Driveways – A woman and her young son travel across country to empty her sister’s house after her death. She was a hoarder, and there is much more work than anticipated. The process and their initial discomfort at the daunting task and the neighborhood in general soon vanishes when the son befriends the big-hearted, no nonsense next door neighbor. Such tenderness.

Always Worthy – A joyful train wreck of a fil-um following the life of a struggling actress in Los Angeles.

Mary & Mike – My first Chilean television series! And WOW, just wow. How I thank my lucky stars not to live in a place where I or people I care about could be murdered or disappeared at the whim of a maniacal dictator and his legions of Yes Men and Women. The series follows a husband and wife team and their near and far murder spree. Based on a real couple, the husband Michael Townley getting off easy before being ushered into the safety of the U.S. witness protection program for a bombing in Washington D.C. You can’t make this shit up.

Heaven Can Wait – A walk on the less serious side, only forty years or so after it first hit theaters. Warren Beatty plays a football player prematurely taken to heaven by an overzealous guardian angel. He’s sent back and put in the body of another man, where hilarity and quite a bit of mad cap drama ensues.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night – A dreamy wander into the furthest reaches of China, as a man searches for a woman he lost decades earlier. Moody and ever so beautiful.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial – I’m not going to insult your intelligence by telling you what this is all about. What I will do? Say how it is as wonderfully evocative as the Westminster Mall twilight showing with my family, way back in 1982. I exited shame-faced at my puffy-eyed mess of tears. Yep.

Bad Words – Jason Bateman plays a man capitalizing on a spelling bee loophole to annihilate the competition, befriend a fellow competitor, and generally wreak havoc for a bit of revenge. Crude and hilarious with a dash of sweetness, too.

Wild Nights with Emily – A fun, informative, and sometimes uproarious history lesson on the life of Emily Dickinson. Quite a bit of her poetry, too. Delightful.

Escape to the Chateau – Oh, gosh, was this a wonderful escape, indeed. A couple (and their two adorable children) buy a chateau in the French countryside to refurbish, live in, and hold posh weddings. They are sweet and loving and funny and such damn hard workers, turning their wreck back into a work of art. I gobbled six seasons in no time flat!