A Warm Corner (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Some British citizens meet at the Venetian Lido where they go to play. Between them is naughty Mr. Corner, who under the false name of Mr. Pickles goes after Mimi so his friend's son can be free to marry his own daughter. Only, he does not know that the man is in fact already married to Mimi.

Starring Leslie Henson, Heather Thatcher, and Austin Melford.

A Warm Corner is a 1930 film about a man who is humiliated and blackmailed when he tries to cheat on his wife with a married woman, and then doubly humiliated when all the people involved in his affair show up at his home pretending to be other people. This was a slow start, but once it got going, it was a pretty enjoyable entry into what has become a bit of a slog in my 1930 project. It has the hallmarks of an enjoyable comedy of errors, with some bold characterization and some clever wordplay. It's not stellar, but compared to the dull films in this year I've been watching lately, it was refreshing. It's also one of the first films in awhile for this challenge that was not originally on Flickchart when I went to rank it, so I had to submit it and wait for it to be approved. It's clear one of the lesser-known films from this year, and it's at least as good as some of the others I've seen!

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Warm Corner:

beat Broken Blossoms (#1982 → #1991)

lost to The Tale of The Princess Kaguya (#989 → #913)

lost to Mickey Blue Eyes (#1484 → #1442)

lost to VeggieTales: God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?! (held at #1731)

beat Tangled (#1855 → #1864)

beat Serenity (#1792 → #1793)

beat Imitation of Life (#1761 → #1785)

lost to Sin City (#1746 → #1747)

beat Serpico (#1753 → #1762)

lost to White Heat (#1749 → #1741)

beat The Help (#1751 → #1775)

beat Captain America: The First Avenger (#1750 → #1770)

Heretic (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Two young religious women are drawn into a game of cat-and-mouse in the house of a strange man.

Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Starring Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East.

Heretic is a horror film in which two Mormon missionary women visit an older man who has expressed interest in the church. He invites them in to discuss the church further and engages in philosophical debate with them, but as the evening continues, the women start getting the sense that something is off and they might be in danger. I am 100% here for Hugh Grant only playing villains now, because he's incredible in this, as are Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as the young missionaries. The three play their parts perfectly, balancing the psychological aspect of the horror story, and keeping me on edge the whole time while also acting perfectly in character. It's the kind of story that could easily struggle to hold up to the marvelous premise it sets up, but I was impressed with the ending as well -- it delivered exactly what I was hoping for. It very nicely balanced the unexpected with satisfying follow-through, and I had a blast watching it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Heretic > Get Shorty

Heretic > Elf

Heretic < Two Days, One Night

Heretic > Theater Camp

Heretic > The Jungle Book (1967)

Heretic < The Last Unicorn

Heretic < Dogville

Heretic > American History X

Heretic < The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Heretic > Purple Noon

Heretic < Kung Fu Hustle

Heretic > Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Final spot: #610 out of 4039, or 85%.

HotShots! (1991)

IMDb plot summary: A parody of Top Gun in which a talented but unstable fighter pilot must overcome the ghosts of his father and save a mission sabotaged by greedy weapons manufacturers.

Directed by Jim Abrahams. Starring Charlie Sheen, Cary Elwes, and Valeria Golino.

Hot Shots! is a parody of Top Gun starring Charlie Sheen as the highly volatile but talented fighter pilot leading a squadron of planes on a dangerous mission. This is a solo film by Jim Abrahams of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker, the team behind Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and it is very much in the same vein as those films. Not being much of a Top Gun fan, it was really entertaining to see that kind of ridiculous over-the-top macho military propaganda lampooned, and as I expect from ZAZ films, there are jokes zinging left and right, so if you don't like one, just wait a minute and there'll be another. A good amount of these don't work for me, and there are almost no transcendent laugh-out-loud moments, although I was tickled by a scene in which a group of drilling soldiers seen through a background window began a kickline. But it's not annoying either for the most part, and overall it makes for a pleasant enough watch, if not in the same league as the ZAZ group work.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hot Shots! > Get Shorty

Hot Shots! < Elf

Hot Shots! < The Pianist

Hot Shots! > The Three Musketeers (1993)

Hot Shots! > VeggieTales: Are You My Neighbor?

Hot Shots! > Hero (2002)

Hot Shots! < Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (1997)

Hot Shots! < Disney’s Newsies the Broadway Musical

Hot Shots! > Joker

Hot Shots! > Something to Sing About

Hot Shots! > A Scanner Darkly

Hot Shots! > Incendies

Final spot: 1562 out of 4038, or 61%.

The Green Knight (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A fantasy retelling of the medieval story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Directed by David Lowery. Starring Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, and Joel Edgerton.

