Hearts Beat Loud (2018)

IMDb plot summary: A father and daughter form an unlikely songwriting duo in the summer before she leaves for college.
Directed by Brett Haley. Starring Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Toni Collette, and Sasha Lane.

This is so lovely. It's such a warm movie, with such a beautifully developed relationship between father and daughter, but without any of the enormous dramatic blow-ups we sometimes come to expect from movies about parents and children. There's a comfort level between the two where they encourage each other and cheer for each other but also allow themselves to have different lives -- and even when that's a bit of a struggle, they figure it out. I also love how much attention is actually paid to the music here. I'd be happy calling this a musical (I teared up a little at the end as if it was, anyway!). Really beautiful film.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Hearts Beat Loud > Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam
Hearts Beat Loud > Beyond the Sea
Hearts Beat Loud < A Little Princess (1995)
Hearts Beat Loud > The Invisible Man (1933)
Hearts Beat Loud > Planet of the Apes (1968)
Hearts Beat Loud > The Aviator
Hearts Beat Loud > Philadelphia
Hearts Beat Loud > Kramer vs. Kramer
Hearts Beat Loud > Castle in the Sky
Hearts Beat Loud > The Maltese Falcon
Hearts Beat Loud < Nightcrawler
Final spot: #400 out of 3182, or 87%.

Dark Places (2015)

IMDb plot summary: Libby Day was only eight years old when her family was brutally murdered in their rural Kansas farmhouse. Almost thirty years later, she reluctantly agrees to revisit the crime and uncovers the wrenching truths that led up to that tragic night.
Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner. Starring Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Christina Hendricks, and Tye Sheridan.

Just like when I read the book this movie was based on, I find myself captivated by the world in this story. Libby Day's story of surviving off of having her family murdered in a way where it encapsulates her whole life and doesn't let her go is to darkly fascinating to me. The mystery itself isn't that interesting or that necessary, but I'm so drawn in watching her navigate this life that feels just as starkly lost and alone as she was as a child. The ending is a little convenient for me (as I remember it being in the book) but the rest is interesting, and Charlize Theron's performance is fantastic. Pretty solid!

How it entered my Flickchart:
Dark Places > Senna
Dark Places > Victor/Victoria (1982)
Dark Places < A Little Princess (1995)
Dark Places < The Invisible Man (1933)
Dark Places < The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Dark Places < Fever Pitch (1997)
Dark Places < Woman in the Dunes
Dark Places < Crocodile Dundee
Dark Places > Hawking
Dark Places < The Bells of St. Mary's
Dark Places < Witchfinder General
Final spot: #786 out of 3181, or 75%.

Seconds (1966)

IMDb plot summary: An unhappy middle-aged banker agrees to a procedure that will fake his death and give him a completely new look and identity - one that comes with its own price.
Directed by John Frankenheimer. Starring Rock Hudson, John Randolph, Jeff Corey, and Richard Anderson.

Right from the beginning of this movie, you know what kind of unsettling paranoid tone you're in for, as the camera goes for intensely uncomfortable POV shots. And then it definitely continues on in that vein. The main character is shuttled along from moment to moment, and then at the end when he realizes his lack of choice and agency, it's too late for him to do much of anything about it. It's an intriguing concept, and this is one of those science fiction movies that is more about the concept than the plot. There's not much really to care about in the narrative -- the central character is so indecisive and meandering that it's hard to really sympathize with him, and nobody else is around enough to matter -- but the *ideas* being proposed are engaging enough to carry it along. Definitely an interesting watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Seconds > Waterloo
Seconds < Pretty Woman
Seconds > Aliens
Seconds > Ghost World
Seconds < 28 Up
Seconds > The Thief of Bagdad
Seconds < Young Adult
Seconds > Children of Men
Seconds > Monsoon Wedding
Seconds > The Vanishing
Seconds > Three Colors: Blue
Final spot: #920 out of 3180, or 71%.

