Nothing in Common (1986)

IMDb plot summary: A successful ad man (Hanks) must juggle his ever-demanding career while his parents' marriage breaks up.
Directed by Garry Marshall. Starring Tom Hanks, Jackie Gleason, Eva Marie Saint, and Sela Ward.

(Mild spoilers about the ending.)

This movie is absolutely mislabeled. Everything I found about it as I was pulling stuff together for this review treated it as a comedy, when it's clearly a thoughtful family drama more than anything else. I wasn't entirely sold on this movie while I actually watched it, and perhaps it would be more accurate to say I admired it than that I liked it. The final scenes in particular are worthy of mention -- when the story takes a turn for the darker toward the end, each scene is really beautifully done, and each seems poignant and moving. I also appreciate that the narrative structure is different than a lazier version of this same story. The story, in fact, seems to end where others would begin, leaving just a sense of hope that this will be a good thing, no matter how difficult the relationship has been thus far.

My main concert was that since I couldn't get a sense at the beginning of the movie of where this was ultimately heading, it felt... somewhat scattered as I watched it. However, in hindsight, it was clearly leading to where it did, but I got a little antsy on the journey. This is one that feels almost unfair to write a review of after a first viewing, though, as I feel a rewatch would feel very different. So the ultimate ranking and star rating should be taken with a grain of salt.

3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #835 out of 2288, below The Absent-Minded Professor and above Hugo.

Into the Woods (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A witch tasks a childless baker and his wife with procuring magical items from classic fairy tales to reverse the curse put on their family tree.
Directed by Rob Marshall. Starring Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt, and Anna Kendrick.

(Some spoilers ahead, though I try to keep a lot of it vague.)

I've been both extremely excited and extremely nervous for this movie. Excited because it's a show I love a lot. Nervous because I wasn't convinced of some of the casting and I had heard rumors of a lot of... Disneyfication, making the story less dark and creepy, which is kind of the point of the entire second act.

Fortunately, I had very little to worry about. While it's not perfect, it's a very good adaptation, and when it differs from the show it nearly always makes sense. I only have a few nitpicks, and they're relatively minor, so let's start with those. Let me just tell you right now, this may be the longest review in the world.

Typically in the show, Little Red and Jack are played by adult actors, though they still play children. I'm still not convinced that they made it work casting an actual child as Little Red. Jack's story worked all right, and I found that I really liked having children in the story at the end, where vulnerability, growing up, and loss of innocence are all huge themes. These themes worked much better when I didn't have to suspend disbelief further to imagine that this mid-20s actor was a 12-year-old. However, Little Red's early story is extremely disturbing. "Hello Little Girl," the song where the wolf distracts her in the woods, has always had sexual predator undertones, and Little Red's later song "I Know Things Now" doubles as a coming-of-age song about sexual discovery. With a 22-year-old woman is singing these songs, even dressed as a child, they're thought-provoking and interesting. When a child who looks about 13 is singing them, it gets very icky very fast. They tried to give "Hello Little Girl" a lighter tone and use visual clues to make "I Know Things Now" as literal as possible, but it just isn't enough. Fans of the original show no doubt are yelling, "Then just cast an adult!" and I would have said that as well before seeing this, but I'm not sure you could find anyone who looks old enough that this wouldn't be disconcerting *and* young enough that it could still be at least mildly convincing as a child. The theater makes it easier to do that -- you're not sitting mere inches from the actors' faces as you are with a movie. I feel this was probably a necessary change, but it carried unpleasant consequences, and as much as I love "Hello Little Girl," I would have been much more comfortable if that song had been cut altogether.

Secondly, there's an important theme that gets lost here because of crushing time plots together. Cinderella's Prince reiterates it in the movie: "I thought if I had you, I would never wish for anything more." In the show, there's several months, perhaps even a year, between the happy ending finale and the appearance of the Giantess. In the movie, everything starts going wrong perhaps even at the Princes' weddings (it doesn't really look like a wedding, but everyone in the kingdom seems to be gathered at the castle and cheering for the Princes). This makes it seem almost like "happily ever after" didn't work not because it's a fundamentally flawed idea, but because *it got interrupted*. At the beginning of act 2 in the show, you see the characters have all gotten their wishes, and they still have things to complain about. It's a vital theme that happily ever after will eventually fade and change to something different, and that's not quite as strong a theme in the movie. Dividing the two halves for me *is* important, because it shows you what, well, what Disney thinks of as a happy ending and how it goes when that happiness doesn't last eternally.

Those were my main two nitpicks, and while they didn't ruin the movie, they were changes I didn't think worked. But let's talk about the good things, and there are many.

One of my favorite things about theater is that every production you see can shine a light onto a different character and a different theme. This is especially true with musicals like Into the Woods which have OH MY GOSH SO MANY LAYERS. This time around, the shining star is James Corden as the Baker. Bringing to life a character I never liked much, Corden is perhaps the heart of this entire production, a regular guy who loves his wife but worries that he's just not good enough.

Chris Pine is a surprise delight, especially in "Agony," where and Billy Magnussen try to constantly one-up each other over who has the more tragic love life. He's also excellent in his smaller scenes with the Baker's Wife and Cinderella, but "Agony" is a highlight for him and for the entire show.

Meryl Streep, who was The Worst in Mamma Mia! (along with the rest of the cast), is really great here. The Witch's plotline was altered a little bit, and while it could have potentially dulled her motivation, Streep acts the heck out of it anyway and manages to deliver where a lesser actress would be lost. "Last Midnight" is a much *bigger* production than in the stage show, and it works, building to a huge climactic storm of sound and a literal whirlwind. I really wanted to applaud after that song.

Anna Kendrick and Emily Blunt are both quite good in their roles, though they don't steal the show as much as the three previously mentioned. "On the Steps of the Palace" is a beautifully done number, and Kendrick's version is the only one I've heard that I've liked. Kudos to her there.

Overall, it's a really beautiful movie. A couple of missteps, yes, but it's hardly the poorly-cast mess that was Les Miserables. I hope this continues to do well in theaters and pave the way for further musical adaptations.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #288 out of 2287, below Jean de Florette and above Another Woman. That is a little high, but I'm sure it'll adjust itself eventually.

Splash (1984)

IMDb plot summary: A man is reunited with a mermaid who saves him from drowning as a boy and falls in love not knowing who/what she is.
Directed by Ron Howard. Starring Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, Eugene Levy, and John Candy.

(Vague spoilers about the ending.)

