Pacific Rim (2013)

IMDb plot summary: As a war between humankind and monstrous sea creatures wages on, a former pilot and a trainee are paired up to drive a seemingly obsolete special weapon in a desperate effort to save the world from the apocalypse.

Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Starring Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, and Charlie Day.

If you mostly tune into this movie expecting some big dramatic kind-of-cool scenes of giant monsters fighting giant robots, you're going to be very pleased. If you tune into it expecting powerful character development or spooky gothic atmosphere like many of Del Toro's other movies, it won't do so well. I find the male lead in particular pretty insufferable and wish almost anybody but him in this ensemble cast had been chosen to center the movie. Writing up this review a few days after watching it, all I really remember is the chaotic fight scenes, and that's probably all it was meant to do, but I did find myself wanting something more from it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Pacific Rim < Dark and Stormy Night

Pacific Rim > The Lorax (1972)

Pacific Rim > No Sudden Move

Pacific Rim < The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

Pacific Rim < The Shop Around the Corner

Pacific Rim > Jurassic World

Pacific Rim > Jezebel

Pacific Rim > Streets of Fire

Pacific Rim < The Fourth Kind

Pacific Rim > Office Space

Pacific Rim < Blow Out

Final spot: #2040 out of 3421, or 40%.

The Sparks Brothers (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A musical odyssey through five weird and wonderful decades with Ron and Russell Mael celebrating the inspiring legacy of Sparks.

Directed by Edgar Wright.

I knew absolutely nothing about this band going into this film, but came out of it thoroughly intrigued. The group has had widely varying degrees of commercial success throughout their career, but continued to push out music and experiment with new styles and sounds, sometimes resulting in wild shifts in tone from record to record. The film follows them chronologically, so even as the music changes, we get to see how one led to the next, led to the next, which made for a beautifully cohesive way of understanding their work. Wright is, of course, a fantastically energetic director and turns out to be a great fit for this genre-pushing, norm-defying group, as he shapes their saga with such enthusiasm for the work they did. They seem to be an interesting band to begin with, and I definitely intend to listen to some more of them, but watching Wright nerd out for them for two hours was a great way to catch the spirit of what they were doing.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Sparks Brothers > Dark and Stormy Night

The Sparks Brothers < Anna Karenina

The Sparks Brothers < Being John Malkovich

The Sparks Brothers < Natural Born Killers

The Sparks Brothers < The Chalk Garden

The Sparks Brothers > Julie & Julia

The Sparks Brothers > It Had to Be You

The Sparks Brothers < Hamlet (2000)

The Sparks Brothers > Cypher

The Sparks Brothers < Connie and Carla

The Sparks Brothers > Raising Arizona

Final spot: #1620 out of 3419, or 53%.

No Sudden Move (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A group of criminals are brought together under mysterious circumstances and have to work together to uncover what's really going on when their simple job goes completely sideways.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Starring Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, David Harbour, and Jon Hamm.

Steven Soderbergh directed this movie, and it's definitely got some of his hallmarks. It's a slick, fast-paced heist crime story with unexpected moments of humor scattered throughout. Like many stories in this genre, I find myself getting tired of the endless twists and double crosses and new characters being introduced all the time, but this film does a good job of keeping an emotional center to the story and helping us navigate the world's twistiness through just one or two characters. Despite being set in the 1950s, it feels unusually modern -- I kept genuinely forgetting it was a period piece until suddenly something would feel out of place and I'd remember where we were. It's pretty solidly put together, if not something that I'm going to remember a year down the line.

How it entered my Flickchart:

No Sudden Move < The Keep

No Sudden Move > Play It Again, Sam

No Sudden Move < National Treasure

No Sudden Move > Miss Potter

No Sudden Move > The Trouble With Angels

No Sudden Move > Birdman of Alcatraz

No Sudden Move > Teacher of the Year

No Sudden Move > Double Jeopardy

No Sudden Move > National Velvet

No Sudden Move > Run Lola Run

No Sudden Move > A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Final spot: #2138 out of 3418, or 37%.

Possession (1981)

IMDb plot summary: A woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister.

Directed by Andrzej Zulawski. Starring Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Margit Carstensen, and Heinz Bennent.

This was absolutely terrifying. One of those films where even if you're not entirely sure of what's causing things to happen, you know that something is VERY WRONG. I knew Isabelle Adjani's performance was noteworthy going into this, and it absolutely is, one of the most unsettling things I've ever seen, particularly that subway scene, but also throughout. But Sam Neill is also deeply unsettling, a character who acts with such sociopathy but is completely unaware that there's anything wrong with him. I do wish I knew what this movie was trying to be *about*. I was fascinated by the wild and terrifying ride through this couple's life, but it all feels a little empty for me at the end. It's undeniably effective though, and while I don't particularly want to rewatch it, I'm glad I saw it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Possession > Dark and Stormy Night

Possession < Anna Karenina

Possession > Being John Malkovich

Possession < L'atalante

Possession < Meet Joe Black

Possession > Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Possession > Inherit the Wind

Possession < Good Time

Possession > The Exterminating Angel

Possession < Lethal Weapon

Possession > The Meg

Final spot: #1191 out of 3417, or 65%.