Bowfinger (1999)

IMDb plot summary: When a desperate movie producer fails to get a major star for his bargain basement film, he decides to shoot the film secretly around him.
Directed by Frank Oz. Starring Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham, and Christine  Baranski.

This is... fine. There are a couple good gags, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. But the premise is so great and the two stars such comic legends that I guess I was hoping for more. It's hard to pin down what doesn't quite work for me -- maybe it's that I have too empathetic a response to Eddie Murphy's anxious and paranoid lead character and didn't enjoy seeing him terrorized (and then he abruptly disappears from the end of the story, with no indication as to whether's he's been permanently traumatized by having all his worst fears appear to play out in front of him). But there are a lot of pieces of this that do definitely work. I laughed out at loud at the line, "Do you love Smashing Pumpkins?" "Are you kidding? I love doing that!" and Christine Baranski's minor character is a fun standout. It just didn't come together for me as much as I hoped it would.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Bowfinger > The Lady from Shanghai
Bowfinger < Pretty Woman
Bowfinger < Aliens
Bowfinger > Gold Diggers of 1933
Bowfinger > Is It Fall Yet?
Bowfinger < Swiss Army Man
Bowfinger < Dot the I
Bowfinger < The Gold Rush
Bowfinger > Sleepers
Bowfinger > Love Story
Bowfinger > Footlight Parade
Bowfinger < Sin City
Final spot: #1280 out of 3179, or 60%.

The Farewell (2019)

IMDb plot summary: A Chinese family discovers their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide to keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding to gather before she dies.
Directed by Lulu Wang. Starring Shuzhen Zhao, Awkwafina, X Mayo, and Tzi Ma.

There are some films that are moving simply because they are warm and quiet and loving. They don't ask us to make big moral judgments about our characters, just to be there living in the world with them. This movie, somewhat to my surprised, turns out to be one of those. I thought there would be more discussion and debate of the ethics of keeping the grandmother's diagnosis from her, but that is only touched on a handful of times. Much more frequent is the look at how family can splinter and come back together, how people who feel like failures can be built back up by the right kind of support, and how to be bold even when facing the unknown. It's really beautifully written and acted, with special nods to Awkwafina and Zhao Shu-zhen in the two lead roles. They create characters I feel like I know deeply, even in just a short hour and a half. A lovely film.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Farewell > The Lady from Shanghai
The Farewell > Victor/Victoria (1982)
The Farewell < A Little Princess (1995)
The Farewell < Colossal
The Farewell > The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Farewell > Romeo and Juliet (1968)
The Farewell > Split
The Farewell > Brooklyn
The Farewell > The Bumblebee Flies Anyway
The Farewell > The Shawshank Redemption
The Farewell > Big Trouble in Little China
The Farewell < The Invisible Man (1933)
Final spot: #597 out of 3178, or 81%.

Django, Prepare a Coffin (1968)

IMDb plot summary: A gunfighter forms a gang of "deceased" execution victims to get revenge on the politician and outlaw who killed his wife.
Directed by Ferdinando Baldi. Starring Terence Hill, Horst Frank, George Eastman, and Bruna Simionato.

I couldn't tell you what it was about this movie, but I could NOT stay interested in this. Maybe it was that there were too many male characters who all looked the same and keeping track of them was boring so I gave up. Maybe it was that after about 10 minutes, the most interesting part (the hangman not hanging people) became a matter of battle strategy and not principle very quickly and thus made it much less interesting. Maybe it was that I totally forgot Django's back story and thus couldn't connect it to the rest of his actions. I don't know. Whatever it was, I was incredibly bored throughout and had difficulty scrounging up enough details for even this meager review.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Django, Prepare a Coffin < De-Lovely
Django, Prepare a Coffin < Party Girl
Django, Prepare a Coffin > Devil's Knot
Django, Prepare a Coffin < Compulsion
Django, Prepare a Coffin > Table 19
Django, Prepare a Coffin < Home Alone
Django, Prepare a Coffin > Out of the Past
Django, Prepare a Coffin < The Money Pit
Django, Prepare a Coffin > The Internship
Django, Prepare a Coffin < The Out of Towners
Django, Prepare a Coffin < The In-Laws
Django, Prepare a Coffin < Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)
Final spot: #2648 out of 3177, or 17%.

