This is only a middling movie so skipping it would be no big deal. But we just got done with finishing the excellent Better Call Saul so I thought we might as well close out the entire Breaking Bad universe. This one of course completes the story of Jesse Pinkman picking up from where we last saw him at the finale of the original series that started it all. I thought this would be something of a road trip film as Jesse escapes to head north to Alaska but it’s very much not so. Instead he spends the entire time still in New Mexico gathering what he needs to escape. The plot feels stilted as a result but it’s not a bad way to close out all the loose ends and show more of what Jesse went through in captivity.

An experimental Soviet-era black and white silent film with no plot and no intertitles doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, even if it’s only an hour long. But this film, now considered one of the greatest documentaries of all kind, may surprise you. It does start slow with straightforward shots of inanimate objects and you wonder what it’s trying to do. Then it grows in scope and the shots become more sophisticated as if the cameraman is slowly learning as he goes until it becomes a joyous celebration of everything a camera is capable of.

This is one tennis film that really is not about tennis at all. As the character played by Zendaya states it plainly, it’s about relationships. Luca Guadagnino is a director who seems to be specializing in erotic passion in all its forms and so this is right up his alley. Here the physicality of sports stands in for sex and their competitiveness fuels the passion. It’s a slick, bold and incredibly sexy film but I think it overdoes the stylistic touches and shifts in time.

I followed the Ukraine War religiously for months but even a news addict like me had to pace myself since it has dragged on for so long. This harrowing documentary takes us back to the earliest days of the war, focusing on one journalist’s perspective in the ill-fated city of Mariupol. Its narrow focus means that it makes no attempt to explain the broader context of the conflict. But being able to see the invasion of the city on a day-to-day basis gives it an authenticity and emotive impact like no other.

This turned to be a more commercial film than the titles that usually end up in my to watch list. I suppose I was misled by its sky high Rotten Tomatoes rating and the fact that actress Noémie Merlant who so impressed the world in Portrait of a Lady on Fire won a César Award for her performance here. In the end this is an entertaining, well-balanced crime comedy but it’s a little old-fashioned and not particularly artistic.

This film is most often described as psychological horror but it really defies genres. It’s also hard to categorize in other ways as well, being an English-language film made by a Polish director that is set in Germany and features mostly European performers. One thing that’s certain is that it’s a genuinely horrifying film, if only due to Isabelle Adjani pushing her performance to extreme lengths. Critics have been struggling since it was made to make sense of it and I think it’s not really possible to nail it down to some particular intent on the part of the director but watching it is certainly an engrossing and disturbing experience.

So this is a documentary that is full of imagery of naked female bodies, yet none of it is sexually titillating in the least. The intent seems to be to show that women’s bodies are just bodies, in all shapes, sizes and of all ages. The smoke sauna is apparently a part of the culture of Estonia and this film shows a group of women enjoying the experience in each other’s company while exchanging personal stories. There are no names and no other narration. The images, both of the women and the natural setting of the sauna, are beautiful, the stories are affecting, and that’s enough to make this a wonderful film.