Diana: The Musical (2021)

IMDb plot summary: The dazzling and devastating life of Princess Diana takes center stage in this original musical, filmed in advance of its official Broadway opening.

Directed by Christopher Ashley. Starring Jeanna de Waal, Roe Hartrampf, Erin Davie, and Judy Kaye.

Diana: The Musical is a filmed version of a recent Broadway musical chronicling the life of Princess Di, from her romance with Prince Charles to her unhappy marriage to her tragic early death. This musical has gathered attention as being notoriously awful, and I have to agree. From the exceptionally trite and oversimplified way it delivers its story to its endless ballads indistinguishable from each other to its sloppy third grade rhyme schemes, it's a mess. And it's not even a good spectacle either -- the costumes are gorgeous, but the set is virtually nonexistent, and the big dance numbers are seriously underwhelming. It is, more than anything else, boring, which is not what you want your big-budget Broadway musicals to be under any circumstances. On the positive side, Jeanna de Waal does have a lovely voice and if anybody's going to sing a million ballads, she's not a bad choice, because even when I got bored of the music I could enjoy her singing, and I'm very in favor of filmed versions of live stage shows making it onto streaming services more often. But that's about all the positive I can say about this strange movie of a strange show.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Diana: The Musical < Sunday in the Park with George

Diana: The Musical < Dinner at Eight

Diana: The Musical > Short Circuit 2

Diana: The Musical > Silver Streak

Diana: The Musical < Night at the Museum

Diana: The Musical < Bedtime Story

Diana: The Musical < Gosford Park

Diana: The Musical < The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Diana: The Musical < Spider-Man 3

Diana: The Musical > The Machinist

Diana: The Musical < There's No Business Like Show Business

Final spot: #2845 out of 3506, or 19%.

Little Big League (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A young boy is bequeathed the ownership of a professional baseball team.

Directed by Andrew Scheinman. Starring Luke Edwards, Timothy Busfield, and John Ashton.

Little Big League tells the story of Billy Heywood, an 11-year-old boy whose grandfather owns the Minnesota Twins. The two bond over their love of baseball, and when the grandfather dies, he leaves the Twins to his son. After some difficulty finding the right manager to help pick up the failing team, Billy decides to quit school and manage the team himself. This is a solid but unremarkable wish fulfillment movie for kids, and while I can't think of a reason I'd want to watch it again, it was quite pleasant as I watched it. Billy is a pretty realistic kid in terms of his vacillating levels of emotional maturity. He's portrayed as a bit of a precocious genius when it comes to baseball knowledge, but most of the film isn't focused on that, but on the emotional pressure of having to live your life like an adult when you're not ready for that. The camaraderie between him and the players is sweet, the emotional beats of the story are predictable but low-key satisfying, and it ends in I think probably the best way it could have. You could do worse for a kids' sports movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Little Big League > Hustle & Flow

Little Big League > Dinner at Eight

Little Big League < Batman: Under the Red Hood

Little Big League > Kiki's Delivery Service

Little Big League > Crash (2004)

Little Big League < Runaway Jury

Little Big League > Innocence Unprotected

Little Big League > Another Thin Man

Little Big League > Mission: Impossible

Little Big League > Doctor Zhivago

Little Big League > Mr. Pip

Final spot: #2249 out of 3509, or 36%.

Red Notice (2021)

IMDb plot summary: An Interpol agent tracks the world's most wanted art thief.

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. Starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot.

