A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

IMDb plot summary: Lloyd Vogel, a cynical journalist, gets acquainted with a kind-hearted television host Fred Rogers while writing an article on him. With time, they strike an unlikely friendship.

Directed by Marielle Heller. Starring Matthew Rhys, Tom Hanks, and Chris Cooper.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood tells the story of a journalist assigned to do a brief profile on Fred Rogers, of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, but the more time the journalist spends with him, the more his cynicism is challenged by Rogers’ genuine sincerity and kindness. This is a perfectly fine movie, and I like Tom Hanks' portrayal of Rogers a lot, but this would have scored a lot higher if I hadn't just watched Won't You Be My Neighbor? It's rare for me to like a documentary over a fictionalized version of the same story, but with the fictionalized version just feels so saccharine in comparison to clips of the real person. I wish it had focused more on Rogers himself, rather than how the magic of his kindness transformed someone. We've seen that story a lot, a jaded person who gets turned around, but it always ends up painting kindness as some sort of superhuman power, and I think that's the last thing Fred Rogers wanted, but that's how this film comes across a lot of the time. It's not a bad movie, but it falls short.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < In the Name of the Father

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < The Pianist

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > Serpico

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > Nine Lives

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < A Star is Born (1954)

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > Fury

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < It’s a Gift

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < All About My Mother

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood < Event Horizon

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > Blade Runner

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood > The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Final spot: #1604 out of 4035, or 60%.

Sorcerer (1977)

IMDb plot summary: Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.

Directed by William Friedkin. Starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, and Francisco Rabal.

Sorcerer is a remake of The Wages of Fear, a film I am pretty sure I have seen but don’t remember it at all. I should go back and rewatch it, because while this movie takes a very long time to get going, the second half is pretty riveting. The story centers around a group of drivers attempting to get some extremely dangerous explosives from one South American town to another, traveling through the jungle at risk of blowing themselves to bits if they hit a pothole too hard. It’s a great premise that leads to an incredibly tense second half that moves just as slowly as the first half, but this time, you’re on the edge of your seat. I’m not fully convinced that the slow setup was quite as warranted -- it felt like we spent a lot of time with these various characters and somehow still never got to know any of them. It makes up for it by the end, and a really beautifully-shot penultimate scene, but I wish the first half either gave me something more substantial or sped things along a bit. Still very worth watching, and I do want to go back and rewatch the original in the near future, so that’s a win!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Sorcerer > Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

Sorcerer < Elf

Sorcerer < The Pianist

Sorcerer > The Sea Gull

Sorcerer > The Parent Trap (1961)

Sorcerer < A Star Is Born (1954)

Sorcerer > Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Sorcerer < It's a Gift

Sorcerer < All About My Mother

Sorcerer > The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Sorcerer > Kiss Me Kate

Sorcerer < Let the Right One In

Final spot: #1600 out of 4034, or 60%.

Soul (2020)

IMDb plot summary: Joe is a middle-school band teacher whose life hasn't quite gone the way he expected. His true passion is jazz. But when he travels to another realm to help someone find their passion, he soon discovers what it means to have soul.

Directed by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers. Starring Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, and Graham Norton.

Soul is a Pixar movie is about a jazz musician who unexpectedly dies the day he gets his dream gig, and he finds himself in the afterlife, mistakenly assigned as a mentor to an unborn soul who resists every attempt to prepare her for Earth. With his determination to return to Earth and her determination to avoid it, they agree to help each other out to achieve their respective goals. This movie is interesting and has some really lovely moments. I didn't cry, as I frequently do at Pixar films, but I found myself very emotionally engaged in the final moments of the film. But I find myself wondering who is this for? Pixar is known for creating movies for both kids and adults, but I don't think this one is for kids at all. Not because it's inappropriate, but because who are they going to relate to? What are they getting out of it? Some fun world building, but not as much as I would have expected. Ultimately I feel like as much as is strong about this story, the world they created is more exciting than the story they chose to tell with it, even if it did ultimately stick the landing. It's decent, but far from Pixar's best.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Soul > Killing Season

Soul < Elf

Soul > Peeping Tom

Soul < Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Soul > The Minus Man

Soul > The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

Soul > Watchmen

Soul < The Unholy Three

Soul > L'atalante

Soul > Leo

Soul > Maria Full of Grace

Final spot: #1277 out of 4033, or 68%.

Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou's criminal family.

Directed by Rose Glass. Starring Anna Baryshnikov, Kristen Stewart, and Dave Franco.

Love Lies Bleeding is a romantic thriller starring Kristen Stewart as a gym owner in a small town she hates, and Katy M. O'Brian as a competitive bodybuilder who comes to town on her way to a Las Vegas competition, and the two women fall in love. Fueled by Stewart's stash of steroids, O'Brian gains strength but also becomes erratic, and her actions turn Stewart's life upside down. These two lead characters are fantastic. I love them so much and I love watching them interact. That was what sold me on most of the story, this dark difficult love story about people in terrible situations. But what really clinched it for me was the final climactic scene. I'm not going to spoil what happens, but if you've seen the movie you know what I'm talking about. There's a wonderful element of bizarre fantasy that suddenly disrupts this dark, realistic horror story. It's so incongruous with the tone that had been set up previously that it ran the risk of ruining the film, but for me it snaps it all into place. It's a sudden burst of light and hope in the middle of a story that seems so hopeless, and suddenly all the pieces fit together. I was really impressed with this one. It was slow going at first, but once I was locked in, it totally worked.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Love Lies Bleeding > Killing Season

Love Lies Bleeding < In the Name of the Father

Love Lies Bleeding > 7 Plus Seven

Love Lies Bleeding < Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Love Lies Bleeding > River's Edge

Love Lies Bleeding < The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

Love Lies Bleeding > Moby Dick

Love Lies Bleeding > Joe Versus the Volcano

Love Lies Bleeding < Wolf

Love Lies Bleeding > The Pirate Movie

Love Lies Bleeding > The Song of Lunch

Final spot: #1332 out of 4032, or 67%.

