You say you want to see a very smart, darkly comic film about the daughter of an unscrupulous businessman who before the story begins has joined a religious order but over the course of the story learns that she can do more to help people in his secular world and becomes drawn to a young professor? Then I suggest you watch the brilliant film “Major Barbara,” starring Wendy Hiller and a young Rex Harrison and with a very young Deborah Kerr, based on the classic play by George Bernard Shaw.

Or, if you would like to see a movie that skitters along the surface of some of those themes without having much to say about them but looks gorgeous, in fact so exquisite that if it starts to drag, which it does, we wish the actors would get out of the way so we could better absorb the beauty of the settings. In other words, we’re in the bento box movie world of Wes Anderson.

What bothers me third-most about Wes Anderson films is the way the characters speak the mildly arcane dialogue in constant near-robotic deadpan. What bothers me second-most is that the dialogue delivered in monotone is not just mildly arcane but pretentiously so, as though the twee-ness indicates both comic sensibility and deeper meaning. There can be humor in saying extreme things with a flat delivery, as though you’re politely asking to pass the butter, can be funny, but not always and not for a whole movie. What bothers me most is the way many people emperor’s-new-clothes the films, believing that the humor and deeper meaning they discern is somehow invisible to the less sophisticated instead of non-existent.

Benicio Del Toro plays Zsa-zsa Korda, a wealthy, powerful, and corrupt businessman, who says his two imperatives are “Who could lick who (or whom)?” (measuring success by beating the competition) and “If something gets in your way, flatten it” (the ends justify even scorched-earth means).

There are those who have similar guiding principles, or lack of principles, and therefore, as we see in the first scene, when an explosion on Korda’s airplane blows a big hole in the hull, and also in one of his aides, slicing his top half from his bottom half. Korda then goes into the cockpit and fires his pilot, in both senses of the word, dismissing him from employment and jettisoning him via ejector seat. Korda survives the crash landing with injuries. He knows more murder attempts are coming, and so he reaches out to his daughter Liesel (Mia Threapleton, daughter of Kate Winslet). She is about to take orders as a nun, and throughout the film she wears a snowy white habit, though as it goes on she also sports colorful eye shadow and bright red nail polish. Korda also has nine young sons, some adopted. His only interest in them is the thought that there are so many of them, odds are one will be brilliant.

Anderson’s two most recent films were episodic, like nested dolls. This one is slightly more linear, but still in chapters as Korda visits a series of characters in very different settings played by stars like Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston (as American brothers in college sweatshirts), Scarlett Johansson as Korda’s second cousin and possible future wife, Jeffrey Wright as a ship captain, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Korda’s rival and half-brother. There are various murder attempts (the characters refer to them as assassination attempts, but that seems grandiose for a businessman, even one who is rich and powerful and has done evil things, because the term refers to the killing of an important person for political or religious reasons). And Korda and Liesel are accompanied by a character played by Michael Cera, introduced as a tutor brought on to teach them about insects (do not try to make this tie into anything except the overall anemic randomness that translates to “and then this character appears.” He plays a more important role as the story goes on and is the closest the movie comes to having a bright spot. It’s not that it has style and no substance. It has style and anti-substance.

Other than the settings, of course, which are fabulously imagined and entrancingly detailed. (As always with Anderson, look at the titles and covers of the books the characters read.) The movie might work better with no dialogue, just the visuals and the music.

Parents should know that this movie has a lot of peril and violence with some graphic and disturbing images. The movie includes guns, knives, bombs, fire, plane crashes, and quicksand. Characters are injured and killed, including references to a murdered parent. Characters are corrupt and murderous. they behave badly in business and with family, and they drink and smoke. Characters’ religious beliefs are not meaningful or sincere.

Family discussion: Why does Liesel stay with her father? What does she hope to achieve and how does that change? What do we learn from the names of Korda’s projects? From his mottos?

If you like this, try other Wes Anderson Films, especially “The Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

Memorial Day is more than the beginning of summer; it is a day to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice. I hope you can take some time over the weekend to think of those we have lost. Some movies to pay your respects:

The Outpost was on my top ten list for 2020, a movie that was sadly overlooked because it came out in the early weeks of the pandemic shutdown. It is based on the book by Jake Tapper. There are war stories that are about strategy and courage and triumph over evil that let us channel the heroism of the characters on screen. And then there are war stories that are all of that but also engage in the most visceral terms with questions of purpose and meaning that touch us all. “The Outpost” is that rare film in the second category, an intimate, immersive drama from director Rod Lurie, a West Point graduate and Army veteran who knows this world inside out and brings us from the outside in.