This is the fluffiest kind of fluffy action movie, relying primarily on the chemistry of the leads to carry the film. It largely works -- I had a good enough time with it, particularly with Reynolds and Johnson's interactions. There are enough individually entertaining moments to keep me smiling and enough plot twists to keep me mildly interested in what was happening with the story. None of it is spectacular or memorable but it's fully capable of being a good weekend watch. If you like the stars, if you like the genre, if you want something light and fluffy to watch, this one'll do.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Red Notice < Hustle & Flow

Red Notice > Cassandra's Dream

Red Notice < Batman: Under the Red Hood

Red Notice > Sweet and Lowdown

Red Notice > Dracula (1931)

Red Notice > Mr. Pip

Red Notice > Scotland, PA

Red Notice < Coraline

Red Notice < Run Lola Run

Red Notice > The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Red Notice > Buffalo Soldiers

Red Notice > Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Final spot: #2213 out of 3507, or 37%.

Easy Rider (1969)

IMDb plot summary: Two bikers head from L.A. to New Orleans through the open country and desert lands, and along the way they meet a man who bridges a counter-culture gap of which they had been unaware.

While I'm not sure I got as much out of the movie as was there for me to get, I thought this was an interesting look at this time period and some of the ways people were trying to react to the dominant culture vs. preserve it. There's not really anybody to root for in this film, per se, as all the characters are either unlikable or keep the audience at arms' length, but the questions it raises about conforming to society or breaking away are interesting to consider in light of their story. It's a film I'm glad to have seen but not necessarily one I feel an urge to watch again -- a lot of the scenes are long and winding and I'm not sure I'd get any more from them a second time -- but I get why people might really love and connect to this film. I'm just not one of them.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Easy Rider < Monsters

Easy Rider > Dinner at Eight

Easy Rider > Batman: Under the Red Hood

Easy Rider < Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Easy Rider < Onibaba

Easy Rider > Anything Else

Easy Rider < Sreekaram

Easy Rider < Tulpan

Easy Rider < No Highway in the Sky

Easy Rider < Mongol

Easy Rider > The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Easy Rider > Kicking and Screaming (1995)

Final spot: #2137 out of 3511, or 39%.

West Side Story (2021)

IMDb plot summary: An adaptation of the 1957 musical, West Side Story explores forbidden love and the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.

Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, and Ariana DeBose.

This is an excellent movie musical, with strong performances from everyone in the cast, exciting choreography, and some smart rewrites that help to strengthen an already-strong story. I expected to be swept away by it, but for some reason it ultimately leaves me a little cold, despite having few actual qualms with it. I'm still working out why, but I think some of it may have to do with Spielberg's reluctance to use the musical numbers *as* the narrative, instead allowing them to serve as background music while his cinematography does the bulk of the work. It's a small gripe and may fade on future rewatches, though, and this is definitely one worth rewatching. Bring on those big budget musical movies!

How it entered my Flickchart:

West Side Story > Gas Food Lodging

West Side Story > Till Death

West Side Story < Nightcrawler

West Side Story > Broadcast News

West Side Story > Zodiac

West Side Story < Lady on a Train

West Side Story < Crossing Delancey

West Side Story > Dawn of the Dead (2004)

West Side Story > Brothers

West Side Story > The Royal Tenenbaums

West Side Story > Pride and Prejudice (1995)

West Side Story > Regarding Henry

Final spot: #523 out of 3523, or 85%.

Cinderella (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A modern movie musical with a bold take on the classic fairy tale. Our ambitious heroine has big dreams and with the help of her fab Godmother, she perseveres to make them come true.

Directed by Kay Cannon. Starring Camila Cabello, Billy Porter, and Nicholas Galitzine.

Cinderella is the Amazon Prime jukebox musical version of Cinderella starring Camila Cabello as the title character. In this version, she's an aspiring dressmaker who ultimately has to choose between her dream of being a businesswoman and her dream of being a princess. Much has been said about this film's sloppiness, and I agree with all of it. The song choices are lazy and uninspired, the choreography is some of the worst I've seen in a long time, the stars have zero chemistry together, the vocals are unimpressive. The movie tries to bring a 21st-century sense of humor and self-awareness to its story, but this mostly doesn't work at all and comes across as deeply cringey and performative. I did love seeing so many small parts from people I recognized as competitors on the British TV show Taskmaster, and of course it's always nice to see Idina Menzel in something, but they're all woefully underused. It's just a strange, messy, slapped-together movie that has very little to recommend it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Cinderella < Monsters

Cinderella < Monkey Business (1952)

Cinderella > Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Cinderella > The Zen of Bennett

Cinderella < Highlander

Cinderella < The Monkey King

Cinderella < Easter Parade

Cinderella > Save the Last Dance

Cinderella > Kinsey

Cinderella < Bad Teacher

Cinderella < Roberta

Cinderella < Weekend

Final spot: #2832 out of 3512, or 19%.

