The Way Way Back (2013)

IMDb plot summary: Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.
Directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Starring Liam James, Steve Carell, Toni Colette, and Sam Rockwell.

This is such an engaging coming-of-age movie with some really great performances from basically everyone involved. It conveys such a sense of being trapped and really captures how life-changing it can be to find acceptance somewhere. I'm not entirely convinced at times that the extroverted pushiness of Sam Rockwell is that different from the extorverted pushiness of Allison Janney, but they're both miles away from Steve Carell's passive aggressive displays of dominance over his girlfriend's son, and that's the contrast the movie is really focused on. The final scene is a beautiful nonverbal reconciliation between characters. Just a really well-crafted movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Way Way Back > Killing Season
The Way Way Back > The Dark Knight
The Way Way Back < Six Degrees of Separation
The Way Way Back > Atonement
The Way Way Back > The Cat Returns
The Way Way Back > Lawrence of Arabia
The Way Way Back < Boyhood
The Way Way Back < Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Way Way Back < The Holiday
The Way Way Back > High School Musical
The Way Way Back > Collateral
The Way Way Back < Black Panther
Final spot: #437 out of 3143.

The Immortal Story (1968)

IMDb plot summary: In Macao, a wealthy merchant named Charles Clay hires two people to recreate a story of a sailor who is paid to impregnate a man's wife.
Directed by Orson Welles. Starring Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, Roger Coggio, and Norman Eshley.

Well, this did absolutely nothing for me. It's one of those little fairy tale/fables that has such broadly drawn characters and plotlines that it just feels unfinished to me rather than universal, and I really don't know what it was attempting to say about life or romance or money or art or, well, anything. At least it was short.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Immortal Story < Killing Season
The Immortal Story < Send Me No Flowers
The Immortal Story > The Good Doctor
The Immortal Story < When I Walk
The Immortal Story < In the Heat of the Night
The Immortal Story > Jezebel
The Immortal Story < Sahara (2005)
The Immortal Story > The Yellow Handkerchief
The Immortal Story < Junior
The Immortal Story > Medium Cool
The Immortal Story > VeggieTales: The Star of Christmas
The Immortal Story > The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Final spot: #2682 out of 3142.

The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968)

IMDb plot summary: A married woman leaves her husband and zooms off on her motorcycle to see her lover.
Directed by Jack Cardiff. Starring Alain Delon, Marianne Faithfull, Roger Mutton, and Marius Goring.

This seems like the kind of movie I shouldn't like much at all -- trippy flashback scenes, long rambly inner philosophical monologues, heavily dislikable characters -- but somehow it all works, and I think it is in fact the motorcycle that ties it all together for me. The shots of her zooming around on her motorcycle convey such a longing for freedom, while all the scenes in between emphasize how she's unlikely to ever get that freedom. I found it unexpectedly powerful and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it, considering how poorly I usually connect to "vehicle=freedom" metaphors. But for whatever reason, it worked for me here. I'll take it!

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Girl on a Motorcycle > Star!
The Girl on a Motorcycle < The Dark Knight
The Girl on a Motorcycle < The Killing of a Sacred Deer
The Girl on a Motorcycle < Eyes Wide Shut
The Girl on a Motorcycle > Duck Soup
The Girl on a Motorcycle > Nanny McPhee
The Girl on a Motorcycle > We Need to Talk About Kevin
The Girl on a Motorcycle < The Green Mile
The Girl on a Motorcycle < Wide Awake
The Girl on a Motorcycle > Following
The Girl on a Motorcycle > Madame Blueberry
The Girl on a Motorcycle > Children of a Lesser God
Final spot: #1393 out of 3141.

Kelly's Heroes (1970)

IMDb plot summary: A group of U.S. soldiers sneaks across enemy lines to get their hands on a secret stash of Nazi treasure.
Directed by Brian G. Hutton. Starring Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, and Carroll O'Connor.

