Pennies From Heaven (1981)

IMDb plot summary: During the Great Depression, a sheet-music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent schoolteacher.

Directed by Herbert Ross. Stars Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, and Jessica Harper.

Pennies From Heaven stars Steve Martin as a mostly unsuccessful sheet music salesman in the early 1900s, Jessica Harper as his frigid wife, and Bernadette Peters as the naive school teacher he takes up an affair with. The film is also a musical, with characters doing lip synced song and dance numbers to recordings of classic songs from the era. I went through the whole gamut of emotions watching this movie. In the first third or so I loved it and thought it was one of the best movies I'd seen in awhile. I loved the creativity of the musical numbers and how it fit into the world. But as the story went on, I became less and less invested in the narrative, even though many of the musical numbers were still entertaining. This film definitely feels like it's trying to say something, but the tone is so muddled it's hard to take much out of it. The darkness of the story takes you by surprise in a way that I wonder if it would sit differently on a rewatch, knowing where the story is headed. I still say it's worth a watch because it is a creative way of making a musical and the musical numbers themselves are often really enjoyable, but it doesn't come together the way that I hoped it would when I first started watching it.

🎥 Pennies from Heaven (1981)

📊 Ranked #2168/4247 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 51

beat Corpse Bride (#2163 → #2307)

lost to Oliver Twist (held at #1116)

beat Ghostbusters (#1635 → #1660)

lost to Shadow of the Vampire (#1385 → #1386)

lost to The Sound of Music (held at #1510)

lost to The Ref (#1572 → #1573)

lost to Mrs Brown (#1603 → #1604)

beat The Front (#1618 → #1625)

lost to Die Hard (#1610 → #1612)

beat mother! (#1614 → #1615)

lost to The Meg (#1612 → #1588)

lost to Interiors (#1613 → #1587)

Send Help (2026)

IMDb plot summary: An overworked analyst and her arrogant nepo-baby boss survive a plane crash near Thailand and must cooperate to survive on a remote jungle island while their workplace power dynamic collapses around them.

Directed by Sam Raimi. Stars Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien, and Edyll Ismail.

Send Help stars Rachel McAdam as a dowdy office worker who is consistently made fun of by her cryptobro misogynist coworkers, but when she and her boss are the sole survivors of a plane crash on a deserted island, her love for the TV show Survivor is what keeps them alive. I had a ton of fun with this one. It's directed by Sam Raimi and it really in many ways feels like a callback to his work with the Evil Dead trilogy, where there are so many scenes where I am both deeply grossed out and laughing hysterically at how ridiculous the whole thing is. McAdam is tremendous in this, balancing the nice and not-so-nice aspects of her personality perfectly so that she continuously surprises you. This is a fun big film and I had a great time watching it.

🎥 Send Help (2026)

📊 Ranked #595/4246 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 86

beat The Call (#2166 → #2168)

beat Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (#1119 → #1150)

lost to West Side Story (#595 → #596)

lost to Four Lions (#861 → #855)

beat It Happened on Fifth Avenue (#988 → #992)

beat The Pursuit of Happyness (#925 → #930)

beat Nurse Betty (#892 → #891)

beat Nosferatu (#877 → #903)

beat Smiles of a Summer Night (#868 → #898)

lost to Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (held at #864)

lost to Companion (#866 → #867)

beat A Haunting in Venice (#867 → #870)

Is This Thing On? (2025)

IMDb plot summary: As their marriage unravels, Alex faces middle age and divorce, seeking new purpose in the New York comedy scene. Meanwhile, his wife Tess confronts sacrifices made for their family, forcing them to navigate co-parenting and identities.

Directed by Bradley Cooper. Stars Will Arnett, Laura Dern, and Andra Day.

Is This Thing On? is a romantic drama/comedy starring Will Arnett as a man who discovers he really loves stand-up comedy after the unexpected dissolution of his marriage. At least that's how the film sells it to you for the first half, and then we get a slightly different turn of events in the second half, which is really where the film snapped into focus for me. The film ends on an unexpectedly heartwarming note that I didn't anticipate going into it, and I'm hesitant to even say much about it here because having no concept of it was really what made it special for me. It also manages to avoid that problem that so many films about art have where showing the art itself is a let down, but in this case the film is populated with so many actual real life stand-up comedians that it truly brings an authenticity to the world, and even when Arnett's jokes don't land, it's easy to believe that other people are enjoying them and it doesn't detract from the story. I was iffy on A Star Was Born and haven't seen Maestro, but this made me want to see more of Bradley Cooper's directorial work in future because there is a gentleness and a warmth to this that I appreciate.

🎥 Is This Thing On? (2025)

📊 Ranked #477/4245 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 88

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2169 → #2171)

beat The Body Snatcher (#1126 → #1129)

lost to The Edge of Seventeen (#603 → #439)

lost to Turning Red (#867 → #868)

lost to The Substance (#994 → #995)

beat An American Werewolf in London (#1060 → #1062)

beat 20th Century Women (#1027 → #1042)

lost to Steven Universe: The Movie (held at #1010)

beat Mr. Brooks (#1019 → #1022)

beat Wag the Dog (#1014 → #1018)

beat Hannah and Her Sisters (#1012 → #1013)

beat Anomalisa (held at #1011)

Get Low (2009)

IMDb plot summary: A movie spun out of equal parts folk tale, fable and real-life legend about the mysterious, 1930s Tennessee hermit who famously threw his own rollicking funeral party... while he was still alive.

Directed by Aaron Schneider. Stars Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, and Sissy Spacek.

