The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

IMDb plot summary: A mad, disfigured composer seeks love with a lovely young opera singer.
Directed by Rupert Julian. Starring Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, and Arthur Edmund Carewe.

I watched this as part of the Letterboxd Season Challenge because it really seemed ridiculous that as big of a phan as I am, that I never saw this version. It's definitely that stylized type of acting that I find difficult to take seriously in dramatic pieces, so there were plenty of moments where I found myself distanced from the characters I know and love by how unusual their movements were. There is at least one beautifully effective moment, however -- where Christine realizes onstage that the Phantom is there and just continues singing. This works best in a silent film, I suspect, because getting the right tone for that singing moment would be almost impossible, but there's something very chilling about seeing her continue on, business as usual, while her eyes are showing us how terrified she is. Even if I didn't love this movie, I'm glad I finally saw it.

2.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Phantom of the Opera < The Fortune Cookie
The Phantom of the Opera > Dinner for Schmucks
The Phantom of the Opera > Total Recall
The Phantom of the Opera < Swing Kids
The Phantom of the Opera < The Score
The Phantom of the Opera > 10 Things I Hate About You
The Phantom of the Opera > Rango
The Phantom of the Opera > Hush
The Phantom of the Opera < The Aristocats
The Phantom of the Opera < Cracks
The Phantom of the Opera > Alfie (2004)
Final spot: #1428 out of 2394.

The Good Dinosaur (2015)

IMDb plot summary: An epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo makes an unlikely human friend.
Directed by Peter Sohn. Starring Raymond Ochoa, Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, and Steve Zahn.

(Spoilers ahead.)

Let me get this out of the way first: This movie looks gorgeous. It's incredible animation. The scenery is stunning, and the characters themselves always look so great against it. There are so many beautiful shots in this movie, so if you like animation or visuals, it's probably worth seeing just because of that.

That being said though... this is lower-tier Pixar. Still pretty good, but it's not a very original story, and it was incredibly easy to pinpoint major plot points early on. (At the opening shot of Arlo's parents waiting for the eggs to hatch, my husband leaned over and whispered to me, "Well, now we know that one of them is going to die." It took another 15 minutes for that to happen, but it got there.)

On top of that, though, the tone of this movie is... odd. It gets unusually dark and surreal for Pixar. Everything just feels a little unsettling, from the cult pterodactyls to the dinosaur stashing birds on his head to the 10-second drug trip. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, where we see elements of things we recognize but everything is just a little... off. The vibe is different than it is with most Pixar flicks, and I couldn't shake the sense of "wrong"ness I felt from it.

The best parts of this movie are those without words. Pixar really excels in creating emotional scenes with barely any dialogue, and those are the moments that stand out here. The scene where Arlo teaches Spot the concept of family is one of the most hauntingly beautiful scenes Pixar's ever done, and returning Spot to his new family at the end was equally moving. If there had been more of those moments and less bizarre cattle rustling and eerie pterodactyl fleeing, this movie would have been a lot higher on my list.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Good Dinosaur > Melinda and Melinda
The Good Dinosaur < Pretty Woman
The Good Dinosaur > A Separation
The Good Dinosaur < The Green Mile
The Good Dinosaur < Duck Soup
The Good Dinosaur < Grosse Pointe Blank
The Good Dinosaur > The Time Traveler's Wife
The Good Dinosaur < Men in Black III
The Good Dinosaur > Identity
The Good Dinosaur < A Bug's Life
Final spot: #873 out of 2393.

A Most Wanted Man (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A Chechen Muslim illegally immigrates to Hamburg, where he gets caught in the international war on terror.
Directed by Anton Corbijn. Starring Grigoriy Dobyrgin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, and Willem Dafoe.

While I had a much easier time with this than with other John Le Carre film adaptations, this still leaves me a bit cold. The performances are all good, the script is good, the story is good, but it highlights a problem I have with intrigue stories: so many of the characters are so deliberately cold and calculated that I simply don't care about them. This one clearly was trying to make a point, and I appreciate it, but in the end the genre itself got in the way for me. It's probably about as good a serious spy movie as I'm likely to see, but I still won't be able to rate it very highly, and almost certainly not as highly as it deserves.

2.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
A Most Wanted Man < The Fortune Cookie
A Most Wanted Man > Dinner for Schmucks
A Most Wanted Man > Total Recall (1990)
A Most Wanted Man > The Man With One Red Shoe
A Most Wanted Man < Hotel Rwanda
A Most Wanted Man > Ted
A Most Wanted Man < Fast Times at Ridgemont High
A Most Wanted Man < The Three Musketeers
A Most Wanted Man < The Fourth Kind
A Most Wanted Man > Highlander
A Most Wanted Man < Waterloo
Final spot: #1304 out of 2392.

