Street of Chance (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A big-time, but honest gambler has to prevent his younger brother from following in his footsteps, and taking up gambling.

Directed by John Cromwell. Starring William Powell, Jean Arthur, and Kay Francis.

Street of Chance stars William Powell as a successful gambler in the big city. His wife, however, has left him because of his gambling, and he decides to give it all up, only for his younger brother to show up determined to make his own future in gambling. The boy has no idea that his older brother has been making a living gambling; he thinks he's been doing stock exchange of some sort, and so William Powell has no choice but to try to set him on the right path. The stakes in this are high and simple and clear, and even though the story itself plays out pretty straightforwardly it's engaging and compelling to watch. It's a familiar "one last heist" story, but centered around gambling. The script does more of the heavy lifting than the actors -- William Powell seems so understated that it would be hard to always tell when things are really at stake if the script didn't tell you so -- but overall the movie works and is an interesting watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Street of Chance < Gas Food Lodging

Street of Chance > Monkey Business (1952)

Street of Chance > Flypaper

Street of Chance < Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Street of Chance > Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Street of Chance > If...

Street of Chance > Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

Street of Chance < Laura

Street of Chance > Bill Cunningham New York

Street of Chance > Almost Famous

Street of Chance < The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

Final spot: #2006 out of 3535, or 43%.

Earth (1930)

IMDb plot summary: In the peaceful countryside, Vassily opposes the rich kulaks over the coming of collective farming.

Directed by Aleksandr Dovzhenko. Starring Stepan Shkurat, Semyon Svashenko, and Yuliya Solntseva.

Earth is a 1930 Soviet Union film about a community being pushed to undergo collectivization, where individual farms are integrated into larger collectively-owned or state-owned farms. The film captures the varying responses to this, with the younger characters excited about how the new program will help them farm more effectively and efficiently with technology, and their fathers wishing to hold to the old ways of things and to keep private ownership of their land. Interestingly enough, the movie was initially praised by the Soviet Union and then shortly thereafter began to be seen as having a confusing or ambiguous political message and began to be equally parts praised and lambasted. I think that speaks to the humanness of the story being told, that it's so easy to sympathize with both sets of characters as the story is told. What does make for more compelling story makes for less clear and less desirable propaganda. This was a movie that was more interesting to me as a historical relic than as a story in and of itself but I'm glad I watched it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Earth < The Harder They Fall

Earth > Monkey Business (1952)

Earth < The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Earth < State Fair (1946)

Earth > Gangs of New York

Earth > Sweet Revenge

Earth > Sliding Doors

Earth > Pat and Mike

Earth < Winter's Bone

Earth > The Milagro Beanfield War

Earth > Steel Magnolias

Final spot: #2436 out of 3531, or 31%.

Finch (2021)

IMDb plot summary: On a post-apocalyptic Earth, a robot, built to protect the life of his creator's beloved dog learns about life, love, friendship and what it means to be human.

Directed by Miguel Sapochnik. Starring Tom Hanks, Caleb Landry Jones, and Marie Wagenman.

Finch stars Tom Hanks as our lone protagonist, one of the few remaining survivors after a solar flare and an EMP killed all electronics and made being outside in the sun impossible and deadly. Finch knows that he is dying of radiation poisoning and decides to make a robot to take care of his dog after he has passed on. Together, he, the robot, and the dog make their way toward the West Coast to see the Golden Gate Bridge before Finch dies. This movie is such a strange combination of tones. You have this genuinely disquieting post-apocalyptic story that feels not too terribly distant from the world we're in now, and then we have a fully sentient alive robot that feels more like we're leaning into 1980s children's adventure movies, and then on top of that it's a sentimental "man traveling with a child story." None of these pieces really fit together nicely for me, especially the last, which usually made me roll my eyes every time the robot would say something expectedly precocious and wise. There are definitely better "last man alive" stories and better "robot and man" stories. This one is mostly just cringe-y.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Finch < Monsters

Finch < War of the Buttons (1994)

Finch < Scrooged

Finch > Chicken Little

Finch > Outsourced

Finch > Basic

Finch < VeggieTales: The Star of Christmas

Finch < Five Children and It

Finch < No Reservations

Finch < The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Finch < The Princess and the Goblin

Finch < The Spy Next Door

Final spot: #3144 out of 3530, or 11%.

