The Long Goodbye (1973)

IMDb plot summary: Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.
Directed by Robert Altman. Starring Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, and Sterling Hayden.

I keep giving detective-based noirs and neo-noirs a chance in case I don't hate them some day, but, nope, that's not happening. This movie took me three days to watch because I kept getting bored and going to do something else. Noir characters continue to be impossibly unrelatable for me. In addition, this movie looks and sounds ugly. I'm sure the unclear visuals and muddled sound was done on purpose, but it just made me even less interested in the movie than I already was. I can't even judge anymore whether these are objectively good or not, because I can't figure out what the hype is about them in the first place. This is a bias I'm apparently not getting over any time soon.

Flickchart: #1719 out of 1906, below Spaceballs and above The Story of the Weeping Camel.

Divided We Fall (2000)

IMDb plot summary: In Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, a childless couple agree to hide a Jewish friend at great personal risk of discovery and execution.
Directed by Jan Hrebejk. Starring Bolek Polívka, Anna Sisková, Csongor Kassai, and Jaroslav Dusek.

This movie is a different perspective that I haven't seen or heard much on life during World War II. It's a very human drama, with a few unexpected comedic moments. I was especially impressed by the characters, which have lots of unexpected layers and are truly fascinating to watch. It's just as much about them and who they are as it is what they're going through. Very well done. 4 stars.

Flickchart: #580 out of 1905, below Synecdoche, New York and above Intolerable Cruelty.

Kolya (1996)

IMDb plot summary: Franta Louka is a concert cellist in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, a confirmed bachelor and a lady's man. When he marries a Russian woman so that she can get her Czech papers, she emigrates to West Germany, to her lover; and leaves her five-year-old son with his grandmother; when the grandmother dies, Kolya must come and live with his stepfather - Louka. 
Directed by Jan Sverák. Starring Zdenek Sverák and Andrei Chalimon.

Some mild spoilers ahead.

Usually I am really, really opposed to "grizzled tough man has his heart warmed by children" movies, but this one is not bad at all. It neatly avoids all the traps by never being cloying, precocious, or saccharine. Instead, it's a tidy story of a normal child with a normal old man who start to kind of like each other. Even the bittersweet ending, which would be hyped up into a tear-jerking scene in any other movie, is handled in a way that is both subtle and true. Really nice work here. *This* is how you do a story like this. 4 stars.

Flickchart: #492 out of 1904, below Back to the Future Part III and above Army of Darkness.

Persona (1966)

IMDb plot summary: A nurse is put in charge of an actress who can't talk and finds that the actress's persona is melding with hers.
Directed by Ingmar Bergman. Starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann.

WELL, THAT WASN'T AN INFURIATINGLY CONFUSING MOVIE AT ALL.

There might have been a little bit of sarcasm in that shouted opening line. I have no idea what to do with this movie. I was delighted to find that when I looked around online, nobody else had any idea what was going on in it either. I like Bergman as a whole, and I often like ambiguity, but I felt so clearly like this *was* leading toward an answer, and then I never got one. Unlike The Seventh Seal, which was also hecka confusing but had a few truly beautiful moments, I wasn't drawn to anything in this story except the mystery, which was never really solved. Disappointing. It's possible that a rewatch someday or even just deciding on a way to interpret the movie would vastly change my opinion of it, but right now I am rather annoyed with it. 2 stars.

Flickchart: #1154 out of 1903, below Last of the Red Hot Lovers and above The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Burn After Reading (2008)

IMDb plot summary: A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it.
Directed by Ethan and Joel Coen. Starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, and Tilda Swinton.

Like most Coen brothers movies, I'm not quite sure what to make of this one. I think it'll have to settle with me for awhile. The few thoughts I have are vague and disjointed, things like:

I LOVE Brad Pitt in this.
And Frances McDormand.
Everyone else is kind of sleazy.
Especially Tilda Swinton.
I think I missed the point of the movie. I think it had one, but I think I missed it.
Was this a comedy? I couldn't quite tell.

In the end, Brad Pitt's absolutely wonderful gym worker and Frances McDormand's likable, insecure heroine get a 2.5 star rating out of me. Not sure yet how I feel about the rest.

Flickchart: #1275 out of 1902, below Spider-Man 3 and above A Scanner Darkly.

Hitchcock (2012)

IMDb plot summary: A love story between influential filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and wife Alma Reville during the filming of Psycho in 1959.
Directed by Sacha Gervasi. Starring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, and Scarlett Johansson.

I'm fascinated by the true-life (or at least semi-true-life) stories behind some of the greatest film geniuses. This movie isn't going to stick with me for long, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching it. It's fun and stylish and Anthony Hopkins is pretty good as Hitchcock. It wraps up its primary climactic moment a little too neatly for me, but I had so much fun watching it play out that I didn't mind too much. 3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #717 out of 1901, below Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and above Must Love Dogs.

Life of Pi (2012)

IMDb plot summary: A young man who survives a disaster at sea is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an unexpected connection with another survivor: a fearsome Bengal tiger.
Directed by Ang Lee. Stars Suraj Sharma and Irrfan Khan.

I reacted to this movie about how I thought I would. It looks gorgeous, and those effects are truly incredible. However, I remain uninterested in stories about people off by themselves, or, less interesting still, interacting with animals. The bulk of the film was just that, and although I was intrigued by the rather ambiguous ending, it wasn't enough to hold my attention throughout. This movie may be good, but it's just not at all my cup of tea. 2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #928 out of 1900, between Larry-Boy and the Fib From Outer Space! and the Adjustment Bureau.