I really do like Tom Hanks in drier comedic roles like this one. He has mastered the art of delivering sarcastic lines in a genuinely funny way. In fact, pretty much everyone who's required to be funny in this movie pulls it off. Where the movie doesn't work is in its ending, where the comedy gets pushed aside to make way for a romance-centric ending. While the romance was obviously a large part of the story, it was rooted in comedy, with Madison not knowing how to behave in the human world and Allen not quite knowing how to behave with her, and when the movie takes a turn for the dramatic, it loses its charm and seems just kind of dumb. Fortunately, that's only in the last 15 minutes, and the rest of this is pretty solid. I was surprised by how much I liked most of it and disappointed by the bland (and nonsensical) ending.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #901 out of 2286, below Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Peter Pan (1960).

The Polar Express (2004)

IMDb plot summary: On Christmas Eve, a doubting boy boards a magical train that's headed to the North Pole and Santa Claus' home.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Starring Tom Hanks, Eddie Deezen, Nona Gaye, and Peter Scolari.

(Some mild spoilers about characters.)

This movie is very in-the-middle for me, so let's start with the good things. The animation is gorgeous. Yes, the people get a little uncanny-valley-esque, but as the story goes on I stopped noticing it quite so much, and the animation of the train and the snow is so, so lovely. As a result, this movie does best in highly visual moments: the skiing scene on the roof of the train, the ticket's wordless journey across the snowy landscape, and the train plunging down an incredibly steep track and across a frozen lake with no tracks. These are some really great moments.

Where the film fails is in its story. Turning a short book into a 90-minute movie understandably requires some padding, and I don't know what was taken directly from the book and what was created for the movie, but a lot of scenes feel meandering and aimless, especially once the children reach the North Pole.

The main child (credited on IMDb as Hero Boy) is also far from interesting as a lead. His doubting of Santa is a story that's been told many, many times, and nothing is added to his character to make him stand out among those many other stories. All three other children whose personalities are seen were more interesting, but the one *I* wanted to be following was Billy, the withdrawn, melancholy child who sadly tells his fellow train riders at the beginning that "Christmas just doesn't work out for me." The story is deliberately vague about the cause of his unhappiness, and perhaps that was for the best -- this kind of movie shouldn't be weighed down with depressing details of an unhappy home life or celebrating the holidays in poverty or whatever else might have been the burden on Billy's shoulders. However, he was the one I rooted for. He was the one I hoped would be Santa's pick for "first gift of Christmas." He was the one I wanted to see a full movie about.

The movie really is beautiful, and as an atmospheric fantasy, it does its job. But an aimless, unoriginal story and a bland main character keep it from being the magical tale it could have been.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1147 out of 2285, below The Day After Tomorrow and above Bobby.

Inland Empire (2006)

IMDb plot summary: As an actress starts to adopt the persona of her character in a film, her world starts to become nightmarish and surreal.
Directed by David Lynch. Starring Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons, and Karolina Gruska.

I actually watched this movie a couple days ago, but it took me until now to write the review not so much because I'm lazy but because I really needed time to process it.

So this was the third Lynch I've watched this year, and the progression definitely went from more linear and comprehensible to much, much less (Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire). And yet I feel like this was the first one where I actually latched onto the emotional tone of the movie. People praised Mulholland Drive for its atmosphere, but for the most part I felt nothing but coldness and distance, certainly not the creepiness and eeriness others were praising.

With Inland Empire, the two emotions that came through loud and clear for me were guilt and terror. Guilt over things done, possibly done, and not done yet. Terror from something watching or chasing you, something being there, not knowing what time or day it is or perhaps even who you really are. This alone made it more interesting than either of Lynch's previous films.

This, however, is also the only one for which I found a theory/explanation that was satisfying to me. Since Lynch clearly does not like pigeonholing people into one correct answer, I feel it's perfectly valid for me to simply pick the theory I liked best, the one that conveyed the story I thought I was watching, rather than perhaps the one that fits all the answers perfectly. (I'm still not convinced the latter exists for Lynch.)

I talked this one over with my dad, who recommended this to me and is a huge fan of Lynch's work in general. (A transcript of that conversation can be found here, including a spoiler-filled discussion of the IE theory I like best and why. Spoilers for Mulholland Drive and maybe Lost Highway are in there as well.)

When I shared that I didn't like Mulholland and then that I was going to watch Inland Empire, a lot of people mentioned that I'd find Inland Empire harder. And in one sense I did, but in another, the somewhat coherent plot in Mulholland worked against it for me. It masked the symbolic and subconscious aspects of the storytelling. With Inland Empire, it's just... alllllll out there. I feel like it actually may be clearer in its intentions than Mulholland, which tricks you into thinking it's one kind of movie and then saying, "Kidding, you should have been watching it like this all along!" That can work sometimes and maybe even be what people liked about it, but I wasn't amazed enough by the twist to care enough to rewatch it.

Anyway, Inland Empire may have finally given me a bit of insight into Lynch, because here he's not trying to work his surreal symbolism subtly into a plot. Without feigned coherent stories to block my view, I felt like I finally heard what he was trying to say, and the theory I found gave me a new appreciation for even some of his older ones I haven't cared for. I don't know that I can exactly say I *liked* it, but I feel like I *got* it. And that's better than I've done with Lynch thus far.

3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1018 out of 2284, below A Snoodle's Tale and above Fantasia 2000. This is a very weird one to rank, so that may be completely inaccurate.

Hannah Arendt (2012)

IMDb plot summary: A look at the life of philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, who reported for The New Yorker on the war crimes trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann.
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta. Starring Barbara Sukowa, Axel Milberg, Janet McTeer, and Julia Jentsch.

The top review for this movie on IMDb said "This is a philosopher's movie, not a film buff's movie," and in a way I agree. It's very slow and while there is a story, it doesn't really bother with typical narrative build and resolution. But that doesn't necessarily work against it. My dad is a philosophy teacher and recommended it to me as a movie that deals with philosophy well, and that seems right. It's slow, quiet, and thoughtful, with more attention paid to the philosophical ideas than to an exciting story arc. It's definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I liked it.

I'm definitely going to seek out some other movies by this director. She's apparently done a couple other movies about historically important women, including Hildegard von Bingen, who I wrote a paper about once and found her fascinating. This movie wasn't a sensationalized version of Arendt's life, so I'd definitely be interested in watching the same director tackle other biographical stories.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #542 out of 2283, below Panic Room and above All's Faire in Love.

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

IMDb plot summary: A movie with no conventional plot: merely a collection of expertly photographed scenes. Subject matter has a highly environmental theme.
Directed by Godfrey Reggio.