What a strange little combat heist film. It's got some good moments, and the most entertainingly bizarre performance I've ever seen from Donald Sutherland, but it gets messy when it tries to mix heist hijincks with wartime missions. There's a sequence in which some members of their team die, and it can hardly be framed as any kind of "they gave their life for their country" noble sacrifice -- they died going AWOL to rob a bank. It becomes a lot harder to root for everyone after that. The final sequence also feels more combat film than heist, and as such loses my interest almost entirely. But I can see people enjoying this, even if it made a few choices that pushed it further down for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Kelly's Heroes < Man on Fire
Kelly's Heroes > Weekend
Kelly's Heroes < Dark City
Kelly's Heroes < The Barkleys of Broadway
Kelly's Heroes > Martha Marcy May Marlene
Kelly's Heroes < Come to the Stable
Kelly's Heroes > Copying Beethoven
Kelly's Heroes < Zelig
Kelly's Heroes < Lilo & Stitch
Kelly's Heroes > Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
Kelly's Heroes > Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
Kelly's Heroes < It's Always Fair Weather
Final spot: #2228 out of 3141.

Escape From New York (1981)

IMDb plot summary: In 1997, when the U.S. president crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber is sent in to rescue him.
Directed by John Carpenter. Starring Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, and Donald Pleasence.

This was a silly fun one. I don't think of myself as particularly liking Kurt Russell as an actor, but I really enjoyed him in both of these. I think I enjoyed him more in Escape because he was the goofiest part of it, whereas he seemed almost normal amid the backdrop of everything else happening in Big Trouble. I loved how ridiculously over-the-top his character was here. I also enjoyed having this steampunky version of New York existing alongside the rest of the normal world.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Escape From New York > Blackmail Is My Life
Escape From New York < The Nanny Diaries
Escape From New York < Dark Shadows
Escape From New York < Rififi
Escape From New York > Wreck-It Ralph
Escape From New York < Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
Escape From New York < Lucky Number Slevin
Escape From New York > Jumanji
Escape From New York < The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Escape From New York > The Score
Escape From New York > Kinky Boots the Musical
Escape From New York < Absolute Power
Final spot: #1453 out of 3137.

Up Tight! (1968)

IMDb plot summary: Black revolutionaries are betrayed by one of their own. Based on the 1935 classic, "The Informer."
Directed by Jules Dassin. Starring Raymond St. Jacques, Ruby Dee, Frank Silvera, and Roscoe Lee Browne.

I'm intrigued by this as a retelling of an older book/movie but putting it in a more contemporary setting at the time, in the aftermath of MLK's assassination. Other than that, though, from moment to moment it feels like a pretty straightforward noir, which means I found much of it bland and predictable, with the unique setting occasionally adding an extra layer of depth to it. I want to like it more than I do.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Up Tight! > The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Up Tight! < Sleeping with Other People
Up Tight! < The Fly (1986)
Up Tight! < Guys and Dolls
Up Tight! < The Chalk Garden
Up Tight! < The Shining
Up Tight! < Batman Forever
Up Tight! < Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Up Tight! > Casino
Up Tight! < Killing Season
Up Tight! < Star!
Up Tight! > The Interpreter
Final spot: #1562 out of 3139.

Madigan (1968)

IMDb plot summary: In New York City's Spanish Harlem, detectives Madigan and Bonaro are given 72 hours by their superior to capture a hoodlum wanted for homicide in Brooklyn.
Directed by Don Siegel. Starring Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, and Harry Guardino.

This is a very strange movie, in that it has no perceivable arc for either its characters or its narrative. Little plot points pop up and are batted around, but nothing actually lands, certainly not in a satisfying way. Every time I thought it was going to do something interesting with the characters or the themes the movie raised, it would just shrug them off. Now that I see that this is the same director as Coogan's Bluff, another 1968 cop drama, I have much less faith that he was ineffectively trying to do anything substantial with this. It's so weird and all-over-the-place.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Madigan < The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Madigan > The Da Vinci Code
Madigan < Vantage Point
Madigan < The Way We Were
Madigan < What Lies Beneath
Madigan < Arlington Road
Madigan < A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
Madigan > Double Jeopardy
Madigan < The Wages of Fear
Madigan < Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Madigan > Band of Outsiders
Final spot: #2337 out of 3136.