Nope (2022)

IMDb plot summary: The residents of a lonely gulch in inland California bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery.

Directed by Jordan Peele. Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Brandon Perea.

Nope is Jordan Peele's newest movie, focused on a family of Hollywood animal trainers whose business is quickly losing money after the patriarch is killed in a freak accident. But as weird things start happening, they start to wonder if their ranch is the site of some sort of extraterrestrial activity. Peele just keeps making it work -- this is another really solid entry in his filmography. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer are truly delightful as two siblings who could not be more different but band together to keep things going for their family business. I absolutely love the design of the creature they're chasing. It truly captures the terror of what we don't know or understand. I also love that so much of the horror happens in the middle of the day, under gorgeous bright blue skies and in wide open spaces. It brings a western sensibility to the horror genre which was a ton of fun. While I wasn't as taken with the underlying meaning as I have been with Peele's previous efforts, this one definitely delivers on scares and action and tension, and it's worth seeing!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Nope > Spellbond (1945)

Nope > Woman in the Dunes

Nope < Castle in the Sky

Nope < The Pawnbroker

Nope > Judas and the Black Messiah

Nope > Anomalisa

Nope > The Incredibles

Nope > Role Models

Nope > Jeepers Creepers

Nope > The Farewell

Nope < Spencer

Final spot: #687 out of 3644, or 81%.

The House (2022)

IMDb plot summary: Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.

Directed by Paloma Baeza, Emma De Swaef, and Niki Lindroth von Bahr. Starring Mia Goth, Matthew Goode, and Claudie Blakley.

The House is an animated anthology film based apparently on a book that I have not read, featuring a creepy house with three different stories about it, all featuring the house having some sort of unnatural pull over the people in it -- or the animals in it, as in the last two, they are not human. This is definitely a deeply creepy film. Something about the style of the animation is really unsettling. The stories themselves are very eerie, and none of them give a clear explanation about what's happening or why it's happening. We just know that this house is, for example, starting to eat these people, but we don't know why. It's a very whimsical kind of horror, which is really fascinating to me. I think the second film of the three was probably my favorite, even though I had the least idea of what it meant. It just hit me on such an unsettling, visceral level that I couldn't help but have a big reaction to it, and I think the reaction that I had to all three of these will stay with me. Definitely worth a watch, especially if you like weird animation or creepy animation or creepy kids stories, and I'm definitely interested in checking out the book at some point because I am curious as to how different that is.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The House > Ripley's Game

The House > La La Land

The House < The Goodbye Girl (1977)

The House < Booksmart

The House > City Lights

The House > The Man in the Iron Mask

The House < Sisters

The House > Boy A

The House > Little Women (1994)

The House < Twins

The House > Mirage

Final spot: #829 out of 3642, or 77%.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

IMDb plot summary: James Bond and the Japanese Secret Service must find and stop the true culprit of a series of space hijackings, before war is provoked between Russia and the United States.

Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Starring Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, and Mie Hama.

You Only Live Twice is a Sean Connery James Bond film, in which Bond is apparently killed in the first few minutes. Of course -- and I'd hardly consider this a spoiler -- his death has been faked so he can more easily track down a technological villain who has been capturing spacecraft in flight. I by far prefer my Bonds (and spy films in general) to be goofy and over-the-top, and for the most part, this one delivers. The early scene in which the giant evil spacecraft appears to literally eat the US ship made me laugh out loud. The set piece for this particular movie is Japan, and we do get an unfortunate, poorly-aged scene in which Bond disguises himself as a Japanese fisherman. But that is the worst moment of what is overall a decently fluffy and ridiculous action sequence. Am I going to remember it in contrast to every other Bond pic? Absolutely not. But I had a good time watching it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

You Only Live Twice > Ripley's Game

You Only Live Twice < Woman in the Dunes

You Only Live Twice < Battle Royale

You Only Live Twice < Drive My Car

You Only Live Twice > Bonnie and Clyde

You Only Live Twice < Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (1997)

You Only Live Twice > Limitless

You Only Live Twice > Critters

You Only Live Twice < A Separation

You Only Live Twice < The Revenant

You Only Live Twice < A Star Is Born (1954)

You Only Live Twice < Pather Panchali

Final spot: #1665 out of 3643, or 54%.

Sisters (1972)

IMDb plot summary: A small-time reporter tries to convince the police she saw a murder in the apartment across from hers.

Directed by Brian De Palma. Starring Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, and Charles Durning.

Sisters is a Brian De Palma movie about a woman whose one-night stand appears to be murdered by her mysterious twin sister. When a journalist across the way sees the murder victim, she sets out to figure out what happened, and things get real weird. The more I watch of De Palma, the more I realize how often he gels with me. Where so many 1970s films latch onto that sort of gritty, gross cinematography in a way that feels depressing, De Palma's work seems to be taking great joy in its scuzziness, leaning into the camp and ugliness with a sense of glee. This story, like so many of his others, feels wildly improbable but is just delightful to watch play out. His use of split-screen here is very effective in ramping up tension, as we're able to see how close our villain is to hiding the body as the police simultaneously approach their door. (It's so effective, in fact, I'm a little surprised we don't see that more often in horror!) The plot of this doesn't make a lot of sense but I just had so much fun with the style I have to recommend it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Sisters > Duel

Sisters > La La Land

Sisters < The Goodbye Girl (1977)

Sisters < Colossal

Sisters < Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Sisters > 2001: A Space Odyssey

Sisters < Cyrano (2021)

Sisters > Nebraska

Sisters > American Dreamz

Sisters > Twins

Sisters > The Tale of Princess Kaguuya

Final spot: #821 out of 3620, or 77%.

American Underdog (2021)

IMDb plot summary: The story of NFL MVP and Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner, who went from stocking shelves at a supermarket to becoming an American Football star.

Directed by Andrew Erwin and Jon Erwin. Starring Zachary Levi, Anna Paquin, and Hayden Zaller.

American Underdog tells the true story of NFL player Kurt Warner, who took an unorthodox path to the professional leagues and had to fight extra hard along the way. Or, well, that's how the movie sets it up. It's the kind of movie that feels so fake and rose-colored that it's hard for me to believe any of this happened the way it did. I'm sure plenty of it did, I'm just so emotionally disconnected from it that I'm not invested in what did and didn't. About 20 minutes into this, I wondered if it was a Christian movie, and sure enough, it's a Christian production company. There's certainly better production quality and acting in this than you find in a lot of Christian films, but it still has the same glossy inspirational veneer that keeps me at an emotional distance from most of them. Of course, sports underdog biopics inherently have some of that inspirational feel to them, but this takes that and then strips away any personality from it. I am sure this movie is for someone, it's just absolutely not for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

American Underdog < Ripley's Game

American Underdog < Heidi (1937)

American Underdog > Penelope

American Underdog > Cinderella (2021)

American Underdog < Shadows and Fog

American Underdog < Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?