The Fugitive Kind (1959)

IMDb plot summary: Valentine "Snakeskin" Xavier, a trouble-prone drifter trying to go straight, wanders into a small Mississippi town looking for a simple and honest life but finds himself embroiled with problem-filled women.

Directed by Sidney Lumet. Starring Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, and Maureen Stapleton.

Sidney Lumet is such a great fit for Williams' work. He makes melodrama believable without taking away how larger-than-life it is, but instead blends it all together almost seamlessly. Brando's steamy persona may work even better here than in his other Williams work I've seen, A Streetcar Named Desire, because here we sense that he IS a good person fighting old habits. Anna Magnani is also truly wonderful as Lady Torrance, garnering a tremendous amount of sympathy for the terrible position in which she finds herself. It's not the finest work of any of the talented people involved here, but it is solid and worth checking out, especially if you're a fan of Williams, Lumet, or Brando.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Fugitive Kind > Dark and Stormy Night

The Fugitive Kind > Anna Karenina

The Fugitive Kind < The Great Muppet Caper

The Fugitive Kind > Super 8

The Fugitive Kind < Cloud Atlas

The Fugitive Kind > Cats and Dogs

The Fugitive Kind < Jojo Rabbit

The Fugitive Kind < The Player

The Fugitive Kind < See You Yesterday

The Fugitive Kind < Queen of Katwe

The Fugitive Kind > Loving Vincent

The Fugitive Kind < Eat Drink Man Woman

Final spot: #584 out of 3416, or 83%.

Come and See (1985)

IMDb plot summary: After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.

Directed by Elem Klimov. Starring Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevicius, and Vladas Bagdonas.

This film has a mix of hyperrealism and surrealism that feels like a living nightmares, especially in those moments when it crosses from one to the other and you can't quite tell where you are yet. This is definitely not what you could call an enjoyable movie. It's difficult and unpleasant and at times just horrible to watch, but I think it accomplishes everything it sets out to do. I've seen enough war movies that I often find it too easy to see the strings pulling me to care, but this film broke through that and affected me on a deep emotional level. The use of sound and shots of people looking directly into the camera are especially effective, and 13-year-old Aleksei Kravchenko, who plays the central character, is astonishing in the role, though reading about the making of the film made me uncomfortable with how hard they worked to get that performance out of him, with some rumored techniques being just straight-up abusive. Fortunately he seems to be doing OK these days. That caveat aside, this is a movie I'm glad I saw, even if I couldn't say I liked watching it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Come and See > Frank

Come and See < Anna Karenina

Come and See > Fantasia 2000

Come and See > Waitress

Come and See > Being There

Come and See < Fear of a Black Hat

Come and See < The Woodsman

Come and See > Hoodwinked!

Come and See > Song of the Sea

Come and See < 42 Up

Come and See > Gone Baby Gone

Final spot: #937 out of 3415, or 73%.

Land (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A bereaved woman seeks out a new life, off the grid in Wyoming.

Directed by Robin Wright. Starring Robin Wright, Demián Bichir, Sarah Dawn Pledge, and Kim Dickens.

This is a slow, thoughtful movie with an abundance of nature scenes. It takes on a unique tone having a female protagonist, as nearly all "hurt person becomes a hermit after losing their family" stories are centered on men, and Robin Wright's character here brings a different vibe to the movie. The film includes long sequences with very little dialogue, where we just watch the character cope with her new life, and while part of me definitely zoned out a little bit in these scenes that felt like some sort of survivalist documentary, it also very nicely captures the ebb and flow of the time she spends there. At the end of the film, when she mentions two years have passed since she moved in, that doesn't feel startling or unexpected, even though that time hasn't been marked throughout the film. It's not a film that speaks to my interests specifically but it's well done and worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Land > Frank

Land < Anna Karenina

Land < Charlie St. Cloud

Land < Real Life

Land > Drunken Master

Land < Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical

Land > Jeff, Who Lives At Home

Land > John Carter

Land > The Room

Land < Badlands

Land > 21

Final spot: #1550 out of 3414, or 55%.

The Last Seduction (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A devious sexpot steals her husband's drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.

Directed by John Dahl. Starring Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, and Michael Raysses.