The Big Trail (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Breck Coleman leads hundreds of settlers in covered wagons from the Mississippi River to their destiny out West.

Directed by Raoul Walsh. Starring John Wayne, Marguerite Churchill, and El Brendel.

The Big Trail turns out to be John Wayne's very first starring role. I didn't realize that when I started watching it. He plays a scout for a group of wagon trains heading across the country to Oregon. There are varying plots going around in the different wagons, but the main two are the young woman that Wayne's character falls in love with but who won't give him the time of day, and the three men leading the wagon train who turn out to be murderers and scoundrels. While westerns are very much not my genre, I really enjoyed seeing both a very young John Wayne and a very straightforward story with some really interesting visual effects and cinematography work. The scenes where the wagons are being lowered down the cliffs or where they have to ford the river really bring the harrowing nature of the trek they're all making. The personal drama doesn't do as much for me, but there are some great filmmaking techniques here and it's probably worth watching if you like the genre to begin with.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Big Trail < Monsters

The Big Trail > War of the Buttons (1994)

The Big Trail > Sullivan's Travels

The Big Trail < A Star Is Born (2018)

The Big Trail < Deep Red

The Big Trail > The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Big Trail < Legends of the Fall

The Big Trail > Naked Lunch

The Big Trail > Fun Size

The Big Trail < Hello, Dolly!

The Big Trail > No Country for Old Men

Final spot: #2127 out of 3529, or 40%.

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Presents an in-depth, intimate character portrait exploring the life and career and mysterious circumstances surrounding the tragic death of 90's actress and rising star, Brittany Murphy.

Directed by Cynthia Hill.

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? is a documentary looking at the mysterious and unexpected and sudden death of actress Brittany Murphy back in 2009. Questions surrounded her death, as it seemed to come out of nowhere. It was attributed to anemia and pneumonia, but things just got weirder from there. For example, her husband died shortly after -- of the exact same thing. The documentary looks all different kinds of fan theories, including poisoning and mold and deliberate medical neglect, but, just like the real world, it's unable to fully draw a conclusion. What it does do is make me interested in going back and watching the filmography of Brittany Murphy. I've seen very little of her work, but the documentary really paints her as somebody who had a lot to give and was taken from us too early. Since this wasn't ever going to be able to solve the mystery the way a true-crime documentary wants to, it's nice that they at least gave me an interest in the subject that I didn't have before. So kudos to them on that.

How it entered my Flickchart:

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? < Hustle & Flow

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > War of the Buttons (1994)

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > Sullivan's Travels

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > A Star Is Born (2018)

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? < The Mistress of Spices

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > Top Gun

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? < The Lion in Winter (2003)

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > A Foreign Affair

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? < Swing Time

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > Lost in America

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > Trumbo

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? > You'll Never Get Rich

Final spot: #1909 out of 3528, or 46%.

Morocco (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A cabaret singer and a Legionnaire fall in love, but their relationship is complicated by the results of his womanizing and due to the appearance of a rich man who wants her for himself.

Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Starring Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, and Adolphe Menjou.

Morocco tells the story of a romance between a soldier and a nightclub singer in World War I Morocco. He's a womanizer, and she might just be the woman that gets him to settle down. Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich play the main two, and while Dietrich is really relatable in this, Cooper is not. He plays a wildly unpleasant, quick-to-fight soldier who thinks that it's his job to fix everything, and I'm not really excited to see Dietrich chasing after him as if he's anything worth chasing. On top of that, the story and how it builds is really not very interesting. I'm writing this review a couple days after watching it and I had to go look up on Wikipedia to find out how it ended because it had so little impact on me that I genuinely did not remember. It may be worth the watch if you're a big fan of Dietrich -- she does have some good song-and-dance numbers -- but otherwise it's probably one that you can skip.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Morocco < Hustle & Flow

Morocco < War of the Buttons

Morocco > In Cold Blood

Morocco > Alfie (2004)

Morocco > A Most Wanted Man

Morocco < The Cocoanuts

Morocco < Magic in the Moonlight

Morocco > Copying Beethoven

Morocco < My Dinner with Andre

Morocco < Spirits of the Dead

Morocco < Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Morocco > Get Smart

Final spot: #2741 out of 3527, or 22%.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.