American Underdog > Maleficent

American Underdog > Robots

American Underdog < VeggieTales: Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space!

American Underdog > Without a Clue

American Underdog < Meet the Parents

Final spot: #2911 out of 3641, or 20%.

The Killers (1946)

IMDb plot summary: Hit men kill an unresisting victim, and investigator Reardon uncovers his past involvement with beautiful, deadly Kitty Collins.

Directed by Robert Siodmak. Starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, and Edmond O'Brien.

The Killers begins with two men arriving in a small town announcing they're going to kill one of the local gas station clerks. They do and are gone before anything can be done about it, and the insurance investigator following up on his claim has to solve the mystery, interview by interview. I really enjoy how this film unravels the story a little at a time, with each relevant person the investigator speaks to giving us a little bit more information. The script does a great job of adding a new emotional layer with each piece as well, with every person having a different emotional attachment to the target. That gimmick keeps it far more interesting than the story would have been told in a strictly linear fashion. There are also some really stunning shots that help to bring out this atmosphere of intrigue and suspicion, which makes it all the more fun. This is what I wish most detective-centered noirs felt like -- I really had a good time with this and enjoyed following along with the story. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Killers > Ripley's Game

The Killers < Woman in the Dunes

The Killers > Space Sweepers

The Killers > Waitress

The Killers < 1917

The Killers > The Post

The Killers < The Lady Vanishes

The Killers > Cool Runnings

The Killers > Logan's Run

The Killers < Airheads

The Killers > The Magnificent Seven

Final spot: #1056 out of 3640, or 71%.

Darkness (2002)

IMDb plot summary: A teenage girl moves into a remote country house with her family, only to discover that their gloomy new home has a horrifying past that threatens to destroy the family.

Directed by Jaume Balagueró. Starring Anna Paquin, Lena Olin, and Iain Glen.

Darkness is a horror film about a family who moves into a new house, only for strange things to start happening, possibly centered around the father's strange illness that occasionally makes him unpredictably violent. The film this reminded me most of, although it was filmed several years later, was The Orphanage. Problem is, The Orphanage is beautifully filmed and scripted and acted, and this one is kind of sloppy. There is one actually-pretty-cool twist in the last 15 minutes of the movie that is fun enough that it almost makes me forget how lazy the rest is, but not quite. As much as I've enjoyed watching Anna Paquin's filmography, I don't enjoy her in thrillers -- her instincts are often to lean shrill, which is hard for me to engage with. The story kind of meanders around in an uninteresting way that keeps the tension from every truly climbing until the very end. If this is a genre or a cast you have special affinity for, it might still be worth the watch, but on its own it's pretty mediocre.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Darkness < Duel

Darkness > She's All That

Darkness < Matchstick Men

Darkness < Bridge to Terabithia

Darkness > My Six Loves

Darkness > The Big House

Darkness > Sweet and Lowdown

Darkness > The Rookie

Darkness < Charlotte's Web (1973)

Darkness > Millions

Darkness < Dallas Buyers Club

Final spot: #2498 out of 3619, or 31%.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

IMDb plot summary: The story of Alana Kane and Gary Valentine growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, and Sean Penn.

Licorice Pizza is Paul Thomas Anderson's latest movie, a sprawling coming-of-age story that follows a teenage child star with an entrepreneurial and the college-aged woman he befriends. Anderson's work... seldom fully resonates with me. I don't connect with most of his characters in a way that helps me see or understand their throughlines, and while I may enjoy individual scenes, they don't cohere the way I want them to. At best that means I end it somewhat puzzled, at worst it means I think, "Why did I even watch this?" This was unfortunately more the latter for me, since I was not bored by the ending but actually strongly disliked it. I felt like whatever I'd gotten out of it must have not been what Anderson intended to end it that way and found a bit like the whole experience had been wasted on me. I also very much FEEL the long sprawlingness of this film and while that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, it meant for me that that wasted time felt like a bigger, more frustrating loss. I know, I know, I know, people love Anderson and his work -- he's just very seldom for me, and this one is way down my list.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Licorice Pizza < Ripley's Game

Licorice Pizza > Where to Invade Next

Licorice Pizza > I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore

Licorice Pizza > Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Licorice Pizza > Molly's Game

Licorice Pizza < A Walk on the Moon

Licorice Pizza < The Prince and the Pauper (2000)

Licorice Pizza < All the Money in the World

Licorice Pizza < The Lighthouse

Licorice Pizza > Vivo

Licorice Pizza > Unbroken

Licorice Pizza < The Baby-Sitters Club

Final spot: #1927 out of 3639, or 47%.

The Adam Project (2022)

IMDb plot summary: After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self for a mission to save the future.

Directed by Shawn Levy. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Walker Scobell, and Mark Ruffalo.

The Adam Project follows Ryan Reynolds on a journey to the past to save his killed partner -- only he miscalculates his time travel trajectory and ends up meeting his middle school-aged self. The two of them band together along with their dad, played by Mark Ruffalo, to try to stop the dark future in which an evil corporation uses time travel for their own ends. This is exactly the movie you think it is. It's got "silly Reynolds sci fi kids' movie" written all over it and follows through in every way. It doesn't break much new ground, although I quite enjoy seeing Catherine Keener as the villainess in the story. There are enough mild laughs and enough entertaining plot points to keep it spinning in the air. I guess I don't know how many more ways I can rephrase the sentence "It's fun enough, but it's just fine." So... yeah. It's that. You probably already know if you'll like it or not based on the premise. It's hard to come up with much more substantial to say about it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Adam Project > Duel

The Adam Project < La La Land

The Adam Project < Battle Royale

The Adam Project < Josie and the Pussycats

The Adam Project > Remember the Titans

The Adam Project > The Master

The Adam Project < Blow Dry

The Adam Project > Two Weeks Notice

The Adam Project > Les Miserables (1935)

The Adam Project < The Italian Job (1969)

The Adam Project > What Happened, Brittany Murphy?

Final spot: #1615 out of 3618, or 55%.

Five Feet Apart (2019)

IMDb plot summary: A pair of teenagers with cystic fibrosis meet in a hospital and fall in love, though their disease means they must avoid close physical contact.

Directed by Justin Baldoni. Starring Haley Lu Richardson, Cole Sprouse, and Moises Arias.