The Blue Angels Glen Powell, who played a pilot in “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Devotion” is also a real-life pilot who has flown with “the best of the best,” the Navy’s Blue Angels. He produced this documentary that takes us behind the scenes and into the sky, even “inverted” (upside down!) with the Blues.

Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds This 2025 Netflix documentary takes us through the history and training of the legendary flight squadron, produced by Barack and Michelle Obama.

Gardens of Stone James Caan and James Earl Jones star in a film about the 1st Battalion 3d Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) at Fort Myer, Virginia, the U.S. Army’s Honor Guard. They conduct the funerals of fallen soldiers and guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Francis Ford Coppola directed this touching, elegiac story.

Hallowed Grounds This PBS documentary explores 22 overseas military cemeteries, with stories of the soldiers who are buried there and the people who keep their memories alive.

Taking Chance An officer (Kevin Bacon) escorts the body of a young Marine killed in Iraq. Each stop along the way is meaningful.

Mr. Roberts is a WWII story about a Navy cargo ship, based on the experiences of author Thomas Heggen. Henry Fonda stars in the title role or an executive officer who tries to protect the men from a tyrannical captain. Broadway, and the outstanding cast includes William Powell, James Cagney, and Oscar-winner Jack Lemmon.

Band of Brothers is the extraordinary series from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks about ordinary men who came together to do extraordinary things as soldiers in Easy Company in WWII.

Red Tails is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the legendary heroes who risked their lives for a country that did its best to hold them back.

The title makes it clear. Like “Bad Teacher,” “Bad Santa,” and “Bad Day at Black Rock,” this is a very dark comedy about an evening that does not go well. And then it goes extremely not well.

There’s a lot of pressure on this Friday night shabbos (Sabbath) family dinner at the home of religiously observant Jewish parents Richard (David Paymer) and Ellen (Kyra Sedgewick). Joining them are their three adult children, David (Jon Bass), Abby (Milana Vayntrub), and Adam (Theo Taplitz). Just about everyone is hiding something or worried about something or lying about something or all of the above.

Abby brings her boyfriend, Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman). She does not want her parents to know that they drove, which is forbidden on the Sabbath. David brings his fiancee, Meg (Meghan Leathers). Richard and Ellen are not happy that Meg is not Jewish, though somewhat mollified because she is studying Judaism with plans to convert. This dinner will be the first time Meg’s Catholic parents from Wisconsin meet David’s family and everyone is concerned about how that is going to go, especially since Meg has not told her parents that she is going to convert. Contributing to the pressure on David and Meg, it seems everyone in town knows about the expectations for this meal. They stop at the legendary Barney Greengrass deli to pick up challah (the braided bread traditionally eaten at Shabbos dinner), where they are waited on by real-life Gary Greengrass, who learned about the meeting of the two sets of parents from Richard. At the apartment building, the affable doorman, Jordan (Wu-Tang’s Method Man, in an irresistibly charming performance) says that “Richie” has told him all about it, and that David’s family is his favorite. Method Man just about steals the film as the ultimate ride or die friend of the family.

The family’s youngest son is fragile, highly sensitive Adam, who does not have a job and still lives with his parents. Richard and Ellen are constantly trying to reassure him that he is doing fine and loved by everyone, but he is only too aware that his family is worried and perhaps a little disappointed. He takes the anti-anxiety psychotropic drug Klonopin, and apparently some other medications as well. It is clear that at least some members of the family are concerned that his behavior might be disturbing for Meg’s parents. He is probably imagining a scene like the one in “Annie Hall,” where Woody Allen’s New York Jewish character meets Diane Keaton’s very Christian midwestern family, and imagines they see him as an Orthodox Hassid.

So, a lot of pressure. And then, as noted, things get very, very bad. As Meg’s parents, John (John Bedford Lloyd) and Beth (Catherine Curtain) are on their way, one of the people in the apartment is accidentally killed, implicating Adam. And then, along the lines of the recent “The Trouble with Jessica,” the group decides not to call an ambulance or the police but somehow cover it up, and the rest of the film is farce.