Directed by Lewis Milestone. Starring Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, and John Wray.

All Quiet on the Western Front is based on the book of the same name, about a German Soldier fighting on the front lines of World War I. We follow him from his early recruitment all the way up until he revisits his home and finds that it's not at all the way he remembers it. The film follows the soldier and his classmates, who were all recruited at the same time by their school teacher. While big war battle sequences are not my thing, I was very moved by the sections in which the soldier goes home and tries to enjoy his leave. He has to deal with people making broad statements about what the people at the front should or shouldn't be doing, as well as revisiting his old classroom and hearing the school teacher say the same bits of rhetoric without any nuance or understanding behind them. A very powerful early anti-war movie that holds up really well now.

How it entered my Flickchart:

All Quiet on the Western Front > Hustle & Flow

All Quiet on the Western Front < Long Day's Journey Into Night

All Quiet on the Western Front > Talk Radio

All Quiet on the Western Front < Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

All Quiet on the Western Front < Nine to Five

All Quiet on the Western Front > Backbeat

All Quiet on the Western Front < Say Anything...

All Quiet on the Western Front < Panic Room

All Quiet on the Western Front > Can You Ever Forgive Me?

All Quiet on the Western Front > The Detective

All Quiet on the Western Front < Laurence Anyways

Final spot: #1256 out of 3526, or 64%.

Just Imagine (1930)

IMDb plot summary: New York, 1980: airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food, government-arranged marriages have replaced love, and test tube babies have replaced ... well, you get the idea. Scientists revive a man struck by lightning in 1930.

Directed by David Butler. Starring El Brendel, Maureen O'Sullivan, and John Garrick.

Just Imagine is a 1930 sci-fi comedy set in the distant future of 1980. In this future, we all have numbers instead of names, the government chooses who you marry, and your food is delivered to you in pill form. A dead man from the 1930s is brought back to life in 1980, and he and his friends walk around seeing how different life is now. This was the first movie I watched to kick-off my 1930 project where I'm trying to watch 100 movies from that year and it was a really fun one to start with. It is, of course, fun to look back at 1980 as the far future and the guesses that they made about it, but it's also just a genuine enjoyable movie... especially when they unexpectedly end up on Mars and have to fight Martians. Our 1930 everyman is a lot of fun. It's overall a silly, unique little movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Just Imagine > The Harder They Fall

Just Imagine < Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962)

Just Imagine > Timecop

Just Imagine < Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Just Imagine > The Circus

Just Imagine > Moonwalker

Just Imagine > Evita

Just Imagine > Cake

Just Imagine > The Descendants

Just Imagine > I Heart Huckabees

Just Imagine < Watchmen

Final spot: #1104 out of 3525, or 69%.

tick...tick...BOOM! (2021)

IMDb plot summary: On the cusp of his 30th birthday, a promising young theater composer navigates love, friendship and the pressures of life as an artist in New York City.

Directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Starring Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, and Robin de Jesus.

Tick Tick Boom is the film version of Jonathan Larson's first successful musical. Larson would, of course, go on to write Rent, though he passed away suddenly of an aneurysm shortly before his biggest success open. Tick Tick Boom is a largely autobiographical work about Larson struggling to find his voice, starring Andrew Garfield as our center character. This film is directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and it is first and foremost an unapologetic love letter to musical theater. So much so that I can't even truly process what it would be like to watch this NOT as a theater fan. The show itself already was full of references to the showtunes that made Larson who he was (particularly in "Sunday" and "Why"), and the movie keeps leaning right on into that with seemingly infinite number of Broadway favorites in cameo appearances. Garfield is great as the lead, easily holding his own during the musical numbers, but Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesus, and Vanessa Hudgens make for a great supporting cast. It captures so many things I love about musical theater through some fantastic performances. The theater kid warm fuzzies wrapped me up tight on this one.