Five Feet Apart tells the story of a few teenagers with cystic fibrosis who spend their lives in and out of hospitals for infections and other complications. Two of them, Stella and Will, hit it off and strike up a romance despite the risk to their personal health. This came out in 2019, right before most of us got a better concept of how different it was to form or maintain a relationship with someone you couldn't physically be near without endangering yourself. Aside from that unusual little coincidence, there's not a lot really interesting about this movie, aside from it being a welcome representation of chronic terminal illness. It begs an obvious comparison to The Fault in Our Stars, except neither of these characters is nearly as charming as those in that novel, and the moments focusing on these teenagers' fight to live feel saccharine and unearned. Much of the dialogue is overly expository, even about things the audience should be able to pick up, and the acting doesn't do much to overcome it. Overall, would definitely have appealed to me as a teenager myself obsessed with illness, but it's not one of the better examples of the genre.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Five Feet Apart < Spellbound (1945)

Five Feet Apart > Where to Invade Next

Five Feet Apart > I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore

Five Feet Apart < Heartbeat

Five Feet Apart < Love's Labour's Lost

Five Feet Apart > The Illusionist (2006)

Five Feet Apart < Onibaba

Five Feet Apart < The Sasquatch Gang

Five Feet Apart > Manhattan

Five Feet Apart < Harry and the Hendersons

Five Feet Apart > My Sassy Girl

Final spot: #2207 out of 3638, or 39%.

Andrei Rublev (1966)

IMDb plot summary: The life, times and afflictions of the fifteenth-century Russian iconographer St. Andrei Rublev.

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Starring Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, and Nikolay Grinko.

Andrei Rublev is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky telling the story of a (real life) artist who finds himself questioning his purpose as an artist during a time of war and turbulence. If you've been following any of my recent reviews, you'll know Tarkovsky is not a director I get along with very well. I find him irritatingly slow and maddeningly symbolic in his storytelling. This film is fairly linear and straightforward, but definitely still slow, so I found myself frequently referring back to the film's synopsis on Wikipedia to help me follow along whenever I got bored and zoned out. That actually was quite helpful for me, as I was able to track more easily the overall arc of the story. I still often find myself wondering why we're being shown one particular scene or another, as Tarkovsky and I just don't have the same storytelling sense, but at least following along made it easier to remember from scene to scene and helped me get more out of it. It is just as philosophical as his other works, but this time it centers heavily on religious and artistic themes, which probably also helped me get into it, as I'm fascinated by both those themes. Overall, an easier Tarkovsky watch for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Andrei Rublev < Les Miserables (2012)

Andrei Rublev > She's All That

Andrei Rublev < Hitchcock

Andrei Rublev < Metropolis

Andrei Rublev > Charly

Andrei Rublev < Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Andrei Rublev > Ivan's Childhood

Andrei Rublev > Captain America: Civil War

Andrei Rublev < Lovelace

Andrei Rublev > Luther

Andrei Rublev > The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach

Andrei Rublev < The Deadly Affair

Final spot: #2549 out of 3613, or 29%.

Studio 666 (2022)

IMDb plot summary: Legendary rock band Foo Fighters move into an Encino mansion steeped in grisly rock and roll history to record their much anticipated 10th album.

Directed by BJ McDonnell. Starring Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, and Pat Smear.

Studio 666 is a horror comedy starring the band Foo Fighters, who set up camp in a clearly haunted house to record their newest album. They find the remnants of a short-lived older band's recordings in the basement, and then... things get weirder. This is one of the silliest premises for a movie I've seen in awhile, but I had so much fun with it. None of the band members are great actors but they're all willing to play along, which is all you need for something this over-the-top and campy. The various death scenes are funny and gross and ridiculous and everything I want them to be. The movie moves along at a brisk pace so I hardly ever felt like my time was being wasted (aside from some moments of not-funny banter in the first third, but fortunately that all disappeared as everyone got involved in figuring out the demon possession and the mysterious deaths). It's a thoroughly goofy movie that managed to appeal to me as a non-Foo Fighters fan, and I would hope fans would have a similar amount of fun with it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Studio 666 > Les Miserables (2012)

Studio 666 < Kuroneko

Studio 666 > The Mauritanian

Studio 666 > The Artist

Studio 666 < Manhattan Murder Mystery

Studio 666 > Leave No Trace

Studio 666 < Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Studio 666 > Cool Runnings

Studio 666 < Fresh (1994)

Studio 666 > Bride & Prejudice

Studio 666 < Point Break

Final spot: #1053 out of 3612, or 71%.

Mirage (1965)

IMDb plot summary: An accountant suddenly suffers from amnesia. This appears related to the suicide of his boss. Now some violent thugs are out to get him. They work for a shadowy figure known simply as The Major.

Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Starring Gregory Peck, Diane Baker, and Walter Matthau.

Mirage is a psychological thriller starring Gregory Peck as a man who begins to have strange encounters with people he's never met who swear they know him, as well as odd resurgence of memories he's never had before. He begins to wonder if he's developed amnesia and sets out to discover the past that has been lost to him. Gregory Peck is especially good at playing this sort of smart-but-slightly-paranoid thriller hero, and he grounds the movie when its plot loses me. Walter Matthau is also very enjoyable in his smaller role as the private investigator Peck hires to help him. Those good things being said about the actors, I was never fully satisfied in how the mystery played out and felt myself constantly second-guessing the plot decisions, but if you're here more for atmosphere than anything else, this really works. It's got a good paranoid vibe to it and does a good job of selling these terrifying moments when his whole world spins out of control. Definitely worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Mirage > Ripley's Game

Mirage > La La Land

Mirage < The Goodbye Girl (1977)

Mirage < Stowaway

Mirage < Kismet

Mirage > The Man in the Iron Mask

Mirage < A Boy and His Dog

Mirage > Boy A

Mirage > Little Women (1994)

Mirage < The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

Mirage < Twins

Mirage > The Impostors

Final spot: #829 out of 3637, or 77%.

Westfront 1918 (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A group of German solders fight on the front line in France at the end of World War I.

Directed by George Wilhelm Pabst. Starring Fritz Kampers, Gustav Diessl, and Hans-Joachim Mobis.

Westfront 1918 centers on the German forces on the front lines during World War I. We follow a group of soldiers and their battles. In many ways this reminds me a lot of the film version of All Quiet on the Western Front, also released this year, but this is a far more visually centered movie. While All Quiet used dialogue and plot-based narrative the further the story, Westfront 1918 relies primarily on visual images. Some of these are incredibly moving. There are these long extended sequences just aiming the camera at one particular place in the field and seeing this wave of soldiers coming and coming and coming across the camera's point of view, which really brings out the seemingly endless fight and the vast amounts of human people who were sacrificed to achieve these goals. G.W. Pabst is the director. I'm not very familiar with him, but he apparently did a lot of silent films, and that's really evident in the way that he frames and shows the images on screen. He's clearly someone who knows how to frame and shoot images to convey emotion. I think this is one that's going to stick with me in some way or another.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Westfront 1918 > Ripley's Game

Westfront 1918 < Woman in the Dunes

Westfront 1918 > Space Sweepers

Westfront 1918 < The Artist

Westfront 1918 > Band of Robbers

Westfront 1918 < Foolproof

Westfront 1918 > Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

Westfront 1918 < The Death of Stalin

Westfront 1918 < The Sound of Music

Westfront 1918 > The Minus Man

Westfront 1918 < Akira

Final spot: #1216 out of 3636, or 67%.

