Cats Don't Dance (1997)

IMDb plot summary: Danny, an ambitious singing and dancing cat, goes to Hollywood and overcomes several obstacles to fulfill his dream of becoming a movie star.

Directed by Mark Dindal. Stars Scott Bakula, Jasmine Guy, and Natalie Cole.

Cats Don't Dance is an animated musical about a world in which anthropomorphic animals live and work alongside humans, although if they want to enter show business, they are relegated to background characters and ensemble. One young cat shows up in Hollywood full of dreams and ready to be a musical movie star, only to have his hopes dashed in the face of anti-animal prejudice. I was expecting something a little bit more traditional and straightforward in this film, knowing nothing about it as I started, but the humor here is very rooted in slapstick cartoons, with quick jokes and clever visual gags. While some of these don't land for me, it is a refreshing change of pace after watching a lot of animated movies from people's childhoods that did not hold up so well. There's also a pretty decent soundtrack, although those songs were more memorable in the moment than they were after the film finished. The final sequence musical sequence in which the animals put on a stunning show while the antagonist works tirelessly to destroy the theater that they are in, only for each scheme to backfire in a way that makes the animals look better than ever, is a really enjoyable climactic moment of the film. This is not necessarily one that I'd have an inclination to watch again, but it's something a little different from the 1990s animated movies that I've been catching up on thus far, and I enjoy that change of pace a lot!

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Cats Don't Dance (1997)

📊 Ranked #1089/4021 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 73

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2007 → #2012)

lost to Dust (#1004 → #909)

lost to The Iron Claw (#1506 → #1485)

beat The Brutalist (#1759 → #1765)

beat The Big Chill (#1631 → #1641)

beat Peeping Tom (#1568 → #1592)

lost to Total Recall (#1537 → #1534)

lost to Timecop (held at #1553)

lost to 20th Century Women (#1562 → #984)

beat The Children's Hour (#1565 → #1566)

lost to Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (#1552 → #1545)

beat Furlough (#1564 → #1586)

Mickey 17 (2025)

IMDb plot summary: During a human expedition to colonize space, Mickey 17, a so-called "expendable" employee, is sent to explore an ice planet.

Directed by Bong Joon Ho. Stars Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, and Michael Monroe.

Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson as a poor young nobody who signs up to be an "expendable" on a once-in-a-lifetime interplanetary journey to colonize an unknown planet. This means that he is continuously cloned with his memories and each new clone is used for experiments or exploration tasks that will likely result in death. We pick up with the 17th version of this character, who is supposed dead and reprinted, only to reappear and have to deal with having two versions of himself present at once. Bong Joon Ho is making some of the best movies about late stage capitalism, and this is another one that I really enjoyed. It's a fascinating mix of thriller and sci-fi and comedy, particularly in the absurdly incompetent leaders and the almost wackily obsequious personality of Mickey #17. Of course, as the story continues on, these moments feel less and less like comedy and more and more like horror, and that line blends beautifully here. The worldbuilding is spectacular and always feels just slightly a step ahead of where we are right now in reality. Pattinson is great here, as are Mark Ruffalo and Tony Collette as the leaders of the expedition with a cultlike following (and a snobbish obsession with sauce). There's a lot to enjoy about this movie, and I like that it functions both as a simple sci-fi clones-in-space thriller and some serious commentary on how we view ourselves and our place in the world. Nicely done.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Mickey 17 (2025)

📊 Ranked #1052/4020 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 74

beat Hellfighters (#2006 → #2398)

lost to Muriel's Wedding (#1001 → #998)

beat The Princess and the Frog (#1504 → #1533)

beat For a Few Dollars More (#1253 → #1435)

beat Beetlejuice (#1126 → #1134)

lost to Gremlins (#1063 → #1049)

beat Witchfinder General (#1094 → #1147)

beat Cheaper by the Dozen (#1078 → #1135)

beat The Happening (#1070 → #1285)

beat The Secret Garden (#1066 → #1091)

beat Cries and Whispers (#1064 → #1067)

Show Girl in Hollywood (1930)

IMDb lot summary: 'Rainbow Girls' has just opened and closed on Broadway when Dixie, a actress in it, runs into smooth-talking Hollywood Director Frank Buelow. He tells her she would be a natural and promises her a movie contract, so she goes to Hollywood, but there is no contract for her.

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Stars Alice White, Jack Mulhall, and Blanche Sweet.

