Always (1989)

IMDb plot summary: A romantic adventure about a legendary pilot's passion for dare-devil firefighting and his girl.
Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Brad Johnson, and John Goodman.

When the credits rolled and I saw this was directed by Spielberg, I may have actually yelped out loud, "What were you DOING with this?" It's an amateurish script where none of the interactions ring true. Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter try to save it by imbuing their characters with excessive playfulness, but it just makes it all the more jarring when they abruptly turn serious. Several dramatic themes are explored and then dropped with no warning, leaving me constantly asking, "But what about...what happened to...why isn't he...?"

It's not all bad. The firefighting scenes are spectacularly done and are easily the highlight of the film. The script doesn't do an adequate job of almost anything else, but it does give us a good quick overview of the technical aspects of these characters' jobs, and the action sequences help to highlight that. It's not very often that I think a movie should have been more action and less drama, but that does happen to be the case here.

1 star.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Always < My Best Friend's Wedding
Always < The Professional
Always > Out of the Past
Always > Never Been Kissed
Always < Mulan
Always > I Accuse My Parents
Always < Saw
Always < How to Marry a Millionaire (why is that so low on my chart?)
Always < Silverado
Always < 27 Dresses
Always < The Verdict

Final spot: #2007 out of 2527.

True Lies (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A fearless, globe-trotting, terrorist-battling secret agent has his life turned upside down when he discovers his wife might be having an affair with a used car salesman.

Directed by James Cameron. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, and Art Malik.

I knew very little about this movie before watching it. I knew James Cameron did it, it was an action movie, that people loved it, and that it starred Schwarzenegger. I figured I'd be mildly appreciative of it at best, as Cameron's action movies often don't capture my imagination. This movie, however, is an exception. What keeps this fresh is that it's only about 2/3 action, and the other third is about Schwarzenegger's marriage to Jamie Lee Curtis, and the two together make for a really great movie.

Cameron does a much better job pacing the story here than I've thought he did in previous movies, especially his longer ones. The movie is still about 20 minutes too long, but even a two-hour action movie is tough to keep interesting. Cameron not only keeps the action scenes rolling by loading them up with zaniness but he also widely varies the *type* of action happening. Even in the midst of a giant gun battle, he pauses frequently to switch to flamethrowers or hand-to-hand combat or a chase to keep you on your toes. That's impressive.

I did find myself a little skeeved out by the "revenge on the cheating wife" section of the movie, but fortunately A) it doesn't last long, B) it's played with Schwarzenegger being in the wrong, and C) the movie works hard after this moment to give her enough to do that it doesn't feel like her existence in the movie relies on her functioning as a wayward woman to be punished.

Overall, it's a great ride, and certainly my favorite thing either Cameron or Schwarzenegger's done outside of the Terminator series.

4 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:

True Lies > Interiors

True Lies > A Clockwork Orange

True Lies < A Man for All Seasons

True Lies > I've Loved You So Long

True Lies < Flight

True Lies < Super

True Lies > Jaws

True Lies > Anomalisa

True Lies < Regarding Henry

True Lies < M. Butterfly

True Lies < Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

True Lies < Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Final spot: #443 out of 2526.

My Life as a Dog (1985)

IMDb plot summary: A boy and his brother don't get along well. In order to let their ill mother rest, they're separated and sent each one with their relatives.
Directed by Lasse Hallström. Starring Anton Glanzelius, Tomas von Brömssen, Anki Lidén, and Melinda Kinnaman.

I'm a little ashamed how few Criterion films I've seen as a film buff, so it's always great to add another to the "seen" list. This is a very lovely movie that falls a little short of being a movie I *love*, but, man, there are some great moments in here. Ingemar is such a compelling character, right from the opening where he comforts himself by comparing himself to others who had more miserable lives (and deaths). Like a lot of coming-of-age movies, it has a tendency to feel rambly, but I enjoyed most of the rambling, so I didn't mind too much.

4 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
My Life as a Dog > Everyone Says I Love You
My Life as a Dog > Gone Baby Gone
My Life as a Dog < A Man for All Seasons
My Life as a Dog < I've Loved You So Long
My Life as a Dog < Heavenly Creatures
My Life as a Dog > Chariots of Fire
My Life as a Dog < The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
My Life as a Dog < 9
My Life as a Dog < Bubba Ho-tep
My Life as a Dog > Key Largo
My Life as a Dog < Zodiac

Final spot: #588 out of 2525.

Teacher of the Year (2014)

IMDb plot summary: Surrounded by the eccentric faculty of Truman High School, Mitch Carter wins the California Teacher of the Year award and immediately receives a tempting offer that may force him to leave his job.
Directed by Jason Strouse. Starring Matt Letscher, Keegan-Michael Key, Sunny Mabrey, and Larry Joe Campbell.