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)

IMDb plot summary: Thirty years after their popular television show ended, chipmunks Chip and Dale live very different lives. When a cast member from the original series mysteriously disappears, the pair must reunite to save their friend.

Directed by Akiva Schaffer. Starring Andy Samberg, John Mulaney, and KiKi Layne.

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers is the 2022 reboot of the Rescue Rangers franchise. In this version, Chip and Dale are real characters in a cartoon/live action hybrid world, a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Chip and Dale have gone their own way after the success of their Rescue Rangers TV show in the 90s. When their friend Monty is kidnapped, the two have to make amends and get together to solve one more crime. This movie went as meta as you can possibly get. More meta than was good for it, I think. The parts of the script that worked were the ones that did not rely on prior knowledge of the Rescue Rangers or of the various Disney properties that show up in this version of the story. I can't think of one joke that was primarily a reference that I laughed at. Not that reference jokes can't be funny, they just weren't interestingly used here. The parts that did work were the character-centric ones. It feels a little bit like they took a script that was solid to begin with and just grafted a Rescue Rangers skin onto it and added some references to flesh it out. As someone with no ties to the original Rescue Rangers, I found myself reacting the way I react to most franchise movies these days: I just don't care. It wasn't bad. I just can't make myself care about any of it because none of it matters in a world of endless franchises. If you liked Rescue Rangers, maybe you'll like this one. I don't know. I don't care enough to give much of an opinion on it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers < Ripley's Game

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers > Fifth of July

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers > The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers < Heartbeat

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers > Finding Dory

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers > Remember the Night

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers < Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers < The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers > Bill Cunningham New York

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers > Mad Dog and Glory

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers > Street of Chance

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers < Happy Gilmore

Final spot: #2089 out of 3635, or 43%.

Marry Me (2022)

IMDb plot summary: Music superstars Kat Valdez and Bastian are getting married before a global audience of fans. But when Kat learns, seconds before her vows, that Bastian has been unfaithful, she instead decides to marry Charlie, a stranger in the crowd.

Directed by Kat Coiro. Starring Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, and Maluma.

Marry Me is a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez as a music superstar making plans to marry her equally famous partner livestreamed to the world. But when she finds out at the wedding that he's been cheating on her with her assistant, she makes an impulsive decision to instead marry a fan in the crowd who is holding a sign that says "Marry me." This fan is Owen Wilson, who was actually only there to take his daughter to the concert. The two are married live on stage and then have to navigate their marriage as a publicity stunt that may turn into something deeper. I've often not been a huge fan of Jennifer Lopez's acting but she's grown on me as she's gotten older, and here her charisma is miles ahead of Wilson's. In a good rom-com, the two are equally matched, but here I don't particularly want them to end up together because she's so much more interesting than he is. And that's not to say Wilson can't be charismatic, he just isn't here. He doesn't sell the wholesome homey charm of an everyday life, which is what you need. The plot is a stretch, the story is silly, but all that wouldn't matter if I like the two leads together. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Marry Me < Spellbound (1945)

Marry Me > Fifth of July

Marry Me < Revolutionary Road

Marry Me > How to Irritate People

Marry Me > Whoopee!

Marry Me < Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Marry Me > Snatch.

Marry Me > American Hustle

Marry Me > Short Circuit

Marry Me > The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Marry Me < The Lost Daughter

Final spot: #2331 out of 3634, or 36%.

A Lady to Love (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Middle-aged Napa Valley grape-grower Tony posts a marriage proposal to San Francisco waitress Lena, enclosing a photo of his handsome younger brother Buck. When she gets there, she overlooks his duplicity and marries him. Then she falls in love with Buck.

Directed by Victor Sjöström. Starring Vilma Bánky, Edward G. Robinson, and Robert Ames.

A Lady to Love stars Edward G. Robinson as an Italian immigrant who wants to find himself a wife, so he sends a proposal letter to a waitress he's taken a liking to. However, embarrassed by his own appearance, he sends her a photo of his young attractive employee instead of himself. When the woman agrees to marry him and shows up thinking the employee is her intended husband, things get messy. This is the kind of role I haven't seen Robinson in much -- I don't even know if he played these roles much. But in what could have been a very fluffy caricature role, he brings some serious pathos that makes me root for his character from moment one. Hungarian actress Vilma Banky plays his new bride, and while her performance isn't as impressive, she holds her own pretty well, especially in comparison to the actor making up the third in this love triangle, who is incredibly flat. The story can't quite decide whether it wants to be sweet or tragic and keeps wavering between the two, although it does ultimately decide where to land. It's not amazing but Robinson's performance elevates it for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Lady to Love < Spellbound (1945)

A Lady to Love > Fifth of July

A Lady to Love > Revolutionary Road

A Lady to Love > Heartbeat

A Lady to Love > Molly's Game

A Lady to Love < Christine

A Lady to Love > The Prince and the Pauper (2000)

A Lady to Love > The Wailing

A Lady to Love < Strawberry and Chocolate

A Lady to Love > Rogue One

A Lady to Love > The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

A Lady to Love > Flora & Ulysses

Final spot: #1881 out of 3633, or 48%.

Steamboy (2004)

IMDb plot summary: In 1860s Britain, a boy inventor finds himself caught in the middle of a deadly conflict over a revolutionary advance in steam power.

Directed by Katsuhiro Ôtomo. Starring Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, and Alfred Molina.

Steamboy is an animated film about a young boy whose father and grandfather are famous inventors in the world of steam and steam power. (Coincidentally, their last name is also Steam.) But the young boy finds himself caught in the middle in a fierce fight between his father and grandfather over how that power should be used, and he is not sure of the right way to go. The animation in this is really interesting. It's, as the name would suggest, a very steampunk inspired aesthetic, which is really interesting to look at. It's fun to see the different costumes and especially different gadgets that are created as part of this sort of parallel universe steam-powered world. As far as the story itself, I like that it doesn't keep it too easy. It's hard to tell until the end, genuinely, who is the good guy or the bad guy, because ultimately, when it comes down to it, everybody has their own reasons for doing what they're doing. Those actions can be a net positive or a net negative, but they can also have positive motivations or negative motivations. And it's all mixed together in a really interesting way that you don't see in a lot of children's movies. The action portions are fine, but not that interesting. But they are done capably well. The acting in the English dove is pretty good. You've got wonderful performers like Patrick Stewart and Albert Molina playing the patriarchs of the family, as well as Anna Paquin as the young boy. I haven't seen as much steampunk animation as I would like to. So this was a fun change of pace and definitely worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Steamboy > Spellbound (1945)

Steamboy < Kuroneko

Steamboy < Battle Royale

Steamboy > Drive My Car

Steamboy < An American Tail

Steamboy > Rush

Steamboy > The Wicker Man (1973)

Steamboy > Rachel, Rachel

Steamboy < Kingsman: The Secret Service

Steamboy > The Speed Cubers

Steamboy < Sweet Bird of Youth

Final spot: #1485 out of 3632, or 59%.

