Sin Takes a Holiday (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A plain secretary works for a womanizing divorce lawyer who only dates married women. To avoid having to deal with the matrimonial pursuits of any of his potential romances, he offers her financial support if she marries him in name only.

Directed by Paul L. Stein. Starring Constance Bennett, Kenneth MacKenna, and Basil Rathbone.

Sin Takes a Holiday is about a receptionist in love with her boss, who is trying to avoid marrying a socialite. To get out of it, he proposes to his receptionist, with the understanding that he'll provide for her and let her live off on her own wherever she wants. Her friends are jealous of her opportunity for independence, but she's not convinced she wants to be in a sham marriage. This really, this worked for me for the most part. I found the story and especially the lead character really engaging. I found myself disappointed with the ending, which I won't spoil, but it seems like a little bit of a cheesy cop out for the kind of story that I hoped that they were setting up to tell. Constance Bennett, though, as the main character is really delightful and really relatable and charming. It's impossible not to root for her. It's very much a wish fulfillment kind of story, which is thoroughly enjoyable.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Sin Takes a Holiday > The Invention of Lying

Sin Takes a Holiday < Safe

Sin Takes a Holiday < The Impossible

Sin Takes a Holiday > Paris, Texas

Sin Takes a Holiday > The Chorus

Sin Takes a Holiday > I Saw the Devil

Sin Takes a Holiday > A Scanner Darkly

Sin Takes a Holiday > Juno and the Paycock

Sin Takes a Holiday > Killers of the Flower Moon

Sin Takes a Holiday < All That Jazz

Sin Takes a Holiday < Don't Look Up

Sin Takes a Holiday < May December

Final spot: #1476, or 62%.

A Notorious Affair (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A scheming musician seduces a wealthy woman for love and money.

Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Starring Billie Dove, Basil Rathbone, and Kay Francis.

A Notorious Affair is the story of a wealthy young woman who defies her father's wishes and runs away with a poor Italian violinist, played by Basil Rathbone. But Rathbone turns out to be a poor husband, and the woman ends up having to reap the consequences of the mistake that she made. This is an interesting story because it does not go the direction that I expected. I thought this would be firmly on the side of love overcoming class, but that brings her nothing but misery in this story. Basil Rathbone is a lot of fun as the pretentious violinist, and Kay Francis, who I've been enjoying in my 1930 project, does a great job as the woman who lures Rathbone away. (Looking at my list, this is my fifth Kay Francis movie from 1930 I've seen, and there are still more!) Overall, it's enjoyable melodrama. It's not spectacular, but it was a good quick watch, and I enjoyed seeing how things played out.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Notorious Affair > The Invention of Lying

A Notorious Affair < Safe

A Notorious Affair < The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain

A Notorious Affair > Paris, Texas.

A Notorious Affair < How to Marry a Millionaire

A Notorious Affair > Ant-Man. 

A Notorious Affair > Anybody's Woman

A Notorious Affair < I Remember Mama

A Notorious Affair < Cairo Station

A Notorious Affair < Y Tu Mama Tambien

A Notorious Affair > The Boondock Saints

A Notorious Affair > Were The World Mine

Final spot: #1616, or 59%.

Her Man (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A Havana bar girl with a tough "protector" falls for a young sailor.

Directed by Tay Garnett. Starring Helen Twelvetrees, Phillips Holmes, and Marjorie Rambeau.

Her Man is a story about a woman who is a pickpocketing prostitute working in Cuba trying to get to the U.S. She falls in love with a sailor who promises to sweep her off her feet, but between her own uncertainty and her boss not being pleased with her leaving, she ends up being very concerned that she's not going to be able to make it happen. This is a pretty mediocre film. There are some engaging background character interactions, especially with two of the sailor's drunken shipmates who come to the rescue at the end, which is really exciting. And I did find it extremely funny that our main character's shirt just got progressively more ripped throughout the course of the movie, until at the end it's like hanging and rags off of him as he's fighting. But for the most part, this is a very standard and uninteresting version of this story.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Her Man < The Invention of Lying

Her Man > Frozen River

Her Man > The Secret of Nikola Tesla

Her Man < Dark City

Her Man < Mission Impossible 3

Her Man < In the Heat of the Night

Her Man < Street of Chance

Her Man < Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

Her Man < Funny Girl

Her Man > Marathon

Her Man < Fish Tank

Her Man > The January Man

Final spot: #2318, or 41%.

Elemental (2023)

IMDb plot summary: Follows Ember and Wade, in a city where fire-, water-, earth- and air-residents live together.

Directed by Peter Sohn. Starring Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, and Ronnie Del Carmen.

