A Propos de Nice (1930)

IMDb plot summary: What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Cote d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.

Directed by Boris Kaufman and Jean Vigo.

A Propos de Nice is a short documentary featuring life among various groups of people in the town of Nice. This is so not my kind of movie, and I almost didn't watch it for my 1930 project because it was a short and I rarely count those, but it was on so many lists I had to get around to it after all. I'm sure there is a throughline to this in terms of what the filmmaker chose to show and when and in which order, but I just couldn't care less and it all appeared arbitrary to me. Somebody else who is a big fan of this should sit down with me and explain what works about it, and maybe I'll be able to see a different take. But in the meantime, this is less of a review and more of just saying "this wasn't for me," and now I don't have to watch it again.

How it entered my Flickchart:

À propos de Nice (1930)

lost to Gothika (#1988 → #1990)

lost to Miss Congeniality (#2979 → #2980)

beat Dumb and Dumber (#3477 → #3483)

beat Danger: Diabolik (#3226 → #3230)

beat The Thomas Crown Affair (#3102 → #3105)

lost to Captain America: The Winter Soldier (#3040 → #3041)

lost to The Little Drummer Boy (#3071 → #3072)

beat Spirits of the Dead (#3086 → #3191)

lost to The Little Princess (#3078 → #3064)

lost to You Only Live Once (#3082 → #3083)

lost to What Women Want (held at #3084)

lost to Love in the Afternoon (#3085 → #3081)

Ranked #3190/3980 on my Flickchart. Flickscore: 20.

Seven Days Leave (1930)

IMDb plot summary: About a young Canadian soldier (Gary Cooper) wounded while fighting in World War I. While recovering from his wounds in London, a YMCA worker tells him that a Scottish widow (Beryl Mercer) without a son believes that he is in fact her son. To comfort the widow, the soldier agrees to pretend to be her Scottish son.

Directed by Richard Wallace. Stars Gary Cooper, Beryl Mercer, and Daisy Belmore.

Seven Days Leave tells the story of an unmarried older lady who lies about having a soldier son, so she can have some manner of social status. But when the soldier whose name she took for her imaginary son's name shows up, he's less than pleased that she's pretending to be his mother. This is a strange little movie, but it works as a story, primarily because both the leads here are doing a great job. Beryl Mercer plays the older woman with great vulnerability so we feel for her even as she's entangled in her own lies, and Gary Cooper's cold grumpiness works well as a foil for her. This was apparently based on a play, and I feel that, in how much of the relationship is built through conversation. Once Cooper appears, it's all about their interactions, and most of the other characters all but disappear, and it works. It's a sweet little film with likable performances that is different from the other films of the time period in the story it tells.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Seven Days Leave (1930)

beat Burning (#1987 → #2032)

lost to The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (#991 → #989)

lost to Murder by Death (#1488 → #1412)

beat Winnie the Pooh (#1735 → #1740)

beat The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (#1611 → #1629)

beat Hell's Angels (#1549 → #1560)

beat Rachel Getting Married (#1518 → #1520)

lost to Cinderella (#1503 → #1499)

lost to Say Anything... (#1510 → #1442)

beat The Tragedy of Macbeth (#1514 → #1516)

lost to The Green Mile (#1512 → #1508)

beat Forbidden Planet (#1513 → #1515)

Final spot: Ranked #1537/3979 on my Flickchart, 61%.

My Old Ass (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A mushroom trip brings free-spirited Elliott face-to-face with her 39-year-old self. But when Elliott's "old ass" delivers warnings to her younger self, Elliott realizes she has to rethink everything about her family, life and love.

Directed by Megan Park. Stars Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza, and Percy Hynes White.

My Old Ass follows a high school girl who, on a mushroom trip with her friends, is visited by her future self. The future self is able to maintain contact with the younger one and gives her a cryptic warning about a boy who has just entered her life. This one took a little while for me to fully engage with, but once it gripped me -- particularly in the latter half as the more emotional component of the story started to come to light -- I was hooked. There's a good balance of snarky sarcasm and heartfelt moments to make the characters relatable. The marketing and title of the movie, as well as the inclusion of Aubrey Plaza, made me initially think we were leaning wacky comedy, but that's not ultimately the note this lands on, and I enjoyed that unexpected turn. It's a fascinating and well-crafted film that I ultimately had a good time with.

How it entered my Flickchart:

My Old Ass (2024)

beat Eyes Wide Shut (#1987 → #1991)

beat Hoop Dreams (#991 → #989)

beat Chariots of Fire (#496 → #497)

lost to The Bridge on the River Kwai (held at #247)

beat Contagion (#372 → #378)

beat VeggieTales: Dave and the Giant Pickle (#309 → #315)

beat Throne of Blood (#278 → #288)

lost to Ed Wood (#263 → #261)

lost to Halloween (#270 → #267)

lost to 10 Cloverfield Lane (#274 → #271)

beat Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (#276 → #273)

beat Hamilton (#275 → #277)

Final spot: Ranked #276/3978 on my Flickchart, 93%. That is almost certainly too high but TCDNL.

Thelma (2024)

IMDb plot summary: When 93-year-old Thelma Post gets duped by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson, she sets out on a treacherous quest across the city to reclaim what was taken from her.

Directed by Josh Margolin. Stars June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, and Richard Roundtree.

