The Last Seduction (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A devious sexpot steals her husband's drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.

Directed by John Dahl. Starring Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, and Michael Raysses.

This has all the earmarks of your traditional femme fatale neo-noir, with one exception I can't quite explain: I LOVE this character. Don't get me wrong, she's a terrible person, but it's just so fascinating to watch her work and see what she wants and how she hopes to get it. Roger Ebert said in his review that the film "knows how much we enjoy seeing a character work boldly outside the rules," and I think that captures it perfectly. She has so few qualms and is played so perfectly by Linda Fiorentino that it's kind of an exhilarating ride. It's hard to feel much sympathy for the men in her life she's taking advantage of either, with their mean streaks and wobbly ethics. There is an unfortunate bit of transphobia toward the end that comes out of nowhere and has no bearing on the plot, but it's still something I wish the movie didn't contain, as I found myself kind of captivated by the rest of it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Last Seduction > Fahrenheit 451

The Last Seduction < Anna Karenina

The Last Seduction > Fantasia 2000

The Last Seduction > Waitress

The Last Seduction > Being There

The Last Seduction < Jesus Christ Superstar

The Last Seduction < The Ten Commandments (1956)

The Last Seduction < Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book

The Last Seduction < Nerve

The Last Seduction < Gentleman's Agreement

The Last Seduction < The Front Page (1974)

The Last Seduction > 13th

Final spot: #958 out of 3413, or 72%.

The Last Dragon (1985)

IMDb plot summary: In New York City, a young man searches for a Master to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as the Glow.

Directed by Michael Schultz. Starring Taimak, Vanity, Christopher Murney, and Julius Carry.

This is not a terribly clear narrative. What it is is a love letter to older martial arts movies. It clearly loves them so much and wants to do its own version with a Black lead, and it's mostly successful in that. The characters are drawn in very broad strokes in the sense that you can gather who is "good" and "bad," even if their motives are a bit muddier. It's got quite a few moments that made me chuckle, particularly as our naive lead character interacts inside of his sort of "zen martial arts master persona," and the moments when those cross paths with the real world are charmingly goofy. I haven't yet mentioned our other antagonist, who I believe is a rival martial artist gang leader, who really takes on an outlandish larger-than-life quality every time he and his entourage appear on screen. None of this is my genre, really, but I enjoy what it tries to do and it makes me smile.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Last Dragon > Fahrenheit 451

The Last Dragon < Safe

The Last Dragon < Charlie St. Cloud

The Last Dragon < Real Life

The Last Dragon < Drunken Master

The Last Dragon < Captain Phillips

The Last Dragon > Vampyr

The Last Dragon < Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

The Last Dragon > Cambio de ruta

The Last Dragon > The Anderson Tapes

The Last Dragon < The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair

Final spot: #1669 out of 3412, or 51%.

Man of La Mancha (1972)

IMDb plot summary: The funny story of mad but kind and chivalrous elderly nobleman Don Quixote who, aided by his squire Sancho Panza, fights windmills that are seen as dragons to save prostitute Dulcinea who is seen as a noblewoman.

Directed by Arthur Hiller. Starring Peter O'Toole, Sophia Loren, James Coco, and Harry Andrews.

While I've never seen the theatrical show, this is, as far as I understand, a pretty faithful adaptation of it, with nearly all songs intact. The songs are still powerful and beautifully crafted, but this film never quite holds together. Some of that is probably due to the less-than-stellar vocals provided by O'Toole and Loren (though Loren struggles more by far) which tamps down some of the grandiose nature of the songs. These characters sound the way they look, just like regular everyday people with no special gifts, and that makes it a little harder to enter into Quixote's imaginary world of extraordinary beauty. Additionally, there's an unexpected amount of slapstick in this film, especially early on, with O'Toole giving comedic eye rolls to the camera just before falling over after an injury. It has some good moments, and some of the musical numbers actually work pretty well as standalone pieces, but it struggles to hold its vision together and never quite reaches greatness.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Man of La Mancha > The Misfits

Man of La Mancha < Safe

Man of La Mancha < Charlie St. Cloud

Man of La Mancha < Real Life

Man of La Mancha > Mr. Nice Guy

Man of La Mancha > The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Man of La Mancha < Minority Report

Man of La Mancha > The Bishop's Wife

Man of La Mancha > The Client

Man of La Mancha < VeggieTales: Josh and the Big Wall!

Man of La Mancha < My Favorite Year

Man of La Mancha > The Guard

Final spot: #1523 out of 3411, or 55%.

Grand Illusion (1937)

IMDb plot summary: During WWI, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German P.O.W. camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are eventually sent to a seemingly inescapable fortress.

Directed by Jean Renoir. Starring Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, and Erich von Stroheim.