It's... hard to know how to review this exactly. There are a lot of people I know who LOVE this, and although I see where they're coming from, it didn't have nearly that effect on me. Maybe my attention span is too short or too narrative-focused, but I found myself zoning out a lot. It would definitely be interesting to see this in a more immersive format, in a theater or with a really good sound system with nothing else trying to grab my focus. As it was, it was too easy for my brain to convert this into background noise.

That's not to say there weren't moments that really stood out. I for some reason really got into the segment showing big city traffic faster than real life. That was almost hypnotic to watch, as drivers zoomed in and out of lanes and pedestrians appeared to almost jump out in front of them. I also really enjoyed the score, particular the one with the men chanting "Koyaanisqatsi" -- there was a deep, profound sadness in just that one word. I couldn't remember what "koyaanisqatsi" meant, though I know I had someone tell me once, so when the word and the definition appeared on the screen at the end, I had another moment of really connecting to the material. Somehow, after that hour and a half of images, seeing the words "a life out of balance" on the screen made me very sad and melancholy. So, interestingly, the strongest response I had to this movie involved actual words, either sung or written. It's quite likely that the scarcity of language made the few occurrences of it much more powerful to me.

That being said, I don't know that I'd watch it again -- certainly not in the same video/audio setup. There are some very compelling moments, but there are a lot that just... aren't, and I'm not sure they make up for the few that work.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #1035 out of 2282, below Cypher and above Monster.

Snowpiercer (2013)

IMDb plot summary: Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges.
Directed by Joon-ho Bong. Starring Chris Evans, Kang-ho Song, Ed Harris, and John Hurt.

This is such a cool premise for a story, and for most of the movie, it works. But there are also some weird, weird moments, particularly in terms of visuals. While some of the visuals work beautifully -- the images of the cold, dead world outside are striking -- there are some things that don't work at all. Tilda Swinton's character especially comes to mind. In the middle of this very bleak story, we have a character who is exaggerated to the point of cartoonishness. Perhaps it was a deliberate attempt to contrast the frivolity of passengers at the front with the life-or-death situations at the back, but it had the effect of making several of the fairly serious scenes comedic. I haven't read the graphic novel, so I don't know how faithful the imagery is, but that one in particular didn't work for me.

My smaller nitpicks include an overabundance of hey-weren't-they-dead? characters coming back to life for no particular reason, and a distracting reliance on slow motion for a lot of sequences, particularly in the first half. But these are smaller, because overall it's a unique and engaging story that creates a fascinating world, even if it stumbles a few times getting to the end.

3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #732 out of 2281, below Silent Movie and above Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Flypaper (2011)

IMDb plot summary: Tripp walks into a bank to get some change and ends up as a hostage to two bank robber-teams, robbing the bank he is at. In an almost Sherlock Holmesian way he has to solve this Agatha Christie inspired mystery and win the girls heart. But not everything is at it seems, and there are many twists and turns in this comedy.
Directed by Rob Minkoff. Starring Patrick Dempsey, Ashley Judd, Tim Blake Nelson, and Mekhi Phifer.

This is a huge contrast to the last movie I watched, Mulholland Drive, in that this one is the most fun if you don't analyze it too much. :-) It's a light, silly heist movie with a fun mystery that's really enjoyable to watch unravel. The characters are entertaining, if none of them is very deeply developed. It's a very fun fluffy hour and a half.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #915 out of 2280, below The Kid and above The Hangover, which is really fun because apparently the writers for this are the same as they are for The Hangover. So apparently their writing is similarly interesting for me here.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

IMDb plot summary: After a car wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesiac, she and a perky Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.
Directed by David Lynch. Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Ann Miller, and Justin Theroux.

(Some spoilers, because I'm not sure you can discuss the nature of this movie without revealing *something* about it, though I've deliberately tried to be vague.)

Well, this was... interesting.

This was definitely more enjoyable once I'd finished watching it, when I started combing through fan theories. While I'd been somewhat piecing together my own theory of the movie's ending (which for the most part matches the most prevalent theory), I found it... grounding and perhaps even comforting to see people making sense of this.

I found the actual watching of the film somewhat frustrating. I'm not sure quite how to describe my reaction -- between the non-answers and the surreal dreamlike sequences and the bizarre acting on even the "realistic" moments, I felt like none of it had a point and wondered if maybe there wasn't even supposed to be one. It wasn't until reading fan theories later that any of this started come together for me (even if a lot of those were unsatisfying answers like "it was all a dream").

I've been OK with vague or ambiguous plots before. Donnie Darko, for example, was one of my favorite movies long before I discovered there was a (mostly ridiculous) answer as to what happened at the end. But I think where Donnie Darko works for me while Mulholland Drive fails is in creating *something* for me to connect to in the midst of non-answers. The characters of Mulholland are distant, cold, unrelatable, stubbornly undecipherable, and maybe even not quite human. As a result, I felt disconnected through the whole thing and was unable to really respond to the emotional prompting or immerse myself in the movie's moody atmosphere.

Without an emotional or narrative center to grasp onto, I really didn't have anything to respond to in this movie. It was like the movie just... moved on past me while my efforts to find something, anything, to "get" continually left me frustrated.

Reading attempts by fans to unravel the narrative at least gives me *something*. It became interesting as a puzzle, even if most of the theories require you to interpret individual blink-and-you'll-miss-it images as the key to the entire thing. ("So-and-so is really dead and in hell because one time you see them and then a few minutes later in the background there's a flyer that has the word 'HELL' on it somewhere!") EVERY answer to this movie feels like a stretch and doesn't account for huge chunks of the movie, so it's all still unsatisfying and still leaves me unconvinced that Lynch himself knows what the heck he's talking about, but it's better than nothing.

I get why people like this movie. And it's entirely possible that I'll eventually find a theory that changes my entire attitude toward it and makes me feel compelled to rewatch it someday. But right now, I'm not all that convinced there's an answer to it at all, and it didn't make me care enough to figure it out on my own.

2 stars.

Flickchart: #1331 out of 2279, below My Girlfriend's Boyfriend and above Over the Hedge.

Secretary (2002)

IMDb plot summary: A young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one.
Directed by Steven Shainberg. Starring James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeremy Davies, and Lesley Ann Warren.

This is certainly a nontraditional romance story, and by the time the credits rolled I wasn't quite sure I understood the dynamic between the characters or how I felt about it. So I let it sit for a day and googled some other people's thoughts on the movie in the meantime, finally coming to the conclusion that this is kind of an incredible movie.

It tells a unique and intriguing story with a lot of warmth, especially for a type of story that isn't typically treated as "warm." There's a lot more going on here besides just the surface dominant/submissive plotline -- it's not just a thinly-veiled excuse for kinky sex scenes, as it could have been. The movie's about exploration and uncertainty and self-discovery and trust and long-term love in a situation where neither person is entirely sure how to go about this.