The River (1951)

IMDb plot summary: The growing pains of three young women contrast with the immutability of the holy Bengal River, around which their daily lives unfold.

Directed by Jean Renoir. Starring Patricia Walters, Nora Swinburne, and Esmond Knight.

The River tells the story of an English girl growing up in India. We follow her trying to find her place in the world, battling with jealousy, falling in love, and experiencing loss. Our main character here is such a teenager and yet so very relatable, alternately trying to be a grown-up and trying to escape to the simpler times of childhood. Many of the actors were nonprofessionals, which lends the film an authentic feel, and even when line readings are a little stilted they come across more as stilted characters than inexperienced actors. The cinematography is really beautiful, conveying a sense of childhood nostalgia that's so intertwined with love for the country in which they grew up. The dialogue and the melodrama of the story are all slightly heightened in a way that really brings out the autobiographical nature of the story -- we're hearing this story filtered through years of fond memories and found meaning. I haven't loved director Jean Renoir's better known films but this one struck a chord in me and made me much more interested in exploring his work more deeply.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The River > Ripley's Game

The River < Kuroneko

The River > Space Sweepers

The River > The Artist

The River > 1917

The River < Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

The River > The Color Purple

The River < The Woodsman

The River < Re-Animator

The River > Wonder Boys

The River < Billy Liar

Final spot: #988 out of 3631, or 73%.

Sneakerella (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A modern twist on Cinderella set in New York City's Sneaker culture.

Directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum. Starring Chosen Jacobs, Lexi Underwood, and Devyn Nekoda.

Sneakerella is a Disney+ gender-swapped version of Cinderella, this time about a hopeful young sneaker designer named El who ends up meeting the daughter of a sneaker royalty family. The movie is also a musical, featuring several upbeat modern pop songs along with a cover of "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes." So this movie doesn't tread any new ground, really. The Cinderella story has been done to death and nothing in the narrative of this remake really stands out. What does stand out and make this decently watchable is some good musical choreography (the opening song and the villain song in particular are great fun) as well as how charismatic our lead is. Chosen Jacobs, who was in the 2017 adaptation of It, plays our hero and he is just instantly someone you want to root for. Nobody else in the film is quite as interesting, which is unfortunate when it comes to building romantic chemistry, but Jacobs does a pretty good job of carrying everyone else along. Was this necessary? Nah. But was it ok? Sure.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Sneakerella < Spellbound (1945)

Sneakerella > Ivan the Terrible, Part One

Sneakerella > The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

Sneakerella > Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Sneakerella > Chocolat

Sneakerella > A Walk on the Moon

Sneakerella > Something the Lord Made

Sneakerella < The Harder They Fall

Sneakerella > C'mon C'mon

Sneakerella < Fahrenheit 451

Sneakerella < Ron's Gone Wrong

Sneakerella < The Misfits

Final spot: #1836 out of 3630, or 49%.

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

IMDb plot summary: Three trappers protect the daughters of a British Colonel in the midst of the French and Indian War.

Directed by Michael Mann. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, and Russell Means.

The Last of the Mohicans is an adaptation of the James Fenimore Cooper novel about two women who need to be escorted to the fort where their British father is stationed during the French and Indian War. However, their guide deliberately leads them into an ambush, and the women only narrowly escape with the help of a handful of Mohicans who then try to lead them to safety. Apparently the film is a significant deviation from the book, although I have never read it so I can't compare. I can say this is the kind of bloated historical epic that was so widely loved in the 1990s that I just can never enjoy apart from some nice cinematography. And, of course, Daniel Day-Lewis is good as always. But I just come out of the other end of this completely unaffected. I don't feel like I've been invited to understand or feel or experience anything about the situation I've watched unfold, and so I don't take anything away from it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Last of the Mohicans < Ripley's Game

The Last of the Mohicans < Ivan the Terrible, Part One

The Last of the Mohicans > Three Guys Named Mike

The Last of the Mohicans > The Fast and the Furious

The Last of the Mohicans > It's Always Fair Weather

The Last of the Mohicans < Treasure Planet

The Last of the Mohicans < MASH

The Last of the Mohicans > Boys Don't Cry

The Last of the Mohicans > Bright Young Things

The Last of the Mohicans < Make Mine Music

The Last of the Mohicans > Pinocchio

Final spot: #2810 out of 3627, or 23%.

Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

IMDb plot summary: In medieval Japan, a compassionate governor is sent into exile. His wife and children try to join him, but are separated, and the children grow up amid suffering and oppression.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, and Kyôko Kagawa.

Sansho the Bailiff is a Japanese movie about two children of a disgraced former governor who, along with their mother, are kidnapped and sold into slavery. Most of the action happens ten years later, when both the children are grown up and get the first sign that they've had in years that their mother may still be alive on the island where she was sent. Together, the children decide to escape and try to fix things. This is a heartbreaking movie, and all the more so because there's a code, an underlying message of morality and honor being worth it, even when we can't really see how that's going to play out. We see characters, both the young boy and his father, take stances to do what they think is right only to suffer for it. But the message still stands that being that kind of person is worthwhile is valuable, and that lesson somehow hits in a very different way when the movie doesn't really give them a happy ending. There is some catharsis at the end, but there are far more tears and heartbreak. It's a beautifully made film with pieces that I think will stick with me for a long time.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Sansho the Bailiff > Ripley's Game

Sansho the Bailiff > Woman in the Dunes

Sansho the Bailiff < Broadway Danny Rose

Sansho the Bailiff < Colossal

Sansho the Bailiff < Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Sansho the Bailiff > The Blue Angel

Sansho the Bailiff > Cyrano

Sansho the Bailiff > Bolt

Sansho the Bailiff > The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

Sansho the Bailiff > The Dictator

Sansho the Bailiff > City Lights

Sansho the Bailiff > Kismet

Final spot: #794 out of 3629, or 78%.

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

IMDb plot summary: A young man and his telepathic dog wander a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Directed by L.Q. Jones. Starring Don Johnson, Jason Robards, and Susanne Benton.

