One Way Pendulum (1965)

IMDb plot summary: The very eccentric Groomkirby family, in between inventing odd devices, decide to reenact a murder and trial in their living room.

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Eric Sykes, George Cole, and Julia Foster.

One Way Pendulum is an extremely silly look at an eccentric family living in Britain. There's not a narrative so much as just a series of events: one family member is teaching weight machines how to sing, another reconstructs an entire courtroom in their living room. It reminds me a bit of You Can't Take It With You, except a whole lot goofier. While I did find myself wishing for a more cohesive narrative arc, there were definitely enough moments in this that made me laugh out loud. There's especially some fun witty wordplay in the courtroom scenes, and they kept me entertained enough that I didn't feel the lack of narrative cohesion. I wish the first half of the movie was equally *busy* in its goofiness -- it felt mostly like setup that doesn't get resolved, but if it had been as full of gags as the latter half I think I'd have enjoyed the whole thing quite a bit. It's definitely something unique, and while it doesn't all hold together, there was enough fun about it that I'm certainly glad I saw it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

One Way Pendulum > Camp

One Way Pendulum < Safe

One Way Pendulum < A Scanner Darkly

One Way Pendulum < The Ladykillers (1955)

One Way Pendulum > Swingers

One Way Pendulum > Meek's Cutoff

One Way Pendulum > Away We Go

One Way Pendulum > Oblivion

One Way Pendulum > Happy-Go-Lucky

One Way Pendulum < Fly Away Home

One Way Pendulum < Muppet Treasure Island

One Way Pendulum < Skater Girl

Final spot: #1625 out of 3699, or 56%.

A Fairy Tale After All (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A stubborn teenage girl finds herself confronted by whimsical characters when she is transported into a world of fantasy and fairy tales while attending a school marionette show.

Directed by Erik Peter Carlson. Starring Emily Shenaut, Brian Hull, and Gabriel Burrafato.

A Fairy Tale After All is about a high school girl who discovers a fantasy land where she is actually a princess trying to save her father from an evil witch. And it's one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. It so clearly wants to be Labyrinth, but it's incomprehensible and cheap-looking, the high school lead is clearly at least in her 30s, none of the jokes land, and the songs are bland ballad after bland ballad (with an occasional insufferable character song to break things up). On top of that, there are all these weird moments where I think the director is trying to get artsy with some black-and-white cinematography, but juxtaposed with these awful meta-jokes it just feels obliviously pretentious. The problem here is with the script first and foremost -- you can get away with low-budget filmmaking if you have a solid script, which just isn't the case here. It thinks it's being funny and poignant and creative when it's extremely... not, and the actors are so over-the-top and cheesy they don't do it any further favors. Just a mess of a movie from beginning to end.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Fairy Tale After All < Hairspray (1988)

A Fairy Tale After All < The Little Princess (1939)

A Fairy Tale After All < Blood Heat

A Fairy Tale After All < Snow White and the Huntsman

A Fairy Tale After All > Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

A Fairy Tale After All < Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars

A Fairy Tale After All < The Prince & Me

A Fairy Tale After All > One for the Money

A Fairy Tale After All > The Littlest Rebel

A Fairy Tale After All < Devil

A Fairy Tale After All < The Brother From Another Planet

A Fairy Tale After All < VeggieTales: Lord of the Beans

Final spot: #3559 out of 3696, or 4%.

Au Bonheur des Dames (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Denise, an orphaned girl, moves to Paris where she hopes to find work at her uncle's store. But the glamorous department store 'Aux Bonheur des Dames' across the street crunches all the little businesses around. She finds a position there.

Directed by Julien Duvivier. Starring Dita Parlo, Ginette Maddie, and Andree Brabant.

Au Bonheur des Dames follows a ladies' department store that is growing and putting smaller stores out of business. I think. I'll be honest, I feel awful reviewing this movie because despite one or two visually and cinematically interesting moments, I found this story SO boring that I could barely pay attention to it. There were so many women who all looked and were styled exactly the same that I found it difficult to track any one character, and characters appeared and disappeared without me being able to lock in how they connected to this story. That being said, there were a couple of really interesting cinematic choices. In one scene, an operatic aria plays over a silent scene, at one moment matching up perfectly so that the female lead lip-syncs one of the lines to the other person in the scene. In a later scene, there are some wonderfully chaotic edits conveying a character losing their grasp on reality, and it suddenly drew my attention in a way the rest of the movie hadn't. But those moments are few and far between in a tedious narrative I just couldn't get into.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Au bonheur des dames < Camp

Au bonheur des dames < The Man with One Red Shoe

Au bonheur des dames > Table 19

Au bonheur des dames > 101 Dalmatians (1996)

Au bonheur des dames > The Duel

Au bonheur des dames < The Professional

Au bonheur des dames > The Goonies

Au bonheur des dames > The Cheap Detective

Au bonheur des dames < The Name of the Rose

Final spot: #2845 out of 3697, or 23%.

Born Reckless (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Hoping to use the publicity to get re-elected, a judge sentences a notorious gangster to fight in the war.

Directed by John Ford. Starring Edmund Lowe, Catherine Dale Owen, and William Harrigan.

