Street of Chance (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A big-time, but honest gambler has to prevent his younger brother from following in his footsteps, and taking up gambling.

Directed by John Cromwell. Starring William Powell, Jean Arthur, and Kay Francis.

Street of Chance stars William Powell as a successful gambler in the big city. His wife, however, has left him because of his gambling, and he decides to give it all up, only for his younger brother to show up determined to make his own future in gambling. The boy has no idea that his older brother has been making a living gambling; he thinks he's been doing stock exchange of some sort, and so William Powell has no choice but to try to set him on the right path. The stakes in this are high and simple and clear, and even though the story itself plays out pretty straightforwardly it's engaging and compelling to watch. It's a familiar "one last heist" story, but centered around gambling. The script does more of the heavy lifting than the actors -- William Powell seems so understated that it would be hard to always tell when things are really at stake if the script didn't tell you so -- but overall the movie works and is an interesting watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Street of Chance < Gas Food Lodging

Street of Chance > Monkey Business (1952)

Street of Chance > Flypaper

Street of Chance < Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Street of Chance > Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Street of Chance > If...

Street of Chance > Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

Street of Chance < Laura

Street of Chance > Bill Cunningham New York

Street of Chance > Almost Famous

Street of Chance < The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

Final spot: #2006 out of 3535, or 43%.

Earth (1930)

IMDb plot summary: In the peaceful countryside, Vassily opposes the rich kulaks over the coming of collective farming.

Directed by Aleksandr Dovzhenko. Starring Stepan Shkurat, Semyon Svashenko, and Yuliya Solntseva.

Earth is a 1930 Soviet Union film about a community being pushed to undergo collectivization, where individual farms are integrated into larger collectively-owned or state-owned farms. The film captures the varying responses to this, with the younger characters excited about how the new program will help them farm more effectively and efficiently with technology, and their fathers wishing to hold to the old ways of things and to keep private ownership of their land. Interestingly enough, the movie was initially praised by the Soviet Union and then shortly thereafter began to be seen as having a confusing or ambiguous political message and began to be equally parts praised and lambasted. I think that speaks to the humanness of the story being told, that it's so easy to sympathize with both sets of characters as the story is told. What does make for more compelling story makes for less clear and less desirable propaganda. This was a movie that was more interesting to me as a historical relic than as a story in and of itself but I'm glad I watched it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Earth < The Harder They Fall

Earth > Monkey Business (1952)

Earth < The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Earth < State Fair (1946)

Earth > Gangs of New York

Earth > Sweet Revenge

Earth > Sliding Doors

Earth > Pat and Mike

Earth < Winter's Bone

Earth > The Milagro Beanfield War

Earth > Steel Magnolias

Final spot: #2436 out of 3531, or 31%.

Finch (2021)

IMDb plot summary: On a post-apocalyptic Earth, a robot, built to protect the life of his creator's beloved dog learns about life, love, friendship and what it means to be human.

Directed by Miguel Sapochnik. Starring Tom Hanks, Caleb Landry Jones, and Marie Wagenman.

Finch stars Tom Hanks as our lone protagonist, one of the few remaining survivors after a solar flare and an EMP killed all electronics and made being outside in the sun impossible and deadly. Finch knows that he is dying of radiation poisoning and decides to make a robot to take care of his dog after he has passed on. Together, he, the robot, and the dog make their way toward the West Coast to see the Golden Gate Bridge before Finch dies. This movie is such a strange combination of tones. You have this genuinely disquieting post-apocalyptic story that feels not too terribly distant from the world we're in now, and then we have a fully sentient alive robot that feels more like we're leaning into 1980s children's adventure movies, and then on top of that it's a sentimental "man traveling with a child story." None of these pieces really fit together nicely for me, especially the last, which usually made me roll my eyes every time the robot would say something expectedly precocious and wise. There are definitely better "last man alive" stories and better "robot and man" stories. This one is mostly just cringe-y.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Finch < Monsters

Finch < War of the Buttons (1994)

Finch < Scrooged

Finch > Chicken Little

Finch > Outsourced

Finch > Basic

Finch < VeggieTales: The Star of Christmas

Finch < Five Children and It

Finch < No Reservations

Finch < The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Finch < The Princess and the Goblin

Finch < The Spy Next Door

Final spot: #3144 out of 3530, or 11%.

The Big Trail (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Breck Coleman leads hundreds of settlers in covered wagons from the Mississippi River to their destiny out West.

Directed by Raoul Walsh. Starring John Wayne, Marguerite Churchill, and El Brendel.