White Comanche (1968)

IMDb plot summary: Twin brothers, half white and half Comanche, take different paths that overlap with Johnny Moon getting blamed for Notah's violent acts until the final confrontation in Rio Hondo.
Directed by José Briz Méndez. Starring William Shatner, Joseph Cotten, Rosanna Yanni, and Perla Cristal.

Well, this is... not good. Both the weirdest and the most racist of the 1968 westerns I've seen so far, with William Shatner playing twin half-Comanche-half-white brothers, one who decides to live as Comanche and one who decides to live as white, and guess which one is the good guy and which one is basically a violent cult leader? And yes, there is indeed at least one scene where someone equates choosing to embrace his Comanche side with being uncivilized and cruel, so it's pretty overt. Additionally, though, it's also just a BAD movie. It's hilariously awkward -- the dialogue between the Mayor and the Sheriff early on in the film made me laugh out loud at how terribly written it was -- and big plot twists are alluded to but never come about, and characters change their minds at the drop of a hat, and actors frequently stumble over their lines, and Evil William Shatner's expression as he watches violence is just so bizarre, and there's this whole big side plot about in-town rivalry that doesn't matter at ALL. I'd say it's so bad it's good, but the nasty racism makes it unenjoyable to watch for that either, so just, nah. There's not much for me to appreciate here.

How it entered my Flickchart:
White Comanche < De-Lovely
White Comanche < Empire of the Sun
White Comanche > Devil's Knot
White Comanche < Shalako
White Comanche < Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
White Comanche < The Hiding Place
White Comanche < The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
White Comanche > Joseph: King of Dreams
White Comanche < Jezebel
White Comanche < The Watcher in the Woods
White Comanche > No Reservations
Final spot: #2764 out of 3176.

The Harvey Girls (1946)

IMDb plot summary: On a train trip West to become a mail-order bride, Susan Bradley (Judy Garland) meets a cheery crew of young women travelling out to open a "Harvey House" restaurant at a remote whistle-stop.
Directed by George Sidney. Starring Judy Garland, John Hodiak, Ray Bolger, and Angela Lansbury.

This one just kind of wanders around, huh? The only song that has much of any pep to it is the one that won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1946 -- the rest of the score leans *very* heavily on ballads, none of which are interesting. (Particularly lifeless is the women's trio about how they'd better find a man soon, which has some of the most bizarrely lethargic dancing I have ever seen.) There's certainly no lack of songs in the movie, but the songs they do have barely stick and I found myself wishing that some of those had been pushed out to make way for some character development and dialogue. Judy Garland is, as always, an enjoyable performer, but the movie does no favors to the rest of the cast. I also found myself slightly horrified during the finale at Garland's tearful concession of going into sex work if that was what her leading man wanted of her. Overall, while I loved how many women there were in this movie, it's just not a very engaging musical overall.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Harvey Girls > Waxwork
The Harvey Girls < Victor/Victoria (1982)
The Harvey Girls > The Crying Game
The Harvey Girls < Men in Black
The Harvey Girls < Mrs. Brown
The Harvey Girls < Now You See Me
The Harvey Girls < If Beale Street Could Talk
The Harvey Girls < Marjorie Prime
The Harvey Girls > Hotel Rwanda
The Harvey Girls > The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
The Harvey Girls < Brick
Final spot: #1181 out of 3175, which feels unexpectedly high, but I guess even a lackluster musical can do pretty well on my chart!

Outlaw: Kill! (1969)

IMDb plot summary: Although Goro is a known assassin, he has always been against the ways of the yakuza. In "Outlaw Kill!" he deals with the dilemma of living such a lifestyle more than ever: the sacrifices, the time wasted in prison.
Directed by Keiichih Ozawa. Starring Testuya Watari, Chieko Matsubara, Kôji Wada, and Fujio Suga.

(Spoilers ahead.)