Nick Nolte: No Exit (2008)

IMDb plot summary: A frank and unconventional view of the life and work of actor Nick Nolte.
Directed by Tom Thurman.

The gimmick of this documentary on Nick Nolte is simple: Nick Nolte is interviewing himself, interspersed with clips of other actors and directors talking about him. This would have been a cool gimmick if Nolte was at all cooperating with himself. Instead, he ignores actual questions posed to him, instead going off on unrelated tangents. In response to a question about his family life, he tells a story about making out with his first girlfriend. When asked if his character in "Life Lessons" resembles his own creative process, he talks about Rosanna Arquette's insistence that he wanted to sleep with her. This kind of thing happens a lot. It's even more frustrating because the questions being asked are sometimes very interesting and I wanted to know the answers. Nolte crafted these questions, recorded himself asking them... and then decided he didn't want to share the answers. If all he wanted to do was ramble about whatever he wanted to for an hour and a half, why bother filming questions he was never going to respond to? It's an infuriating waste of a gimmick, of a chance to ask himself the kinds of questions he wanted to be asked, and it drags the whole movie down.

1.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Nick Nolte: No Exit < The Fortune Cookie
Nick Nolte: No Exit > Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
Nick Nolte: No Exit < Total Recall (1990)
Nick Nolte: No Exit < Paint Your Wagon
Nick Nolte: No Exit < In the Company of Men
Nick Nolte: No Exit > The Rescuers
Nick Nolte: No Exit > Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
Nick Nolte: No Exit < Quigley Down Under
Nick Nolte: No Exit < Seasons of the Heart
Nick Nolte: No Exit < A Farewell to Fools
Nick Nolte: No Exit < Sarah, Plain and Tall
Nick Nolte: No Exit < The Hiding Place

Final spot: #1738 out of 2391.

Bill Cunningham New York (2010)

IMDb plot summary: A profile of the noted and extraordinarily cheerful veteran New York City fashion photographer.
Directed by Richard Press.

I don't watch a lot of documentaries, but this was a particularly engaging one. The topic of fashion and the elitism of the field was far less interesting to me, however, than the personality of Bill Cunningham himself. The filmmakers follow him around on his bike as he takes picture both on the streets and at swanky charity events, interview previous collaborators and models, and look back on his career and where it all began. Throughout it all Cunningham is an unbelievably cheerful and open about his obsession for fashion, an obsession that makes absolutely everything else in his life not worth pursuing. Even with this tiny glimpse into the fashion world, it's clear that his optimism and integrity set him apart from just about everyone else there, and it's fascinating to hear him talk about how this seemingly insubstantial interest has not only given him joy throughout his life but influenced and been influenced by his moral values as well. As documentaries go, this is a compelling one.

3.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Bill Cunningham New York > The Fortune Cookie
Bill Cunningham New York < Rurouni Kenshin
Bill Cunningham New York > A Separation
Bill Cunningham New York < Hamlet (2009)
Bill Cunningham New York < The Thin Man
Bill Cunningham New York > Grosse Pointe Blank
Bill Cunningham New York > Don Jon
Bill Cunningham New York > Divergent (why is that so high up?)
Bill Cunningham New York > The Birds
Bill Cunningham New York > Rosemary's Baby
Bill Cunningham New York < Duck Soup
Final spot: #823 out of 2390.

C.H.U.D. (1984)

IMDb plot summary: A bizarre series of murders in New York City seems to point toward the existence of a race of mutant cannibals living under the streets.
Directed by Douglas Cheek. Starring John Heard, Daniel Stern, Christopher Curry, and Kim Greist.

I get why this has a cult following, because it certainly has a delightfully preposterous premise. Unfortunately, it never really works as a cheesy horror flick, largely because it can't decide whether it wants to be a monster movie or a government conspiracy movie. This leads to a bizarre turn of events at the end where the evil government figure is killed, and the credits roll for what's supposedly a happy ending... except for the fact that the monsters are still fine and wandering around. Nothing's been done. What a wildly unsatisfying finale.

On top of that, none of these characters are pleasant or likable or heroic. They spend most of their time being negative and sarcastic or unnecessarily combative. Even 88 minutes was too long to spend with them.

Not a success as a good movie, not a success as a bad movie.

1 star.

How it entered my Flickchart:
C.H.U.D. < The Fortune Cookie
C.H.U.D. < Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
C.H.U.D. < Basic Instinct
C.H.U.D. > Boys Town
C.H.U.D. > Black Sheep
C.H.U.D. < Monster House
C.H.U.D. < National Velvet
C.H.U.D. < Dumbo
C.H.U.D. > Hart's War
C.H.U.D. > Stepsister From Planet Weird
C.H.U.D. > Tuck Everlasting
Final spot: #2156 out of 2389.