How it entered my Flickchart:

tick, tick...BOOM! > Monsters

tick, tick...BOOM! > My Name Is Joe

tick, tick...BOOM! > Crimes and Misdemeanors

tick, tick...BOOM! < Moxie

tick, tick...BOOM! > Nosferatu

tick, tick...BOOM! > United 93

tick, tick...BOOM! > Sabrina (1954)

tick, tick...BOOM! > Dead Ringers

tick, tick...BOOM! < Amahl and the Night Visitors

tick, tick...BOOM! < Equus

tick, tick...BOOM! > Schindler's List

tick, tick...BOOM! > Deathtrap

Final spot: #228 out of 3495, or 93%.

The Mirror (1975)

IMDb plot summary: A dying man in his forties remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments and things that tell of the recent history of all the Russian nation.

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Starring Margarita Terekhova, Filipp Yankovskiy, and Ignat Daniltsev.

The Mirror is a dreamlike nonlinear memory film featuring pieces of a young man's life as a boy and as an adult, living through a war, raising a child, and more. It's directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, of Stalker and Solaris fame, and just to be honest, I could not stand either of those movies. Tarkovsky's directing moves at a snail's pace, and his dialogue is nearly always philosophical ponderings more than anything directly related to the characters, which makes it even harder for me to connect to. His style is certainly distinct and I understand that people like him, but I feel too often that I'd get the exact same effect from reading a philosophy book while occasionally glancing at a photo of the countryside. I keep hoping that one of these days I'll find the Tarkovsky film that clicks for me the way he does for others, but this one, with its "memory play" feeling and its jumping all over the timeline, is not that film. It is shorter than most of his others, which made it an easier watch for me, so it might be a good entry point into Tarkovsky for newbies. And if you like this one, he's definitely got more that are in similar veins!

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Mirror < The Harder They Fall

The Mirror < Dinner at Eight

The Mirror > Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

The Mirror < The Zen of Bennett

The Mirror < Men of Honor

The Mirror < The Internship

The Mirror > They All Laughed

The Mirror > Joseph: King of Dreams

The Mirror < Out of the Past

The Mirror > The Forgotten

The Mirror > Michael Clayton

Final spot: #3027 out of 3513, or 14%.

The Last Duel (2021)

IMDb plot summary: King Charles VI declares that Knight Jean de Carrouges settle his dispute with his squire by challenging him to a duel.

Directed by Ridley Scott. Starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, and Jodie Comer.

The Last Duel tells the story of two former friends in medieval France, one a knight and one a squire, who grow apart and end up challenging each other to a duel when one's wife accuses the other of rape. The film's gimmick is that it's told three times, Rashomon style, following each man and then the wife's version of the story. However, unlike Rashomon, the three different tellings don't really enhance the story as much as they just rehash what we already know. The film does add some subtle differences in the interpretation of the events between each person, but most of those differences are not interesting or unique enough to make me interested in watching the same story three times in a row. I like all the performances in this, however. Between this and Stillwater, Matt Damon is really leaning into the character of "ignorant wannabe hero." I think I would have enjoyed this a bit more if it had cut back and forth between three perspectives throughout instead of playing them one after another, because while the movie is fine, it's not not good enough for me to want to watch it three times in a row, and that's basically what I felt like I did. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Last Duel < Hustle & Flow

The Last Duel > Dinner at Eight

The Last Duel > Batman: Under the Red Hood

The Last Duel > Planes, Trains & Automobiles

The Last Duel < Stagecoach

The Last Duel < The King and I

The Last Duel > The English Patient

The Last Duel > Star!

The Last Duel > Miller's Crossing

The Last Duel < Once Upon a Time in the West

The Last Duel < Bedknobs and Broomsticks

The Last Duel > Blade Runner 2049

Final spot: #1924 out of 3510, or 45%.

The Group (1966)

IMDb plot summary: After graduating from a prestigious Eastern university, eight devoted women friends go their separate ways: one leaves for Europe, while the others experience troubled relationships. Sadly, they get to meet one last time as a group.

Directed by Sidney Lumet. Starring Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett, Elizabeth Hartman, and Shirley Knight.

