Love old or unusual movies? Here’s a review:

“Blue Bayou” (2021): Justin Chon plays a Louisiana man who was “adopted” by an American family and has lived his entire life in the United States. I say “adopted” because, crucially, his parents didn’t fill out the proper paperwork, and family man Justin, who is trying to live down some criminality in his past, is facing deportation. This wrenching drama gets great support from Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander, Mark O’Brien, Vondie Curtis-Hall (who should be in everything) and others. This movie should have gotten a lot more traction than it did, as it speaks to core issues of American identity.

Now streaming on MAX

“Terribly Happy” (2008): Oh, those Danes don’t shy away from seriously messed up stories, do they? Handsome but troubled Robert (Jakob Cedergren) is a cop from the big city who’s banished to a small town after some vague and unexplained misbehavior in the recent past. He just wants to keep his head down and get through his time in purgatory. Unfortunately, he finds himself in the most screwed-up small town in Denmark, where vigilantism, domestic violence and corruption run rampant. Watch in horror as Robert makes one bad decision after another, with increasingly catastrophic consequences. If made in the U.S., this would have been a tale about redemption. I’ll let you be the judge of whether the film reaches that or some other more disturbing conclusion.

Now streaming on Hoopla and Kanopy

“An Ostrich Told Me the World Was Fake and I Think I Believe It” (2022): One of last year’s Oscar-nominated short animated films, it’s finally on YouTube. It’s a clever meta-commentary on the nature of stop-motion animation and the life of fictional characters in general. I love almost anything that’s meta, and I don’t think this is territory I’ve visited before in this particular kind of animation. It brought to mind Chuck Jones’ great meta-masterpiece “Duck Amuck” (1953), and that’s great company to be in!

Now streaming on YouTube

“War” (2019): If you enjoyed the over-the-top action bromance of “RRR,” I highly recommend you check out “War,” a deliriously colorful, hyperkinetic, “Mission Impossible” done Bollywood Style. Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Schroff star as a spy commando and his apprentice. Due to complicated movie plot reasons, they end up on opposite sides and spend a lot of the movie going after each other. But is everything as it seems? Don’t count on it. The violence is ridiculous, the flashbacks are ginormous, and the two leading men are expert martial artists and Bollywood dancing (because this film, like most Indian epics, is also a musical). Enjoy!

Now streaming on Amazon Prime

Trivia Question #1015: Which of this week’s performers was in the original cast of the great Broadway musical “Dreamgirls”?

Answer to Trivia Question #1013: Actor Robert Newton was famous for his portrayals of two pirates: Blackbeard and Long John Silver.