Well, I watched this movie by accident when attempting to source another Japanese movie called Kill! from just a year earlier. That one had been cited as a comedy, which seemed very confusing to me as I watched this one, which is a very straightforward crime yakuza story, and apparently the sixth and last in a series. It's a pretty decent film, and I like the central character, though not enough to go back and watch the previous five. It does a good job of portraying how the yakuza life eternally affects the families and friends of those involved. The scene where the man thinks the rival gang has backed off and decides to celebrate his pending fatherhood only to then be murdered after all is kind of devastating. Decently solid, if not that exciting. And definitely not the comedy I thought it was, ha!

How it entered my Flickchart:
Outlaw: Kill! < De-Lovely
Outlaw: Kill! > The Final Countdown
Outlaw: Kill! > Nine
Outlaw: Kill! > Fantastic Mr. Fox
Outlaw: Kill! < Heartbeat
Outlaw: Kill! < Away From Her
Outlaw: Kill! > Lazer Team
Outlaw: Kill! < The Commitments
Outlaw: Kill! < King Kong (2005)
Outlaw: Kill! < Inland Empire
Outlaw: Kill! > First Blood
Outlaw: Kill! < Gothika

Final spot: #1758 out of 3174.

A Monster Calls (2016)

IMDb plot summary: A boy seeks the help of a tree monster to cope with his single mother's terminal illness.
Directed by J.A. Bayona. Starring Lewis MacDougall, Sigourneey Weaver, Felicity Jones, and Liam Neeson.

I just finished reading this book, so I tossed the movie into my watchlist. And honestly I think reading the book first helped a lot. I liked but didn't love the book, but that's because I think this story demanded to be portrayed visually. The image of the yew tree is so striking, and the animation portions telling the tree's three stories brought them to life so much more than reading them did. And knowing the narrative trajectory of the book, I found myself tearing up at moments that weren't even particularly sad, just because I knew the significance of that moment going forward. And then when it hit, it hit HARD for me and I just sobbed my way through the final half hour or so. Performances here are lovely, even Felicity Jones (who I typically find bland at best and irritating at worst), and overall the film just wormed its way deep into my heart. It's exactly what I love from my genre fiction/magic realism -- fantastical things that highlight and explore a facet of the human experience. And this does it beautifully.

How it entered my Flickchart:
A Monster Calls > Waxwork
A Monster Calls > Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
A Monster Calls > The Maltese Falcon (1941)
A Monster Calls > Jerry Maguire
A Monster Calls < Ordinary People
A Monster Calls > In Bruges
A Monster Calls > The Terminator
A Monster Calls > Emma (1996)
A Monster Calls > Desk Set
A Monster Calls < Catch Me If You Can
A Monster Calls > All the President's Men
Final spot: #103 out of 3173.

Solaris (1968)

IMDb plot summary: Kris Kelvin joins the space station orbiting the planet Solaris, only to find its two crew members plagued by "phantoms," creations of Solaris. Kelvin is soon confronted with his own phantom, taking the shape of his dead wife Hari.
Directed by Lidiya Ishimbaeva and Boris Nirenburg. Starring Vasiliy Lanovoy, Antonina Pilyus, Vladimir Etush, and Viktor Zozulin.

This is now the third adaptation of this story I've seen, and it sits right in the middle for me. The narrative itself is a fascinating one, and this one neither obstructs the narrative nor enhances it. From what I can tell it's a very straightforward retelling, and though I don't find myself particularly drawn to or compelled by any of the characters through their performances, I can connect with it on a big picture narrative level. The themes of guilt and loss and humanity are strong in this and come through clearly. I'll still always choose to watch Soderbergh's adaptation over this, but I'm glad I got to see this.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Solaris > Waxwork
Solaris < Victor/Victoria (1982)
Solaris < War Horse
Solaris < I Am Legend
Solaris > Finding Vivian Maier
Solaris < The Call
Solaris > Cambio de ruta
Solaris < Sinbad of the Seven Seas
Solaris < The Blues Brothers
Solaris > Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Solaris > Charulata
Solaris > Yankee Doodle Dandy
Final spot: #1455 out of 3172.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

IMDb plot summary: On the outskirts of Whoville lives a green, revenge-seeking Grinch who plans to ruin Christmas for all of the citizens of the town.
Directed by Ron Howard. Starring Jim Carrey, Taylor Momsen, Jeffrey Tambor, and Christine Baranski.

