Radio Flyer (1992)

IMDb plot summary: A father recounts a dark period of his childhood when he and his little brother lived in the suburbs.

Directed by Richard Donner. Starring Lorraine Bracco, Elijah Wood, and Joseph Mazzello.

Radio Flyer tells the story of two little boys whose mother marries an abusive man, and the oldest boy, played by Elijah Wood, contrives a plan to save his younger brother from their stepfather's cruelty. What a strange, confusing tone this is going for, mixing the serious issue of child abuse with an imaginative fantasy in a way that never quite lands. While I won't spoil the details of the ending, it is deeply unsatisfying given how badly we want our characters to get a concrete happy ending, and while the film clearly attempts to end on a positive note, it doesn't really work at all. The two young actors playing the boys are good -- maybe too good in that they sell the narrative of childhood trauma so realistically that it's hard to let it go when the movie wants us to. And the choice to rarely show the abuser's face and keep him as an ominous otherworldly villain would have been effective in a different movie where that was taken more seriously. It's, I think, a well-intentioned film, but it ends up feeling clumsy at best and exploitative at worst.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Radio Flyer < Vampyr

Radio Flyer < 13 Going on 30

Radio Flyer < Table 19

Radio Flyer > Bhoot

Radio Flyer > Courageous

Radio Flyer > The Yellow Handkerchief

Radio Flyer < Sharknado

Radio Flyer > Live Free or Die Hard

Radio Flyer < The Hiding Place

Radio Flyer > Min and Bill

Radio Flyer > Madagascar

Radio Flyer < They Were Expendable

Final spot: #3305 out of 3733, or 11%.

Tower (2016)

IMDb plot summary: Animation, testimony, and archival footage combine to relate the events of August 1, 1966 when a gunman opened fire from the University of Texas clock tower, killing 16 people.

Directed by Keith Maitland.

Tower is a mostly-animated documentary about the 1966 shootings at the University of Texas in Austin, with a mix of real-life survivors of the attacks and actors playing younger animated versions of the same characters. It's an interesting look at a mass shooting that rocked the country before mass shootings became an everyday occurrence. The combined use of animation and occasional live footage does a great job of capturing the surreal nature of finding yourself in this kind of situation while also grounding it in these being real people. About halfway through when the animated characters are mostly replaced by their 2016 actual counterparts, it's a surprisingly powerful artistic choice. I do wish there had been a tiny bit more reflection on how this was an uncommon phenomenon in 1966 and is now something frequent enough that we regularly drill students on how to deal with it, but I think the choice to leave those connections up to the viewer was deliberate and I respect that choice. I usually find documentaries educational and interesting but not narratively powerful, but this is one of those rare exceptions.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Tower > Vampyr

Tower < Safe

Tower > The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness

Tower > Show Me Love

Tower > 13th

Tower > Shall We Dance? (2004)

Tower > Baby Driver

Tower > A Room With a View

Tower < Chronicle

Tower < Till Death

Tower > The Palm Beach Story

Tower > H.M.S. Defiant

Final spot: #944 out of 3732, or 75%.

The Perfumier (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A police detective tries to get back his girlfriend as well as his sense of smell, as he gets help from a perfume maker who uses deadly methods to find the perfect perfume.

Directed by Nils Willbrandt. Starring Sólveig Arnarsdóttir, August Diehl, and Robert Finster.

