The Bay (2012)

The Bay is what I suppose you would call a found footage film, but in structure I'd call it a horror mockumentary. It's about a mysterious outbreak in a coastal town that all seems to center around the fish in the bay. The story is set several years after the outbreak ravages the city, and we see leftover footage cobbled together from the one young student reporter who happened to be there covering a different story. This is the kind of horror movie that is very easy to make when you have no money and no equipment -- found footage is always or often intentionally made to look cheap so it's a great entry point, but as a result a lot of found footage is also extremely sloppy and lazy and amateurish. This one, however, is really stellar. There are some truly terrifying moments that use the found footage gimmick at its best and make smart choices about what we can and cannot see that were clearly made for dramatic effect rather than just effects limitations. The story itself also certainly hits a little harder after a couple years of a global pandemic where nobody could quite figure out what was going on, but this also meets the body horror angle in a really effective and interesting way. Definitely a horror movie I would suggest folks check out if they haven't. It totally works for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Bay > The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair (1990)

The Bay > Key Largo

The Bay < The Goodbye Girl (1977)

The Bay > Spencer

The Bay < Down With Love

The Bay > Face/Off

The Bay < Buried

The Bay > Beautiful Boy

The Bay > See You Yesterday

The Bay > Yojimbo

The Bay > Summer Wars

Final spot: #623 out of 3792, or 84%.

Dixiana (1930)

Dixiana is a pre-code romantic comedy about a young female circus performer who falls in love with a wealthy aristocrat. She at first tries to cover up her past and assimilate into his family, but she is found out and driven away in disgrace. This is the second movie from 1930 that I've seen that includes the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey, here serving as the comic foils and sidekicks to Dixiana, and ultimately the ones who get her in trouble in the first place. Their antics are more enjoyable than the rest of the movie, although both Dixiana and her romantic interest are decently relatable. and it is an easy sell to want them to get together. With the characters being set in the world of circus, there are a number of performances that are just there to enjoy, which doesn't always work for me but it does really help to set the scene in this particular instance. This probably won't stand out in my mind among other 1930s romances about mismatched classes falling in love, but I had a fine time watching it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Dixiana < The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair

Dixiana < Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex...

Dixiana > Charlie Chan at the Opera

Dixiana > The Wages of Fear

Dixiana < Make Mine Music

Dixiana > Jake's Women

Dixiana > Annie Live!

Dixiana > Antichrist

Dixiana > Shanghai Knights

Dixiana > The Black Cauldron

Dixiana > The Last of the Mohicans

Final spot: #2965 out of 3793, or 22%.

Plane (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A pilot finds himself caught in a war zone after he's forced to land his commercial aircraft during a terrible storm.

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet. Starring Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, and Tony Goldwyn.

Plane is a 2023 action movie starring Gerard Butler as the pilot of a plane that crash lands on a remote island, and Butler must find a way for them to get off before the inhabitants of the island  find them and hurt them. For being a movie named Plane, there's actually very little time spent on the plane, which was somewhat of a disappointment to me. You can absolutely create a compelling and creative story set entirely in the air, just look at something like Red Eye or, to a lesser extent, Snakes on a Plane. This one seems to run out of ideas pretty quickly, and we're left with a series of uninspired jungle fight sequences that could have been found in any other movie. The film does a decent job of building up the character development of one of the side characters, a criminal being extradited to the US who finds himself with unexpected freedom and nowhere to go with it, and that character's interaction with Butler is probably the most interesting part of the whole movie, followed closely by the first 20 and final 20 minutes where they're actually on the plane. A decent but unexceptional action thriller.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Plane < The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair

Plane > Pepito and the Magic Lamp

Plane > Adam

Plane < Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Plane > The War

Plane > The Jerk

Plane > The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Plane < Casino

Plane < The Kids Are All Right

Plane < Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Plane > Along Came a Spider

Plane > Tab Hunter Confidential

Final spot: #2160 out of 3794, or 43%.

Feet First (1930)

IMDb plot summary: An ambitious shoe salesman who unknowingly meets his boss's daughter and tells her he is a leather tycoon has to try to hide his true circumstances.

Directed by Clyde Bruckman and Harold Lloyd. Starring Harold Lloyd, Barbara Kent, Robert McWade.

Feet First is a Harold Lloyd comedy about a shoe salesman who falls in love with an upperclass woman but doesn't want  her to find out about his lowly status. This is the first Harold Lloyd movie I've seen that was a talkie, and for the most part the humor works just as well. There are some really funny clever bits of wordplay that go along with these smart slapstick moments, and as I've found in other Harold Lloyd movies, Lloyd himself is a thoroughly likable protagonist, bumbling without being truly stupid, just often unlucky and uncertain how to proceed. The more I watch of his, the more I think Lloyd might be my favorite of the classic 1930s film comedians that include names like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Now there is a fair amount of plot here that is pretty disposable, but it spends most of the time just enjoying the silliness of the characters in the situation they've gotten themselves into, so it's easy to skip over the filler pieces that are trying to set up the next gag. Definitely worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Feet First > Bad Education

Feet First < Key Largo

Feet First > Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella

Feet First > Rock of Ages

Feet First > The Secret Garden (1987)

Feet First > Grosse Pointe Blank

Feet First > Barton Fink

Feet First < The Menu

Feet First > Amistad

Feet First < Leaving Las Vegas

Feet First > The Palm Beach Story

Final spot: #966 out of 3790, or 75%.