Show Girl in Hollywood is a 1930 romantic comedy/drama about a showbiz couple whose latest Broadway hit flops, and when the woman, an actress, meets a Hollywood director who promises her a job, she leaves her partner to go pursue it, only to find out that it isn't exactly what she hoped. This is a fairly straightforward film about relationships being tested by success or lack thereof, and while it's not necessarily an exciting story, it's told fine here. The characters are clear and generally likable, and their story unfolds in a fairly satisfying way, especially for such a short film. There's a little bit more depth to this than a typical rags to riches story too. Our lead actress is talented and beautiful, but that doesn't mean that she's automatically going to make it in Hollywood without connections to push her up into the role she wants. This decade had a lot of stories of people being plucked out of obscurity and tossed into fame, and this turns that on its head in kind of a fun way. Totally watchable, not  incredible.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Show Girl in Hollywood (1930)

📊 Ranked #2230/4019 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 45

lost to Kanal (#1989 → #1677)

beat Sleeper (#3013 → #3188)

beat Isadora (#2520 → #2522)

lost to Must Love Dogs (#2305 → #2295)

beat Rushmore (#2372 → #2376)

beat The Dinner Guest (#2322 → #2325)

beat The Perks of Being a Wallflower (#2284 → #2296)

lost to And Then There Were None (#2263 → #2250)

beat As It Is in Heaven (#2267 → #2271)

beat Camelot (#2274 → #2439)

lost to Holiday Affair (#2272 → #2219)

lost to Raising Arizona (#2248 → #2089)

FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)

IMDb plot summary: The magical inhabitants of a rainforest fight to save their home, which is threatened by logging and a polluting force of destruction called Hexxus.

Directed by Bill Kroyer. Stars Samantha Mathis, Christian Slater, and Robin Williams.

FernGully is an animated film from 1992 about a magical area of the rainforest where the fairies have trapped the evil demon of pollution inside a tree, but when American landscapers come and start cutting down the trees, the demon is released. Our main protagonists are the princess of the fairies, who is naive about the impact of humans on her world, and a human worker who is accidentally shrunk down to fairy size and learns about the harm that he's doing. This is truly a strange movie, primarily because it has extremely trendy '90s musical styles right alongside a didactic environmentalism message, and the two mix in a really bizarre way. The most evident moment of this is when Robin Williams' character, a bat who was escaped from a laboratory that does animal testing, delivers a 90 style rap about all the horrible torture he's been put through. It's such a bizarre attempt to entertain while also delivering devastating information that it mostly leaves me confused more than anything. That's the case throughout most of this film. The musical choices are the most exciting thing about it while also being by far the weirdest. The rest of the movie is fine. It delivers a children's message about deforestation in a pretty straightforward way. Our lead characters are by no means charismatic, so that's a little disappointing, but it's clearly a message movie more than anything else, and while it makes strange choices about how to get that message out, I think it's fairly successful in conveying what it's trying to convey. But... yeah. This is a weird movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)

📊 Ranked #2126/4018 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 48

lost to Swing Time (#2006 → #1973)

beat Blue Is the Warmest Color (#3007 → #3002)

beat Gilda (#2502 → #3063)

beat National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art (#2257 → #2186)

lost to Pat and Mike (#2130 → #1972)

beat After the Wedding (#2197 → #2277)

lost to The Act of Killing (#2161 → #1806)

lost to Beauty and the Beast (#2179 → #2098)

beat X (#2182 → #2286)

lost to The Year of Living Dangerously (held at #2177)

lost to Absolute Power (#2185 → #2125)

lost to Jackie (#2181 → #1801)

The World According to Garp (1982)

IMDb plot summary: A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.

Directed by George Roy Hill. Stars Robin Williams, Mary Beth Hurt, and Glenn Close.

The World According to Garp stars Robin Williams as the titular Garp, and Glenn Close as his fiercely independent mother who had him on her own. As Garp tries to make his own way in the world as a writer, his mother becomes an international success  writing books of her own and opening up her home as a sort of haven to women who have no place else to go. This is based on a novel by John Irving, an author I have really liked before, and I would be curious to read the book, because this feels like a chaotic jumble as a movie. There's too much going on, I can't track the arcs of any of the characters, characters flit in and out with abrupt impacts on the story but none of it seems to match the themes that have been set up beforehand. My guess is that the novel suffered greatly from being smushed into the limitations of a two and a half hour movie. On the plus side, Glenn Close is incredible here. I don't understand her character even a little bit, but she is thoroughly engaging and I can believe her character built up a following in this world. I am intrigued by how relatively well they portrayed a trans woman, played by John Lithgow. Apparently Irving was unhappy with how they portrayed her and left work on the film because of it, but she does seem just like a regular character, although maybe a bit quirky -- though not any more than the rest of the world that they live in. The Roger Ebert review of this film said something like, "I finished the movie and then thought, 'What am I supposed to get out of that?'" And that's kind of how I feel about this myself. Individual pieces are engaging, but they don't add up to a coherent or satisfying whole.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The World According to Garp (1982)

