Reaction time

Sully

Crit

An odd, un-Eastwoodish, un-Hanksish film, unavoidably part action movie, unavoidably part 9/11 reminder, but for all that, very quiet and interior where it matters, as Hanks's Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger comes slowly to the realization that yes, as everyone except the busybodies at the National Transportation Safety Board recognize, he is a hero, and then, in a sudden epiphany, realizes how he can prove it to the NTSB.

Trailers

• Collateral Beauty--One of those supernatural premises that can mean brilliance or disaster; my money's always on disaster, because pleasant surprises are more fun.
• Keeping Up with the Joneses--Seems to be a comic spin on Pitt/Jolie's Mr. and Mrs. Smith of a few years ago.

Crime and parenthood

The Light between Oceans

Crit

Hi, I'm Tom, and as I'm played by Michael Fassbender, I'm the most beautiful man in what seems to be Australia, but I'm terribly and invisibly damaged.

I'm overcome to meet you, Tom--I'm Isabel, and, coincidentally, since I'm played by Alicia Vikander, I'm the most beautiful woman in what is actually New Zealand, as it turns out, and I too am deeply and invisibly damaged.

Really? I guess that makes sense, though why don't either of us--why does scarcely anyone in the movie--have an antipodal accent? I'd have thought we were somewhere remote in England except for the "between two oceans" thing.

Yeah, I know: that's confusing, but check the end credits. Anyway, given everything we have in common, let's get married and, just to give the gods an easier time to smite us some more, let's live in isolation on your symbolically named lighthouse island, Janus.

I was thinking the same thing! Our babies will be too beautiful to live anyway, and that way we'll have to try to bring them to term hours from any medical assistance!

Brilliant! Frankly, I think the odds are better of a viable child being tossed up by the sea than by my loins.

I'll take those odds! And when it happens, let's give her a symbolic name, like Lucy. What could possibly go wrong?

Right, it's not as if her biological mother, played by Rachel Weisz, and thus the second-most beautiful woman in Oceania, is going to turn up and want her back, and want to restore her original symbolic name, Grace.

And even if she does, I'm sure that while there will be lots of anger and guilt and pain and sorrow--and damage, more damage!--to be gotten through, eventually there will be opportunities for redemption for us all, don't you think?

Perfect! Can I have a piano, too? A symbolic piano, fallen out of tune, but then brought to mellifluous life?

Only if I can symbolically uproot our second dead baby's grave marker!

Oh, Tom/Michael, let's get together in real life too! 

Best idea yet, Isabel/Alicia. What shall we wear to the Oscars?