The Ramen Girl (2008)

IMDb plot summary: An American woman is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a râmen chef under a tyrannical Japanese master.
Directed by Robert Allan Ackerman. Starring Brittany Murphy, Toshiyiki Nishida, Sohee Park, and Kimiko Yo.

While the movie wears a little thin in the middle, this is overall a really charming little movie. The main characters are for the most part likable, and I do enjoy a good fish-out-of-water story, which this movie does well. The film gets bogged down about halfway through, stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of the main characters yelling with nobody understanding each other, but once it's over that hump it chugs along to a nice, satisfying ending. It's spotty but sweet.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #1128 out of 2244, below Ben-Hur and above The Dinner Game.

Killing Season (2013)

IMDb plot summary: Two veterans of the Bosnian War -- one American, one Serbian -- find their unlikely friendship turn tense with one of them reveals their true intentions.
Directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Starring Robert De Niro and John Travolta.

(Vague spoilers about the movie's plot, tone, and resolution.)

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. What seemed at first like a run-of-the-mill revenge film ended up being a decently thoughtful piece about war, violence, and guilt. De Niro is great in his role, Travolta is... not great in his, but not terrible. The script for this one is pretty solid, and at right around 90 minutes, it's not so long it wears thin. This isn't a brilliant movie, but it's much more than I expected it would be. Nice.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #949 out of 2243, below City Lights and above The Forbidden Kingdom.

Transcendence (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A scientist's drive for artificial intelligence, takes on dangerous implications when his consciousness is uploaded into one such program.
Directed by Wally Pfister. Starring Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, and Cillian Murphy.

I was so hoping the critics were wrong about this movie, but they weren't, and it makes me sad. It's such a great premise for a movie, and you can see where they were trying to make it good... unfortunately, it's muddled, confusing, and worst of all, boring. Seriously, how is a movie like this boring? All the moments for emotional involvement just... sit there, or cut away right before what should have been the payoff. It's incredibly frustrating to me when a movie that had so much promise falls apart so completely. I'll join in with the majority in saying this is one to avoid.

1 star.

Flickchart: #1837 out of 2242, below Mamma Mia! and above All the King's Men (2006).

Syrup (2013)

IMDb plot summary: A slacker hatches a million-dollar idea. But, in order to see it through, he has to learn to trust his attractive corporate counterpart. Based on Max Barry's novel.
Directed by Aram Rappaport. Starring Amber Heard, Shiloh Fernandez, and Kellan Lutz.

Oh, man. This movie wants SO badly to be important and meaningful, but in the end it just... doesn't all come together. The lead characters are pretty boring stereotypes, the storytelling structure is all over the place (it keeps feeling like the movie is over when it's not even close), and the movie's message is very heavy-handed. It does make me want to read the book, though, because there's so much potential in the story's premise, and it makes me wonder if it was just sloppy execution or if the original book was like this as well. I really wanted to like this movie, but there are just too many flaws for me to buy overall.

2 stars.

Flickchart: #1329 out of 2241, below Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and above Les Miserables (1935).

American Outlaws (2001)

IMDb plot summary: When a Midwest town learns that a corrupt railroad baron has captured the deeds to their homesteads without their knowledge, a group of young ranchers join forces to take back what is rightfully theirs.
Directed by Les Mayfield. Starring Colin Farrell, Scott Caan, Ali Larter, and Gabriel Macht.

Let me make this very clear: This is NOT an objectively good movie. The story is cheesy and sensationalized and the cinematography is often very weird. And yet... somehow I really enjoyed it. This was a huge surprise to me, as it's a genre I don't get into very easily. I think I have to attribute most of it to Colin Farrell's charisma, as he creates a likable and oddly sweet gang leader. Timothy Dalton is fun as well, enjoyably campy as the quasivillain of the piece. I wouldn't rewatch it again any time soon, but it was a surprisingly fun watch the first time around.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #557 out of 2240, below The Artist and above Children of Men.

Neverwas (2005)

IMDb plot summary: A well-educated psychiatrist leaves an academic career to work at an institution where his father, a novelist, lived before writing a renowned children's book. Acclimating to his position, he encounters a schizophrenic who helps him to discover the book's secrets and his place in the story.
Directed by Joshua Michael Stern. Starring Aaron Eckhart, Ian McKellen, Brittany Murphy, and Nick Nolte.

(Mild spoilers.)

I'm torn on this one. It's very much the kind of movie that lives on Netflix Instant, an indie-style flick that is ambitious about meaning something big and important, but I'm not sure it ever gets there. The line between fantasy and reality is... awkward here, never quite letting us in on the answer but not drawing enough meaning from it that the ambiguity is OK. I really liked the beginning of it, but as it went on, it kind of just fell apart and never really came back together. That being said, though, others may get into it more than I did, and Ian McKellen really is very good in this, particularly in the climactic scene. He was what kept me watching most of the time.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1237 out of 2239, below Runaway Bride and above The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

The Last Unicorn (1982)

IMDb plot summary: A brave unicorn and a magician fight an evil king who is obsessed with attempting to capture the world's unicorns.
Directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. Starring Mia Farrow, Alan Arkin, Jeff Bridges, and Tammy Grimes.

This was... not at all what I expected. I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. It's a very simple story, but there's a beautifully melancholy undercurrent which I would never have expected in a children's fantasy. It's full of regret, bittersweet goodbyes, and a sense of complete isolation. I have no idea if I would have liked this as a kid, but as an adult, I found myself really gravitating to the darker themes of the story. The ending was tremendously satisfying, neither too depressing nor unrealistically saccharine. It's not perfect, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise.

3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #871 out of 2238, below John Dies at the End and above Choke.