Saturday, March 16, 2024

River's Edge (1986)

IMDb plot summary: A high school slacker commits a shocking act and proceeds to let his friends in on the secret. However, the friends' reaction is almost as ambiguous and perplexing as the crime itself.
Directed by Tim Hunter. Starring Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, and Ione Skye.

River's Edge follows a group of teenagers (including Keanu Reeves and Crispin Glover) who learn that one of their friends has murdered his girlfriend in a fit of rage. We follow their reactions, from trying to help their friend hide out to debating whether they should turn him in to just trying to stay away from the whole thing. The film sets kind of a fascinating tone, where clearly big dark things are happening, but it's also got a strange undercurrent of humor that at first I found off-putting. But then I realized where it was centered and it suddenly really, really hit home for me: these teenage quote-unquote "hooligans" are so desperate to be taken seriously, that they're almost impossible to actually take seriously. Obviously their problems are serious and their questions are serious, but it truly captures that horribly awkward phase where all you want to do is yell "I'M AN ADULT" while not knowing yet how un-like an adult that will make you look. And that all snapped it into focus, and I found myself really loving these characters and their stubborn independence to do their own thing in the face of a group of adults who aren't much more capable than they are. There's a childish stubbornness to every person in the movie, and it's fascinating to watch it play out. I feel like this is one I could rewatch a whole bunch and find new pieces of it every time I did.

How it entered my Flickchart:
River's Edge > Selma
River's Edge < Key Largo
River's Edge > Hustle
River's Edge < Saving Private Ryan
River's Edge > Moonstruck
River's Edge < Wolf
River's Edge < Ikiru
River's Edge < Men in Black
River's Edge > Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
River's Edge < The Minus Man
River's Edge > Florence Foster Jenkins
River's Edge > Mother!
Final spot: #1321 out of 3878, or 66%.

High Treason (1929)

IMDb plot summary: Women unite to prevent financiers from engineering a second world war.
Directed by Maurice Elvey. Starring Benita Hume, Basil Gill, and Humberston Wright.

High Treason is a film from 1929 that imagines a future 20-30 years away in which peace is the expected societal standard worldwide, until a group of greedy financiers set out to start another world war and the women of the world have to band together and stop it. This is a very interesting premise but unfortunately it doesn't quite land in execution, and I found myself tuning in and out of the movie. The digital transfer I saw wasn't great, though, and there are aspects of the plot that I genuinely missed and I think it might have been partly due to the quality of the print. As I reread through the plot on Wikipedia, I kept thinking, "Hold on, that happened? How did I miss that? That's interesting!" I think I need to schedule a time to rewatch it to see if being able to follow the plot more clearly improves it, or if it's just poorly executed even with that extra understanding.

How it entered my Flickchart:
High Treason < Selma
High Treason < Frozen River
High Treason > Mission to Mars
High Treason < Bedtime Story
High Treason > A Farewell to Fools
High Treason > Alice in Wonderland (1951)
High Treason < Gosford Park
High Treason > Zero Charisma
High Treason > Billy the Kid
High Treason > Bad Teacher
High Treason > Dinner for Schmucks
High Treason < 101 Dalmatians (1996)
Final spot: #3184 out of 3879, or 18%.

Eyewitness (1981)

IMDb plot summary: A janitor who claims he's seen a murder becomes romantically involved with the glamorous TV reporter covering the story.
Directed by Peter Yates. Starring William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, and Christopher Plummer.

Eyewitness is a Peter Yates thriller starring William Hurt as a janitor who is the only person known to be in the building when a wealthy man is murdered. He is love with his local news anchor, played by Sigourney Weaver, and tries to spend time with her by teasing the possibility that he knows more about the murder than he lets on. But this, of course, puts a target on the back from the actual murderer. This is kind of a fun premise and it's structured pretty well as far as letting us guess who the murderer is and how it happened. It also manages to explore some surprisingly poignant plotlines about veteran neglect and PTSD. It's less successful in setting up the romance, as Hurt's "aw shucks" everyman comes across as more stalkerish than anything else -- definitely not as charming as the movie thinks it is. But from a thriller standpoint, it's decently successful, even if not anything terribly special.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Eyewitness < Captain Phillips
Eyewitness > Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Eyewitness < Quigley Down Under
Eyewitness > Blue is the Warmest Color
Eyewitness > The Big Heat
Eyewitness > The Resurrection of Gavin Stone
Eyewitness > Jurassic World
Eyewitness > Guarding Tess
Eyewitness > Kicking and Screaming (1995)
Eyewitness < No Highway in the Sky
Eyewitness > Outbreak
Final spot: #2426 out of 3874, or 37%.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Poor Things (2023)

IMDb plot summary: The incredible tale about the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter.
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe.

Poor Things is Yorgos Lanthimos' newest film, starring Emma Stone as a reanimated dead woman with the brain of a baby (then toddler, then child, and so on). As she grows and discovers more about the world around her, she sets off to explore, learn, and ultimately find herself. As one would expect with a Lanthimos film, this is a real weird movie. The premise is odd and it leans ALL the way into it and the steampunk aesthetics of the world in which it is set. And I absolutely fell in love with it. The colors and design of the movie are absolutely stunning and Stone is truly wonderful as our lead character, one of my favorite female characters onscreen in years and an incredible acting performance. Mark Ruffalo's supporting character is also extremely funny basically every time he shows up and is a great foil for Stone's straightforward honesty. I laughed so much throughout the film but also found myself caring deeply about our main character and marveling at the worldbuilding and pondering the deeper questions the story brought up. Definitely my favorite movie of 2023 so far, as well as my favorite from Lanthimos (and probably from Stone).

