Everything Everywhere All at Once was heavily promoted as an action-adventure film in which an aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an adventure where she alone can save the world. The film’s multi-universe plot gets her into all kinds of crazy situations. For me, however, it works better as a carefully orchestrated film about a woman going mad.

Michelle Yeoh, who was shamefully not nominated for an Oscar for 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, may finally be nominated and possibly win for her fascinating no-nonsense performance here.

A ballerina at age 4, and later a Hong Kong martial arts star, Yeoh first attracted western audience attention in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, in which she was third-billed behind Pierce Brosnan (as Bond) and Jonathan Pryce. Second-billed behind Chow Yun-Fat in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, three years later, she has seldom been out of the public eye since.

2018’s box-office sensation Crazy Rich Asians proved that Yeoh could be as adept at playing aging characters as she was as a headline action star. 2019’s less successful Last Christmas cemented her newfound status. In Everything Everywhere All at Once she successfully combines the best of both worlds.

Second-billed Stephanie Hsu, a TV star since her early teens, finally has a breakout film role as Yeoh’s lesbian daughter, a performance every bit as commanding as Yeoh’s.

Third-billed Ke Huy Quan is best known for childhood performances as Short Round in 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Data in 1985’s Goonies. Fans were delighted to find that his squeaky voice still prevails as Yeoh’s middle-aged husband.

Fourth-billed James Hong has been in films since 1954. In such classics as 1966’s The Sand Pebbles and 1974’s Chinatown, the now-93-year-old character actor is at his villainous best as Yeoh’s mean-spirited father.

Fifth-billed Jamie Lee Curtis (1994’s True Lies) is the IRS agent whose audit causes Yeoh to unravel. It’s her strongest non-Halloween role since 2003’s Freaky Friday.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is available on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 4K.

Downton Abbey was a world-wide phenomenon that captivated TV audiences for six years from 2010-2015 in the days before streaming when people still tuned in to watch their favorite programs as they were presented one episode at a time.

Thirteen actors appeared in all 52 episodes of the British TV series while other key players came and went.

The series began in April 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic and its effect on the Crawley family headed by Hugh Bonneville (Paddington) as Robert, the Earl of Grantham, and Elizabeth McGovern (Ragtime) as his American-born wife. One of those who perished was Robert’s cousin, the next in line to his earldom, and the fiancée of their eldest daughter, Mary (Michelle Dockery). Enter Dan Stevens (Beauty and the Beast) as the next in line with whom Mary does not initially get along. Will she be shamed if one of her younger sisters, played by Laura Carmichael and Jessica Brown Findlay, marry first?

Reality in the guise of World War I settles in and the petty concerns of the aristocratic family give way to more series matters. The estate is turned into a field hospital during the war and everyone, above and below stairs, is transformed.

The 1971 British TV series Upstairs, Downstairs set the standard for such goings-on, but it was Robert Altman’s 2001 film Gosford Park that was the catalyst for the series. Julian Fellowes, who won an Oscar for his screenplay, was the writer and producer of this series.

Two-time Oscar winner Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, California Suite), received her sixth Oscar nomination for her portrayal of the guest with the acerbic wit in Gosford Park. The role of Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, in which she displays the same acerbic wit, was written especially for her. It earned her five Emmy nominations and three wins during the run of the series.

Other memorable characters include Penelope Wilton (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) as Stevens’ mother and Smith’s nemesis; Phyllis Logan (Secrets & Lies) as the housekeeper; Jim Carter (The Good Liar) as the head butler; Allen Leach (Bohemian Rhapsody) as the chauffer who marries into the family; Joanne Frogatt (Mary Shelley) as a feisty ladies’ maid; Brendan Coyle (Me Before You as a butler with a troubled past; Kevin Doyle (The Libertine) as a butler who becomes a schoolteacher; and Robert James-Collier (The Ritual) as a frustrated gay butler, along with too many others to mention.

After the series ended, fan pressure succeeded in two film sequels to date. 2019’s Downton Abbey: The Movie brought back all the surviving characters but the film was hit and miss with too much time spent on the anticipation of a visit to Downton from the king and queen. The new-to-home video 2022 film, Downton Abbey: A New Era, set in 1928, gives fans what they were looking for with all the main characters but one enjoining their happily ever after lives. For those unfamiliar with the series, however, the film is apt to be less appealing.

This time around, as with most episodes of the series, there are two major plots. One has the Earl and his wife with some family members and staff visiting the South of France where Smith as the Dowager Countess on her deathbed has just inherited an estate from a man that she met briefly more than sixty years before. The rest of the family and staff stay behind where a movie company is filming a late-silent film. In true Singin’ in the Rain fashion, the film is turned into a talkie mid-filming with Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary voicing the leading lady under the direction of a smitten Hugh Dancy (Ella Enchanted). Leading man Dominic West (Chicago) is smitten, too, albeit with the bemused Robert James-Collier who finally gets a happy ending like everyone else in the cast.

Downton Abbey the series is available on DVD and Blu-ray, the two films are available on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 4K.
This week’s new releases include the Criterion Blu-ray 4K edition of Raging Bull and Criterion Blu-ray of Summertime.