The Big Trail turns out to be John Wayne's very first starring role. I didn't realize that when I started watching it. He plays a scout for a group of wagon trains heading across the country to Oregon. There are varying plots going around in the different wagons, but the main two are the young woman that Wayne's character falls in love with but who won't give him the time of day, and the three men leading the wagon train who turn out to be murderers and scoundrels. While westerns are very much not my genre, I really enjoyed seeing both a very young John Wayne and a very straightforward story with some really interesting visual effects and cinematography work. The scenes where the wagons are being lowered down the cliffs or where they have to ford the river really bring the harrowing nature of the trek they're all making. The personal drama doesn't do as much for me, but there are some great filmmaking techniques here and it's probably worth watching if you like the genre to begin with.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Big Trail < Monsters

The Big Trail > War of the Buttons (1994)

The Big Trail > Sullivan's Travels

The Big Trail < A Star Is Born (2018)

The Big Trail < Deep Red

The Big Trail > The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Big Trail < Legends of the Fall

The Big Trail > Naked Lunch

The Big Trail > Fun Size

The Big Trail < Hello, Dolly!

The Big Trail > No Country for Old Men

Final spot: #2127 out of 3529, or 40%.

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Presents an in-depth, intimate character portrait exploring the life and career and mysterious circumstances surrounding the tragic death of 90's actress and rising star, Brittany Murphy.

Directed by Cynthia Hill.

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? is a documentary looking at the mysterious and unexpected and sudden death of actress Brittany Murphy back in 2009. Questions surrounded her death, as it seemed to come out of nowhere. It was attributed to anemia and pneumonia, but things just got weirder from there. For example, her husband died shortly after -- of the exact same thing. The documentary looks all different kinds of fan theories, including poisoning and mold and deliberate medical neglect, but, just like the real world, it's unable to fully draw a conclusion. What it does do is make me interested in going back and watching the filmography of Brittany Murphy. I've seen very little of her work, but the documentary really paints her as somebody who had a lot to give and was taken from us too early. Since this wasn't ever going to be able to solve the mystery the way a true-crime documentary wants to, it's nice that they at least gave me an interest in the subject that I didn't have before. So kudos to them on that.

How it entered my Flickchart:

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? < Hustle & Flow

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > War of the Buttons (1994)

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > Sullivan's Travels

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > A Star Is Born (2018)

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? < The Mistress of Spices

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > Top Gun

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? < The Lion in Winter (2003)

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > A Foreign Affair

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? < Swing Time

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > Lost in America

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > Trumbo

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > You'll Never Get Rich

Final spot: #1909 out of 3528, or 46%.

Morocco (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A cabaret singer and a Legionnaire fall in love, but their relationship is complicated by the results of his womanizing and due to the appearance of a rich man who wants her for himself.

Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Starring Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, and Adolphe Menjou.

Morocco tells the story of a romance between a soldier and a nightclub singer in World War I Morocco. He's a womanizer, and she might just be the woman that gets him to settle down. Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich play the main two, and while Dietrich is really relatable in this, Cooper is not. He plays a wildly unpleasant, quick-to-fight soldier who thinks that it's his job to fix everything, and I'm not really excited to see Dietrich chasing after him as if he's anything worth chasing. On top of that, the story and how it builds is really not very interesting. I'm writing this review a couple days after watching it and I had to go look up on Wikipedia to find out how it ended because it had so little impact on me that I genuinely did not remember. It may be worth the watch if you're a big fan of Dietrich -- she does have some good song-and-dance numbers -- but otherwise it's probably one that you can skip.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Morocco < Hustle & Flow

Morocco < War of the Buttons

Morocco > In Cold Blood

Morocco > Alfie (2004)

Morocco > A Most Wanted Man

Morocco < The Cocoanuts

Morocco < Magic in the Moonlight

Morocco > Copying Beethoven

Morocco < My Dinner with Andre

Morocco < Spirits of the Dead

Morocco < Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Morocco > Get Smart

Final spot: #2741 out of 3527, or 22%.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.

Directed by Lewis Milestone. Starring Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, and John Wray.

All Quiet on the Western Front is based on the book of the same name, about a German Soldier fighting on the front lines of World War I. We follow him from his early recruitment all the way up until he revisits his home and finds that it's not at all the way he remembers it. The film follows the soldier and his classmates, who were all recruited at the same time by their school teacher. While big war battle sequences are not my thing, I was very moved by the sections in which the soldier goes home and tries to enjoy his leave. He has to deal with people making broad statements about what the people at the front should or shouldn't be doing, as well as revisiting his old classroom and hearing the school teacher say the same bits of rhetoric without any nuance or understanding behind them. A very powerful early anti-war movie that holds up really well now.

How it entered my Flickchart:

All Quiet on the Western Front > Hustle & Flow

All Quiet on the Western Front < Long Day's Journey Into Night

All Quiet on the Western Front > Talk Radio

All Quiet on the Western Front < Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

All Quiet on the Western Front < Nine to Five

All Quiet on the Western Front > Backbeat

All Quiet on the Western Front < Say Anything...

All Quiet on the Western Front < Panic Room

All Quiet on the Western Front > Can You Ever Forgive Me?

All Quiet on the Western Front > The Detective

All Quiet on the Western Front < Laurence Anyways

Final spot: #1256 out of 3526, or 64%.