Welcome to the Friday recap of Ty Burr’s Watch List postings. If you’d like to receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “Weekly Digest.” (If you’d prefer to not receive it at all, uncheck just “Weekly Digest.”)
On Monday, I wrote a post-mortem of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival: Which movies made a splash (like Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” with Benedict Cumberbatch, above), which sank like stones, and when you’ll see them on the big screen or your TV.
On Wednesday, I expressed some lukewarm thoughts about “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” on Amazon and instead suggested you check out the documentary “No Ordinary Man,” about the late trans jazz pianist Billy Tipton.
On Thursday, paying subscribers were able to read an appreciation of the late Melvin Van Peebles, the godfather of Black American cinema.
And on Friday (today), I recoiled in distaste from two new movies on the subject of grief (“The Starling” and “Dear Evan Hansen”) and steered readers toward a much better one (“Rabbit Hole,” above), a much sillier one (“Death at a Funeral”), and a lesser-known winner (“Venus”) from director Roger Michell, who died this week.