The Laundromat ~ I can’t tell yet if it’s because Steven Soderbergh is such a talented director that he brings out the best in his cast, or whether it’s because top talent like Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas and Meryl Streep, freed of hype machine and blockbuster expectations (although a nominee in the 2019 Venice Film Festival, the film went almost straight to DVD in 3 weeks), can focus instead on the craft of acting and turn in amazing performances that dazzle a jaded moviegoer anew at the breadth of their abilities. I loved the way Oldman and Banderas team up as a pair of conmen, several levels of sophistication above Steve Martin and Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, to draw us into their confidence like two hypnotic cobras, as they reveal the sordid underworld of shell companies, tax havens and money laundering scams laid bare in the aftermath of the real-life tragedy of a 2005 tour boat capsizing on Lake George, NY. The widow of one of the drowning victims (a composite of whom is played by Streep) with suddenly loads of free time on her hands, doggedly pursues the conmen through a blizzard of contracts, long-distance phone and company addresses that lead to P.O. boxes in the Virgin Islands, until the truth was laid bare for the world in publication of the Panama Papers. Even Sharon Stone (who I completely missed in a scene-stealing cameo as the leggy realtor in a miniskirt), dazzled. Grade: A-.