The Perfumier is a 2022 German crime drama very, very loosely based on the book "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" by Patrick Suskind. There's already a film of the same name that follows the book more closely, but this feels more like a fan fiction story inspired by the original. Both stories include a gifted perfume maker who becomes obsessed with creating the perfect love potion, even if it means killing young women and extracting their scent from them to do it. This one focuses on a police officer with no sense of smell who finds herself on the killer's track. So I love the movie and just recently read and loved the book, so there's a part of me that disliked how very different this one was, but if I think of it as just a regular crime movie, the central conceit does add a slightly more interesting extra layer to what would otherwise be a bland story. It takes a lot of the sort of melodramatically fantastical elements of the book and makes it fit in surprisingly well to a more stereotypical lurid crime thriller. Would I recommend it? Well, not really, not when the originals are right there, but if you're a big fan of the new genre, you might have fun with it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Perfumier < Vampyr

The Perfumier > The Little Princess (1939)

The Perfumier < Satantango

The Perfumier > Patriots Day

The Perfumier < Birdman of Alcatraz

The Perfumier > Genius

The Perfumier > The Dirty Dozen

The Perfumier > Lolita (1997)

The Perfumier < Pal Joey

The Perfumier < Innocence Unprotected

The Perfumier < High Society

The Perfumier > August: Osage County

Final spot: #2461 out of 3731, or 34%.

The Half of It (2020)

IMDb plot summary: When smart but cash-strapped teen Ellie Chu agrees to write a love letter for a jock, she doesn't expect to become his friend - or fall for his crush.

Directed by Alice Wu. Starring Leah Lewis, Daniel Diemer, and Alexxis Lemire.

The Half of It is a modern YA retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, centering on a teenager named Ellie who has a crush on the pastor's daughter but is too shy to say anything, so she helps a friendly classmate who's not good with words woo her instead. Cyrano is one of my all-time favorite stories. Unrequited crushes were the story of my teenage years, and I always connect so hard with the longing sense of "maybe you'd like me if you really knew me but probably not." I instantly rooted for Ellie. She's such a beautifully crafted character, and Leah Lewis plays her with such love. The drama and sweetness of this movie absolutely kept me hooked the whole way through. The main complaint I have is that, sadly, the mutual love interest seems super underdeveloped as a character, so much so that I kept half-wondering if the movie was going to end with Ellie getting together with the boy who also loved that character, since their friendship got much more compelling scenes. Ultimately, I think the movie *is* about their friendship more than about Ellie's love life, which I do think lands, even if it minimizes the romance a little bit more than I wanted it to. But that's a small complaint. Overall it's a charming movie and well worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Half of It > Vampyr

The Half of It > Anna Karenina

The Half of It < Secretary

The Half of It > The Farewell

The Half of It > Clerks.

The Half of It < Pink Floyd The Wall

The Half of It < The Royal Tenenbaums

The Half of It < 21 Jump Street

The Half of It > Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

The Half of It > Deadpool

The Half of It < The Sessions

Final spot: #571 out of 3730, or 85%.

Scaramouche (1952)

IMDb plot summary: In France during the late 18th Century, a man sets out to avenge the death of his friend at the hands of a master swordsman.

Directed by George Sidney. Starring Stewart Granger, Janet Leigh, and Eleanor Parker.

Scaramouche is a 1952 film about a young Frenchman who embarks on a quest to avenge his friend's death, along the way finding his lost family, joining a theater troupe, and becoming a master swordsman. I am kind of astonished that this movie isn't better known, because it is delightful. It jumps full-on into swashbuckling adventure, creating a rogueish protagonist who certainly has his flaws but nevertheless is easy to root for, and the various settings it puts in place for his adventures are so much fun. I particularly loved the eight-minute final swordfight that takes place all over a theater, including on top of the opera box railings (with audience members sitting right next to them). I also appreciated how much time this movie spent just showing off commedia dell'arte and the various characters and tropes that made it so successful. There are definitely some dated elements to this movie, but it seems so thoroughly of its time that they didn't strike me as out of place, and the good definitely outweighs the bad. This is definitely one I plan to revisit someday!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Scaramouche > Vampyr

Scaramouche > Anna Karenina

Scaramouche > The White Tiger

Scaramouche > Deathtrap

Scaramouche < The Producers (1968)

Scaramouche < Sleepless in Seattle

Scaramouche > Paths of Glory

Scaramouche < Schindler's List

Scaramouche < Repulsion

Scaramouche > Chicken Run

Scaramouche < Breaking the Waves

Scaramouche < Strangers on a Train

Final spot: #199 out of 3728, or 95%.