I still think it's going to need to sit with me longer before I see where it settles, but it's impressive and fascinating and actually very sweet, and I feel like this is one that will keep rising in my estimation.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #439 out of 2278, below A Streetcar Named Desire and above Persepolis.

Atonement (2007)

IMDb plot summary: Fledgling writer Briony Tallis, as a 13-year-old, irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit. Based on the British romance novel by Ian McEwan.
Directed by Joe Wright. Starring Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan, and Romola Garai.

This movie is a little uneven for me, but it starts and ends strong. It's got a fantastic first half, a second half that never really grabs me, and then an ending that is fascinating again. I think that's because I latched on to the fact that Knightley and McAvoy are not the main characters here -- Briony is. Her story was the one I wanted to follow, so when it got pushed aside to make way for a much-less-interesting love story, I got impatient.

The acting is excellent overall, though, and the movie's choice to move backward and forward in time, retelling the story from different angles, is an interesting one that keeps things interesting. And that final scene really is beautiful and sad and wonderfully done.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #581 out of 2277, below 21 Jump Street and above Kick-Ass.

Bicentennial Man (1999)

IMDb plot summary: An android endeavors to become human as he gradually acquires emotions.
Directed by Chris Columbus. Starring Robin Williams, Embeth Davidtz, Sam Neill, and Oliver Platt.


This movie treads VERY close to the edge of "cheesy and preachy," so I was holding my breath through large parts of the movie, but it never quite crosses that line. Instead, it tells a very touching story, almost epic in its scope, moving forward decades at a time, and while there are a lot of moments that could be disastrously awful if tackled in just a slightly different way, they're all handled well in the end. I think a lot of the credit for this goes to Robin Williams. While he was, of course, most known for his wild and frenetic brand of comedy, I always found him most engaging whenever he pulled back. Here, his character is emotionally restrained and controlled for nearly the whole movie, given a beautifully subtle performance that ties the whole story together. Someday I would like to watch this again, without the constant nervousness that it was going to go horribly wrong -- but as it is, I was impressed and moved. It's a lovely story.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #503 out of 2276, below Waking Ned Devine and above Heavenly Creatures.

About Time (2013)

IMDb plot summary: At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as you might think.
Directed by Richard Curtis. Starring Domnhall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, and Lydia Wilson.

Well, let's start this off by saying I. Love. Richard. Curtis. I love his writing a lot, *especially* in romantic comedies (Love Actually is my #2 on Flickchart). He's the only one whose rom coms make me feel like I suspect rom coms make most of my female friends feel. So I've been meaning to watch it ever since it came out, and I had really high hopes for it.

And it absolutely held up to those expectations. This is one of the most satisfying movies I've seen in quite some time -- funny and sweet and moving and charming. The characters are likable, the story both fun and poignant, and the dialogue is, as expected, witty and clever. When it finished, I couldn't even react to it at first, just had to sit there and feel it for a little while (always a sign of a good movie for me). I suspect this one is going to remain one of my favorite Curtis flicks.

4.5 stars.

Flickchart: HOLY COW. This landed at #171 out of 2275, below The Bridge on the River Kwai and above Ed Wood. That is REALLY high for a first-time watch.

So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

IMDb plot summary: A San Francisco poet who fears commitment has a girlfriend who he suspects may not be who she appears.
Directed by Thomas Schlamme. Starring Mike Myers, Nancy Travis, Anthony LaPaglia, and Amanda Plummer.

(Vague spoilers about the ending.)

I suspect I would have felt differently about this film if I thought Mike Myers was generally funny and/or charming. Though he has occasionally won me over (I enjoyed Wayne's World a lot), I don't particularly care for him. So... there's that.

The story itself is mildly entertaining, although it really comes into its own in the last 15-20 minutes or so, when the pace picks up and the physical jokes are rooted in a clear, focused objective: don't die. The "big twist" at the end is, frankly, not what I was expecting, so that was also fun. Some of the small side characters are fantastic as well -- I particularly liked the very kind police chief played by Alan Arkin (who was uncredited, so I had to go googling to make sure it was really him and I wasn't making it up).

Overall, while I didn't love it and I was pretty tired of Myers by the end (in both his roles), there are definitely some high points. I wouldn't watch it again, but I could see recommending it to someone else.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1150 out of 2274, below The Hurt Locker and above A Dangerous Method.

The Giver (2014)

IMDb plot summary: In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
Directed by Phillip Noyce. Starring Brenton Thwaites, Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, and Odeya Rush.

(Spoilers about the ending.)

I wanted SO BADLY for this to be great. The book is one of my very favorites -- I'm pretty sure it WAS my favorite through most of middle school -- and the parts of the movie that tell the story as written totally work. I'm hardly a stickler for book-to-movie adaptations to keep it exactly the same, but the things they chose to add to this movie were... missteps. Specifically, the choice to focus on the community rather than Jonas, especially toward the end. The final 10 minutes or so of the movie depended on emotional pleas that shouldn't have worked, preachy speeches that awkwardly hammered home the moral of the story, and a sudden romantic subplot that almost took precedence over the big picture story. Granted, I feel like it would be very hard to film this book at all. So much of it is internal responses, and that's hard to communicate well on the screen. But this attempt... really didn't work, sadly enough.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1090 out of 2273, below The Sunshine Boys (1996) and above Max Dugan Returns.

Shanghai Knights (2003)

IMDb plot summary: When a Chinese rebel murders Chon's estranged father and escapes to England, Chon and Roy make their way to London with revenge on their minds.
Directed by David Dobkin. Starring Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Tom Fisher.

There's nothing really awful about this movie, but there's nothing really exciting about it either, aside from a couple fun fight sequences from Jackie Chan. The jokes are predictable but delivered just fine, the acting is bland but not terrible... Everything's just very middle-of-the-road, with no real highs or lows. I've never seen the first movie, but seeing this makes me wonder if the first movie was any more creative, or if they both felt like this. Frankly, the outtakes shown at the end are more fun than anything in the rest of the film.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1131 out of 2272, below War of the Buttons and above Chungking Express. That's probably a bit too high.

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

IMDb plot summary: A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy, a cheery, colorful, North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.
Directed by Mike Leigh. Starring Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Eddie Marsan, and Samuel Roukin.

(Mild spoilers discussing individual scenes.)

All right, I have to admit that for much of the movie, Poppy grated on me. REALLY grated on me. I have nothing against optimism or cheerfulness, but she reminded me of the most draining extroverts I've ever known, or those self-centered people who interrupt everything I say to make a joke or tell their own story so I eventually just give up and just stop talking because clearly they want to be heard way more than they want to listen to me, and I'm not going to fight them for attention.