A Boy and His Dog is based off of a Harlan Ellison novella in which a young man and a telepathic dog traverse a post-apocalyptic wasteland. When they meet a young woman, the man has to start to decide which of his two companions has more of a say in how he lives his life. This is a movie that caught my attention right from the beginning with its unusual premise, and it held it with its darkly comic tone and refusal to explain much of its world. It reminds me quite a bit of the Mad Max series, although less elaborately technological. I found myself drawn into this world, especially as we begin to see multiple sides of it and the way various people have adapted to their new lives. The story ultimately doesn't go quite the way I expected, but I found it a fascinating time and am glad I had the opportunity to watch it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Boy and His Dog > Ripley's Game

A Boy and His Dog > Woman in the Dunes

A Boy and His Dog < Broadway Danny Rose

A Boy and His Dog < Colossal

A Boy and His Dog < Never Rarely Sometimes Always

A Boy and His Dog > The Man in the Iron Mask

A Boy and His Dog < Cyrano

A Boy and His Dog > Boy A

A Boy and His Dog > Little Women (1994)

A Boy and His Dog > The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

A Boy and His Dog > Sisters

Final spot: #823 out of 3628, or 77%.

Dressed to Kill (1980)

IMDb plot summary: A mysterious blonde woman kills one of a psychiatrist's patients, and then goes after the high-class call girl who witnessed the murder.

Directed by Brian De Palma. Starring Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, and Nancy Allen.

Dressed to Kill is a Brian De Palma thriller about a serial killer and the woman who thinks she saw the killer, but nobody will believe her. De Palma's style is often so fascinating to me, with his use of split screen to show the different things happening in his story at the same time, and his willingness to lean into the more campy nature of the stories he tells. Of course, sometimes that means that these stories feel more exploitational then I like, and that's definitely the case here, where, without giving too many plot details away, there is a strong suggestion from the beginning that the killer is a trans woman. It's the kind of thing that we now know to avoid as a trope altogether because we know it's been harmful to the trans community, and I wish that trope wasn't involved because I really enjoy the rest of the movie and that just drags it down and makes it harder to recommend or rewatch. I'm particularly struck by how often De Palma has entire scenes without dialogue, using these sort of cheesy thought bubble images to convey what's going on inside the characters' minds. It's such an interesting creative choice, and so much of this works so well, and I wish it didn't all hinge around a mentally unstable trans person.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Dressed to Kill > Ripley's Game

Dressed to Kill < Woman in the Dunes

Dressed to Kill < Battle Royale

Dressed to Kill < Drive My Car

Dressed to Kill > Bonnie and Clyde

Dressed to Kill > Viva Zapata!

Dressed to Kill < Blow Dry

Dressed to Kill < An Affair to Remember

Dressed to Kill < VeggieTales: Josh and the Big Wall!

Dressed to Kill > The Guard

Dressed to Kill > Man of La Mancha

Dressed to Kill < My Favorite Year

Final spot: #1637 out of 3626, or 55%.

The Naked Prey (1967)

IMDb plot summary: During the 1800s, a safari guide, two elephant hunters and their crew run into trouble with the natives in the South African veld when they refuse to offer gifts to the tribesmen.

Directed by Cornel Wilde. Starring Cornel Wilde, Gert van den Bergh, and Ken Gampu.

The Naked Prey is a British action/adventure drama about a man who was hunting for ivory in Africa when he and his crew are attacked by a group of local natives and he has to escape and make his way back home alone. Let me start off with a good thing first. This film looks beautiful. It really spends its time loving the animal life and the plant life and the rivers and the deserts of the country. There are moments where it feels almost like a National Geographic special -- it spends THAT much time admiring and examining the outdoors. The problem is, it's also asking us to sympathize with a European colonizer coming in and hunting another country's natural resources for profit. I kind of don't want to see him get away with it. This probably didn't strike audience back in the 1960s as being a hero you couldn't root for, but that's absolutely the case here. I appreciated having long sections where we watched the native tribes discuss their plans, with no subtitles, as it helped to humanize them a bit and not pose them ONLY as the nameless enemy, but it's definitely a story that struggles to work overall.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Naked Prey < Ripley's Game

The Naked Prey < Fifth of July

The Naked Prey > Three Guys Named Mike

The Naked Prey < Freaky Friday (1976)

The Naked Prey > Stepsister From Planet Weird

The Naked Prey < Frankenstein (1931)

The Naked Prey > Fedora

The Naked Prey > King of the Zombies

The Naked Prey < Call Northside 777

The Naked Prey > You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

The Naked Prey < Start the Revolution Without Me

Final spot: #3011 out of 3625, or 17%.

Belle (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Suzu is a shy high school student living in a rural village. For years, she has only been a shadow of herself. But when she enters "U", a massive virtual world, she escapes into her online persona as Belle, a globally-beloved singer.

Directed by Mamoru Hosoda. Starring Kaho Nakamura, Ryô Narita, and Shôta Sometani.

Belle is an anime film about a virtual reality social network where users interact via their avatar. One painfully shy young girl who loves music finds that she can sing openly in the social network without feeling self-conscious, and she becomes a virtual music star. Along the way she ends up connecting with another user, whose avatar presents him as an enormous beast. This film takes a lot of its inspiration from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, with some scenes almost exact recreations of the prior film. This is Mamoru Hosoda's latest film, and given how deeply Mirai hit me, I shouldn't have been surprised when this one also touched something deep within me. Until about the halfway mark it feels a little simplistic and derivative, and then suddenly the musical numbers HIT. The animation, the music, and the vocals all combine beautifully to suddenly elevate a normal story to something much more powerful. The rest of the story rides on that, so even when the ending feels a little too perfect, a little too sentimental, the music helps it land. I don't know that it'll be everyone's cup of tea, but I really liked this and would watch it again.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Belle > Ripley's Game

Belle > Woman in the Dunes

Belle > Broadway Danny Rose

Belle < Everything Everywhere All at Once

Belle < Nativity!

Belle > American Psycho

Belle < The Iron Giant

Belle > A Simple Plan

Belle > Pirate Radio

Belle < The Fisher King

Belle < The Lego Move

Belle > Strange Days

Final spot: #373 out of 3623, or 90%.

A Patch of Blue (1965)

IMDb plot summary: A blind, uneducated white girl is befriended by a black man, who becomes determined to help her escape her impoverished and abusive home life by introducing her to the outside world.

Directed by Guy Green. Starring Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, and Elizabeth Hartman.