Space Pirate Captain Harlock (2013)

IMDb plot summary: Mankind is dying. Only one man can do anything about it, Space Captain Harlock, but the Gaia Coalition will stop at nothing to end him.

Directed by Shinji Aramaki. Starring Yu Aoi, Jessica Boone, and Ayano Fukuda.

Space Pirate Captain Harlock is a 2013 Japanese anime about a future world in which humanity set out to look for new homes in outer space but find Earth blocked off to them when they try to return. The titular Captain Harlock runs a pirate spaceship where he and a group of rogues have some sort of plan to get them back to their homes on Earth. I do very much like the visual design in this movie. The pirate ship in particular is just delightfully swashbuckle-y, and it has some very fun dramatic escape sequences. There are also some interesting plot twists that add good layers to the story. However, most of the story didn't work for me all that much. Neither our antagonist nor our protagonist are that interesting, and it feels like so many of the side characters that could have stood out just got glossed over. I do wonder how these character flaws might be righted in the manga or the anime, where they have more time to explore them. This 2-hour version could only really focus on the worldbuilding and the story's slightly-too-complicated plot that kept bringing in maguffins to fix the previous problem. So while it has promise, it falls a little short of delivering on that promise.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Space Pirate Captain Harlock > The Devil Rides Out

Space Pirate Captain Harlock < Anna Karenina

Space Pirate Captain Harlock < Die Hard

Space Pirate Captain Harlock < Fanboys

Space Pirate Captain Harlock < Summer of Soul

Space Pirate Captain Harlock > The First Wives Club

Space Pirate Captain Harlock < The Lost Skeleton Returns Again

Space Pirate Captain Harlock > Frances Ha

Space Pirate Captain Harlock > The Lair of the White Worm

Space Pirate Captain Harlock > Mr. Nice Guy

Space Pirate Captain Harlock > The Matrix Reloaded

Space Pirate Captain Harlock > The Dissident

Final spot: #1777 out of 3727, or 52%.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

IMDb plot summary: In 1787, British ship Bounty leaves Portsmouth to bring a cargo of bread-fruit from Tahiti but the savage on-board conditions imposed by Captain Bligh trigger a mutiny led by officer Fletcher Christian.

Directed by Lewis Milestone. Starring Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, and Richard Harris.

Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1962 film about a British Navy crew on an agricultural expedition who are driven to mutiny by their cruel captain. Note that even though the plot of the movie is in the title, the idea of mutiny doesn't truly come to fruition until a good 2/3 of the way through the movie, as most of it is setting the stage for the uprising. This version of the story casts Trevor Howard as the ruthless Captain Bligh and Marlon Brando as his second-in-command who has a more sympathetic view of the crew. This movie is nearly three hours long and while I appreciate the dedication to plenty of setup, there is easily a full hour of this movie that could have been cut without losing anything at all. (The exoticized portrayals of the island of Tahiti and the sex-positive women there take up entirely too much screentime.) What I did appreciate was Brando's performance, to which he brings a thoughtfulness and really highlights the struggle within him to respect the procedures in place but also to protect his men. Those moments were the most interesting for me to watch, and they were what helped the movie ultimately land. A bloated story but there's definitely some substance to this portrayal as well.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Mutiny on the Bounty > Corpse Bride

Mutiny on the Bounty < Anna Karenina

Mutiny on the Bounty < Die Hard

Mutiny on the Bounty < Fanboys

Mutiny on the Bounty < The Mummy (1999)

Mutiny on the Bounty > It's Kind of a Funny Story

Mutiny on the Bounty > The Dissident

Mutiny on the Bounty > Cabaret

Mutiny on the Bounty > Deceiver

Mutiny on the Bounty < Gold Diggers of 1933

Mutiny on the Bounty > Celeste and Jesse Forever

Final spot: #1750 out of 3724, or 53%.