Get Low stars Robert Duvall as a cranky old hermit who decides to hold a funeral for himself while he's still alive and invite everyone he knows to tell the stories they've heard about him. I see where this one is trying to go, but it doesn't always work. The pacing of his history feels awkward at times, and because of that, the ending climactic moment of the funeral itself is a little bit of a disappointment. Duvall plays this kind of character well, but it's hard to tell whether he's doing anything unique here or just playing exactly to the expectations of the kind of character he's he is. Not a stellar watch but it's OK.

🎥 Get Low (2010)

📊 Ranked #2742/4253 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 40

lost to Cat's Eye (#2147 → #2152)

beat Did You Hear About the Morgans? (held at #3210)

beat Bye Bye Birdie (#2673 → #2680)

beat Splash (#2413 → #2416)

lost to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (#2284 → #2295)

beat Monsters and Men (#2349 → #2350)

beat My Family (#2317 → #2339)

lost to Good Night, and Good Luck. (#2300 → #2253)

lost to Laal Singh Chaddha (#2308 → #2174)

beat The Secret Life of Pets (#2312 → #2329)

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2310 → #2319)

beat Day Zero (#2309 → #2496)

Us and Them (2018)

IMDb plot summary: Ten years ago, on a train home, fate brings Xiaoxiao and Jianqing together. Like many young couples, they meet, fall in love, and strive to make it work, but eventually, the harsh realities of life make them drift apart.

Directed by Rene Liu. Stars Boran Jing, Dongyu Zhou, and Zhuangzhuang Tian.

Us and Them is a Chinese romantic drama following a couple's tumultuous young romance, and then picking up several years later when they happened to run into each other again in much more stable personal circumstances. I kept wanting to really like this movie but it never worked for me. Every time there would be a moment that drew my attention because it seemed fresh and new -- for example, the ongoing saga of the video game he was trying to make that capture a romantic loss -- then it would be surrounded by so many moments that were long and slow and dull. It made it really hard for me to care about the outcome of these characters in the long run. I feel like if I remember anything about this movie and take anything away from it, it's going to be a series of unconnected thoughts and scenes that I'll have to work hard to remember were from this movie. A disappointing watch.

🎥 Us and Them (2018)

📊 Ranked #3259/4248 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 26

lost to Eyes Wide Shut (#2140 → #2139)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera (#3199 → #3156)

beat Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (#3742 → #3699)

beat The Card Counter (#3473 → #3577)

beat The Giver (#3331 → #3328)

beat Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (#3264 → #3265)

beat 12 Days of Terror (#3230 → #3233)

beat Darkness (#3214 → #3219)

lost to The Robe (#3206 → #3160)

beat Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (#3210 → #3211)

lost to Soylent Green (#3208 → #3163)

beat Despicable Me (#3209 → #3207)

Nouvelle Vague (2025)

IMDb plot summary: The behind the scenes of the filming of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960), a landmark of the French New Wave film movement.

Directed by Richard Linklater. Stars Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, and Aubry Dullin.

Richard Linklater made two movies this year about real-life people who were masters of their craft. One was Blue Moon and one was this, about Jean-Luc Godard making his film Breathless. One thing to note as going into this is that I absolutely hate Godard as a filmmaker. I've seen maybe four of his films and find his work extremely irritating and pretentious, and this film certainly did nothing to convince me of anything otherwise. It was also extremely unhelpful to watch this back-to-back with Day or Night because I could not keep the two of them straight most of the time. The character interactions are engaging because Linklater is excellent at working with character dialogue, but I just couldn't care about the story being told. Blue Moon was incredible, this one kept left me a little cold.

🎥 Nouvelle Vague (2025)

📊 Ranked #2443/4244 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 47

beat Show Girl in Hollywood (#2170 → #2163)

lost to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (#1126 → #987)

lost to Manhunter (#1644 → #1630)

lost to 12 Angry Men (#1909 → #2428)

beat John and Mary (#2039 → #2165)

lost to VeggieTales: God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?! (#1974 → #1904)

beat Pat and Mike (#2007 → #2109)

lost to The Forest (#1990 → #1992)

lost to The Last Castle (#1998 → #1997)

beat The Light in Her Eyes (#2002 → #2000)

beat Malcolm & Marie (#2000 → #2010)

lost to Dot the I (#1999 → #1836)

Day for Night (1973)

IMDb plot summary: A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.

Directed by François Truffaut. Stars Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, and François Truffaut.

Day for Night is a Francois Truffaut film from the 1970s about a director making a film and the many dramas, small and large, that come along with it. One has to assume this is at least partly autobiographical, considering Truffaut also plays the director character in the film, and the plotlines and characters certainly have a ring of authenticity to them. I haven't seen a lot of Truffaut's work, but I have often not meshed with French new wave in general, so I was a little hesitant about this one. The individual moments in it were engaging enough, and I kind of found myself invested in whether this movie was going to come together. But ultimately it ended up being more a matter of the sum of its parts not adding up to more.

🎥 Day for Night (1973)

📊 Ranked #2953/4243 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 34

lost to Cast Away (#2176 → #2071)

beat Labor Day (#3213 → #3215)

beat Casino (#2689 → #2692)

beat Following (#2431 → #2432)

beat David Copperfield (#2305 → #2324)

lost to One 2 Ka 4 (#2243 → #2161)

beat The Dinner Guest (#2273 → #2281)

lost to To Be or Not to Be (#2258 → #2246)

lost to Miracle on 34th Street (#2265 → #2259)

beat Fly Me to the Moon (held at #2269)

lost to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (#2267 → #2176)

lost to A Time to Kill (#2268 → #2262)