Monkey Man (2024)

IMDb plot summary: An anonymous young man unleashes a campaign of vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to systematically victimize the poor and powerless.

Directed by Dev Patel. Starring Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, and Pitobash.

Monkey Man is a film directed by Dev Patel. It tells the story of a man who  works as a masked wrestler but has a secret plan of Revenge to take down the person who killed his mother when he was a child. I really couldn't get into this one. It's such an odd mix -- for example, at one point it hints that maybe Patel's character is actually some newly embodied version of the Monkey King himself, but then moments later it flips back around to being an extremely dark and gritty and violent action film. I'm still not entirely sure whether we're supposed to actually be rooting for the character at the end, because as far as I can see, he seems just like someone who is consumed by his own anger and let it turn him into a monster who has no qualms taking that out on everybody around him, whether they have actually earned that anger or not. It's in many ways an ugly film, and I can't decipher the intent of the film well enough to know whether that was intentional, or a stylistic choice that overwhelms whatever the story was trying to do. This is one that I think I want to look into a little bit more, because I feel like I missed what people liked about it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Monkey Man < Killing Season

Monkey Man < City Slickers

Monkey Man > Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

Monkey Man < Bright Lights

Monkey Man > Little Nikita

Monkey Man > Phir hera pheri

Monkey Man < Up the River

Monkey Man < Robin and the 7 Hoods

Monkey Man < Roberta

Monkey Man > Cinderella (2021)

Monkey Man < The Omen (1976)

Monkey Man > Billy the Kid

Final spot: #3334 out of 4031, or 17%.

The House on Carroll Street (1988)

IMDb plot summary: In 1950s America, an FBI agent and a blacklist victim uncover a plot to smuggle Nazi war criminals into the country.

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Kelly McGillis, Jeff Daniels, and Mandy Patinkin.

The House on Carroll Street is a story about a woman who thinks she has uncovered a plot to sneak Nazi war criminals into the US under assumed names so that they can work with the US government. She does some digging, accompanied by an FBI agent who thinks she's on the right track, and the mystery unfolds. This is the next film in my Peter Yates filmography, and after jumping around all kinds of genres early on, this point in his career is mostly unremarkable action thrillers. The story keeps setting up interesting characters and then dropping them, such as the old woman who lives in the titular house on Carroll Street, and who is a seminal character in the first half of the film and then just disappears from it almost entirely in the second half. The romance in this is also really sloppy, with the second half of the film building it up in this big dramatic way that really wasn't earned. Just from those two specific critiques, the pattern is clearly that this is a movie that switches gears dramatically in the second half and doesn't do a good job of following through on what it's set up or setting up what it finally lands on. I enjoy Mandy Patinkin as the villainous government agent, but when am I not going to enjoy Mandy Patinkin? There's not a lot else to recommend this one.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The House on Carroll Street < Hamlet (2009)

The House on Carroll Street < The Visitor

The House on Carroll Street > Mr. & Mrs. Smith

The House on Carroll Street > Bright Lights

The House on Carroll Street > The Phantom Tollbooth

The House on Carroll Street > Where to Invade Next

The House on Carroll Street < The Great Escape

The House on Carroll Street > La Dolce Vita

The House on Carroll Street > Faust: A German Folk Legend

The House on Carroll Street > Little Lord Fauntleroy

The House on Carroll Street < Frantic

The House on Carroll Street < The Killing

Final spot: #3058 out of 4030, or 24%.

The Girl Said No (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A brash, pushy young man gets a job in a bank and sets his cap for his boss's secretary, but the death of his father makes him reassess his priorities.

Directed by Sam Wood. Starring William Haines, Leila Hyams, and Polly Moran.

The Girl Said No is a movie from 1930 about a rich young playboy who ends up falling in love with a secretary. He is very pushy toward her, to the point where she is absolutely not interested. After he loses all his money and has to start to actually work for a living, he tries to woo her again, with a slightly lower ego. My main problem with this one is basically exactly what the title says -- the girl said no and he doesn't care. His pushiness doesn't go away after his change of heart, he's just a little bit less absorbed with himself, but the big romantic ending is full of moments that are basically assault, and that doesn't work for me at all. I did find it interesting how the film was paced. It felt very modern in how the beats of the story unfolded. And if that ending had been less approving of literal kidnapping and sexual assault in the name of romance, it might have landed differently. But ultimately what I hated about the guy from the beginning was unchanged by the end, and that makes the romance angle really not work. It's too bad, because it really set itself up to be a fun story about someone improving themselves and then fell right back into some really icky romantic tropes.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Girl Said No < Hamlet (2009)

The Girl Said No < Cry-Baby

The Girl Said No > Mr. & Mrs. Smith

The Girl Said No > Bright Lights

The Girl Said No > The Phantom Tollbooth

The Girl Said No < Heidi (1937)

The Girl Said No < Dinner at Eight

The Girl Said No > Deep Blue Sea

The Girl Said No > Elizabethtown

The Girl Said No > Bunraku

The Girl Said No > Our Idiot Brother

The Girl Said No < Cassandra's Dream

Final spot: #3118 out of 4029, or 23%.