A Patch of Blue tells the story of a young blind woman who lives with her neglectful mother and grandfather. She does work stringing beads together to make necklaces, and one day when she is doing this work alone in the park, she befriends a man who sees she needs some help and wants to step in and help her out. This man is played by Sidney Poitier, and a key feature in their relationship is that she does not know he is black and therefore has no qualms about befriending him the way her family does. This is an odd movie, occasionally seeming sweet and likable and occasionally hitting hard on infantilizing sexism and ableism. Poitier's interest in helping her is heavily based in pity, but treating her like a child when there's also clearly a bit of a romantic vibe between them is often a little squirmy. The one thing that saves it is how quickly she takes to her independence once she learns a few foundational skills for coping in the big world, which helps give her at least a little more agency. I have to admit I did fall into the sweetness of the film enough that I was eventually sold on it and enjoyed the story for what it was, but I'm not sure it's one I'd recommend.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Patch of Blue > Ripley's Game

A Patch of Blue < Woman in the Dunes

A Patch of Blue < Battle Royale

A Patch of Blue < Josie and the Pussycats

A Patch of Blue > Bonnie and Clyde

A Patch of Blue > Viva Zapata!

A Patch of Blue < Star Trek: Generations

A Patch of Blue > An Affair to Remember

A Patch of Blue > What Happened, Brittany Murphy?

A Patch of Blue < 101 Dalmatians (1961)

A Patch of Blue > The Italian Job (1969)

Final spot: #1617 out of 3622, or 55%.

We're No Angels (1989)

IMDb plot summary: Two escaped cons only prayer to escape is to pass themselves off as priests and pass by the police blockade at the border into the safety of Canada.

Directed by Neil Jordan. Starring Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, and Demi Moore.

We're No Angels is the 1980s remake of the earlier film of the same name, this time starring Robert De Niro and Sean Penn as two prisoners who escaped along with their much more violent friend and find themselves hiding out in a small town as priests. It's been a long time since I saw the original, but I remember finding it really charming and delightful. For whatever reason, it doesn't work nearly as well here. So much of this hinges on the characters themselves, and there was very little to enjoy in the humor of either our main two or the cast of characters that they interacted with in the town. The jokes were awkward at best, and the character growth and development that you expect on at least some level in this kind of movie just doesn't land at all. All this makes me want to do is go back and watch the original and see if it holds up or if the story as a whole has worn thin. Either way, this one isn't one to prioritize.

How it entered my Flickchart:

We're No Angels < Duel

We're No Angels > She's All That

We're No Angels < Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

We're No Angels < Bridge to Terabithia

We're No Angels > Victor/Victoria (1995)

We're No Angels < The Big House

We're No Angels < Win Win

We're No Angels < Monster

We're No Angels > Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

We're No Angels > The Iceman

We're No Angels < Before I Fall

Final spot: #2589 out of 3617, or 28%.

Mad Dog and Glory (1993)

IMDb plot summary: When shy, soft-spoken Chicago detective Wayne "Mad Dog" Dobie inadvertently saves the life of local gangster Frank Milo, he's the reluctant recipient of an unusual one week "thank you" gift - a beautiful bartender named Glory.

Directed by John McNaughton. Starring Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, and Bill Murray.

Mad Dog and Glory features Robert De Niro as a mild-mannered policeman who ends up saving the life of a ruthless mob boss played by Bill Murray. In return, Murray "gifts" him with Uma Thurman. De Niro doesn't want this but is worried he'll offend Murray if he sends her away, so the two live together for awhile, at first uncomfortably and then with a growing sense of companionship. It's really fun seeing De Niro and Murray playing against type like this -- if you'd given me the plot separate from the characters I'd have bet their roles were switched -- and they both do a good job with it. The romance element doesn't sell me nearly as much. Thurman seems stiff here, even when she's supposed to be relaxed and happy, and I just don't buy their relationship. The script is also strangely awkward, frequently feeling like it can't decide whether it's parodying cop movie tropes or playing along with them willingly. So overall it's worth it to see for the two leads' performances, but it's not a great movie outside of that.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Mad Dog and Glory < Les Miserables

Mad Dog and Glory > Wrath of Man

Mad Dog and Glory > Choke

Mad Dog and Glory < Heat

Mad Dog and Glory > Away From Her

Mad Dog and Glory > Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Mad Dog and Glory < Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Mad Dog and Glory > Tin Man

Mad Dog and Glory < The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

Mad Dog and Glory < Almost Famous

Mad Dog and Glory > Hysteria

Mad Dog and Glory > Enemy of the State

Final spot: #2069 out of 3610, or 43%.

Critical Care (1997)

IMDb plot summary: A hospital resident is put in the middle of a legal battle between two half-sisters on whether to pull their comatose dad's life support. But more seems to be at stake than dad's life - his inheritance.

Directed by Sidney Lumet. Starring James Spader, Kyra Sedgwick, and Helen Mirren.

Critical Care is a Sidney Lumet movie starring James Spader as a young resident in a hospital's critical care unit. He gets caught in the middle of an inheritance dispute between two half-sisters where the outcome depends on the death of the father, who is in a coma and being kept alive artificially. The choice of color here is distinctive but very strange. Sequences in the hospital often appear to be happening in some sort of eerie white void, which give them a quality that bounces between otherworldly and "we couldn't afford to make our set look realistic." It definitely is deliberate though, as it occasionally changes the all-white walls to an entirely different color palate to convey a patient's emotional state. It doesn't always work, but it's easily the most compelling thing about this movie. While Lumet tells a lot of stories about systemic corruption, this film reminded me most of Network and Power, in which the key to taking down corrupt systems is mostly for individuals to care enough. While that lands in Network, it feels a little empty in this one and feels a little too much like a cheesy made-for-TV movie, along with some melodramatic acting (that maybe is being played for comedy?) and the unusual choice of set design.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Critical Care < Deconstructing Harry

Critical Care > Asterix and Cleopatra

Critical Care > Firecreek

Critical Care > Jimmy the Kid

Critical Care > The Madness of King George

Critical Care < Spider-Man: Homecoming

Critical Care < Kate

Critical Care > The Baby-Sitters Club

Critical Care > King Richard

Critical Care < The Dinner Guest

Critical Care < 12 Monkeys

Critical Care > All the Money in the World

Final spot: #1893 out of 3605, or 47%.

The Parting Glass (2018)

IMDb plot summary: A family dealing with their sister's death travel across country to collect her belongings and piece together their memories of the woman they lost.

Directed by Stephen Moyer. Starring Denis O'Hare, Anna Paquin, and Cynthia Nixon.