The original Dr. Seuss story and cartoon starring Boris Karloff is one of my favorites, and I'd heard horrible things about this. And it's pretty bad, but not for the reasons I expected. I figured I'd be irritated by Jim Carrey's over-the-top antics, but while those didn't work for me, none of them dragged on, they were nearly all dumb but quick so I didn't have time to get REALLY irritated at them. I was more irritated by the fact that the movie felt that it needed to give the Whos a redemption arc too, making the Grinch wholly in the right when he decided they needed to have their gifts taken from them. The movie also looks SO ugly, with this hideous snowy haze over the whole thing, which makes the Seussian designs look more nightmarish than playful. To the film's credit, I did laugh once (right at the end, when the Grinch struggled to sing along with the Whos' nonsense words). But yeah, it's a messy one I don't plan to revisit any time soon.

How it entered my Flickchart:
How the Grinch Stole Christmas < Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas < The Chocolate War
How the Grinch Stole Christmas > Seven Pounds
How the Grinch Stole Christmas > Analyze This
How the Grinch Stole Christmas < Persona
How the Grinch Stole Christmas > A Farewell to Fools
How the Grinch Stole Christmas < Premonition
How the Grinch Stole Christmas < Marathon Man
How the Grinch Stole Christmas > Rancho Notorious
How the Grinch Stole Christmas < Lincoln
How the Grinch Stole Christmas < The Black Stallion
How the Grinch Stole Christmas < Start the Revolution Without Me
Final spot: #2520 out of 3171.

Great Expectations (1946)

IMDb plot summary: A humble orphan suddenly becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor.
Directed by David Lean. Starring John Mills, Tony Wager, Valerie Hobson, and Jean Simmons.

I am so sorry to begin this with a pun but I think I'm obligated to. I had low expectations for Great Expectations. I've read the book and am like 90% sure I saw some random adaptation of it as a child and didn't like either at all, and most Dickens film adaptations sit pretty flat for me. But this one *pops*. The characters are beautifully vivid, and while I'd typically attribute that to the acting, it's that way across the board so I think it must be something about the way David Lean worked with actors. (I remember admiring his Oliver Twist as well, though not quite to this extent.) The cinematography, particularly in the decrepit mansion, is stunning and lends just the right amount of gothic horror without feeling gross. I still think Estella and Pip make a terrible couple and would be much happier if the story didn't end by awkwardly shoving them together, but this is probably the most convincing interpretation of that ending I've seen. Really beautifully done.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Great Expectations > Melinda and Melinda
Great Expectations > Shall We Dance? (2004)
Great Expectations < The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Great Expectations < Big Trouble in Little China
Great Expectations > Taxi Driver
Great Expectations > Ninotchka
Great Expectations > Paul
Great Expectations < The Muppet Movie
Great Expectations < Mars Attacks!
Great Expectations > Rise of the Guardians
Great Expectations > The Incredibles
Great Expectations > Megamind
Final spot: #613 out of 3170.

Port of Shadows (1938)

IMDb plot summary: A military deserter finds love and trouble (and a small dog) in a smoky French port city.
Directed by Marcel Carné. Starring Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan, and Pierre Brasseur.

(Spoilers.)