📊 Ranked #2820/4017 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 30

lost to The Sword in the Stone (#2006 → #1966)

beat Did You Hear About the Morgans? (#3007 → #3009)

lost to Phantom of the Opera (#2507 → #2503)

lost to Pokémon Detective Pikachu (#2757 → #2547)

beat Bully (#2882 → #2885)

lost to Paint Your Wagon (#2819 → #2799)

beat Fedora (#2850 → #3431)

beat The Disappearance of Alice Creed (#2834 → #2909)

beat The 101-Year-Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared (#2826 → #2871)

beat Iron Eagle (#2822 → #2824)

lost to Three Days of the Condor (#2820 → #2694)

beat Immortal Beloved (#2821 → #2847)

Sinners (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

Directed by Ryan Coogler. Stars Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, and Saul Williams.

Sinners is a Ryan Coogler movie starring Michael B. Jordan as twins who return to their hometown to set up a juke joint, but things start going wrong when some unexpected visitors show up, looking to shake up the brothers' venture. I think it's pretty well out there what the primary villain is in this movie, but the film itself does not reveal that until a good portion of the way through, so I'm going to follow its lead and be a little cagey about what exactly the horror part of the story is. This is a really engaging story, though. It does what I really love horror movies to do, where it takes hypothetical abstract monsters in the night and blends them with very real world fears in this case the not-at-all hypothetical opposition that this black family faces in the South just trying to live their lives. Pairing these two together makes for a really dynamic and engaging thriller. Of course, no review of this movie would be complete without mention of the music. There have been heated debates on social media about whether or not this counts as a musical, and while I think mostly reveals that people's definition of musical is too small, I think it counts solely because the storytelling and the narrative pause to let the music take center stage multiple times. We get full musical numbers where the visuals are there to enhance the music, rather than the other why around. That's exactly what I love about musicals, and that's what this does very well. This is a pretty busy movie -- there's enough going on in the background of the story that I think it would absolutely benefit from a second watch. I know there are things that I did not connect with the first time around that would pop out to me afterwards. Really a great film though.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Sinners (2025)

📊 Ranked #305/4016 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 92

beat Meet John Doe (#2005 → #2001)

beat Blackbeard's Ghost (held at #1000)

beat Breakfast at Tiffany's (#490 → #492)

lost to Your Name. (#249 → #248)

beat The Edge of Seventeen (#375 → #412)

beat Liar Liar (#284 → #286)

lost to Requiem for a Dream (held at #280)

beat Operation Petticoat (#296 → #302)

lost to Shaun of the Dead (#288 → #289)

lost to Life of Brian (#292 → #291)

lost to The Guilty (held at #293)

beat Sabrina (held at #295)

Color Out of Space (2019)

IMDb plot summary: A secluded farm is struck by a strange meteorite which has apocalyptic consequences for the family living there and possibly the world.

Directed by Richard Stanley. Stars Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, and Madeleine Arthur.

Color Out of Space is a cosmic horror story based loosely on the H.P. Lovecraft short story of the same name. We follow a family in a small rural area whose lives are turned upside down when a bizarre meteor crashes into their front yard. What follows is a series of terrifying supernatural events that shake their sanity and their physical well-being. This is a genuinely terrifying and deeply upsetting film, in the best way. There's no sense that this family is going to be okay, not even the dog and the youngest child, who are often protected in horror films  because that would be just too much. The film makes really creative choices in its color palette. The meteor and the various things that come from it all contain an eerie neon pink that in many other situations would be a cheerful color but here bring along a sense of Otherworldly ominousness. Nicolas Cage is maybe the one piece that doesn't totally fit, as his character is a little bit zanier than the rest of the story. Ultimately, though, it does work together, despite a few strange tonal shifts midway through the movie. Overall, one of the best transfers to screen I've seen of a cosmic horror story.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Color Out of Space (2020)

📊 Ranked #535/4015 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 87

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2005 → #2009)

beat Leaving Las Vegas (#1000 → #998)

lost to Ex Machina (#499 → #493)

beat Big Trouble in Little China (#749 → #746)

beat The Muppet Movie (#624 → #758)

beat Tekkonkinkreet (#561 → #653)

beat Jojo Rabbit (#530 → #619)

lost to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (#514 → #530)

beat Into the Woods (#522 → #549)

lost to Network (#518 → #510)

beat Date Night (#520 → #730)

beat M. Butterfly (#519 → #561)