Ladies of the Chorus (Phil Karlson, 1949). This backstage drama about burlesque performers is pedestrian in its most basic particulars, but it has just enough flinty spirit to keep it interesting. Peggy Martin (Marilyn Monroe) is a performer who rises to star billing in part through the machinations of her mother (Adele Jergens), another cast member in the same show. Peggy also starts a romance with Randy (Rand Brooks), the scion of an esteemed, upper-crust family. Peggy’s mother had her own youthful experience with a privileged paramour whose snobbish relatives rejected her, so she’s convinced her daughter will endure similar heartbreak. The screenplay (credited to Harry Sauber and Joseph Carole) follow familiar patterns until a late twist provided by Rand’s mother (Nana Bryant) that has a proto-feminist punch. Ladies of the Chorus provided Monroe with her first sizable screen role, and it’s fascinating to see her build a character without an obligation to the persona that made her a super star. It’s not a great performance, but it does indicate the more down-to-earth actress she might have become. Phil Karlson directs with a get-to-the-next project efficiency that was common enough for studio efforts of the era.

Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984). A Palme d’Or winner for Wim Wenders, Paris, Texas is an elegant, resonant film about lonely lives set adrift. Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) is so shellshocked by the ill turns he’s endured that he’s literally wandering lost, at least until he’s retrieved by his brother (Dean Stockwell, characteristically great) and set on a course to mending himself just enough to reopen his wounds. Working from a terse, tough screenplay that includes word slinging by Sam Shepard and L. M. Kit Carson, Wenders is precisely patient in his storytelling, letting the emotional truth of the characters fill in the gaps in action. Robby Müller’s cinematography is crisply, warmly gorgeous, and Ry Cooder’s score adds to the tonal heft of the whole piece. The acting is strong across the board. Stanton could have gotten by with hangdog weariness, but he digs deeper than that, which is centrally important to fortifying the narrative logic of Travis’s various choices. Nastassja Kinski is poignant and bittersweet as Travis’s estranged wife, and Hunter Carson, younger than ten years old and the son of the screenwriter with the same last name, is winningly natural as Travis’s son. It’s a special movie.

Reality (Tina Satter, 2023). The feature debut of Tina Satter is bold and inventive. Pulling its dialogue verbatim from transcripts of the actual event, Reality depicts the FBI descending on the home of Reality Winner (Sydney Sweeney) to interrogate her about U.S. intelligence that was leaked to an online news outlet. Depriving herself the tool of dramatic license in the writing, Satter homes in the most minute of details to heighten the tension. It turns out she has a perfect ally in Sweeney, who is downright masterful at showing the mental anguish Reality goes through as it becomes increasingly clear that there’s no way out of the dire dilemma she finds herself in. Because Satter mostly keeps her visual storytelling lean, the handful of moments when she does bring in tricky technique — mostly corresponding to redacted information in the official record — hits with jackhammer force. Josh Hamilton does fine work as one of the FBI agents slowly turning the screws on Reality, showing how easy it can be to make the malice of law enforcement authority seems utterly banal.