May December (2023)

IMDb plot summary: Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.

Directed by Todd Haynes. Starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton.

May December stars Julianne Moore and Charles Melton as an age gap couple who started dating when he was a young teenager, and Natalie Portman as the actress playing Moore's character in a biopic years later. She gets permission to study her subject to add some nuance to the character, and while the couple agrees at first, it ends up causing some trouble they didn't expect. Todd Haynes is an interesting filmmaker in that he seldom makes his characters or their circumstances easy to sum up, which makes for an occasionally frustrating but always engaging watch. Our three leads here are absolutely stunning. Moore and Portman are recognizable faces who here completely dissolve into their characters (and then Portman dissolves into Moore's character, which is another level of wildness), and Melton is an actor I wasn't familiar with previously but is so captivating in this film. My medium ranking of it reflects mostly how I'm not convinced that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts yet, but knowing Haynes' work it's also possible it just needs time to sit with me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

May December > Sarah, Plain and Tall

May December < Key Largo

May December < The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

May December > Sleepers

May December > Wristcutters: A Love Story

May December > The Black Phone

May December > Disney's Newsies The Broadway Musical

May December > Love, Life and Goldfish

May December < Don't Look Up

May December > The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

May December > Nobody's Fool

Final spot: #1470 out of 3896, or 62%.

Black & White (1999)

IMDb plot summary: A group of white high school teens become involved with Harlem's black hip-hop crowd.

Directed by James Toback. Starring Ben Stiller, Allan Houston, and Claudia Schiffer.

Black & White follows a group of white teenagers obsessed with Black hip-hop culture, an athlete being offered the chance to fix a game, and a filmmaker documenting the whole thing. This is a weird mess of a movie, without a coherent throughline or interesting characters. They all seem kind of randomly thrown together without a purpose for any of it. Just when I think one character is being set up as the primary arc of the story, it zigzags and abandons them. Done well, that could make this an interesting ensemble piece, but none of these pieces work individually, much less as a whole. The acting in this isn't good, even from seasoned actors, the writing is pretentious and silly, the wobbly camera gets old real fast... It just doesn't work at all, and I found very to like about it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Black & White < The Invention of Lying

Black & White < Avengers: Endgame

Black & White < Annie (1982)

Black & White < The Cowboys

Black & White > God's Not Dead

Black & White > The Wedding Date

Black & White > Paradise Island

Black & White > Agent Cody Banks

Black & White < Baby Take a Bow

Black & White > Captain Thunder

Black & White < Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Black & White < Martyrs

Final spot: #3660 out of 3892, or 6%.

The Zone of Interest (2023)

IMDb plot summary: Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp.

Directed by Jonathan Glazer. Starring Cristian Friedel, Sandra Hüller and Johann Karthaus.

The Zone of Interest follows a German family where the patriarch manages Auschwitz, and he and his family live just on the other side of the wall. The story mostly just looks at the family's day-to-day lives, which on the surface are mundane, but of course they can't, be, because interspersed through all of it are the sounds, smells, sights, and unspoken understanding of the horrors mere feet from them. The movie is done well, but I think I admire its impact intellectually more than responded to it myself. It is unsettling to watch these people being able to tune out so much of their environment, just so they can move forward in peace with dinners and gardening and visits from family, and it is an important reminder of how easy it is to isolate ourselves and think, "As long as I'm OK, everything's OK." Sandra Huller turns in an especially good performance here -- what a year she had in 2023! So, yeah. Glad this movie exists and that it's getting attention.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Zone of Interest > Following

The Zone of Interest < Dark Passage

The Zone of Interest > Kajaki

The Zone of Interest < Waking Ned Devine

The Zone of Interest > The Whistleblower

The Zone of Interest < Wolf

The Zone of Interest < Ikiru

The Zone of Interest > Men in Black

The Zone of Interest > La jetee

The Zone of Interest > A Star Is Born (1937)

The Zone of Interest > Destroy All Monsters

The Zone of Interest > Moonlight

Final spot: #1307 out of 3891, or 66%.

Nimona (2023)

IMDb plot summary: When a knight in a futuristic medieval world is framed for a crime he didn't commit, the only one who can help him prove his innocence is Nimona -- a mischievous teen who happens to be a shapeshifting creature he's sworn to destroy.

Directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane. Starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed, and Eugene Lee Yang.