The Group is a Sidney Lumet film about eight women who are all in the same graduating class in college. The film follows their lives after college: their marriages, their job prospects, their political activism, and the relationships they still keep with each other as part of the same group of college friends. The movie moves along very quickly in the kind of way that makes sense when you're marking time between big events. While it's really interesting to dip in and out of each woman's life, there are so many of them, and so many of him look similar to each other, that I could really only keep track of about half of them. This is the kind of thing that I would love to see remade in the current day, as well as one of those ensemble casts that would benefit from star casting because you would be easily able to track who is who. Because this is such an episodic film, much of the narrative doesn't actually emotionally land until the very end. Up until then everything that happens just feels like another small piece of the puzzle and feels a little inconsequential. It's still a very interesting movie and something very different than Lumet ever did again, so I'm really glad I got to see it and would definitely suggest watching it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Group > Hustle & Flow

The Group < Chronicle

The Group < About Elly

The Group < Real Life

The Group > The Diary of Anne Frank (2009)

The Group > Black Snake Moan

The Group > Lenny

The Group < Blow Dry

The Group > Les Miserables (1935)

The Group > 101 Dalmatians (1961)

The Group > Censor

Final spot: #1549 out of 3508, or 56%.

The Flintstones (1994)

IMDb plot summary: In a parallel modern-day Stone Age world, a working-class family, the Flintstones, are set up for an executive job. But they learn that money can't buy happiness.

Directed by Brian Levant. Starring John Goodman, Rick Moranis, Halle Berry, and Kyle MacLachlan.

The Flintstones is the 1994 live-action film adaptation of the Hanna Barbera cartoon about a world of prehistoric humans functioning in basically a modern world, powered by stone and dinosaurs. In this version of the story, incompetent work Fred Flintstone is promoted to high-powered executive so he can take the fall for his boss's embezzlement scheme, and in the meantime his promotion leads to him treating his less-fortunate best friends poorly. I had extremely low expectations for this, and it's... not quite as obnoxious as I anticipated. Don't get me wrong, I can't say I got anything out of it. This is clearly a movie for young children, and Elizabeth Taylor is criminally underused. But I wasn't as irritated as I thought I might be throughout. There are some genuine, if simple, character arcs, and McLachlan is always an entertaining villain, and none of the more annoying side characters were around long enough for me to resent them. It's definitely not a movie I'd recommend, but I guess it's fine that it exists and it's fine than I've seen it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Flintstones < Hustle & Flow

The Flintstones < Dinner At Eight

The Flintstones > Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

The Flintstones > Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin

The Flintstones < Night at the Museum

The Flintstones < Bedtime Story

The Flintstones > Dinner for Schmucks

The Flintstones < The Wages of Fear

The Flintstones > Madigan

The Flintstones > Enough

The Flintstones < Send Me No Flowers

Final spot: #2806 out of 3500, or 20%.

Hal King (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Hal King is a film musical; an epic coming of age romance set in the late 1950s beatnik jazz scene.

Directed by Myron Davis. Starring Sophia Stephens, Richard Phillis, and J. Ivy.

Hal King is a musical retelling of Shakespeare's Henry IV and V, set in the African-American jazz scene of the 1950s. Hal is the partying-hard son of a man running for political office, who has to take up his father's mantle after his death. The movie is entirely sung through with primarily an R&B musical style. I went into this blind and was delighted to find it was not only a musical, but a musical setting of Shakespeare. It's an ambitious and interesting concept, and I wish the execution followed through. The sung dialogue bits in between major songs are incredibly tuneless and repetitive, and many of the actual songs don't offer much more, though there are a couple good ones. The choreography and blocking are decidedly not great (surprising, since the choreographer has some Broadway cred!) and, weirdly, the ensemble scenes *don't have enough people*, and so I'm left trying to assess the actual popularity of Hal's jazz poems or his father's political campaign when their audience is less than a dozen people. It's the kind of thing you can get away with in theater but is a jarring disconnect set against these more realistic set pieces. I really WANT to love this but it doesn't make it there.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hal King < Gas Food Lodging

Hal King > Cassandra's Dream

Hal King < Batman: Under the Red Hood

Hal King > Sweet and Lowdown

Hal King > Crash (2004)

Hal King > Little Big League

Hal King > Three Days of the Condor

Hal King < National Treasure

Hal King > Red Notice

Hal King < No Sudden Move

Hal King < A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Hal King < Run Lola Run

Final spot: #2219 out of 3518, or 37%.

Guarding Tess (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A former U.S. First Lady wants a particular Secret Service agent to head her bodyguard detail, even though he can't stand her.