So yeah. I had kind of a strong reaction against her.

There were a few scenes, however, that turned that around and made it work for me, and they were both moments where I saw real compassion from her. One was the final climactic scene with Scott (and GOSH, what a performance from Eddie Marsan), where she really, for the first time, sits and listens to him and doesn't jump in to make it about her. The second was the scene with the homeless man, someone who just needed to talk, even though he can't actually create coherent sentences. But that scene may be one of the best of any movie I've seen this year, as she worked to make a brief connection with him despite not being able to communicate through words. It's beautiful and fascinating and brilliantly done.

Those scenes helped save the movie for me, even if I still found myself really annoyed with her the rest of the time. So the movie as a whole didn't work for me very well, but those two scenes were amazing.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1221 out of 2271, below Peter Pan (2003) and above Disturbia.

Green Lantern (2011)

IMDb plot summary: A test pilot is granted an alien ring that bestows him with otherworldly powers that inducts him into an intergalactic police force.
Directed by Martin Campbell. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, and Mark Strong.

Meh. I like Ryan Reynolds a lot, and he was fairly likable in this movie, but overall it didn't do much of anything for me. Like a lot of other recent DC movie attempts, it's visually bland and morosely dark, even when it doesn't need to be. Peter Sarsgaard's villain has SO much potential to be interesting, but he just goes nowhere in this script. It's neither fun nor meaningful, though Reynolds' charm keeps it from being outright terrible. Disappointing.

2 stars.

Flickchart: #1594 out of 2270, below Sharknado and above Quigley Down Under.

2012 (2009)

IMDb plot summary: A frustrated writer struggles to keep his family alive when a series of global catastrophes threatens to annihilate mankind.
Directed by Roland Emmerich. Starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Thandie Newton.

There are definitely some good things about this movie. The scenes involving the earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic meteors and other things destroying the world are really entertaining. When that finally kicked in 45 minutes into the movie, I had a lot of fun with it. It also had a lot of really interesting mini-scenes with people dealing with the whole end of the world thing. However, it's WAY WAY WAY too long. Like I said, the movie doesn't even really get going until 45 minutes in, and then there's a REALLY long drawn-out final action sequence that drags out the movie yet another 30-40 minutes. The movie's over two and a half hours long, and John Cusack is an unlikable jerk for a lot of that time. So that takes a movie that could have been an entertaining end-of-the-world disaster movie with some cool-looking scenes and makes it much less fun by the time the end finally rolls around.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1173 out of 2269, below Last Holiday and above To Be or Not to Be.

The Spy Next Door (2010)

IMDb plot summary: Former CIA spy Bob Ho takes on his toughest assignment to date: looking after his girlfriend's three kids, who haven't exactly warmed to their mom's beau.
Directed by Brian Levant. Starring Jackie Chan, Amber Valletta, Madeline Carroll, and Will Shadley.

Let's start with the good things. What works in this movie: Jackie Chan and, occasionally, the youngest daughter. They're both fun.

What doesn't work: Everything else.

I am never, ever, ever going to get pulled into an "unusual babysitter" movie. I didn't like it in The Pacifier, I didn't like it in Despicable Me, I didn't like it here. It's a boring trope that relies on me liking kids a whole lot more than I do, and it degenerates into the same tired jokes over and over. That is true here as well. And in this movie, the kids are the Most Obnoxious Kids In the World. They abruptly stop being awful at the end, but it's for no plausible reason, since they were awful to their mom the whole time as well, so it wasn't just them being mean to him because he was new -- they're just nasty kids.

The most interesting parts of this are the parts that hardly involve the kids at all. Watching Jackie Chan fight is fun, and if it had just been a silly spy movie I could maybe have gotten into the goofiness of the villains, but it's all broken up with annoying or cheesily dramatic sections involving these horrible children.

So, yeah. Not my favorite.

1.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1637 out of 2268, below Midnight Cowboy and above Durango.

Metal Tornado (2011)

IMDb plot summary: An American company inadvertently unleashes a magnetic vortex on an unprepared world.
Directed by Gordon Yang. Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Nicole de Boer, Greg Evigan, and Stephen MacDonald.

This is a silly SyFy disaster movie. I enjoy that kind of flick occasionally, and this had all the markings of something that could have been really fun. But something was lost -- not quite enough campiness or cheesiness in the acting from the leads, I think. The minor characters are more entertaining, and watching their over-the-top horror as metallic things start sliding around is great fun. But overall, this unfortunately didn't live up to the glorious stupidity of Sharknado or even that  single fantastic scene from Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.

1.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1731 out of 2267, below The Lone Ranger and above Saw.

Thermae Romae (2012)

IMDb plot summary (truncated from original): Ancient Roman architect Lucius is too serious. His inability to keep up with the fast-moving times costs him his job. When a friend takes the dejected Lucius to the public bathhouse to cheer him up, Lucius accidentally slips through time and resurfaces in a modern-day public bath in Japan. 
Directed by Hideki Takeuchi. Starring Hiroshi Abe, Aya Ueto, Kazuki Kitamura, and Riki Takeuchi.

(Mild spoilers, but nothing that isn't already in the IMDb summary.)

I really, really enjoy movies that include fantasy elements in otherwise realistic stories, so when our main character suddenly time-traveled to the present, I got way more excited about this movie. Overall, it's a very likable and entertaining story, especially for the first 2/3. (It gets a little muddied and less fun for me after the main character actually figures out what's going on.) It's goofy and imaginative and a whole lot of fun!

4 stars.

Flickchart: #522 out of 2266, below My Name Is Bruce and above To Kill a Mockingbird.

Dirty Dancing (1987)

IMDb plot summary: Spending the summer in a holiday camp with her family, Frances "Baby" Houseman falls in love with the camp's dance instructor Johnny Castle.
Directed by Emile Ardolino. Starring Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze, Jerry Orbach, and Cynthia Rhodes.

I was not expecting much out of this movie, and I think that worked in its favor. It gets bogged down in its angsty drama in the second half of the movie, but overall it's not a bad flick. The characters are a step above typical romantic drama couples, with some truly interesting distinguishing traits, and the lead actors do a good job bringing a little bit of depth to them. On top of that, the dance sequences really are terrific fun, especially the famous one at the end. I can definitely see why people enjoy this. If it hadn't gotten so angsty and heavy-handed in part two, I would have liked it a lot more.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #902 out of 2265, below Interview With the Vampire and above Wreck-It Ralph.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

IMDb plot summary: In 1900, a young widow finds her seaside cottage is haunted...and forms a unique relationship with the ghost.
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Starring Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders and Edna Best.