The Little Rascals (1994)

IMDb plot summary: Alfalfa is wooing Darla and his "He-Man-Woman-Hating" friends attempt to sabotage the relationship.

Directed by Penelope Spheeris. Starring Travis Tedford, Bug Hall, and Brittany Ashton Holmes.

The Little Rascals is a 1994 adaptation of the classic series about a group of small boys who have solemnly sworn off women and get into hijinks around their town. In this particular iteration of the story, the boys are trying to win the go-kart derby but their chosen racer, Alfalfa, is falling in love, and so his friends decide to sabotage his new relationship to try to get him focused back on club business. There is a specific kind of humor centered around watching small children speak like adults, and while I do love seeing how kids naturally pick up adult speech patterns in the process of learning language, I find it not at all entertaining when those lines  are scripted by adults to be funny, and that's 90% of this humor, watching kids repeat lines grown-ups wrote for them, and it just doesn't work for me on any level. I also have no attachment to these characters, so not even that can win me over. I fully believe there are people this movie is for -- it's not trying to be anything other than what it is -- but it's certainly not for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Little Rascals < Gas Food Lodging

The Little Rascals < Dinner at Eight

The Little Rascals > Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

The Little Rascals < The Zen of Bennett

The Little Rascals < The Right Stuff

The Little Rascals < Julia

The Little Rascals > They All Laughed

The Little Rascals < Joseph: King of Dreams

The Little Rascals > Charlie Chan at the Opera

The Little Rascals < The Roaring Twenties

The Little Rascals < The Passion of Joan of Arc

The Little Rascals < 17 Miracles

Final spot: #3043 out of 3517, or 13%.

Spencer (2021)

IMDb plot summary: During her Christmas holidays with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, Diana Spencer, struggling with mental health problems, decides to end her decade-long marriage to Prince Charles.

Directed by Pablo Larrain. Starring Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, and Jack Nielen.

Spencer is a biopic looking at a few days in the life of Princess Diana as she spends Christmas with the royal family. Diana just wants to have a quiet holiday with her boys and is tired and frustrated with her loveless marriage and all the things forbidden to her because of her position, from opening presents on Christmas Day to keeping her curtains open. The film does an incredible job of showing the stifling atmosphere of this formal holiday gathering and making us feel how Diana is at the very edge of her sanity, completely trapped, and held back from anything she tries to do to ground herself. Kristen Stewart is stunning here, every movement charged with barely-contained (and sometimes not at all contained) fury at the situation she's in, and as she makes impulsive, unpredictable choices to try to regain some agency, it's impossible not to sympathize with her. The cinematography and soundtrack contribute beautifully to the film's suffocating mood as well. Overall, a powerful and compelling glimpse into this specific life.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Spencer > The Harder They Fall

Spencer > Long Day's Journey Into Night

Spencer < Nightcrawler

Spencer < True Lies

Spencer > Judas and the Black Messiah

Spencer > The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Spencer > Les Miserables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary

Spencer > Big Trouble in Little China

Spencer < Colossal

Spencer < Booksmart

Spencer > Onward

Spencer < The Pawnbroker

Final spot: #671 out of 3524, or 81%.

Renaissance Man (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A failed businessman is hired by the army to teach a group of underachieving recruits in order to help them pass basic training.

Directed by Penny Marshall. Starring Danny DeVito, Gregory Hines, and James Remar.

