With multiple plot strands working in its favor, the most recent Jane the Virgin (last night) was thoroughly palatable.

The cops/criminals strand was intense and surprising, and the not-very-Catholic Jane now wants to have sex.  Temporarily.  She understandably thinks it’s weird to be “a virgin mom,” but this droll sex comedy ends exactly as expected.

There was a lot of romanticizing, though—of various things—done by Jane, Xiomara, Luisa.  We knew it was there because every instance of it made the screen a rosy color.  (You had to be there.)  You should have been there, if you weren’t, to witness the conceited actor Rogelio (Jaime Camil) playing the First Male Feminist and regularly kissing a young and pretty Susan B. Anthony.  A riot.  Also, Petra’s gotten bitchy again.

Thomas Vinterberg‘s film of the Hardy novel, Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), is about the occurrence of discovery—discovery of  another’s romantic interest, of responsibility, of sexual pleasure, of heartache.  The first hour and the last few moments, the coda, of the film are compelling; the rest of it is too hurried, with short shrift given where it should not be given.  In addition, main character Bathsheba Everdeen doesn’t seem entirely human because of course she is a nineteenth century proto-feminist.

Carey Mulligan, who plays her, never does anything surprising but is interesting in the role nonetheless.  Even stronger are Michael Sheen and Matthias Schoenaerts.  There is no greatness in Madding Crowd, as there is in a period piece like 1973’s The Emigrants.  I believe it to be a failure, but a very watchable failure—a near-success, in fact.

Occasionally dopey (groan! those women in the cat costumes), the 1934 Cleopatra is nevertheless Cecil B. DeMille‘s not-bad historical drama about Cleo, Mark Antony and others.

Because she never truly exhibits the Egyptian queen’s ambitiousness (and is a paleface), Claudette Colbert is somewhat miscast in the title role, but not badly so.  Released just when movie censorship was getting tight, the film is patently sensual.  After an apparent split-second shot of her naked breasts in DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross, and then Cleopatra, Colbert, a future conservative Republican, swore off sexy roles; but there is a physical splendor, a real pulchritude, about her in this picture.  Also, her acting outshines that of the other performers.

Cleopatra (1934 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Room (2015), Brie Larson enacts a woman subjected to the same nightmare the three female victims of Ariel Castro incurred.  Remember the kidnapping and imprisonment?  The woman has a five-year-old son (Jason Trembley) produced through the Castro-like abductor’s routine rape of the woman. . . Human evil in Room is what it is because it deprives other people of what is good and vital (e.g., freedom).  Indeed, it is okay with the abductor (Sean Bridgers) if Jack, the young boy, is deprived of a childhood; it is only his mother who provides him with one to the best of her ability.  Childhood during victimization is a theme here.

Though not as well-plotted as it is well-made, Lenny Abrahamson‘s film has riveting dramatic scenes and is deeply moving.  The most impressive thing about it, though, is the acting of Larson and young Trembley, who contribute a great deal to making the picture fascinating.

Room is based on a novel by Emma Donoghue, who wrote the screenplay.

The comic film, Sleeping with Other People (2015), starring Alison Brie, tries to be endearing through sex talk.  A lot of sex talk.  I was so un-endeared I stopped watching after about an hour.

Re the barely talented Beyonce Knowles, I wish her performance at the Super Bowl had never received any comment at all.  That way, it would have been a dead phenomenon, deservedly.