see for fans of this style of comedy.

The Awful Truth was #95 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

Eddie Murphy plays a pampered but bored African prince, who dodges an arranged marriage to travel to America and find a bride. With that plot and the fact it was made a few decades ago, I was half expecting Coming to America to have aged badly. If nothing else, it seemed primed to base its humour around cringe-inducing culture-clash awkwardness — not necessarily an invalid kind of comedy, but not one I personally enjoy.

As it turns out, it’s nothing of the sort. In fact, it’s actually rather sweet and kind-hearted, with just enough lewdness to give it a kick rather than make it eye-rollingly vulgar (I’m sure it would only take a couple of minor trims to get that 15/R rating down to a 12/PG-13). Some have criticised it for being too slow — including director John Landis, who asked Paramount if he could re-edit it for the Blu-ray release (they refused) — but I thought it was quite well paced. It doesn’t move at whipcrack speed, but it doesn’t need to. All in all, it holds up well enough that I can see why they decided to produce a belated sequel (which is still on my watchlist).

Coming to America was #28 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

There are an awful lot of Batman movies nowadays (58 and counting, according to my Letterboxd list), but I thought I was at least aware of them all. Turns out not, because I hadn’t even heard of this one until I happened to see someone log it on Letterboxd several years after its release. (It’s a direct-to-video production that they didn’t bother to release on Blu-ray, so that’ll be a big part of why it slipped under my radar.)

A plot description is pretty unnecessary here: the title tells you all you need to know. The reason it’s a particularly unwieldy one is because Scooby-Doo and friends team-up with, specifically, the Batman from animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold. I watched a selection of episodes from that show a few years ago and, frankly, didn’t enjoy most of them (although a couple are excellent: Mayhem of the Music Meister is so good I watched it twice in as many days, which regular readers will know is very unlike me), so I didn’t have high hopes for this movie either.

At least it’s an appropriate iteration of Batman to crossover with Scooby-Doo, because (a) the whole point of the show was team-ups, with every episode seeing Batman join forces with a different DC hero (the subtitle is derived from a classic DC team-up comic), and (b) the overall tone of the show was camp and comical, which chimes well with Scooby-Doo. In fact, despite Scooby-Doo getting top billing, the film is really a feature-length episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold guest starring Mystery Inc, rather than the other way round. I mean, it’s set in Gotham City, stuffed with appearances and cameos by other DC characters, and (most of all) it uses The Brave and the Bold’s animation style, even featuring a version of the series’ title sequence and theme music — with a Scooby makeover, of course. Nonetheless, it also adopts plenty of the tropes of a Scooby-Doo story, like the unmasking at the end.

Thanks to all that, it’s everything you’d expect from “Scooby-Doo meets Batman” — they leave nothing on the table, right down to having Scooby actually say, “Holy Scooby-Dooby-Doo, Batman!” And would you have it any other way? It’s a daft concept, mashing these two cheesy franchises together — there’s no point trying to be above it. By embracing what it is, it delivers what you’d expect as well as could be imagined. For that, I quite enjoyed it on the whole. And so I would say that, if the basic idea of it doesn’t interest you, give it a miss; but if you think it sounds potentially appealing, you should definitely watch it.

Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold was #105 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

One of those Netflix documentaries that everyone seems to be talking about for a while but then forgets just as quickly, The Social Dilemma is essentially about how dangerous social media is, as told to us by the people who created it. Not the Mark Zuckerberg of the world, obviously — they’re still raking in far too much cash to want to dissuade us from using their products — but various other developers and whatnot who’ve been involved over the years.

Naturally, the main reaction to all this information is: “OMG, I totally need to change all my social media habits!” And do people? Not as far as I’ve seen. As one contributor in the doc comments, “knowing what was going on behind the curtain, I still wasn’t able to control my usage. So that’s a little scary.” Eesh. We’re doomed.

The Social Dilemma was #20 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.