Husbands and Wives (1992)

IMDb plot summary: When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.
Directed by Woody Allen. Starring Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Sydney Pollack, and Judy Davis.

I am very nearly done with Woody Allen's entire filmography (so far) and there's just something so captivating and almost comforting about his movies to me, even ones without happy endings or those making shaky moral claims. This isn't quite either one of those, but it certainly tackles a lot of darker aspects of relationships, and seeing the interactions between the two couples is great to watch.

That being said, there weren't really any "wow" moments for me in this one. It's interesting, as I find most Allen movies to be, and it's certainly in his upper tier in terms of quality, but it didn't stand out to me the way I expected it to be. I was reminded of Deconstructing Harry, the other Woody Allen film I've seen this year that also left me similarly unmoved. Certainly not a bad flick, just nothing that's going to stick in my mind in the same way as The Purple Rose of Cairo or Annie Hall.

3.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Husbands and Wives > Melinda and Melinda
Husbands and Wives < The Red Violin
Husbands and Wives > The Hudsucker Proxy
Husbands and Wives > The Call
Husbands and Wives < Bend It Like Beckham
Husbands and Wives > You Can Count on Me
Husbands and Wives < Ordet
Husbands and Wives > Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey
Husbands and Wives < School of Rock
Husbands and Wives > Say Anything...
Final spot: #695 out of 2388.

Battle Royale (2000)

IMDb plot summary: In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Starring Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Tarô Yamamoto, and Takeshi Kitano.

(Spoilers ahead for the premise of the movie.)

Watched this with Jacob as part of the Letterboxd season challenge, and whoo! This was a tough one. This is no Hunger Games YA adventure. This is brutal and dark and these kids seem every bit as young as they're supposed to be. The comparisons to Tarantino's work is interesting, because it's a very different tone. While Tarantino feels light and over-the-top in his violence, this is dark and gritty and too realistic to be funny. It doesn't all quite tie together at the end (the final 10 minutes aren't entirely worth the horror of the first 90), but it's a fascinating ride, as we slowly learn the personalities and back stories of some of these 40+ students, as well as the teacher who's keeping them captive. It's not an easy watch, but it's one that will certainly sit with you.

3.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Battle Royale > The Circus
Battle Royale < The Red Violin
Battle Royale > Extraordinary Measures
Battle Royale > Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Battle Royale > sex, lies, and videotape
Battle Royale < The Boondock Saints
Battle Royale > The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Battle Royale < Porco Rosso
Battle Royale > The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Battle Royale > Were the World Mine
Battle Royale < Zoolander
Final spot: #645 out of 2387.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A goofy detective specializing in animals goes in search of a missing dolphin mascot of a football team.
Directed by Tom Shadyac. Starring Jim Carrey, Courteney Cox, Sean Young, and Tone Loc.

I knew going into this movie I wasn't going to love it or find it especially funny. And, nope, I didn't. Jim Carrey, however, has a decently likable quality where even when he's being over-the-top and playing an obnoxious character, he seems less obnoxious than just... stupid. And that's what this movie is: stupid. Better than obnoxious, but not by a lot. The stupidity and immaturity are such an integral part of his character that the romance between him and Courteney Cox actually made me uncomfortable because it felt like a grown woman was romancing a 13-year-old boy. The second half of the movie made me even more uncomfortable due to its transphobia, homophobia, and mocking of mental illness. There were, I think, two jokes that made me laugh, but those were not enough to make up for the stupid, stupid remainder of the movie.

I knew going into this movie I wasn't going to love it or find it especially funny. And, nope, I didn't. Jim Carrey, however, has a moderately likable quality where even when he's being over-the-top and playing an obnoxious character, he seems less obnoxious than just... stupid. And that's what this movie is: stupid. Better than obnoxious, I suppose, but NOT by a lot. The stupidity and immaturity are such an integral part of his character that the romance between him and Courteney Cox actually made me uncomfortable because it felt like a grown woman was romancing a 13-year-old boy. The second half of the movie made me even more uncomfortable due to its transphobia, homophobia, and mocking of mental illness. There were, I think, two jokes that made me laugh, but those were not enough to make up for the stupid, stupid remainder of the movie.

0.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective < The Fortune Cookie
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective < Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective < Hollywoodland
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective < Courageous
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective > Laserblast
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective > The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective > Horse Sense
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective > The Story of the Weeping Camel
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective > On Our Own
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective > Friends With Money
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective < Boys Town
Final spot: #2239 out of 2386.