Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Feature adaptation of the animated short film interviewing a mollusk named Marcel.

Directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp. Starring Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer-Camp, and Isabella Rossellini.

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is a full-length version of the 2010 viral short film of the same name, starring the voice of Jenny Slate as a curious, philosophical little shell named Marcel, who has shoes and a face. In this story, Marcel and his Nana Connie live together in the house where they used to live with a larger community of shells, who were accidentally taken out of the house when one of the former occupants moved out. We follow them and their documentarian, Dean, as they go about their days in the house. Marcel was a viral sensation when the short video was released, and watching this reminded me why. He's a truly charming character, simultaneously bold and shy in an incredibly relatable way, and of course the design of these characters is adorable. The film does exactly what it should: just lets this character be this character. Even as the plot gets a little thicker and we have a more serious narrative arc playing out, there are still so many moments of just watching Marcel interact with his world, and that makes the more emotionally poignant moments really land. This was a delightful surprise, and I found myself very taken with this film.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > Hairspray (1988)

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On < Castle in the Sky

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On < Jeopardy (1953)

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > Kismet

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > Red Carpet

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On < Come from Away

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > The Joy Luck Club

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > 9

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > Mildred Pierce

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > The Incredibles

Final spot: #721 out of 3687, or 80%.

My Daughter's Killer (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A father fights for decades to bring his daughter's killer to justice in France and Germany before taking extreme measures

Directed by Antoine Tassin.

My Daughter's Killer is a documentary about a man whose young daughter suddenly dies abruptly, and her father becomes convinced that her stepfather killed her, and he orchestrates an abduction to bring the stepfather from Germany to France, where he can be tried for his crimes. This feels less like a feature-length story and more like a 45-minute true crime podcast. That's not a bad thing, just a slightly different feel than I expected, and it leaves me feeling like I don't have enough to say about it. The film opens making you think it's leaning toward a much darker vigilante justice story than it ultimately is, so I started prepared to hate our main character and ended up being more sympathetic toward him than I was initially. There's just not a lot for me to comment on in this movie -- if you like this kind of story, you'll probably like this movie, and if you're iffy on them, as I am, it's fine but not spectacular.

How it entered my Flickchart:

My Daughter's Killer < Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)

My Daughter's Killer < 13 Going on 30

My Daughter's Killer > Blood Heat

My Daughter's Killer > Gosford Park

My Daughter's Killer > Speak

My Daughter's Killer > The Way We Were

My Daughter's Killer > Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

My Daughter's Killer < Christmas on the Square

My Daughter's Killer < Ice Station Zebra

My Daughter's Killer > The Thomas Crown Affair

My Daughter's Killer > Funny Face

My Daughter's Killer < The Little Drummer Boy

Final spot: #2788 out of 3686, or 24%.

Hustle (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A basketball scout discovers a phenomenal street ball player while in Spain and sees the prospect as his opportunity to get back into the NBA.

Directed by Jeremiah Zagar. Starring Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, and Juancho Hernangomez.

Hustle stars Adam Sandler as a basketball scout who finds himself at odds with the new owner of the team he works for. He's under a lot of pressure to find the next big star, but when he thinks he's found him, in a single father named Bo Cruz, the new owner is reluctant to take him up on it. So he gambles on the player himself, spending his own money to bring Cruz to the United States and get him noticed by the pros. The movie centers heavily around not only the logistical goal of getting Cruz into the NBA but also around the paternal relationship Sandler develops with the young man, and as a whole, that storyline works. Sandler's usual abrasiveness is channeled here into a fiercely protective attitude toward the people he cares about, and it works much better for me than most of his performances, even his serious ones. Like so many sports dramas, the beats feel familiar but that's not so much a knock on the movie because it hits those beats well and satisfyingly. A solid flick.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hustle > Hairspray (1988)

Hustle < Dark Passage

Hustle > A Scanner Darkly

Hustle < The Producers (2005)

Hustle < Spellbound (2002)

Hustle < Summer Stock

Hustle < Flight of the Navigator

Hustle > Don't Look Up

Hustle < The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Hustle < The Impossible

Hustle > Kanal

Hustle > Swing Shift

Final spot: #1363 out of 3684, or 63%.

Skater Girl (2021)

IMDb plot summary: When a teen in rural India discovers a life-changing passion for skateboarding, she faces a rough road as she follows her dream to compete.

Directed by Manjari Makijany. Starring Waheeda Rehman, Amy Maghera, and Anurag Arora.