Elemental is a Pixar movie about a world in which elements are our main characters. The story follows a fire girl poised to take over her father's store, when she meets a water boy and everything kind of falls apart. Before I watched Elemental, I listened to a podcast in which somebody reflected that the movie was, at its heart, a romance. And I'm really glad that I saw that before watching this, because that helped me contextualize it. As a romance, it's super sweet, and it absolutely works. I buy the chemistry between the two leads, and I am, of course, always going to be a sucker for a story about somebody sacrificing themselves for their loved ones, so the ending absolutely drew some tears from me. As a story about someone trying to find their way in the world, it's a little bit less compelling, and the world building isn't as robust as I would have hoped. It's clearly trying to leave room for further explorations in sequels, but I'm not sure it stands up to that. It does have some really creative and fun animation exploring just the fire and water worlds, so I enjoyed large pieces of this. It's still better than a lot of the animated stuff that gets turned out for kids, but it is not as exciting as a lot of Pixar movies often are.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Elemental > Sarah, Plain and Tall

Elemental < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Elemental < Kajaki

Elemental > Imitation of Life (1959)

Elemental > Wristcutters: A Love Story

Elemental > The Black Phone

Elemental > Incendies

Elemental > Love, Life, and Goldfish

Elemental < May December

Elemental < The Tragedy of Macbeth

Elemental < The Family Man

Elemental > The Count of Monte Cristo

Final spot: #1480, or 62%.

If (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A young girl who goes through a difficult experience begins to see everyone's imaginary friends who have been left behind as their real-life friends have grown up.

Directed by John Krasinski. Starring Cailey Fleming, Ryan Reynolds, John Krasinski.

If tells the story of a young girl who discovers a group of forgotten imaginary friends living in the upstairs apartment, and while her dad is having heart surgery, she decides to help them all find new homes. So, this is a pretty clunky movie. The description of the world doesn't really make a lot of sense. The beginning especially is extremely confusing in setting up the parameters of the world. The big twist at the end was absolutely telegraphed from moment one, although possibly not for kids, who this movie is definitely intended for. I thing I did appreciated was that it didn't completely feed me information about the illness. It did a pretty good job of telling those parts of the story cinematically in a way that it was clear but not obvious. And I have learned that I am exactly the kind of person who buys hook, line, and sinker into Ryan Reynolds playing "slightly distanced and cynical, but really having a heart of gold underneath." Apparently, that character he plays is just intended for me. But overall it's definitely better for kids than for adults. It fell flat for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

If < Sarah, Plain and Tall

If < Cars

If < Annie (1982)

If > The Cowboys

If > The Story of the Weeping Camel

If > New in Town

If > The Country Bears

If > The 40-Year-Old Virgin

If > The Passion of Joan of Arc

If > Charlie Chan at the Opera

If > 17 Miracles

Final spot: #3426, or 12%. That is definitely too low -- it appears I have the 1982 Annie lower than it should be -- but this is where it sits for now.

Love Exposure (2008)

IMDb plot summary: A bizarre love triangle forms between a young Catholic upskirt photographer, a misandric girl and a manipulative cultist.

Directed by Sion Sono. Starring Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima, and Sakura Andô.

Love Exposure is a four-hour comedy/drama/romance about three extremely damaged teenagers looking for love and acceptance and... OK, I can't actually figure out how to summarize this movie. There has not been a movie recently that I've so needed the word ambivalent for. Ambivalent, to be clear, does not mean apathetic. It means strong, conflicting feelings. There are parts of this that I absolutely loathe and parts of this that I absolutely love. And overall, it ends up landing more on the loathe side because there's more of that, because it doesn't come together the way that I want it to, and because it is four hours long and I'm not sure any of that is justified. I really enjoy some of the dynamics between characters. But there's just so much going on that it's hard to cohere any of it in a way that I got anything out of. I think I'd like this better in individual tiny chunks, maybe a series of short movies that I could, short films that I could choose what to watch and what not to. Large portions of this, I just did not care about. So it's landing on the lower end, but I could see why people might love this. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

Love Exposure > The Invention of Lying

Love Exposure < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Love Exposure < Kajaki

Love Exposure < Imitation of Life (1959)

Love Exposure < Land

Love Exposure < Laal Singh Chaddha

Love Exposure < Chasing Amy

Love Exposure < Hamlet (2009)

Love Exposure < For Pete's Sake

Love Exposure > The Bat Whispers

Love Exposure < Pete's Dragon (1977)

Love Exposure < The Voyage to Greenland

Final spot: #1941, or 50%.

Late Night With the Devil (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A live television broadcast in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation's living rooms.

Directed by Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes. Starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, and Ian Bliss.

Late Night with the Devil is a found footage horror movie about a late night talk show in the 1970s and the notorious Halloween show they did one year in an effort to drum up ratings. This movie started out *great*. It embeds us in the time frame and the genre and is extremely fun for the first half. It gets a little bit unmoored in the second half... and then the final scenes I did not care for at ALL. There's just so much happening there that abandons the original conceit that it is told from the point of view of from seeing the broadcast. So much of what's going on in the final third is clearly inside people's heads, and that, A) abandons the premise I liked so much at the beginning, and B) doesn't actually make that much sense. I can't figure out what I'm supposed to assume actually *happened*. And not in a way that's fun and ambiguous, but in a way that was irritating. So it's a great concept. It's very well put together, very well presented, and the atmosphere is impeccable. But it falls apart in the final third.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Late Night with the Devil < Sarah, Plain and Tall

Late Night with the Devil < Cars

Late Night with the Devil > Mission to Mars.

Late Night with the Devil > The Monkey King

Late Night with the Devil < Adam's Rib

Late Night with the Devil > The Italian Job (2003)

Late Night with the Devil > Speak

Late Night with the Devil > Dixiana

Late Night with the Devil > ParaNorman

Late Night with the Devil > Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier

Late Night with the Devil > The Number 23

Late Night with the Devil > The Goonies

Final spot: #3054, or 22%.