The Limey (1999)

IMDb plot summary: An extremely volatile and dangerous Englishman goes to Los Angeles to find the man he considers responsible for his daughter's death.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Starring Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, and Lesley Ann Warren.

The Limey is a Stephen Soderbergh movie starring Terrence stamp as a British man who travels to the US to find out what really happened to his daughter and exact revenge along the way as needed. This kind of story is a very familiar one among crime movies, where defending the defenseless women in their lives is frequently the motivation for a lot of male crime movie protagonists. While I like Soderbergh as a director in general, this movie just doesn't draw me in. It's like the most textbook example of how to play out these tropes in the exact expected way. That's not a bad thing necessarily -- Soderbergh continues to be a good director who makes good use of the visuals and the pacing of his films -- but there's nothing in here that makes me think or set up and pay attention in any way. If this is a genre you really are connected to this is a solid entry, but if you're looking for something a little bit more out of the box, this one isn't it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Limey < Bad Education

The Limey > Pepito and the Magic Lamp

The Limey < Adam

The Limey > The Friends of Eddie Coyle

The Limey < Murphy's War

The Limey < Neighbors (1920)

The Limey < The Lost Weekend

The Limey < The Adjustment Bureau

The Limey > Beach Party

The Limey < Paradise

The Limey < Immortal Beloved

The Limey > The 101-Year-Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared

Final spot: #2596 out of 3789 so far, or 31%.

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

IMDb plot summary: Ben Sanderson, a Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his alcoholism, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.

Directed by Mike Figgis. Starring Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, and Julian Sands.

Leaving Las Vegas stars Nicholas Cage as an alcoholic who has entirely given up on life and decides to go to Las Vegas to drink himself to death, and Elisabeth Shue as the prostitute who forms an unusual bond with him and is willing to stay by his side as he slowly kills himself with his addiction. There is somehow simultaneously a hopefulness and a hopelessness in this movie, and the two battle it out from scene to scene. It certainly doesn't shy away from the more upsetting aspects of addiction, as it shows Shue having to deal with behavioral issues and bodily fluids everywhere, as well as having to explain to the people around her who this person is and why she's allowing him to stay in her life. But the strong sense of connection and compassion that the two have for each other is very compelling. It would almost be called inspirational if the story as a whole wasn't so depressing. This kind of movie could easily be campier and more dramatic, but it really lands in discovering its characters and that's where it excels the most. It's one of those films that's hard to imagine wanting to rewatch ever, but it certainly had a strong impact on me this one time.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Leaving Las Vegas > Bad Education

Leaving Las Vegas < Elf

Leaving Las Vegas > Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella

Leaving Las Vegas > We're No Angels (1955)

Leaving Las Vegas > The Secret Garden (1987)

Leaving Las Vegas > Beyond the Sea

Leaving Las Vegas > Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken

Leaving Las Vegas < The Menu

Leaving Las Vegas > A Room With a View

Leaving Las Vegas > The Palm Beach Story

Leaving Las Vegas < Tower

Final spot: #965 out of 3788, or 75%.

Mommy (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor inserts herself into their household.

Directed by Xavier Dolan. Starring Anne Dorval, Antoine Olivier Pilon, and Suzanne Clément.

Mommy is a foreign film about a woman whose high school-aged son has been kicked out of multiple schools and programs due to his antisocial behavior and tendency toward violence. With nowhere else to take him, she brings him home to care for him herself and ends up befriending her new neighbor in the process. I have also seen Xavier Dolan's film Lawrence Anyways and had a similar strong emotional response to that one. The thing that really pulls at the heart here is the strong relationship between mother and son. Even while trying to deal with their own stuff, including his occasionally uncontrollable rages and her furious responses, it is clear from every other interaction they have that they have a very close bond and care for each other very much, even if they don't really know how to handle each other in the real world. The film also makes really beautiful use of its music to give us brief glimpses into the workings of the characters' inner lives. The ending certainly doesn't wrap everything up neatly, but I found myself very moved by it and don't think I'll be forgetting it anytime soon.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Mommy > The Last Dragon

Mommy > Key Largo

Mommy > Six Degrees of Separation

Mommy < Fright Night (1985)

Mommy > Before Sunset

Mommy < I'm Not Scared

Mommy < Broadway Danny Rose

Mommy > The Banshees of Inisherin

Mommy < Shattered Glass

Mommy < Fail-Safe

Mommy < And Now for Something Completely Different

Mommy < The Young Girls of Rochefort

Final spot: #339 out of 3787, or 91%.