This has all the earmarks of your traditional femme fatale neo-noir, with one exception I can't quite explain: I LOVE this character. Don't get me wrong, she's a terrible person, but it's just so fascinating to watch her work and see what she wants and how she hopes to get it. Roger Ebert said in his review that the film "knows how much we enjoy seeing a character work boldly outside the rules," and I think that captures it perfectly. She has so few qualms and is played so perfectly by Linda Fiorentino that it's kind of an exhilarating ride. It's hard to feel much sympathy for the men in her life she's taking advantage of either, with their mean streaks and wobbly ethics. There is an unfortunate bit of transphobia toward the end that comes out of nowhere and has no bearing on the plot, but it's still something I wish the movie didn't contain, as I found myself kind of captivated by the rest of it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Last Seduction > Fahrenheit 451

The Last Seduction < Anna Karenina

The Last Seduction > Fantasia 2000

The Last Seduction > Waitress

The Last Seduction > Being There

The Last Seduction < Jesus Christ Superstar

The Last Seduction < The Ten Commandments (1956)

The Last Seduction < Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book

The Last Seduction < Nerve

The Last Seduction < Gentleman's Agreement

The Last Seduction < The Front Page (1974)

The Last Seduction > 13th

Final spot: #958 out of 3413, or 72%.

The Last Dragon (1985)

IMDb plot summary: In New York City, a young man searches for a Master to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as the Glow.

Directed by Michael Schultz. Starring Taimak, Vanity, Christopher Murney, and Julius Carry.

This is not a terribly clear narrative. What it is is a love letter to older martial arts movies. It clearly loves them so much and wants to do its own version with a Black lead, and it's mostly successful in that. The characters are drawn in very broad strokes in the sense that you can gather who is "good" and "bad," even if their motives are a bit muddier. It's got quite a few moments that made me chuckle, particularly as our naive lead character interacts inside of his sort of "zen martial arts master persona," and the moments when those cross paths with the real world are charmingly goofy. I haven't yet mentioned our other antagonist, who I believe is a rival martial artist gang leader, who really takes on an outlandish larger-than-life quality every time he and his entourage appear on screen. None of this is my genre, really, but I enjoy what it tries to do and it makes me smile.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Last Dragon > Fahrenheit 451

The Last Dragon < Safe

The Last Dragon < Charlie St. Cloud

The Last Dragon < Real Life

The Last Dragon < Drunken Master

The Last Dragon < Captain Phillips

The Last Dragon > Vampyr

The Last Dragon < Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

The Last Dragon > Cambio de ruta

The Last Dragon > The Anderson Tapes

The Last Dragon < The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair

Final spot: #1669 out of 3412, or 51%.

Man of La Mancha (1972)

IMDb plot summary: The funny story of mad but kind and chivalrous elderly nobleman Don Quixote who, aided by his squire Sancho Panza, fights windmills that are seen as dragons to save prostitute Dulcinea who is seen as a noblewoman.

Directed by Arthur Hiller. Starring Peter O'Toole, Sophia Loren, James Coco, and Harry Andrews.

While I've never seen the theatrical show, this is, as far as I understand, a pretty faithful adaptation of it, with nearly all songs intact. The songs are still powerful and beautifully crafted, but this film never quite holds together. Some of that is probably due to the less-than-stellar vocals provided by O'Toole and Loren (though Loren struggles more by far) which tamps down some of the grandiose nature of the songs. These characters sound the way they look, just like regular everyday people with no special gifts, and that makes it a little harder to enter into Quixote's imaginary world of extraordinary beauty. Additionally, there's an unexpected amount of slapstick in this film, especially early on, with O'Toole giving comedic eye rolls to the camera just before falling over after an injury. It has some good moments, and some of the musical numbers actually work pretty well as standalone pieces, but it struggles to hold its vision together and never quite reaches greatness.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Man of La Mancha > The Misfits

Man of La Mancha < Safe

Man of La Mancha < Charlie St. Cloud

Man of La Mancha < Real Life

Man of La Mancha > Mr. Nice Guy

Man of La Mancha > The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Man of La Mancha < Minority Report

Man of La Mancha > The Bishop's Wife

Man of La Mancha > The Client

Man of La Mancha < VeggieTales: Josh and the Big Wall!

Man of La Mancha < My Favorite Year

Man of La Mancha > The Guard

Final spot: #1523 out of 3411, or 55%.

Grand Illusion (1937)

IMDb plot summary: During WWI, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German P.O.W. camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are eventually sent to a seemingly inescapable fortress.

Directed by Jean Renoir. Starring Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, and Erich von Stroheim.