In “The Trouble with Jessica,” the people at a dinner party decide to cover up a death for selfish reasons. What gives “Bad Shabbos,” a lighter tone is the way the family immediately decides that their priority is protecting a vulnerable person and, of course, not making Meg’s parents think that they are the kind of people who have dead bodies in their apartment. Their logic — and their morality — may be wobbly, but it is hard not to sympathize with them. There is an extremely sweet moment when Meg delivers the d’var torah (a brief discussion of the meaning of a passage from the first five books of the Bible) to demonstrate what she is learning in her class. And it is very funny that the family keeps trying to persuade John and Beth that every unusual action is part of their tradition, expecting that anything Jewish is so unfamiliar to them they will just try to be polite and go along with it.

What makes the film especially engaging is the way it gets the details of a New York Jewish shabbos meal right. The tone of the film may be heightened, exaggerated for comic purposes, but unlike too many other portrayals this film never makes the characters into caricatures and the details are precise and affectionate. It’s very dark, but it is also very funny.

Parents should know that this is a comedy about a dead body and the lies and cover-ups in response to an accident. Characters use some strong language. They drink wine and misuse medication. There is an accident and brief disturbing images. A character struggles with mental illness.

Family discussion: Why did the family agree to lie? Were they right?

If you like this, try: “Round and Round”

The Thunderbirds of the Air Force are the elite display team pilots who give demonstrations around the country to inspire Americans with a show of extraordinary courage and skill. This documentary, with producers that include Barack and Michelle Obama, is like Glenn Powell’s “The Blue Angels,” about the Navy’s elite flying group. It takes us inside the training that leads up to the annual tour of 62 shows across the country, with “flying acrobatics” and are “meant to look nearly impossible.” The signs on the doors they walk through to the airstrip say “Fly Like Champions” and “Blind Trust,” the first a goal, the second the foundational principle of the team, because they fly in such tight formation that the slightest error from one of them puts all of them at risk. As we see in the film, there have been a number of crashes and many Thunderbirds pilots have died.

The pilots serve for two years, and each year half are new. So we begin with the arrival of three pilots joining the team. They are there because of their outstanding skills, but they have to unlearn as well as learn. The experience of the Tom Cruise in “Top Gun” types trained for combat or those “Right Stuff” types trained for testing new equipment are not exactly transferable and some are completely opposite. Combat pilots have two goals, to hit the target and stay alive. Thunderbirds literally are told to “divorce yourself from your usual survival instincts” because the maneuvers they perform are designed to keep them “micro-seconds from a life-threatening situation.” We see the impact of G-force acrobatics that make a 200-pound pilot into a 2000-pounder, making it impossible for oxygen to reach the head, so they pass out.

And we see that these pilots find all of that “frickin’ awesome.” One points to the number 5 painted on the side of the plane. It is upside down, because that way it will appear right-side up during the demonstration.

We spend much of the time with the boss, number one, called Astro (like the Blue Angels and the Top Guns, they have call signs — my favorite was the flight surgeon, who goes by Angry). His dream from his earliest childhood was to be an astronaut, and his parents proudly show us his grade school drawings. But when the Thunderbirds were in need, after a 2018 crash, they needed someone to make some changes, and his unique skills as a graduate of both combat and test flight training made him the ideal candidate. His wife says that she checked the mortality numbers for the Thunderbirds; ten percent. But the commitment to “service over self” meant they both understood that was where he needed to be.

We see one pilot struggle with his position and the way the others support him. And we see that the unquestioned dedication to “service over self” is as important to them as their constant training and striving for perfection.

We also see the support they get from the maintenance crews, every bit as devoted to excellence as the pilots. Their first demonstration at the Daytona races, is not perfect. They are supposed to appear on “brave,” the last word of the National Anthem. They’re off by seconds, but to them it feels like months. Astro’s reaction: “We have something to work on.”

The better we understand what goes into the maneuvers, the more we appreciate the skills that make it possible for them to fly in such tight formations, wings almost touching, each relying on the others to stay stable.

The cinematography is stunning, with special thanks to Arial Coordinator (and stunt pilot) Kevin LaRossa II, also the genius behind the air footage of “Top Gun: Maverick,” “The Blue Angels,” “The Avengers,” any many more. The air maneuvers are dazzling. But it is the hearts, integrity, and courage of the Thunderbirds that are unforgettable.

Parents should know that this film includes references to airplane fatalities.

Family discussion: What made Astro decide to withdraw from the astronaut program? Do you agree with his decision? Go to one of the air shows and stay after to talk to the pilots.

If you like this, try: “The Blue Angels” and the “Top Gun” movies

Yes, Tom Cruise runs. Very fast. Even at one point when he is in London and could probably get there faster in a cab, though for some reason there are no cars anywhere as he races across Westminster Bridge. He also does that mask thing where the disguise is so good that no one can tell it is him until he dramatically lifts the prosthetics from his head. And he attends a black tie gala. This is all in the first 15 minutes or so.