The Parting Glass is a small intimate story of a family traveling together to find out about the youngest daughter's death. The crew consists of the daughter's soon-to-be-ex-husband, her father, and her four siblings, all navigating complicated feelings about her and each other as they mourn. It's tough to write this kind of narrowly contained story, and most of the issues that pop up here are issues with the script. There's an odd sense of time here, the kind of thing you can get away with onstage, when you can pretend someone who has been offstage for a grand total of six lines of dialogue had time to go into the nearby store and buy multiple items, but it feels awkwardly off in a film. And for all the time spent with these characters, we hardly get to know any of them. The younger brother and the ex-husband are the only ones whose relationship with the dead woman is truly explored, making all the other characters feel like filler, characters who don't have a life offscreen. If you're going to limit yourself to six characters, I want to feel like they've all got depth of character, and this falls short there.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Parting Glass < Duel

The Parting Glass > Who's That Knocking At My Door

The Parting Glass > Firecreek

The Parting Glass < Heat

The Parting Glass < Away From Her

The Parting Glass > Fun Size

The Parting Glass < Drive

The Parting Glass > Pacific Rim

The Parting Glass < Red (2018)

The Parting Glass < About Ray

The Parting Glass < The Fourth Kind

The Parting Glass < Blow Out

Final spot: #2180 out of 3602, or 39%.

Belfast (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A young boy and his working-class Belfast family experience the tumultuous late 1960s.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Starring Jude Hill, Lewis McAskie, and Caitriona Balfe.

Belfast is Kenneth Branagh's semi-autobiographical film about a young boy growing up in Belfast during the Northern Ireland conflict. We see his family pressured into taking sides and trying to decide if it's worth leaving Belfast to make a better life for themselves elsewhere. I'm not surprised this is one of Branagh's more acclaimed films, because it feels the most grounded in reality to me, and therefore something critics love and I don't. Toned-down Branagh just doesn't have much appeal for me. It's missing the theatrical flair that makes his other work so identifiable and instead becomes a run-of-the-mill coming-of-age movie that mildly interests me as an educational work but not at all as an emotional one. That being said, it's certainly not a bad film. It's done well, and it looks gorgeous, and all the acting is spot-on. It just leaves me a little cold. But I am not at all surprised that it's gotten so much love -- what I find dull about it is exactly what will draw others to it, and I'm glad the film exists, even if I have no interest in watching it again.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Belfast < Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Belfast > Asterix and Cleopatra

Belfast > Con Air

Belfast > Jimmy the Kid

Belfast < The Savages

Belfast < A Foreign Affair

Belfast < Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Belfast > Casino

Belfast > Thoughtcrimes

Belfast < Star!

Belfast < Forbidden Planet

Belfast < Cropsey

Final spot: #2007 out of 3607, or 44%.

Ron's Gone Wrong (2021)

IMDb plot summary: The story of Barney, an awkward middle-schooler and Ron, his new walking, talking, digitally-connected device. Ron's malfunctions set against the backdrop of the social media age launch them on a journey to learn about true friendship.

Directed by Sarah Smith and Jean-Philippe Vine. Starring Jack Dylan Grazer, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms.

Ron's Gone Wrong is an animated children's film about a near future in which every child has their own robot designed to help them make friends. Our main character, Barney, desperately wants one but his family is too poor. His father finally manages to get his hands on a bootleg robot, only to find out it's extremely glitchy and can't do most of what Barney wants. This is... basically just Big Hero 6 for younger kids and uglier animation. It's a cute concept, sure, and who doesn't love a slightly broken robot trying to understand humanity? But it's a little too on-the-nose with its intended metaphor about children and screens, and its big adventure ending requires way too much suspension of disbelief, and the redemption arc of the minor antagonists kind of comes out of nowhere and I still don't trust them. Totally watchable, but I'd rather just rewatch Big Hero 6.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Ron's Gone Wrong < Spellbound (1945)

Ron's Gone Wrong > Fifth of July

Ron's Gone Wrong > The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

Ron's Gone Wrong > Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Ron's Gone Wrong > Chocolat

Ron's Gone Wrong > It Comes at Night

Ron's Gone Wrong > Zelig

Ron's Gone Wrong < The Harder They Fall

Ron's Gone Wrong > Arctic

Ron's Gone Wrong < Fahrenheit 451

Ron's Gone Wrong > The Misfits

Final spot: #1831 out of 3624, or 49%.

The January Man (1989)

IMDb plot summary: Two years after being forced out of NYPD, quirky Nick is rehired by the mayor to catch a serial killer after the 11th murder of a woman.

Directed by Pat O'Connor. Starring Kevin Kline, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Susan Sarandon.

The January Man stars Kevin Kline as a renowned former detective who took the fall for his brother's fraud and is now, years later, is controversially reinstated to help catch a serial killer. This script was written by John Patrick Shanley, who I frequently love, but this script definitely feels a little half-baked and can't quite land on its tone. The best moments are the more playful ones, particularly the interactions between Kline and his artist neighbor, played by Alan Rickman. But both the mystery and romance portions of the story are woefully underdeveloped. The mystery is so laughable I genuinely thought it was going to be a story of protagonist hubris when he was proven wrong, and Kline's romance with two different women is abruptly dropped whenever it's convenient. I don't usually suggest movies should be longer -- I enjoy a tight script -- but this definitely felt like there were about 15 minutes missing which could help patch up some of these holes. A strange and uneven movie with a couple high points.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The January Man < The Keep

The January Man > The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

The January Man > Flypaper

The January Man < Venom

The January Man > Spy

The January Man > Superman

The January Man < Notorious

The January Man > Isadora

The January Man < Moonstruck

The January Man < Camelot

The January Man < Fish Tank

The January Man > Marathon

Final spot: #2035 out of 3547, or 43%.

Laughter (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A former chorus girl weds a millionaire after the composer she loves leaves. Meanwhile, she strings along an artist in love with her. When the composer returns, she struggles with her needs for security vs love. High jinks and drama ensue.

Directed by Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast. Starring Nancy Carroll, Fredric March, and Frank Morgan.

Laughter tells the story of a young woman who married for money, but when her old fling comes back from living in Paris, the two start to rekindle their relationship. The title of this film is so appropriate, because the number one thing that stands out in the story is the playful sense of humor and chemistry that this woman has with her previous boyfriend. Every time the two of them are together, the script transforms from this serious melodrama into a smart, witty comedy, where the two are having so much fun together that it's absolutely easy to see why they are meant to be together rather then her comfort marriage. I want to credit Nancy Carroll's acting in particular for making it so easy to see the difference between the way she acts with her husband and the way she acts with her old friend. It does exactly what a romance should do: it gets you to fall in love with the characters. I have not thus far been much of a fan of the romance stories I've seen in my 1930 project, but this is definitely one I'm going to remember.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Laughter > Deconstructing Harry

Laughter < Safe

Laughter < Battle Royale

Laughter > Batman

Laughter > Nanny McPhee

Laughter > Hugo

Laughter > Cinema Paradiso

Laughter > About Elly

Laughter < Starship Troopers

Laughter > Blue Sky

Laughter > National Treasure

Laughter > The Age of Adaline

Final spot: #1359 out of 3603, or 62%.