(Major spoilers for the final 10-15 minutes of movie.)

This is really a very lovely movie. Mrs. Muir is a great character -- strong and independent without being harsh or unkind -- and her relationship with the ghost in her house is fascinating to watch unfold. It also ultimately went in a very different direction than I was expecting, following the character all the way through her life and only resolving the quasi-love story after she dies, making it a sweet story of her whole life instead of the romance-centered melodrama I was expecting. The cinematography is also so, so gorgeous (it was nominated for an Oscar). I'm glad I managed to catch this one before it disappeared off Netflix Instant.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #517 out of 2264, below They Live and above Goodfellas.

The Black Camel (1931)

IMDb plot summary: The unsolved murder of a Hollywood actor several years earlier and an enigmatic psychic are the keys to help Charlie solve the Honolulu stabbing death of a beautiful actress.
Directed by Hamilton MacFadden. Starring Warner Oland, Sally Eilers, Bela Lugosi, and Dorothy Revier.

I have... almost no opinion of this movie. Despite being only a little over an hour, it was still very slow, and there were so many characters who weren't really fleshed out that when they actually announced who the murderer was, I had no memory of that character being in the movie at all up until that point. It's just not a very interesting story or movie.

1 star.

Flickchart: #2008 out of 2263, below The Passion of Joan of Arc and above The Rules of the Game. That is unfairly low, as I didn't HATE it, it was just boring.

22 Jump Street (2014)

IMDb plot summary: After making their way through high school (twice), big changes are in store for officers Schmidt and Jenko when they go deep undercover at a local college.
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Starring Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Peter Stormare, and Wyatt Russell.

I typically am not a fan of sequels, but I liked the first movie a lot and kept hearing that the sequel was even better. That was definitely correct. The first one is fun, but this one was frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The two leads once again have great chemistry and a wonderful sense of comic delivery. The script, however, is where this movie really shines. With its frequent self-aware meta jokes about parodies (my favorite line: "Next year, we'll probably be back across the street but right next door"), it works almost as a parody of the first one, as well as making fun of audience-pandering franchises that never seem to end. For the most part, the jokes are beautifully smart and subtle for a dumb comedy, and the visual jokes come across great. The movie chugs along at a nice pace, and the action sequences have enough laughs that I even enjoyed them. The ending credits are hilarious as well. I'm glad I watched this one -- I can totally get behind a sequel that makes fun of its sequelness.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #465 out of 2262, below Megamind and above Solaris (2002).

King of the Zombies (1941)

IMDb plot summary: On a spooky island, three stranded travelers find an evil doctor working with foreign spies and in control of zombies.
Directed by Jean Yarbrough. Starring Dick Purcell, Joan Woodbury, Mantan Moreland, and Henry Victor.

This movie is absolutely a silly B-movie, but it's only an hour long and it's decently entertaining. The butler provides some good silly comedic moments while everybody else is wandering around seriously trying to solve the mystery. The mystery itself is pretty boring, with an ending that doesn't make any sense, but it moves along quickly enough and with enough fun in-between bits that it doesn't drag too badly. Just don't expect anything important or brilliant out of this.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1462 out of 2261, below The Secret of My Success and above Arlington Road.

Sex Tape (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A married couple wake up to discover that the sex tape they made the evening before has gone missing, leading to a frantic search for its whereabouts.
Directed by Jake Kasdan. Starring Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Rob Corddry, and Ellie Kemper.

I still think Jason Segel is one of the most likable actors out there. He just always seems so friendly and charismatic. On the flip side, I think Cameron Diaz is a very UNlikable actress, so their chemistry here is a little weird for me, even when their characters are written as sweet and committed and very in love. That being said, this is a moderately funny little movie. The jokes land on the absurd and farcical more often than they land on gross and awkward, which is nice, and the supporting cast is a lot of fun. So it was moderately enjoyable for a one-time viewing, but I wouldn't rewatch it or necessarily recommend it to each other.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1047 out of 2260, below The Color Purple and above Office Space.

Obvious Child (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A twenty-something comedienne's unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront the realities of independent womanhood for the first time.
Directed by Gillian Robespierre. Starring Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann, and Gabe Liedman.

I find Jenny Slate somewhat grating, and that's true here as well, but it's an interesting premise for a movie, and there are some beautiful moments that feel really genuine. I don't know how to feel about the movie as a whole, because I am mostly pro-life, so although I understand and care about her story, there's also a sadness I feel about it that is at odds with the tone of the movie. I'm sure that was a deliberate tone choice, but because of that and because I don't connect with Jenny Slate, it didn't quite work for me, though I really wanted it to.

2 stars.

Flickchart: #1297 out of 2259, below New York, New York and above Hush.

Neighbors (2014)

IMDb plot summary: After they are forced to live next to a fraternity house, a couple with a newborn baby do whatever they can to take them down.
Directed by Nicholas Stoller. Starring Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, and Dave Franco.

This was pretty much exactly what I expected from this movie: a fairly likable cast, dumb but sometimes funny shenanigans, and the occasional serious musing on growing up. Rose Byrne is far more interesting in this than in just about anything else I've seen her in, and Seth Rogen and Zac Efron play their silly characters with a decent amount of heart underneath. The fight scene at the end is the highlight, with plenty of good sight gags and silly jokes to make it worth it. Overall, it's interesting and funny enough. Worth a shot, especially if you're a fan of any of the actors.

3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #728 out of 2258, below The Country Girl and above Forbidden Planet.

Beach Party (1963)

IMDb plot summary (truncated because IT WAS SO LONG): The first of the five official American-International "Beach Party" movies. An anthropology professor and his secretary are studying the sex habits of teenagers. The surfing teens don't have much sex but they sing, battle a motorcycle gang, and dance.
Directed by William Asher. Starring Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Robert Cummings, and Dorothy Malone.

Well, this is about as silly as they come... but it's surprisingly fun (surprising to me, at least). There are a lot of plots going on here, but by far the most entertaining one is the story of the sociology professor trying to figure out surfer teens. Less interesting are the typical teenage romance and the awkward biker gang subplot. Granted, all three plots intertwine, but the parts that focus solely on the last two bored me. In the end, if all you want is a very silly movie, this should definitely do it. It's not uproariously funny, but it's certainly pleasant enough to watch.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1020 out of 2257, below The Thin Man and above Matchstick Men.

Le Week-End (2013)

IMDb plot summary: A British couple return to Paris many years after their honeymoon there in an attempt to rejuvenate their marriage.
Directed by Roger Mitchell. Starring Lindsay Duncan, Jim Broadbent, and Jeff Goldblum.