How it entered my Flickchart:
Poor Things > Captain Phillips
Poor Things > Key Largo
Poor Things > The White Tiger
Poor Things < The Great Dictator
Poor Things > Dick Tracy
Poor Things > Bicycle Thieves
Poor Things > 10 Cloverfield Lane
Poor Things > Sabrina (1954)
Poor Things < The Fly (1958)
Poor Things < Seven Psychopaths
Poor Things > The Bridge on the River Kwai
Poor Things < Some Like It Hot
Final spot: #255 out of 3876, or 93%.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Nina Wu (2019)

IMDb plot summary: Nina Wu, a girl who leaves small theatre company in the country for the big city in pursuit of her actress dream.
Directed by Midi Z. Starring Ke-Xi Wu, Vivian Sung, and Kimi Hsia.

Nina Wu follows the story of an aspiring actress who gets her breakthrough as the lead in a big successful movie, only to then start having strange experiences in the aftermath that may or may not be real. I'm not going to get too spoilery beyond that. While often I'm not drawn into vaguely surreal stories where it's hard to tell reality from dreams, it's done quite well here, largely because our emotional connection to the character is never dampened by her experiences not being "real." The story heavily features themes of young women being mistreated in the film industry, and that remains thematically central in all aspects of the story, so whether or not you can plot out the narrative it's clear what the emotional underpinning is intended to be. The film ends with a bit of a "twist" that I did anticipate, but it brought out strong reactions from folks who saw it -- some thought it was minimizing some of the character's most hurtful experiences. While I understand that point of view and wouldn't necessarily recommend the film to everyone because of that, I did not have that response to it and instead left feeling deeply moved by the story I'd seen.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Nina Wu > Captain Phillips
Nina Wu < Key Largo
Nina Wu > Swing Shift
Nina Wu > The Country Girl
Nina Wu < Last Action Hero
Nina Wu > Fail Safe (2000)
Nina Wu > Elvis
Nina Wu > The Awful Truth
Nina Wu > The Last Seduction
Nina Wu < The Secret Garden (1987)
Nina Wu < Cats (2019)
Nina Wu < Gentleman's Agreement
Final spot: #1098 out of 3877, or 72%.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Diner (1982)

IMDb plot summary: A group of college-age buddies struggle with their imminent passage into adulthood in 1959 Baltimore.
Directed by Barry Levinson. Starring Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Rourke, and Kevin Bacon.

Diner follows a group of high school friends reuniting for a friend's wedding, and they wander around talking about life and relationships and playing pranks on each other. I am frankly completely confused about the love for this movie. It's a weirdly difficult story to follow, with so many characters who look and act exactly alike so I kept mixing them up, and I couldn't get invested in any of them because none of them are interesting or good people, and there are so many different stories that never actually follow through, just kind of disappear, and we don't even get fun philosophical ruminations on life the way you might get in other similarly structured movies. I know this is a beloved, critically acclaimed film, and I genuinely can't figure out which pieces of this are resonating with others or what it's even trying to do. While I'm posting my thoughts on it now, I may have to do a deeper dive to figure out what landed so badly for me and so well for others, and we'll have to see if that changes my mind.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Diner < Captain Phillips
Diner > Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Diner < Stepmom
Diner > Cinderella (2015)
Diner > A Time to Kill
Diner > Bee Movie
Diner > 10
Diner < Guarding Tess
Diner < Don't Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Diner < The Apostle
Diner < Satantango
Diner > Jurassic World
Final spot: #2450 out of 3873, or 37%. That's frankly higher than I expected.

Sunday, February 25, 2024

The Holdovers (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A cranky history teacher at a remote prep school is forced to remain on campus over the holidays with a grieving cook and a troubled student who has no place to go.
Directed by Alexander Payne. Starring Paul Giamatti, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa.

The Holdovers takes place in an elite boarding school during the Christmas break, when most students and faculty have gone home -- except for one student, who has no place to go, and the teacher and lunch lady assigned to stay on campus as supervisors. This is one of those films that I've seen done badly a million times, focusing on small interactions between a unique set of characters, culminating in one or more of them learning some kind of lesson. What makes it work here is smart writing and a stellar trio of performances from Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph. All three of them get their own arcs and moments of growth, in a way I really appreciate, and none of them are two-dimensional caricatures for the sake of the story. There's aso a nearly perfect blend of humor and drama in a way that keeps it from ever feeling either too fluffy or too cloying. That's a tough balancing act to pull off, but Alexander Payne nails it. And, of course, it's all couched beautifully in a 1970s visual aesthetic, starting right off the bat with the credits and continuing to immerse us through the end. It's a meticulously crafted and effectively charming holiday movie that I can see continuing to grow on me.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Holdovers > Captain Phillips
The Holdovers > Dark Passage
The Holdovers < The White Tiger
The Holdovers < Nope
The Holdovers > City Lights
The Holdovers > Pig
The Holdovers < Mildred Pierce (1945)
The Holdovers > Manon of the Spring
The Holdovers > The Butler
The Holdovers > 9
The Holdovers > Split
The Holdovers > Them!
Final spot: #757 out of 3872, or 80%.