This is an... odd movie in terms of tone. It sets itself up as a silly mockumentary about teachers, but there's not as much out-and-out comedy as I would expect. A few side characters are entertainingly over-the-top, but our central character is very much grounded, and his entire arc is something more out of a heartwarming teacher movie than something by Christopher Guest. The two tones don't mesh terribly well. The principal and the robotics teacher are too ridiculous to fit into the primary narrative, and that narrative is too sincere to fit a genre with the word "mock" in it. I'm inclined to like it more as a serious story about a teacher trying to figure things out in an occasionally-quirky school. The primary character is likable and interesting, and his story went in an unexpected direction that I appreciated. So... an awkward movie that can't figure out what it is, but not a terrible one.

2 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Teacher of the Year < Interiors
Teacher of the Year > The Last Temptation of Christ
Teacher of the Year > Marathon Man
Teacher of the Year < Quitting
Teacher of the Year > Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Teacher of the Year < Kagemusha
Teacher of the Year < Blue Velvet
Teacher of the Year < Frequency
Teacher of the Year > Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Teacher of the Year > Luther
Teacher of the Year < Hide and Seek

Final spot: #1491 out of 2524.

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

IMDb plot summary: The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, and Ryô Kase.

(Spoilers ahead.)

This falls in that category of movies I respect and admire without feeling much connection to. Part of that is because, like in many war movies where everyone's wearing the same thing, I am so bad with faces that I could not keep the different characters and their stories straight. Lots of individual moments I appreciated, but because I couldn't identify individual characters very well, I couldn't follow their narrative arcs through to the end. That's a flaw on my end, obviously, not the movie's, but it does help to explain the emotional disconnect as a whole.

What I thought the movie did do very well was convey the sense of the Japanese soldiers' expectations of honor and loyalty and how that matched or didn't match with what they encountered. The scene that affected me in the most was where the soldiers are ordered to retreat but choose to commit suicide instead, and as soldier after soldier puts gun to their head or grenade to their stomach and ends their life, you see the internal struggle of the one who ultimately does make it out from that scene alive.

I wish I could say I liked this movie more, but I do think it's a good one, and very well-made.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Letters from Iwo Jima > Everyone Says I Love You
Letters from Iwo Jima < A Clockwork Orange
Letters from Iwo Jima < The Pursuit of Happyness
Letters from Iwo Jima > The Dark Knight
Letters from Iwo Jima < October Sky
Letters from Iwo Jima > National Lampoon's Vacation
Letters from Iwo Jima > The Switch
Letters from Iwo Jima < Bee Movie
Letters from Iwo Jima < The Matador
Letters from Iwo Jima > Splash
Letters from Iwo Jima < Now You See Me

Final spot: #1041 out of 2523.

Queen of Katwe (2016)

IMDb plot summary: A Ugandan girl sees her world rapidly change after being introduced to the game of chess.
Directed by Mira Nair. Starring Madina Nalwanga, David Oyelowo, Lupita Nyong'o, and Martin Kabanza.

If you know anything at all about this movie, you know pretty much all of it. It follows the expected path of most underdog competition movies -- the rise, the fall, the rise, the personal problems, the triumphant ending. Disney does this formula better than many others, and it definitely works here, largely thanks to the incredibly likable actors at the center of the story. There are no surprises, but the trusted formula is used well, and it's a sweet movie. The highlight is seeing the actors meet their characters' real-life counterparts in the ending credits sequence.

3.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Queen of Katwe > Everyone Says I Love You
Queen of Katwe < A Clockwork Orange
Queen of Katwe > The Pursuit of Happyness
Queen of Katwe > The Intouchables
Queen of Katwe > Me and Orson Welles
Queen of Katwe < Don't Drink the Water
Queen of Katwe > The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Queen of Katwe < Battle Royale
Queen of Katwe > The Band Wagon
Queen of Katwe > The Cat Returns

Final spot: #681 out of 2522.

Internet Famous (2016)

IMDB plot summary: The Internet has given them fame. A talent contest could make one of them a superstar. If only they had any talent.
Directed by Michael J. Gallagher. Starring Shane Dawson, Steve Greene, Wendy McColm, and Amanda Cerny.

This silly little movie does a great job of capturing all the various aspects of Internet fame, from those who never wanted to be famous to those who are famous for nefarious reasons to those who are famous for reasons other than what they think. It's definitely a very narrow film in the sense that it has a limited timespan and a limited audience. This is a movie for YouTube followers right now, and I don't know that it'll have much appeal to almost anyone else. The characters aren't developed enough to have the longer reach of, say, Christopher Guest's best mockumentaries. All that being said, however, I enjoyed it for what it was and had a good time watching it.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Internet Famous > Music Within
Internet Famous < A Clockwork Orange
Internet Famous < The Pursuit of Happyness
Internet Famous > Let the Right One In
Internet Famous < October Sky
Internet Famous < National Lampoon's Vacation
Internet Famous < National Treasure
Internet Famous > Hitch
Internet Famous < Titanic
Internet Famous < The Avengers
Internet Famous > Ghost Ship

Final spot: #1091 out of 2521.