There's... something to this movie. It's simultaneously charming and heartbreaking, funny and sad, awkward and completely natural. The acting is stupendous, particularly from Jim Broadbent, and the final climax is, if a little abrupt, very moving. I feel like this is a movie that just a mention of will always fill my heart with the sort of wistful sadness I felt while watching it.

3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #707 out of 2256, below Days of Wine and Roses and above Beyond the Sea.

Big Hero 6 (2014)

IMDb plot summary: The special bond that develops between plus-sized inflatable robot Baymax, and prodigy Hiro Hamada, who team up with a group of friends to form a band of high-tech heroes.
Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams. Starring Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, Daniel Henney, and T.J. Miller.

This movie has more than a few similarities to The Iron Giant, but, hey, I loved that movie, and I loved this one too. The characters are likable and interesting, and there are some surprising layers to the story beyond just a typical superhero/supervillain dynamic. I find it's slipping some from my mind even just a couple days after watching it -- much more than I would have expected something like this to do -- so it may not be as memorable as I anticipated, but it's definitely a satisfying flick, and it's well worth a watch.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #428 out of 2255, which may be slightly too high. It's below The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall and above Kiss Me, Stupid!

The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

IMDb plot summary: Two teens, both who have different cancer conditions, fall in love after meeting at a cancer support group.
Directed by Josh Boone. Starring Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff, and Laura Dern.

All right, this is definitely a teen tragic romance movie, so if those kinds of movies aren't your thing, you might want to steer clear. That being said, though, this is probably the best one I've ever seen in the genre, as well as one of the most well-written tragic romances, period. This is no Nicholas Sparks story. The characters are interesting and likable and even though it does get a LITTLE cute-indie-quirky at times with the dialogue, I was really surprised by how deeply I got into the story. I bawled at the end, and I didn't expect that at all. If you like coming-of-age stories or sad stories, this is absolutely one to check out.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #407 out of 2254, below He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not and above Om Shanti Om.

Ali (2001)

IMDb plot summary: A biography of sports legend, Muhammad Ali, from his early days to his days in the ring.
Directed by Michael Mann. Starring Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Jon Voight, and Mario Van Peebles.

Well, this movie started off with a very confusing 12-minute montage of events, people, and places we didn't know yet and that it didn't set up very helpfully. And it did not get better from there. I like Will Smith and typically find him charming and interesting no matter what he's in, but this movie does him no favors. The story is scattered, confusing, and disappointingly boring. Occasionally Smith's charisma managed to shine through and be a momentary highlight, but overall this not a well-put-together movie.

1 star.

Flickchart: #1847 out of 2253, below Mamma Mia! and above Transcendence.

Stand Up and Cheer! (1934)

IMDb plot summary: President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering through the Depression. The new secretary soon runs afoul of political lobbyists out to destroy his department.
Directed by Hamilton MacFadden. Starring Warner Baxter, Madge Evans, James Dunn, and Shirley Temple.

Well, this was... strange. I wondered at first if this was Shirley Temple's first movie, because it clearly wasn't meant as a vehicle for her -- she's in it for a grand total of MAYBE five minutes -- but it looks like she was in other things before this, so hadonno. Good things first: the final number is really entertaining, very hopeful and optimistic, the love ballad is very pretty and gorgeously sung, and when Shirley is in the movie, she doesn't have any terrible or uber precocious dialogue, so she's a pretty cute little kid. However, the rest of this move is CRAZY. The plot is really scattered and abrupt, and it's interrupted by what I must assume are joke routines I just don't get, but they're just STRANGE -- one scene features a bird who is apparently supposed to be Jimmy Durante, and another features two men calmly discussing politics while back flipping all over the room. It's also more than a little uncomfortable to watch its portrayal of the primary African American character in this movie. So the film does have a few good moments, but they're few and far between, and the rest of it is just... very, very weird.

1 star.

Flickchart: #1877 out of 2252, below The Love Bug and Apocalypto. This is too low, because apparently I have a whole bunch of boring-but-not-awful movies down in the 1800s, when they should be higher.

Girl Shy (1924)

IMDB plot summary: A shy, young man, who is completely incapable of talking to women, decides to write a book that details to other bachelors how to find a girlfriend.
Directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor. Starring Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Richard Daniels, and Carlton Griffin.

For the first hour or so of this, I thought, "Eh, this is all right." It was likable, but not terribly funny. The final 20-30 minutes, however, consist of a wild race to a wedding, with the main character hopping between a ridiculous amount of vehicles to get there. Each moment of that is really entertaining. The story is overall very sweet, our protagonist is sympathetic, and the last third of the movie was laugh-out-loud funny. I may have to hunt up some more Harold Lloyd in the near future.

3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #615 out of 2251, below Eve's Bayou and above Primer.

Draft Day (2014)

IMDb plot summary: At the NFL Draft, general manager Sonny Weaver has the opportunity to rebuild his team when he trades for the number one pick. He must decide what he's willing to sacrifice on a life-changing day for a few hundred young men with NFL dreams.
Directed by Ivan Reitman. Starring Kevin Costner, Chadwick Boseman, Jennifer Garner, and Denis Leary.

So it turns out that between this and Moneyball, I at least somewhat enjoy sports movies where the premise is picking the players. Probably primarily because there's not a lot of actual sports playing involved. This movie is a bit messy, trying to do too much with Costner's character's life in one day, but the parts about choosing the players are actually really engaging, and easy to follow even if you're not a football person. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #726 out of 2250, below Rabbit Hole and above Divided We Fall.

Divergent (2014)

IMDb plot summary: In a world divided by factions based on virtues, Tris learns she's Divergent and won't fit in. When she discovers a plot to destroy Divergents, Tris and the mysterious Four must find out what makes Divergents dangerous before it's too late.
Directed by Neil Burger. Starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, and Kate Winslet.

I enjoy dystopian futures, and although this is a pretty typical one, I enjoyed it nonetheless. I really felt like this was one part of a series, not a standalone story that got sequels tacked on, so that's always a plus. It's also nice to see a blockbuster movie that features a lot of at least somewhat interesting women as characters, especially in the sci-fi/action genres. It's unlikely to sway anyone who doesn't like stories about Special Chosen Ones or typical dystopias -- it's CERTAINLY no Hunger Games -- but it's not a bad movie overall. Just uninspired. Makes me wonder if the books were stronger.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #752 out of 2249, below The Incredibles and above Charlie St. Cloud.

The Women (1939)

IMDb plot summary: A study of the lives and romantic entanglements of various interconnected women.
Directed by George Cukor. Starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, and Mary Boland.

(Some spoilers about the plot and ending.)