Skater Girl tells the story of a group of children living in a poor village in India. A visiting woman buys the children skateboards and even invests in building a skate park for them, and one young girl in particular discovers how much she loves to skate. I really like Rachel Sanchita Gupta as our titular skater girl. This is her first film, and she is likable and relatable and you want to root for her, even when the story doesn't work for me. Like a lot of inspirational sports stories, there are obstacles placed in the character's way that they must overcome to succeed, and here the obstacles seem so vast that I can't imagine her win could play out like it does. Like, really, what is actually going to happen to this child once the movie is over? The story and its successes aren't quite big enough to convince me, even in an inspirational movie where all they want to do is convince me, that they can make a meaningful difference against opponents like "societal traditions." If you are convinced, I think you'll like this movie a lot. If you aren't, you'll likely find this a little empty.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Skater Girl > Hairspray (1988)

Skater Girl < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Skater Girl < A Scanner Darkly

Skater Girl < Lucky Number Slevin

Skater Girl > Jeff, Who Lives At Home

Skater Girl > Meek's Cutoff

Skater Girl > Away We Go

Skater Girl > The Little Things

Skater Girl > Happy-Go-Lucky

Skater Girl < Girl Shy

Skater Girl < Fly Away Home

Skater Girl < Muppet Treasure Island

Final spot: #1619 out of 3685, or 56%.

Petite Maman (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Nelly has just lost her grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother's childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods. One day she meets a girl her same age building a treehouse.

Directed by Céline Sciamma. Starring Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, and Nina Meurisse.

Petite Maman follows an eight-year-old girl who is staying with her parents in her late grandmother's house as they clean it out. She ends up wandering the nearby woods and making friends with another little girl, only to discover they have a surprising connection. (It's not really much of a spoiler but the movie itself doesn't make it wholly obvious what their connection is until later, so I'll leave it vague here.) The film is very short at just 72 minutes, and the result is a simple, sweet fantasy story about two little girls' friendship. Sisters Josephine and Gabrielle Sanz play the two girls, and they have a very natural camaraderie together that really brings the story to life. They're delightful to watch interact, and as their bigger story unwinds it just piggybacks on that delightfulness. It's hard to come up with much more to say about it without going into details that I think work best if you don't know about them beforehand, but it's well worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Petite Maman > Camp

Petite Maman > The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Petite Maman > Six Degrees of Separation

Petite Maman < Equus

Petite Maman > Before Sunset

Petite Maman < Pygmalion (1938)

Petite Maman > Conspiracy Theory

Petite Maman > Hard Candy

Petite Maman > Bicycle Thieves

Petite Maman < Saving Mr. Banks

Petite Maman < I'm Not Scared

Petite Maman < Heathers

Final spot: #294 out of 3683, or 92%.

Little Nikita (1988)

IMDb plot summary: An F.B.I. Agent works to uncover an All-American family as Soviet sleeper Agents, and gets caught up in friendship with their unaware son.

Directed by Richard Benjamin. Starring Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, and Richard Jenkins.

Little Nikita stars River Phoenix as a teenager whose parents have a secret past and Sidney Poitier as the FBI agent determined to expose them. I'm hesitant to say much more because, despite how awkwardly this story unfolds its secrets, I do think it doesn't want us to know them all until about halfway through, so I'll leave it there. This is a pretty clunky one. The writing is awkward, the acting is wooden from some very good performers, the story plays out with big dramatic moments that aren't at all justified in-universe. With just a little bit more editing and finesse, this could have been a pretty fun coming-of-age thriller, but it's just all done so clumsily that none of it really works. The one thing I do want to give a nod to, however, is the musical score, which almost convinced me a couple times that the movie is better than it actually is. Aside from that, however, it's a strange and poorly-executed thriller that completely wastes the talent of its actors, director, and writer, all of whom have made much better movies.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Little Nikita < Hairspray (1988)

Little Nikita < 13 Going on 30

Little Nikita > Blood Heat

Little Nikita < Easter Parade

Little Nikita > The Bone Collector

Little Nikita < Spaceballs

Little Nikita > Stardust Memories

Little Nikita < Old Yeller

Little Nikita > You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

Little Nikita > Paramount on Parade

Little Nikita < Marathon Man

Final spot: #3065 out of 3680, or 17%.

Swing Shift (1984)

IMDb plot summary: A woman finds romance when she takes a job at an aircraft plant to help make ends meet after her husband goes off to war.

Directed by Jonathan Demme. Starring Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, and Christine Lahti.

Swing Shift features Goldie Hawn as a woman whose husband goes off to World War II. She, along with many other soldiers' wives, gets a job working in an airplane factory. As she works there, she begins to gain some independence, grow in confidence, and make some friends she wouldn't have before, including a man she develops feelings for (played by Kurt Russell). This is a perfectly middle-of-the-road movie highlighting some interesting relationships and the changing of gender norms in the 1940s. It never hits on any of the interesting pieces quite as much as I wanted it to, but it's there. The acting is solid, the writing is decent, the cinematography is efficient. There's very little exciting about this, which is kind of disappointing, but there's also not that much to complain about either. For anyone particularly interested in this time period, it's probably worth checking out.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Swing Shift > Closer

Swing Shift < Safe

Swing Shift > Creation

Swing Shift < Show Me Love

Swing Shift < Spellbound (2002)

Swing Shift < Summer Stock

Swing Shift < Family Business

Swing Shift > The Tragedy of Macbeth

Swing Shift < Kajaki

Swing Shift > Kanal

Swing Shift < The Impossible

Final spot: #1360 out of 3678, or 63%.