Nimona is an animated fantasy about a knight who suddenly finds himself accused of murdering his ruler. Forced into hiding, he ends up partnering with a shapeshifting teenage girl with a mysterious past. This could absolutely have been a lazy, cheesy YA fantasy story, but there's so much to love about it. It's got a fantastic blend of humor and drama, and the humor taps into snark without feeling like it's breaking the fourth wall and disrupting the worldbuilding. I love these characters, too -- they have a perfect dynamic and both of our leads get their own arcs that inform each other's in really interesting ways. It comes to a head with a very satisfying ending that hit quite a few of my favorite tropes, so I might be a little biased, but it all just worked for me from beginning to end. Plus it has a fantastic soundtrack. Definitely one I'd recommend!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Nimona > Following

Nimona > The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Nimona > The White Tiger

Nimona > Dead Ringers

Nimona < Se7en

Nimona < Mozart and the Whale

Nimona > Hot Fuzz

Nimona < Silence

Nimona > Chicken Run

Nimona < Breaking the Waves

Nimona > Strangers on a Train

Final spot: #202 out of 3893, or 95%.

The Ascent (1977)

IMDb plot summary: Two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the winter cold, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.

Directed by Larisa Shepitko. Starring Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, and Sergey Yakovlev.

The Ascent follows two Soviet partisans during World War II who find themselves captured by the Germans in Belarus and are tortured to give up information about the rest of their party. The most interesting thing about this film for me was how great it was at evoking the absolute torturous conditions of a Soviet winter. Once the characters started spending more time indoors, it lost a little bit of its hold on me, and by the end I could kind of distantly admire it, but I wasn't feeling much about it anymore. I do appreciate films as late as the 1970s going with a black-and-white aesthetic -- it definitely gives it a distinct flavor, and I think in a film that is so much about the starkness of the snow, it was a striking choice. I wonder a little bit if I would appreciate it more on a rewatch, now that I know what kind of style to look for, but as it stands now, it didn't stand out for me very much, especially in the latter half.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Ascent < Sarah, Plain and Tall

The Ascent > Avengers: Endgame

The Ascent < Wild Zero

The Ascent > Cellular

The Ascent > The Cruise

The Ascent < The Defiant Ones

The Ascent < The Kid Who Would Be King

The Ascent > Mud

The Ascent < A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

The Ascent < Hal King

The Ascent < Wes Craven's New Nightmare

The Ascent > The Lost Daughter

Final spot: #2540 out of 3897, or 35%.

Krull (1983)

 

IMDb plot summary: A prince and a fellowship of companions set out to rescue his bride from a fortress of alien invaders who have arrived on their home planet, Krull.

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, and Freddie Jones.

Krull is a high fantasy story about a young warrior prince whose whole family is massacred and whose princess fiancee is kidnapped by a mysterious evil group. He gathers a group of fighters to help take down the evil and get his fiancee back. My journey through Peter Yates' filmography continues to be strange and fascinating as he just abruptly decides to tackle a totally different genre with every movie. He hadn't yet gone after high fantasy, so I guess he decided it was time. I can see the seeds of a really fun story here. I love some of the design elements -- the scene with the woman in the web is visually captivating, and the design of the evil castle is like some weird surrealist art installation, which is great. The story is pretty rushed though, with not quite enough fleshed out characterization to justify the many, many tragic deaths and moving final words. It's a fun watch with enough creativity to be engaging, but it did make me wish there had been a little more substance to it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Krull > Following

Krull < Dark Passage

Krull < Kajaki

Krull < Imitation of Life (1959)

Krull > 21

Krull > Stolen Kisses

Krull < Fly Away Home

Krull < Notes on a Scandal

Krull < Reality Bites

Krull > Away We Go

Krull < Blood Diamond

Krull < Source Code

Final spot: #1758 out of 3890, or 55%.

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

IMDb plot summary: A female radio reporter turns a folk-singing drifter into a powerful media star.

Directed by Elia Kazan. Starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, and Anthony Franciosa.

A Face in the Crowd stars Patricia Neal as a young radio journalist and Andy Griffith as the homeless drunk man she finds in jail and turns into a radio star. Together the two of them navigate the path of fame as he gains more and more of a platform. This is a pretty incredible movie, all the more so for being so prescient about "influencer" and "media personality" culture all the way back in the 1950s. Neal and Griffith also turn in some incredible performances here. Griffith's louder-than-life personality as Lonesome Rhodes always teeters on the edge right between charming and threatening, and Neal's confident but compassionate producer is an excellent counterpart. The ending doesn't land exactly where I thought it would and ended up really impressing me -- I'm going to remember that for awhile. An extremely accessible older film with a lot to say about fame and celebrity.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Face in the Crowd > Julie & Julia

A Face in the Crowd > The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

A Face in the Crowd < Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

A Face in the Crowd > Nope

A Face in the Crowd > The Cat Returns

A Face in the Crowd > The Last Unicorn

A Face in the Crowd > Breaking Away

A Face in the Crowd > Grease

A Face in the Crowd < The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

A Face in the Crowd > Anatomy of a Murder

A Face in the Crowd > Kramer vs. Kramer

Final spot: #495 out of 3889, or 87%.