There's a lot to like about this movie, but there's also a fair amount that rub me the wrong way. Our main character is unbelievably sympathetic and likable, and the scenes where she has to deal with her marriage falling apart were incredibly moving. Her story, at the heart of this movie, is well worth watching, and seeing her get some happiness at the end is satisfying for her sake, even if I'm uncertain that it'll last.

Where this movie doesn't work for me at all, however, is in many of the other women. Rosalind Russell's character in particular is just... everything I dislike in a character, man or woman. There's a lot of petty squabbling that doesn't make me laugh so much as it makes go, "Ugh. People are terrible." Because the movie includes a lot of these little scenes, it ends up dragging, especially in the second half when I *really* just wanted to get back to Mary's story. And I'm not sure I at all understood the technicolor fashion show that hijacked the film for a bit. What was that about? (I wonder if people who don't like musicals feel the same "Why would they put this here?" bewilderment when a movie has a single dance number out of nowhere...)

I didn't really pick up on the humor of this movie, as most of it came from the cattiness of the characters. What I liked was almost entirely the dramatic part of the plot, and that was tremendously satisfying. Other good things: having an all-woman cast was wonderful (I loved the creative ways they told the story through only the women), and the credits were imaginative and set the scene appropriately. I wish, however, that it included fewer subplots and was a little shorter.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #970 out of 2248, below Code 46 and above Runaway Jury. This is probably a bit too low.

The Killing (1956)

IMDb plot summary: Crooks plan and execute a daring race-track robbery.
Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Starring Sterling Hayden, Ted de Corsia, Marie Windsor, and Elisha Cook Jr.


This was pretty good. I have a tough time with noir, but I recently discovered it's detective-based noir I dislike most. Noir-style stories that aren't centered around detectives, such as Sunset Blvd., Double Indemnity, and In a Lonely Place, fare much better with me. I wasn't struck by this the way I was any of those, and I was fully aware throughout that this was someone TRYING to make a noir film -- a lot of the dialogue seemed almost like a parody of the genre. That being said, though, it's a good story, a thoroughly satisfying ending, and I particularly liked its short length. Maybe I'm just especially appreciative of these old shorter films because I'm getting tired of all the new releases that are like 2 1/2 hours long, but I admire a movie that stops when its story is done. So, not blown away, but this was solid.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #855 out of 2247, below Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium and above Rachel Getting Married.

The Double Life of Veronique (1991)

IMDb plot summary omitted because it gives away a fairly important plot detail.
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Starring Irène Jacob, Jerzy Gudejko, Halina Gryglaszewska, and Philippe Volter.

I have not had great luck with French films thus far, so my friend Jandy recommended this one to me in the hopes I would dig it. It didn't quite work... but it almost did! I was really enjoying the first half, but in the second half I felt like I didn't know Veronique at all. It wasn't character-centered enough for me to enjoy it as that, but it didn't solve the "mystery" enough for me to enjoy that aspect either. It's directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, who I've only seen a bit of before and really WANT to like him, but I haven't yet. I think he has amazing ideas that just never quite gel for me in the execution. Maybe I'm just missing something, and one day his movies will just click into place for me, and if that happens, I will definitely come back and rewatch this. As it was... I found it disappointing.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1233 out of 2246, below The Deer Hunter and above Star Wars Uncut.

The Nights of Cabiria (1957)

IMDB plot summary: A waifish prostitute wanders the streets of Rome looking for true love but finds only heartbreak.
Directed by Federico Fellini. Starring Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Franca Marzi, and Dorian Gray.

(Spoilers ahead for this, as well as some spoilers for La Strada and Jean de Florette.)

This was recommended to me based on my love for La Strada, which I watched for the first time a year or two ago. While this one isn't *quite* as heartbreaking as that one, it's pretty darn close. The final 15 minutes or so was so tough to watch, because I just knew how it was all inevitably going to end. (In fact, at one point in those 15 minutes I paused the movie to get a drink of water, and when I came back, I wandered all over the Internet because I didn't want to have to watch the ending.) I wasn't quite as engaged throughout the whole movie as I was with La Strada, but Giulietta Masina is unbelievably charming and likeable as Cabiria. As I write this review, it occurs to me that I had a very similar reaction to watching Jean de Florette earlier this year -- both have a character I desperately cheered for and whose downfall left me a little broken.

Overall, this is one of those movies that I'm definitely glad I watched but would probably not watch again any time soon, though I am curious to see how the emotional impact of the ending would go if I knew right from the beginning where it was headed.

4 stars.

Flickchart: #496 out of 2245, below Four Lions and above Widow's Peak.

The Ramen Girl (2008)

IMDb plot summary: An American woman is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a râmen chef under a tyrannical Japanese master.
Directed by Robert Allan Ackerman. Starring Brittany Murphy, Toshiyiki Nishida, Sohee Park, and Kimiko Yo.

While the movie wears a little thin in the middle, this is overall a really charming little movie. The main characters are for the most part likable, and I do enjoy a good fish-out-of-water story, which this movie does well. The film gets bogged down about halfway through, stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of the main characters yelling with nobody understanding each other, but once it's over that hump it chugs along to a nice, satisfying ending. It's spotty but sweet.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #1128 out of 2244, below Ben-Hur and above The Dinner Game.

Killing Season (2013)

IMDb plot summary: Two veterans of the Bosnian War -- one American, one Serbian -- find their unlikely friendship turn tense with one of them reveals their true intentions.
Directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Starring Robert De Niro and John Travolta.

(Vague spoilers about the movie's plot, tone, and resolution.)

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. What seemed at first like a run-of-the-mill revenge film ended up being a decently thoughtful piece about war, violence, and guilt. De Niro is great in his role, Travolta is... not great in his, but not terrible. The script for this one is pretty solid, and at right around 90 minutes, it's not so long it wears thin. This isn't a brilliant movie, but it's much more than I expected it would be. Nice.

3 stars.

Flickchart: #949 out of 2243, below City Lights and above The Forbidden Kingdom.

Transcendence (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A scientist's drive for artificial intelligence, takes on dangerous implications when his consciousness is uploaded into one such program.
Directed by Wally Pfister. Starring Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, and Cillian Murphy.

I was so hoping the critics were wrong about this movie, but they weren't, and it makes me sad. It's such a great premise for a movie, and you can see where they were trying to make it good... unfortunately, it's muddled, confusing, and worst of all, boring. Seriously, how is a movie like this boring? All the moments for emotional involvement just... sit there, or cut away right before what should have been the payoff. It's incredibly frustrating to me when a movie that had so much promise falls apart so completely. I'll join in with the majority in saying this is one to avoid.

1 star.

Flickchart: #1837 out of 2242, below Mamma Mia! and above All the King's Men (2006).