There are pieces of this I appreciate. I found the fog theme to be very atmospheric throughout, both in how it showed up visually and in how it was spoken about. I thought it was intriguing how much of the story focused on the romance with no femme fatale, which is the trope I more commonly see in noir. (Genuinely wondered for a tiny bit if they were going to end up happily together.) I was wildly intrigued by the tiny section of the story where the painter drowns himself -- I wanted to know more about him than any other character in this film. Which comes back to the fact that noir nearly always treads the same familiar ground and, despite a few things standing out, in the end it followed the expected trajectory and left me cold. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think it'll stick with me.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Port of Shadows > I'm Not Rappaport
Port of Shadows < Shall We Dance? (2004)
Port of Shadows < Poltergeist
Port of Shadows < Cabaret
Port of Shadows < Monsters
Port of Shadows > Smokin' Aces
Port of Shadows > Jumanji
Port of Shadows < Lucky Number Slevin
Port of Shadows < The Major and the Minor
Port of Shadows < Kinky Boots the Musical
Port of Shadows < A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Port of Shadows < The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Final spot: #1510 out of 3169.

How to Irritate People (1968)

IMDb plot summary: In this mock-documentary, John Cleese narrates a series of sketches on irritation -- types and techniques.
Directed by Ian Fordyce. Starring John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, and Michael Palin.

Unsurprisingly, this mostly feels like just a longer themed episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus (though the show came later), and like many of them, some pieces are better than others. I actually maybe enjoyed John Cleese's mini monologues in between more than most of the sketches -- they had some very clever bits, while the sketches suffered a little bit from samey-ness, given the consistent theme. This is also the second film from my 1968 project that involved brownface for an Indian character, but it was much grosser here than in The Party. Overall, an inconsistent effort.

How it entered my Flickchart:
How to Irritate People < Melinda and Melinda
How to Irritate People > Green Book
How to Irritate People < The Women
How to Irritate People > Avengers: Endgame
How to Irritate People > 12 Days of Terror
How to Irritate People > Sweet and Lowdown
How to Irritate People > Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
How to Irritate People < Dark City
How to Irritate People < Confessions of a Shopaholic
How to Irritate People > Captain Marvel
How to Irritate People < The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Final spot: #2001 out of 3168.

Brightburn (2019)

IMDb plot summary: What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more sinister?
Directed by David Yaroveksy. Starring Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, and Abraham Clinkscales.

OOOF. So this is NOT good. And it's sad, because it's such a great premise and falls off the deep end so quickly. It's not at all clear why Brandon goes evil in the first place -- is he possessed? Was he always a psychopath? We never see him as a "normal child," so we have no idea. It tries to hinge its scariness on the sudden shift on this child's behavior, but since we never saw the before, the after isn't nearly as haunting. The scary scenes are shot so dramatically that I couldn't help but giggle at nearly every moment I think was supposed to be unsettling. The only pieces of this I can say really worked were the premise of the movie overall and the one person who got murdered by flying up into the atmosphere. That was a cool, weird scene, and I wish the movie had been smart enough to make the rest of the scenes that purposefully weird.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Brightburn < The Italian Job (2003)
Brightburn < Green Book
Brightburn < The Tribe
Brightburn < Celebrity
Brightburn > The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
Brightburn > Devil
Brightburn < Free Willy
Brightburn > The Notebook
Brightburn > Holy Motors
Brightburn > Solaris (1972)
Brightburn > Morvern Callar
Final spot: #2996 out of 3167.

Black Rose (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A Russian Police Major is enlisted by the LAPD to help solve a series of gruesome murders perpetrated against young women by a sadistic sociopathic killer on the mean streets of Hollywood.
Directed by Alexander Nevsky. Starring Alexander Nevsky, Kristanna Loken, Adrian Paul, and Robert Davi.

A pretty bland crime movie overall, but I did find the patter between the two leads actually moderately enjoyable, if cheesy. Other than that, though, it follows just about every predictable pattern possible. When the killer is finally revealed, it's treated like a much more significant moment than it was given that I'd completely forgotten this character existed. Definitely a throwaway movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Black Rose < Melinda and Melinda
Black Rose < Snatch.
Black Rose > The Tribe
Black Rose < The Right Stuff
Black Rose < Spinning Into Butter
Black Rose > Live Free or Die Hard
Black Rose < Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Black Rose < Seasons of the Heart
Black Rose < The Hiding Place
Black Rose < Penelope
Final spot: #2721 out of 3166.