Baadasssss! (2004)

Fascinating look at one man's true-life quest to get a movie made when no one else was too interested in his vision.  Sacrificing his reputation, health, financial security and family, Melvin Van Peebles hustled 'til his dream was a reality and it's quite a ride.

The movie couldn't help but lag at times and it relied a bit too often on hallucinatory images, but really worth a look.

B

Cavalcade (1933)

We follow a family through the first 33 years of the 20th century. Although interesting things happen around them (the Titanic sinking, WWI, etc), the family itself is fairly dull and given to stilted speechifying.

C

The North Star (1943)

The little town of North Star is one of those “everyone knows everyone else’s business” places -- and that suits its inhabitants just fine. A small group of teens are excited because they’re taking a walking trip together as soon as school lets out. But their summertime fun literally booms to a halt when the Germans invade.

This is basically war-time propaganda to show us that Russians are worthy allies. And, for that purpose, it’s fine.

C+

Veronica Mars (2014)

The mystery was weak and the plot thin, but it was definitely good to see the ol’ gang back together again. If I were counting this as an episode and

ranking them all from best to worst, however, this would come in at only slighter above the Piz eps.

Also, it’s possible that Jason Dohring was always just a “barely there” actor, but I swear I never noticed it when the show was on the air. Time to start 'shipping Wallace + Veronica 4evah, I guess.

C

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Fairly interesting story of visionary showman Florenz Ziegfeld.  Well, I should say that it was interesting when it was actually telling the story -- but when I was forced to sit through numbers from the stage productions, it was the opposite of interesting while making the film at least an hour too long. There’s a reason those lavish costumes and banal musical extravaganzas finally died and it’s not because audiences were clamoring for more.

C+