While on first glance this film doesn't resonate very deeply with me, it is vital to remember the foundation it laid for other films I've seen before. There's a scene where the French soldiers defiantly sing "La Marseillaise," and I immediately recognized the thread leading from this to a similar scene in Casablanca, one of my all-time favorite films. And virtually all great prison escape films owe a debt of gratitude to the characters and narratives spun here. I'm also intrigued by the relationship shown between the head of the camp and one of the more aristocratic prisoners, who form a bond around their shared understanding of class even though they are on completely opposite sides of the war. This one finally completes the Flickchart Global Top 100 for me, and I'm glad to have had the push to finally see it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Grand Illusion < Fahrenheit 451

Grand Illusion > The Professional

Grand Illusion > Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Grand Illusion > Almost Famous

Grand Illusion > Out of Africa

Grand Illusion < Mrs. Miniver

Grand Illusion > Dunkirk

Grand Illusion > The Lighthouse

Grand Illusion > The Dinner Guest

Grand Illusion > New Faces

Grand Illusion < The Firemen's Ball

Final spot: #1761 out of 3410, or 48%.

Luca (2021)

IMDb plot summary: On the Italian Riviera, an unlikely but strong friendship grows between a human being and a sea monster disguised as a human.

Directed by Enrico Casarosa. Starring Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, and Saverio Raimondo.

This is the first Pixar film I've seen in awhile that felt decidedly *for* children. That isn't a bad thing by any means, children deserve their own art too, and it deserves to be good, and this is definitely that, but it didn't really have any of the deeper, more complex moments I've come to expect from the studio based on their other films. No tugging on my heartstrings here, really. The characters are cute, the plot a well-structured one that definitely is reminiscent of The Little Mermaid, the sea monster design is delightful, and the relationships between the characters are relatable. I have no true complaints about it, it's a quality film, but I am not the audience here and don't embrace it as wholeheartedly as I might have as a child.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Luca > The Misfits

Luca < Safe

Luca > Charlie St. Cloud

Luca > The Artist

Luca > Being There

Luca > Jesus Christ Superstar

Luca > Crocodile Dundee

Luca < The Black Cat

Luca < Barton Fink

Luca < Miss Saigon: 25th Anniversary Cast

Luca < SubUrbia

Luca > Baby Driver

Final spot: #877 out of 3409, or 74%.

Space Sweepers (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Set in the year 2092 and follows the crew of a space junk collector ship called The Victory. When they discover a humanoid robot named Dorothy that's known to be a weapon of mass destruction, they get involved in a risky business deal.

Directed by Sung-hee Jo. Starring Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Seon-kyu, and Hae-Jin Yoo.

This movie isn't quite as clever as it wants to be when it comes to its narrative, but the world setup does feel incredibly prescient, as I watched this just a few days before the news was filled of billionaires buying their own spaceships and going to space, so that world feels only a decade or two a way. Aside from that, though, it's a fairly by-the-book story that thinks it's saying much bigger things about humanity than it actually is. A lot of the narrative beats fall right into the regular "tough guys meet a child who changes them" tropes, and most of that falls a little flat. Worth exploring the world, less worth exploring this particular narrative.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Space Sweepers > The Misfits

Space Sweepers < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Space Sweepers > Fantasia 2000

Space Sweepers < The Artist

Space Sweepers < Men in Black III

Space Sweepers < The Long Day Closes

Space Sweepers < Nobody's Fool

Space Sweepers < Joker

Space Sweepers > Stalag 17

Space Sweepers > The Mauritanian

Space Sweepers < Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

Final spot: #1268 out of 3408, or 63%.

The Piano (1993)

IMDb plot summary: In the mid-19th century, a mute woman is sent to New Zealand along with her young daughter and prized piano for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner, but is soon lusted after by a local worker on the plantation.

Directed by Jane Campion. Starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin.

While I'll remain vague about how it ends, there is so much about this movie that set off uncomfortable alarm bells for me, especially in the dynamic between the women and the two men she's involved with. It most certainly seems to be telling a specific story of a specific woman's specific unique-to-her circumstances, rather than identifying what makes a relationship good or bad, but I certainly can't root for what the story ultimate wants me to root for, even when it seems that it's what the sympathetic main character (maybe?) wants. It's a compelling story, but a troubling one, and while it tries to wrap it up neatly at the end, I remained troubled by it long after the credits rolled.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Piano < The Misfits

The Piano > Firewall

The Piano > The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

The Piano > Hysteria

The Piano > I'm Not Rappaport

The Piano < Twisted Nerve

The Piano > The Madness of King George

The Piano < The Baby-Sitters Club (1995)

The Piano > Chocolat

The Piano > Stage Fright (2014)

The Piano > Jack Strong

The Piano < Unbroken

Final spot: #1772 out of 3407, or 48%.