Thus, we are able to get what we came for and get on with the new stuff, which also includes running and fight scenes, sometimes shirtless, blue wire/red wire bomb defusing decisions under extreme time pressure, Ethan Hunt telling everyone to just trust him, several people telling him that he is the only one who can save the world (“although you never followed orders, you never let us down”), recaps of the previous films with some reckoning and a bit of retconning, a very welcome return of a character from the first Cruise “Mission Impossible” in 1996, vastly over-qualified actors in near-cameos, and, of course, absolutely bananas but very exciting action scenes, one under water, one in the air. In other words, like Ethan Hunt himself, they understood the assignment.

You don’t need to remember much or even have seen part one because (a) they tell you what happened and (b) it doesn’t matter because all you need to know is that they need to get The Thing (and the things you need to disarm The Thing) or it will be very bad for the everyone on the planet.

The MacGuffin is an AI that is getting ready to destroy all of humanity, close to gaining control of every nuclear weapon in the world. This is of great concern to the US President (Angela Bassett) and to those who think they can take control of it and therefore of everything. The primary villain in this category is Gabriel (Esai Morales), but like The Ring in the LoTR films, the AI known as The Entity is so powerful that even honorable people can be seduced away from destroying it and into wanting it for themselves. It is a “truth-eating parasite processing our deepest personal secrets” that “knows precisely how to undermine our every strength and exploit our every weakness.” Time for only the purest of heart and the fastest of running men to save the day.

Like Harry Potter and the horcruxes or a character in a video game, stopping the Entity requires going to many places to obtain different items and perform various tasks. These mini-MacGuffins include the source code for the AI, which is in a sunken Russian submarine and the “pill” to shut it down, created by Ethan’s teammate Luther (Ving Rhames) and stolen by Gabriel, a variation on “Independence Day’s” virus uploaded to an alien operating system.

Thankfully, a lot of the communication between Ethan and his team is meaningful looks. The dialogue can get heavy-handed. There is not much of it, though, because everyone knows why we’re here, and it is not witty remarks. (One funny line relates to The Entity’s appeal to viral conspiracy types.)

There’s a big build-up to how dangerous and difficult the dive to the Russian submarine is and the high probability that it won’t work and Ethan will die, but hey, the name of the series isn’t “Mission Possible.” As with the last episode’s train scene, still to my mind the best action scene in the series, the submarine scene makes very good use of shifting weight and huge, heavy things that have to be ducked. After making it very clear that the only thing keeping Ethan alive at that depth and temperature is the super-high-tech diving suit, he has to shed it, so we see him swim around in his boxers.

The showstopper is an arial battle between two colorful biplanes, one red, one yellow. At this point, the film is cutting back and forth between four or five desperately high-pressure situations, but it is the planes that will forever show up in film school and highlight reels.

If you remember anything about the first film, it is most likely the hanging from the ceiling heist at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. There was a humorous button on that scene of a confused CIA employee entering the room just as Ethan was exiting, leaving his knife behind. That employee was immediately transferred to the most remote location under the CIA’s jurisdiction as a consequence of the theft. He is computer genius William Donloe (Rolf Saxon), married to an Inuit woman named Tapessa (Lucy Tulugarjuk), and they are the two best new characters in this installment. “Severance’s” Tramell Tillman is a delight as a US submarine captain, but Hannah Waddingham, Janet McTeer, Carey Elwes, Nick Offerman, and Mark Gatiss are not given much to do (though Waddingham’s American accent is quite good, perhaps from listening to her co-stars in four years of “Ted Lasso”). Henry Czerny returns and is just right as the frustrated head of the CIA who thinks he knows better than Ethan. I think we know who’s right on that.

I usually say that in action films, everything depends on the villain. In “Mission Impossible” movies, everything depends on the stunts, the “Fast and Furious”-style found family of the team, and the unquenchable charisma of Tom Cruise. Fortunately, all are here. Happy summer and happy summer movies!

Parents should know that this film is non-stop action-style peril and violence with guns, chases, fights, and explosions. Characters are injured and killed. There is some strong language.

Family discussion: Movie villains often reflect contemporary controversies. What does this movie tell us about the possible outcome of our current decisions? Why did the President change her mind? What are Ethan’s regrets? People trust Ethan for different reasons. How many did we see?

If you like this, try: the other “Mission Impossible” movies