Directed by Hugh Wilson. Starring Shirley MaClaine, Nicolas Cage, and Austin Pendleton.

Guarding Tess stars Shirley MacLaine as a former First Lady and Nicolas Cage as the Secret Service Agent tasked with keeping her secure. MacLaine is a terrible boss, and Cage would like nothing more than to get away from her, but she's taken a liking to him and keeps using her influence with the president to get him re-assigned to her. This movie isn't entirely sure what genre it wants to be, whether it wants to be a comedy or a heartwarming drama or an action thriller, and as a result it doesn't really stick any of its landings. One scene toward the end where Cage is pulling an aggressive thriller Nic Cage move, and I genuinely have no idea if I was supposed to laugh, or be worried about his state of mind, or be like "YEAH GET 'EM!" MacLaine does a pretty good job bringing some depth to her character and making us care about her right on schedule, but she's rising above the material to get it done. It's OK, it's kind of sweet, it just is also very mediocre.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Guarding Tess < The Harder They Fall

Guarding Tess > Dinner at Eight

Guarding Tess > Batman: Under the Red Hood

Guarding Tess < Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Guarding Tess < Onibaba

Guarding Tess < Confessions of a Shopaholic

Guarding Tess > The Imitation Game

Guarding Tess > Satantango

Guarding Tess > Dr. No

Guarding Tess > For Your Consideration

Guarding Tess < Fun and Fancy Free

Final spot: #2145 out of 3516, or 39%.

Exotica (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A man plagued by neuroses frequents the club Exotica in an attempt to find solace, but even there his past is never far away.

Directed by Atom Egoyan. Starring Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Don McKellar, and Mia Kirshner.

Exotica centers most of its action around the strip club named in the title. We follow the owner, the act announcer, one of the dancers, a frequent customer, and a drug smuggler, who doesn't at first seem to be connected to the story. The story unfolds a little at a time, drawing lines between characters and their motivations gradually, until finally we start seeing how everything fits together. The mystery of it all, surprisingly, doesn't feel as sensationalized as you would assume from the broad strokes of the synopsis. It's almost got the atmosphere of a slice-of-life story, just one with less traditional centerpieces like drugs and strippers and murder. I found myself genuinely involved with these characters and their concerns and wanting to know how things were going to play out for them. The ending holds on to that understated tone, which, again, feels odd to say when murder and intrigue are so much a part of the ending, but it ends somehow... very gently. It's a unique and interesting movie that kept me engaged the whole time.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Exotica > Gas Food Lodging

Exotica < Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962)

Exotica < Timecop

Exotica > Source Code

Exotica < The Fly (1986)

Exotica > White Nights

Exotica > The Three Musketeers (1993)

Exotica < Rabbit Hole

Exotica > The Act of Killing

Exotica > Never a Dull Moment

Exotica > Anna and the King

Final spot: #1443 out of 3515, or 59%.

Encanto (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A Colombian teenage girl has to face the frustration of being the only member of her family without magical powers.

Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard. Starring Stephanie Beatriz, Maria Cecilia Botero, John Leguizamo, and Mauro Castillo.

Encanto is the newest Disney release, about a magical family in a remote village in South America. We mostly focus on one daughter, Mirabel, the only one in her family to not be gifted a magical superpower, but now she's also the only one who is starting to notice that the magic they've relied on for decades might be fading. This is the third musical released this year featuring music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, so it's no surprise that the soundtrack is really fantastic. It does such an excellent job of creating the world through song. But the story is lovely, too, with a rich cast of characters (many of whom get their own song and distinct story arc) and a beautiful message about family and acceptance. The magical realism of the story brings with it levels of metaphor that will fly over kids' heads but had me thinking about them for days. It's one of those special kids' movies where it's easily entertaining enough for children but also goes a little deeper to provide a great story for adults too.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Encanto > Gas Food Lodging

Encanto > Till Death

Encanto < A Little Princess (1995)

Encanto < Broadcast News

Encanto > Taxi Driver

Encanto > The Shape of Water

Encanto < Eve's Bayou

Encanto < Picnic at Hanging Rock

Encanto > Back to the Future Part III

Encanto < Cats (1998)

Encanto < The Joy Luck Club

Encanto < Don't Drink the Water

Final spot: #708 out of 3520, or 80%.