It’s been a pretty slim time for movies over the last month or so but I’ve still managed to find something to see each week as well as mix in a couple home preview screenings. What has caught me off-guard is how the films I’ve seen recently have “bled” into each other in such strange ways.

I originally saw Land on February 13th. The previews set up enough so that going in I pretty much had a good idea of what it was going to be. Well, as beautiful as the cinematography is, the movie was kinda weak. The way that the story presented the main character and dealing with grief didn’t give a very clear idea of what her real intentions were. It was just slow and somewhat confusing.

Robin Wright is a good actress and pulled double-duty as director as well. Her co-star was Demián Bichir, who just happens to be in Chaos Walking, playing the lead character’s father.

Chaos Walking is based on a trilogy of young adult novels and the hope was for it to become somewhat of a franchise. Delays because of the actors pushed the release date out a few years but it turned out to be a reasonably interesting sci-fi story. There were parts that were hard to hear and understand because of the way that thoughts are presented but it wasn’t too bad. A pivotal scene in the movie took place in a field with people planting crops.

This is interesting because as much as Minari is about chicken sexers, (look it up) it’s even more so about an Asian family trying to make it in America and dealing with so many obstacles. The parents are not on the same page and that adds to the difficulty.

That synopsis describes Boogie to a “T”. Though not based on a true story, it tells of a Chinese teenager whose lone goal is to play in the NBA. The conflict of cultures as well as the parent’s interference plays a vital part in Boogie’s path to professional basketball.

A key component in Boogie is the class reading Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, the man at the heart of My Salinger Year. It’s not exactly a very interesting movie but it is actually based on a true story of Joanna Rakoff’s memoir while working at an agency that represented the title character.

So, as you can see, lots of interesting cross-pollination in the movies recently.