Thelma follows an elderly woman who is taken advantage of by a scammer. Not content to let the situation lie, she decides to go after the scammer herself when the police can't do anything. This is a delightful movie, equally enjoyable as an action thriller, a comedy, and a drama about coming to terms with mortality. June Squibb is truly fantastic here, I'm not convinced there's anything the woman can't do as an actress. Usually action comedies aren't my jam, but this one is written so cleverly that I couldn't help but be pulled in by it. I enjoyed every minute of it, and that's an impressive feat. Definitely worth a watch!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Thelma (2024)

beat Gothika (#1986 → #1990)

beat Feet First (#991 → #997)

beat Chariots of Fire (held at #496)

lost to Army of Darkness (#247 → #246)

lost to Contagion (held at #372)

beat Hook (held at #434)

lost to (500) Days of Summer (held at #403)

beat Field of Dreams (#418 → #419)

lost to Welcome to Dongmakgol (#410 → #409)

beat Citizen Kane (#414 → #416)

lost to Sita Sings the Blues (held at #412)

lost to Much Ado About Nothing (#413 → #410)

Ranked #413/3977 on my Flickchart, or 89%.

Renegades (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Four one-for-all and all-for-one privates in the French Foreign Legion are all in jail for disorderly conduct, but they break out and rejoin their regiment and fight off a band of marauding Arabs, and are soon in Casablanca getting decorated by the French Minister of War.

Directed by Victor Fleming. Stars Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, and Noah Beery.

Renegades tells the story of four French Legionnaires who desert and form a renegade army in the deserts of Morocco. To be honest, though, I had to go to Wikipedia to discover that much about it because this movie was such a snooze. None of these characters set themselves apart enough to have any stakes in what they go through. It was fun to see a young Myrna Loy again -- the second time I've seen her in my 1930 project -- but her character isn't very exciting either. There may be some aspects of this that other viewers may find interesting, but the film lost me entirely by about the 1/3 mark and never regained my interest.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Renegades (1930)

lost to Triangle of Sadness (#1986 → #1982)

beat A Month by the Lake (#2976 → #2978)

lost to Harry and the Hendersons (#2481 → #2472)

beat Happy Christmas (#2728 → #2733)

lost to V/H/S (#2604 → #2605)

beat The Dirty Dozen (#2666 → #2710)

lost to The Ascent (#2635 → #2623)

beat The Dark Knight Rises (#2650 → #2655)

lost to A Time to Kill (#2642 → #2639)

beat National Velvet (#2646 → #2647)

beat Red Notice (#2644 → #2648)

lost to The Hot Rock (#2643 → #2640)

Final spot: Ranked #2645/3976 on my Flickchart, 34%.

The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930)

IMDb plot summary: The villainous master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu sets out to destroy the people he holds responsible for the death of his family.

Directed by Rowland V. Lee. Stars Warner Oland, O.P. Heggie, and Jean Arthur.

The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu begins with the evil Dr. Fu Manchu's funeral, only for it to turn out he faked his death and is still bent on getting revenge against his enemies. I have never seen anything else in this series, so I have no concept of the story. It could be a pretty fun one if it wasn't so horrifically racist! Swedish actor Warner Oland plays Fu Manchu here (by far not the only yellow face acting he did), and the story is rife with upsetting stereotypes about Asian mysticism. It's too bad, because the pacing of the story is a lot more exciting than most of the 1930 adventure films have been, and it was fun to see a young Jean Arthur as the damsel in distress. There are quite a few of these I've come across in this project, where it'd be a perfectly fine movie if it didn't age so very badly.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930)

lost to Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (#1983 → #1987)

lost to Falling in Love (#2972 → #2970)

lost to The Proposal (#3471 → #3468)

beat VeggieTales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler (#3720 → #3721)

beat Captain January (#3595 → #3598)

beat Wilde (#3533 → #3534)

beat Class Reunion (#3501 → #3503)

beat Baby Mama (#3488 → #3495)

lost to North (#3479 → #3476)

lost to Miracle on 34th Street (held at #3482)

beat A Thief in the Night (#3485 → #3491)

beat Fist of Legend (#3484 → #3490)

Final spot: Ranked #3485/3975 on my Flickchart, 13%.

Trap (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they've entered the center of a dark and sinister event.

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, and Saleka Shyamalan.

Trap stars Josh Hartnett as a devoted father taking his tween daughter to see her favorite artist in concert, but their calm dad-daughter night out ends up overlapping with an enormous sting operation to catch a serial killer at large. I was a big fan of Shyamalan's previous film, Knock at the Cabin, but wow, did this one NOT work for me. Its fascination with criminal profiling tries too hard to be deep and instead just spits out a bunch of stereotypes and psychobabble that are already wildly overdone. It takes a fun premise and weighs it down with bland moralizing, the kind that was extremely common in the early 2000s and late 90s, but this is significantly less interesting. The one positive in here is Josh Hartnett, who truly is giving his all in this movie when it doesn't deserve it. The level of fun he's having with his role at least brings some measure of enjoyability to what is otherwise a tedious slog.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Trap (2024)

lost to Cypher (#1987 → #1976)

beat A Month by the Lake (#2974 → #2977)

lost to My Blueberry Nights (#2480 → #2479)

beat The Exorcism of Emily Rose (#2729 → #2764)

beat Flypaper (#2603 → #2604)

beat Liz & Dick (#2540 → #2547)

beat Chimes at Midnight (#2514 → #2513)

lost to La Condesa (#2494 → #2486)

lost to Guarding Tess (#2502 → #2500)

lost to Pacific Rim (#2507 → #2497)

beat No Country for Old Men (#2504 → #2510)

beat Streets of Fire (#2508 → #2509)

Final spot: Ranked #2504/3974 on my Flickchart, 37%.