While on first glance this film doesn't resonate very deeply with me, it is vital to remember the foundation it laid for other films I've seen before. There's a scene where the French soldiers defiantly sing "La Marseillaise," and I immediately recognized the thread leading from this to a similar scene in Casablanca, one of my all-time favorite films. And virtually all great prison escape films owe a debt of gratitude to the characters and narratives spun here. I'm also intrigued by the relationship shown between the head of the camp and one of the more aristocratic prisoners, who form a bond around their shared understanding of class even though they are on completely opposite sides of the war. This one finally completes the Flickchart Global Top 100 for me, and I'm glad to have had the push to finally see it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Grand Illusion < Fahrenheit 451

Grand Illusion > The Professional

Grand Illusion > Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Grand Illusion > Almost Famous

Grand Illusion > Out of Africa

Grand Illusion < Mrs. Miniver

Grand Illusion > Dunkirk

Grand Illusion > The Lighthouse

Grand Illusion > The Dinner Guest

Grand Illusion > New Faces

Grand Illusion < The Firemen's Ball

Final spot: #1761 out of 3410, or 48%.

Luca (2021)

IMDb plot summary: On the Italian Riviera, an unlikely but strong friendship grows between a human being and a sea monster disguised as a human.

Directed by Enrico Casarosa. Starring Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, and Saverio Raimondo.

This is the first Pixar film I've seen in awhile that felt decidedly *for* children. That isn't a bad thing by any means, children deserve their own art too, and it deserves to be good, and this is definitely that, but it didn't really have any of the deeper, more complex moments I've come to expect from the studio based on their other films. No tugging on my heartstrings here, really. The characters are cute, the plot a well-structured one that definitely is reminiscent of The Little Mermaid, the sea monster design is delightful, and the relationships between the characters are relatable. I have no true complaints about it, it's a quality film, but I am not the audience here and don't embrace it as wholeheartedly as I might have as a child.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Luca > The Misfits

Luca < Safe

Luca > Charlie St. Cloud

Luca > The Artist

Luca > Being There

Luca > Jesus Christ Superstar

Luca > Crocodile Dundee

Luca < The Black Cat

Luca < Barton Fink

Luca < Miss Saigon: 25th Anniversary Cast

Luca < SubUrbia

Luca > Baby Driver

Final spot: #877 out of 3409, or 74%.

Space Sweepers (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Set in the year 2092 and follows the crew of a space junk collector ship called The Victory. When they discover a humanoid robot named Dorothy that's known to be a weapon of mass destruction, they get involved in a risky business deal.

Directed by Sung-hee Jo. Starring Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Seon-kyu, and Hae-Jin Yoo.

This movie isn't quite as clever as it wants to be when it comes to its narrative, but the world setup does feel incredibly prescient, as I watched this just a few days before the news was filled of billionaires buying their own spaceships and going to space, so that world feels only a decade or two a way. Aside from that, though, it's a fairly by-the-book story that thinks it's saying much bigger things about humanity than it actually is. A lot of the narrative beats fall right into the regular "tough guys meet a child who changes them" tropes, and most of that falls a little flat. Worth exploring the world, less worth exploring this particular narrative.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Space Sweepers > The Misfits

Space Sweepers < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Space Sweepers > Fantasia 2000

Space Sweepers < The Artist

Space Sweepers < Men in Black III

Space Sweepers < The Long Day Closes

Space Sweepers < Nobody's Fool

Space Sweepers < Joker

Space Sweepers > Stalag 17

Space Sweepers > The Mauritanian

Space Sweepers < Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

Final spot: #1268 out of 3408, or 63%.

The Piano (1993)

IMDb plot summary: In the mid-19th century, a mute woman is sent to New Zealand along with her young daughter and prized piano for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner, but is soon lusted after by a local worker on the plantation.

Directed by Jane Campion. Starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin.

While I'll remain vague about how it ends, there is so much about this movie that set off uncomfortable alarm bells for me, especially in the dynamic between the women and the two men she's involved with. It most certainly seems to be telling a specific story of a specific woman's specific unique-to-her circumstances, rather than identifying what makes a relationship good or bad, but I certainly can't root for what the story ultimate wants me to root for, even when it seems that it's what the sympathetic main character (maybe?) wants. It's a compelling story, but a troubling one, and while it tries to wrap it up neatly at the end, I remained troubled by it long after the credits rolled.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Piano < The Misfits

The Piano > Firewall

The Piano > The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

The Piano > Hysteria

The Piano > I'm Not Rappaport

The Piano < Twisted Nerve

The Piano > The Madness of King George

The Piano < The Baby-Sitters Club (1995)

The Piano > Chocolat

The Piano > Stage Fright (2014)

The Piano > Jack Strong

The Piano < Unbroken

Final spot: #1772 out of 3407, or 48%.