The Green Knight is a retelling of the medieval story of Gawain and the Green Knight. Dev Patel plays Gawain, who challenges the Green Knight on Christmas Day and chops off his head, only for the Knight to stand back up, pick up his head, and announce that one year later he will deliver the exact same blow to Gawain. Most of the film follows Gawain on his year-later quest to find the Knight and see if he will survive the encounter. Honestly I put off watching this one for a long time because I didn't have high hopes, but I found more to like about it than I expected. There's an interesting episodic nature to it as Gawain goes through his various challenges, and the visuals really are gorgeous, but the story doesn't work as well for me. I am also unsure how I feel about the ending, which feels ambiguous in an irritating way to me rather than a fun one, but I suspect sitting with it longer might help it gel. It overall does feel like one I'll appreciate more *having* seen it than *while* seeing it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Green Knight > Being the Ricardos

The Green Knight < Elf

The Green Knight < The Pianist

The Green Knight > Children of Paradise

The Green Knight > Death to Smoochy

The Green Knight > A Star Is Born (1954)

The Green Knight < Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (1997)

The Green Knight > Incendies

The Green Knight < Die Hard

The Green Knight > The Salesman

The Green Knight < The Night Before

The Green Knight > Band of Brothers

Final spot: #1556 out of 4037, or 61%.

Dragonheart (1996)

IMDb plot summary: The last dragon and a disillusioned dragon-slaying knight must unite to stop an evil king, who was granted partial immortality.

Directed by Rob Cohen. Starring Dennis Quaid, Sean Connery, and Dina Meyer.

Dragonheart is a fantasy movie about a young king who is saved from death thanks to a dragon sharing his heart with him. But the king grows up to be a tyrannical ruler like his father, and his former mentor, a victim of his cruelty, and the dragon whose heart it was all band together to try to take him down. I was ten when this movie came out, and if I had seen it as a kid, I could absolutely see it becoming a favorite. As it is, it is definitely a movie for children, but it has some charm to it. The story manages to capture both the sense of the individual characters as well as the far-reaching epic story that you want from a fantasy adventure. The amount of humor in this was a bit of a surprise, but I'm pleased the film doesn't take itself too seriously to be a kids' film. The character archetypes aren't deep, but they are clear and make it easy for a child to identify themselves quickly with one of the heroes. Overall, this one was a pleasant surprise and I'm glad I finally got around to seeing it, even if I don't think I'm going to rewatch it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Dragonheart > Being the Ricardos

Dragonheart < In the Name of the Father

Dragonheart > The Pianist

Dragonheart < Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Dragonheart > The Minus Man

Dragonheart > The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

Dragonheart < Watchmen

Dragonheart > The French Dispatch

Dragonheart < Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

Dragonheart > The Shoes of the Fisherman

Dragonheart > What’s Eating Gilbert Grape

Dragonheart > The Descendants

Final spot: #1301 out of 4036, or 68%.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

IMDb plot summary: Lloyd Vogel, a cynical journalist, gets acquainted with a kind-hearted television host Fred Rogers while writing an article on him. With time, they strike an unlikely friendship.

Directed by Marielle Heller. Starring Matthew Rhys, Tom Hanks, and Chris Cooper.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood tells the story of a journalist assigned to do a brief profile on Fred Rogers, of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, but the more time the journalist spends with him, the more his cynicism is challenged by Rogers’ genuine sincerity and kindness. This is a perfectly fine movie, and I like Tom Hanks' portrayal of Rogers a lot, but this would have scored a lot higher if I hadn't just watched Won't You Be My Neighbor? It's rare for me to like a documentary over a fictionalized version of the same story, but with the fictionalized version just feels so saccharine in comparison to clips of the real person. I wish it had focused more on Rogers himself, rather than how the magic of his kindness transformed someone. We've seen that story a lot, a jaded person who gets turned around, but it always ends up painting kindness as some sort of superhuman power, and I think that's the last thing Fred Rogers wanted, but that's how this film comes across a lot of the time. It's not a bad movie, but it falls short.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < In the Name of the Father

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < The Pianist

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > Serpico

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > Nine Lives

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < A Star is Born (1954)

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > Fury

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < It’s a Gift

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < All About My Mother

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < Event Horizon

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > Blade Runner

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Final spot: #1604 out of 4035, or 60%.

Sorcerer (1977)

IMDb plot summary: Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.

Directed by William Friedkin. Starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, and Francisco Rabal.

Sorcerer is a remake of The Wages of Fear, a film I am pretty sure I have seen but don’t remember it at all. I should go back and rewatch it, because while this movie takes a very long time to get going, the second half is pretty riveting. The story centers around a group of drivers attempting to get some extremely dangerous explosives from one South American town to another, traveling through the jungle at risk of blowing themselves to bits if they hit a pothole too hard. It’s a great premise that leads to an incredibly tense second half that moves just as slowly as the first half, but this time, you’re on the edge of your seat. I’m not fully convinced that the slow setup was quite as warranted -- it felt like we spent a lot of time with these various characters and somehow still never got to know any of them. It makes up for it by the end, and a really beautifully-shot penultimate scene, but I wish the first half either gave me something more substantial or sped things along a bit. Still very worth watching, and I do want to go back and rewatch the original in the near future, so that’s a win!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Sorcerer > Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

Sorcerer < Elf

Sorcerer < The Pianist

Sorcerer > The Sea Gull

Sorcerer > The Parent Trap (1961)

Sorcerer < A Star Is Born (1954)

Sorcerer > Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Sorcerer < It's a Gift

Sorcerer < All About My Mother

Sorcerer > The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Sorcerer > Kiss Me Kate

Sorcerer < Let the Right One In

Final spot: #1600 out of 4034, or 60%.