Internal Affairs (1990)

IMDb plot summary: An Internal Affairs agent becomes obsessed with bringing down a cop who has managed to maintain a spotless reputation despite being involved in a web of corruption.

Directed by Mike Figgis. Starring Richard Gere, Andy Garcia, and Nancy Travis.

Internal Affairs stars Andy Garcia as a police officer in the Internal Affairs division who finds himself investigating Richard Gere, a police officer with an upstanding record with a hidden history of corruption. After months of watching Sidney Lumet's filmography, I forgot at times that this wasn't a Lumet film -- it was so like him in its themes and style (and even stars actors he worked with in the 80s and 90s), though without any of the spark that made him such a great director. However it does a good job of setting up the necessary stakes and building tension, and seeing Gere as a villain is a lot of fun. His smugness really works well to make us hate him here. As always I find Garcia an uninteresting actor but his character does his job here. This isn't a spectacular film, but it is pretty competent within a well-worn genre, and fans of that genre will probably enjoy this well enough. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

Internal Affairs < Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Internal Affairs > Fast Food Nation

Internal Affairs > The Christmas Toy

Internal Affairs > The English Patient

Internal Affairs > Jack Strong

Internal Affairs < Fatherhood

Internal Affairs < Raffles

Internal Affairs < 12 Monkeys

Internal Affairs > The Morning After

Internal Affairs < JFK

Internal Affairs > Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood

Final spot: #1929 out of 3650, or 47%.

Margin Call (2011)

IMDb plot summary: Follows the key people at an investment bank over a 24-hour period during the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis.

Directed by J.C. Chandor. Starring Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, and Kevin Spacey.

Margin Call is set in an investment bank in the early stages of the 2007-2008 recession. A group of employees realize that things are about to collapse and escalate this information to the higher-ups. Turns out, the only way to save the company is by getting rid of their assets as quickly as possible before but they become valueless, which of course screws over all the people the bank works with, and that doesn't sit well with everyone. This is a tightly written thriller that manages to contain all its drama in one location at one point in time. I always admire films that can keep that narrow focus and still remain riveting -- it's the theater nerd in me. The film does a good job of giving glimpses at each of these characters as they're confronted with this moral question, even if it doesn't have the time to fully flush all of them out, and that's enough for it to be a really satisfying watch. Also... is this the least sleazy person Kevin Spacey has ever played? It may be. It's a film that kept me interested through the whole run time and never felt slow or made me impatient for something else to happen. Well-written, well-acted, well-directed.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Margin Call > Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Margin Call > Kuroneko

Margin Call < Castle in the Sky

Margin Call < The Pawnbroker

Margin Call > City Lights

Margin Call > Pig

Margin Call < Megamind

Margin Call < Don't Drink the Water

Margin Call > Sleight

Margin Call < Bubba Ho-tep

Margin Call > Take This Waltz

Final spot: #731 out of 3648, or 80%.

Drive My Car (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A renowned stage actor and director learns to cope with his wife's unexpected passing when he receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima.

Directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. Starring Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tôko Miura, and Reika Kirishima.

Drive My Car is a Japanese film about a play director whose wife dies unexpectedly, and sometime later we see him directing a production of Uncle Vanya in which he casts his wife's ex lover as Vanya. The title comes from the fact that the man is driven back and forth from his lodgings to his rehearsals by a young female driver who he gets to know along the way. This is a very slow, very quiet film that has no interest in giving you any more information than it absolutely has to. Sometimes that really pays off. The scene, for example, where the actor and the director finally open up to each other about the wife really worked for me. But sometimes, as in good chunks of the first two thirds of the movie, it's just frustrating. This is a three hour movie, and you really have to be ready to give it that amount of time and be prepared to sink yourself into it for that amount of time. I heard all this from your reviewers before but wasn't quite able to get that amount of time set aside to really focus on it. As a result, while I liked the film, I think there was certainly more to get out of it, and I hope to revisit it sometime to dig deeper.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Drive My Car > Be Kind Rewind

Drive My Car < Woman in the Dunes

Drive My Car < Battle Royale

Drive My Car < Josie and the Pussycats

Drive My Car > Alice Adams

Drive My Car > Alice

Drive My Car > Blow Dry

Drive My Car > Natural Born Killers

Drive My Car > Dakota Skye

Drive My Car > How Do You Know

Drive My Car > Sleepy Hollow

Drive My Car > Batman

Final spot: #1585 out of 3621, or 56%.

Come From Away (2021)

IMDb plot summary: 7,000 passengers are stranded after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in a small town in Newfoundland, where they were housed and welcomed. Filmed live on stage at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater in New York City.

Directed by Christopher Ashley. Starring Petrina Bromley, Jenn Colella, and De'Lon Grant.

Come From Away is a filmed stage version of the Tony Award-nominated musical. It tells the story of a small town in Newfoundland, Canada, that became an emergency refuge for 38 US planes rerouted after the September 11th terrorist attacks. All actors play multiple roles as both Canadians and passengers on the planes, with a very simple set consisting of some chairs and tables. A lot of the dialogue is pulled directly from firsthand accounts of the people who lived through this. This is really a show that needs to be seen, not listened to. Nearly all the songs are interwoven with dialogue instead of being standalone pieces, and while that make for a mediocre cast album, it makes the whole story beautifully coherent. These are also really solid performances -- there's not one actor struggling to pull their weight, and that's impressive in such a large ensemble cast. A musical about 9/11 could easily be cloying and cheesy, but the story handles itself beautifully and ends up being the best kind of inspirational.