Renaissance Man stars Danny DeVito as an ad executive who loses his job and ends up getting an unusual gig teaching at a military academy. He's given a particular group of undereducated recruits and asked to teach them basic comprehension of the English language to raise their competency as soldiers. As they make their way through Shakespeare's Hamlet together, he gets to know them better and tries to figure out how he can support them in their career. So, let's be honest, I'm never NOT going to have a fondness for a movie about how theater can change students' lives. No matter how sappy the movie gets at times (and it does), I love watching people fall in love with plays, whether on screen or in the real-life work I do in my own theater teaching. It does, of course, hit all the tropes of the classic teacher movie and doesn't really expand on or bring much new to the genre, but it handles those tropes competently and I was happy to go along on the journey. There's more character drama than there is comedy, so if you're expecting to laugh out loud you'll be disappointed, but I found it an adequately sweet watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Renaissance Man > Gas Food Lodging

Renaissance Man < Till Death

Renaissance Man < Timecop

Renaissance Man > Blood Diamond

Renaissance Man > The Fly (1986)

Renaissance Man > 12 Years a Slave

Renaissance Man < A Doll's House (1973)

Renaissance Man < VeggieTales: Where's God When I'm S-Scared?

Renaissance Man < Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Renaissance Man > Suddenly, Last Summer

Renaissance Man > The Big Chill

Renaissance Man < The Return of Captain Invincible

Final spot: #1370 out of 3522, or 61%.

Child's Play (1972)

IMDb plot summary: At an exclusive boys' school, a new gym teacher is drawn into a feud between two older instructors, and he discovers that everything at the school is not quite as staid, tranquil and harmless as it seems.

Directed by Sidney Lumet. Starring James Mason, Robert Preston, and Beau Bridges.

Child's Play -- not the Chucky movie, this one's by Sidney Lumet -- is set in an all-boys' school where James Mason and Robert Preston are warring teachers. Preston is a warm, sympathetic ear who challenges his students gently, while Mason is a zero-tolerance taskmaster who all the boys hate, and he's convinced Preston is out to get him. There's been a mysterious uptick in unexplained violence at the school, and the new gym teacher is trying to figure out what's going on and whether it has something to do with the feuding teachers. This is some sort of halfway point between the melodrama of Lumet's earlier works and the dark crime noir of his later ones, and it's kind of an odd mix that ends up leaning into a strange psychological gothic horror. It works, but it's an odd duck. The mystery of figuring out what's actually going on is very compelling, and the answer isn't obvious at any point -- I kept going back and forth about what I thought was happening and why, and the final answer gave me a satisfying ending. Definitely a fun little gem!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Child's Play > The Keep

Child's Play < Till Death

Child's Play > Poltergeist

Child's Play < Watchmen

Child's Play > The General

Child's Play > The Death of Stalin

Child's Play > Carefree

Child's Play < Death by Hanging

Child's Play > Mary Poppins Returns

Child's Play > The Happening

Child's Play < The Harvey Girls

Final spot: #1117 out of 3519, or 68%.

Only You (1994)

IMDb plot summary: As a teen, Faith was told that her destiny is a man named Damon Bradley. Years later - Faith is about to marry another man - a Damon Bradley calls to wish them all the best. Faith blows off the wedding and follows Damon to Italy.

Directed by Norman Jewison. Starring Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey Jr., and Bonnie Hunt.

This movie depends heavily on us liking Tomei enough as a character to be charmed by her impulsive chasing of her dream man rather than irritated by it, and that mostly worked for me, if not quite enough. The story circles around a couple times as she finds various people she thinks might be Bradley only to learn they aren't the one she's looking for, so it does get repetitive by the end, and I'm not sold on our male lead actually being a good guy rather than a manipulative creep. It's a very middle-of-the-road rom com for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Only You < Gas Food Lodging

Only You > Dinner at Eight

Only You > Batman: Under the Red Hood

Only You > Venom

Only You > Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam

Only You < Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmelites

Only You < The Baby-Sitters Club

Only You < The Savages

Only You > Sweet Dreams

Only You < The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Only You < Hanna

Only You > Videodrome

Final spot: #1863 out of 3521, or 47%.