Come From Away > Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Come From Away > Kuroneko

Come From Away < Castle in the Sky

Come From Away < The Pawnbroker

Come From Away > Kismet

Come From Away > Red Carpet

Come From Away < Megamind

Come From Away > Don't Drink the Water

Come From Away > 9

Come From Away > Mildred Pierce

Come From Away > The Incredibles

Final spot: #714 out of 3649, or 80%.

Yes Day (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A mom and dad who usually say no decide to say yes to their kids' wildest requests with a few ground rules on a whirlwind day of fun and adventure.

Directed by Miguel Arteta. Starring Jennifer Garner, Edgar Ramirez, and Jenna Ortega.

Yes Day is a family comedy featuring Jennifer Garner and Edgar Ramirez as uptight parents. When Garner discovers that her kids think of her as a tyrant and a dictator, she decides to plan a "yes day" for them, in which she and her husband will agree to whatever they want to plan. The majority of the movie follows the hijinks that ensue as the kids determine the course of the day. This is absolutely a children's fantasy movie about being able to do whatever they want and go wherever they want, so it's a little weird that the protagonist is the mother more than the kids. Jennifer Garner is somehow simultaneously good and bad in this, with an obvious uncomfortable stiltedness in early scenes and then one unexpectedly hilarious sequence in which she completely loses it on a stranger at the carnival. I literally went from thinking, "This is why I don't like Jennifer Garner in anything," to thinking, "Hold on, is she actually a really talented comedienne?" As a whole though, most of it isn't either very good or very bad. It's a cute movie about parents and children. No more.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Yes Day < Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Yes Day > Heidi (1937)

Yes Day < The Christmas Toy

Yes Day < The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Yes Day > Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Yes Day > Blue Valentine

Yes Day < Peter Pan (2003)

Yes Day < Steel Magnolias

Yes Day < Martha Marcy May Marlene

Yes Day < Miss Potter

Yes Day < Annie (2014)

Yes Day < The Dinner Game

Final spot: #2565 out of 3647, or 30%.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

IMDb plot summary: An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save the world by exploring other universes connecting with the lives she could have led.

Directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. Starring Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, and Ke Huy Quan.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is a 2022 film starring Michelle Yeoh as the exhausted hard-working owner of a laundromat who is being audited. Amid all of her stress, she covers that the multiverse exists and that she is somehow extremely important to it and to stopping a mysterious evil that's jumping through the universes, so she must learn to jump through universes herself to solve the problem. This is a wild, funny, beautiful ride. The film really takes advantage of the absurdist nature of multiple universes and the infinite selection of literally anything being possible. Those absurdist moments make for both some of the funniest and some of the saddest moments in the whole movie. But despite the big picture gimmick idea, at the heart of it, it really does make space to be a beautiful, thoughtful, heartbreaking look at motherhood and existential crisis and how to deal with loved ones who are in pain. This movie at no point was disappointing. Every step along the journey was truly a delight.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Everything Everywhere All at Once > Be Kind Rewind

Everything Everywhere All at Once > Woman in the Dunes

Everything Everywhere All at Once > The Goodbye Girl (1977)

Everything Everywhere All at Once < Amahl and the Night Visitors

Everything Everywhere All at Once > Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Everything Everywhere All at Once > Spirited Away

Everything Everywhere All at Once > Unforgiven

Everything Everywhere All at Once > Parasite

Everything Everywhere All at Once > Fright Night (1985)

Everything Everywhere All at Once > 28 Days Later...

Everything Everywhere All at Once > Equus

Everything Everywhere All at Once > Submarine

Final spot: #227 out of 3620, or 94%.

Winter Light (1963)

IMDb plot summary: A small-town priest struggles with his faith.

Directed by Ingmar Burgman. Starring Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand, and Gunnel Lindblom.

Winter Light follows a disillusioned priest of a tiny village church throughout his day, seeing him do things like counseling a man who has lost his faith and interacting with the unbelieving woman he's been having a secret affair with. His own faith is clearly barely alive at this point and yet we watch him going through the motions to fulfill his priestly duties. There's a deep devastating hopelessness to this movie that could easily be taken as a statement on the futility of religious beliefs, although as a religious person myself I see it as being more about how ritual and tradition cannot alone keep someone's spirit alive, nor can it prevent someone from being an awful person (as this priest is). Director Ingmar Bergman's stark visual choices really showcase the deadness of this man's inner self. Sometimes black and white cinematography looks pristine and beautiful and fully alive, but here it is cold and wintry and lifeless, and that ends up being very haunting. While I admire this film as a portrait of a particular person, I'm definitely unsatisfied by the ending. Of course, maybe that's the point, maybe the ending needs to be as unsatisfactory as the rest of this character's life. Regardless, it's one I'll keep thinking about for awhile.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Winter Light > Spellbound (1945)

Winter Light < Woman in the Dunes

Winter Light > Battle Royale

Winter Light < L'atalante

Winter Light > Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Winter Light > The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Winter Light < Child's Play (1972)

Winter Light > The Song of Lunch

Winter Light > Trick 'r Treat

Winter Light > Under the Skin

Winter Light > The Happening

Final spot: #1169 out of 3645, or 68%.