The Deadly Affair (1966)

IMDb plot summary: A British agent sets out to uncover the hidden facts behind a British government employee's suicide.

Directed by Sidney Lumet. Starring James Mason, Maximilian Schell, Simone Signoret, and Harriet Andersson.

The Deadly Affair stars James Mason as a British intelligence worker who is assigned to investigate a co-worker accused of Communism. He is satisfied and intends to clear him, but that evening the man supposedly commits suicide. Mason is baffled by this and sets out to determine whether it was suicide or something more sinister. This was based on a John Le Carre novel, and, like most Le Carre adaptations, I find it understated and dull. Even the action sequences are filmed in a very low-key, nothing-to-see-here manner, full of bureaucracy. While this is what makes Le Carre's work appealing to a lot of readers and watchers, it does nothing for me, and I had to work hard to keep caring about the mystery. Where the film does succeed for me is in the more personal side stories -- Mason's wife is perpetually cheating on him, and working through the difficulties of that relationship sustained my interest in the story more than any of the spy stuff. That "spy stuff" is, in fact, pretty good, it just doesn't interest me that much. If it interests you, this is probably a lesser-known one worth checking out!

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Deadly Affair < Hustle & Flow

The Deadly Affair > Our Idiot Brother

The Deadly Affair < Dark City

The Deadly Affair < Sweet and Lowdown

The Deadly Affair > Kill List

The Deadly Affair > The Amazing Spider-Man

The Deadly Affair < Rio Bravo

The Deadly Affair > Captain America: Civil War

The Deadly Affair < Lovelace

The Deadly Affair > Luther

The Deadly Affair > The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach

Final spot: #2435 out of 3491, or 30%.

Everybody's Talking About Jamie (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Feature film adaptation of the musical about a teenager from Sheffield, England who wants to be a drag queen.

Directed by Jonathan Butterell, Dan Gillespie Sells, and Tom MacRae. Starring Max Harwood, Lauren Patel, Sarah Lancashire, and Shobna Gulati.

Everybody's Talking About Jamie is a filmed version of a recent stage musical. It's about a teenage boy who decides he wants to be a drag queen and has to figure out how he can be authentically himself in a school that doesn't seem too eager to accept him. This musical took the West End by storm and became something of a cult classic, especially among young musical theater lovers, and I get why. It's deeply heartwarming to see Jamie working to find himself, especially when it is well-received, and the story does a good job of placing him in the context of LGBTQ+ history -- we see where his journey is easier than those who came before him, as well as how it is still a challenge. The songs in this don't immediately jump out to me as classics, but perhaps they just need some more listening, and they're certainly performed well by this solid cast. I also like how the film leans into the theatricality of the musical numbers, using them to really convey a feeling more than deliver expository information. I'm not totally sold on this for myself but I'm glad to have seen it, and I'm sure there are a lot of people for which this musical will deeply *matter* to them, and I think that's awesome.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Everybody's Talking About Jamie > Monsters

Everybody's Talking About Jamie < Chronicle

Everybody's Talking About Jamie > About Elly

Everybody's Talking About Jamie < The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

Everybody's Talking About Jamie > Sling Blade

Everybody's Talking About Jamie > Porco Rosso

Everybody's Talking About Jamie < Trick 'r Treat

Everybody's Talking About Jamie > The Matador

Everybody's Talking About Jamie > Monsters Vs. Aliens

Everybody's Talking About Jamie > A Little Night Music

Everybody's Talking About Jamie > Evita

Everybody's Talking About Jamie < M

Final spot: #1123 out of 3501, or 68%.