Born Reckless is a 1930 John Ford movie about a member of the mob who decides to go straight after getting caught, but his old friends and connections keep catching up with him. This is a slightly more interesting look at this kind of story than I expected, partly because he's still so very friendly with his old gangster pals, giving the impression that nobody has a problem with him having left... until suddenly someone does. It feels at first like a more optimistic version of this story, as if he CAN have it all, both his old friends and his new life. It does take a bit of an abrupt turn downward in the second half which feels a little disorienting and disconnected, but that mostly works thematically. This is the earliest movie I've seen from Ford, and the way he structures his film, both visually and narratively, definitely is an indicator of where he landed later -- simple but powerful narratives about people trying to live their lives. I'm not going to remember the details of this film but I hope I remember the interesting twist it put on an old trope.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Born Reckless < Hairspray (1988)

Born Reckless > The Man with One Red Shoe

Born Reckless > The Hangover

Born Reckless < Casino

Born Reckless > The Wiz

Born Reckless > About Ray

Born Reckless < The Party

Born Reckless > First Blood

Born Reckless < Deep Red

Born Reckless < Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Born Reckless > Once Upon a Time in America

Born Reckless > Wedding Crashers

Final spot: #2234 out of 3695, or 40%.

Scent of a Woman (1992)

IMDb plot summary: A prep school student needing money agrees to "babysit" a blind man, but the job is not at all what he anticipated.

Directed by Martin Brest. Starring Al Pacino, Chris O'Donnell, and James Rebohnr.

Scent of a Woman stars Al Pacino as a gruff retired military man who has lost his eyesight, and Chris O'Donnell as the young prep school student hired to keep an eye out for him while Pacino's family is on vacation. But as soon as the family leaves, Pacino is off on an adventure to New York City, where he intends to enjoy all his favorite things in life, before taking his own. This movie jumped back and forth for me between being really effective and being really cheesy. O'Donnell makes a likable protagonist, and Pacino is certainly giving it his all, but he's most compelling here when he's at his quietest, and that's not very often. I get that his character's obnoxious loud bluster is in fact an essential part of the character, but I find it very unpleasant to watch. The last third works best for me, if feeling a little unearned. I get why people loved this, but I could never latch on to the character or its portrayal enough to be fully sold on it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Scent of a Woman > Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)

Scent of a Woman < Dark Passage

Scent of a Woman > Incendies

Scent of a Woman < Show Me Love

Scent of a Woman < Spellbound (2002)

Scent of a Woman > Panic Room

Scent of a Woman > The Intouchables

Scent of a Woman < The Circus

Scent of a Woman < Good Time

Scent of a Woman < Possession

Scent of a Woman > The Cloverfield Paradox

Scent of a Woman > The Meg

Final spot: #1294 out of 3692, or 65%.

Paradise (1991)

IMDb plot summary: Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson (at the time married to each other) play Lily and Ben Reed, a young couple torn apart by a family tragedy. It would take a miracle to rekindle their love and a miracle arrives in the form of a summer guest - Willard Young played by Elijah Wood.

Directed by Mary Agnes Donoghue. Starring Melanie Griffith, Don Johnson, and Elijah Wood.

Paradise stars Elijah Wood as a young boy sent to live with his mother's best friend while, unbeknownst to him, she tries to deal with her husband leaving them. We follow the boy as he connects with his hosts and neighbors and learns some important life lessons. In my journey to watch through all Elijah Wood's movies, this is not the first one where he's been a lead, but it's the first one where I felt like he was given something good to work with, and he's pretty solid here. Those big melancholy eyes serve him well when playing mournful children processing trauma. The rest of the movie is... all right. It doesn't quite land in the end the way that I hoped it would, and while I appreciate that it doesn't wrap up too neatly, it feels like something is missing. A lot of the in-between scenes are separately good but don't feel like they build to much. There are plenty of good individual moments, though, and none of the movie is particularly bad, just ultimately unmemorable.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Paradise < Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)

Paradise < The Little Princess (1939)

Paradise < Satantango

Paradise > Crumb

Paradise < Birdman of Alcatraz

Paradise < The Trouble With Angels

Paradise < Burlesque

Paradise > Burning Annie

Paradise > Brainscan

Paradise > Beach Party

Paradise > Immortal Beloved

Paradise < Master Harold and the Boys

Final spot: #2511 out of 3691, or 32%.

Summer Holiday (1963)

IMDb plot summary: A fabulous 1960s musical: Four London Bus mechanics strike up a deal with London Transport. They do up a double-decker London Bus, drive it around Europe as a hotel, and if they make it they will own and manage a whole fleet. While on the road in France they pick up three ladies whose car breaks down and offer to take them to their next singing job in Athens.

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Cliff Richard, Lauri Peters, and Melvyn Hayes.

Summer Holiday is a 1960s road trip musical romantic comedy about a group of four young mechanics who decide to take a London double-decker bus on vacation across Europe, picking up various hitchhikers along the way who change their course. This is absolutely the perfect example of a light breezy 60s musical, with lots of entertaining song and dance numbers and a plot that never tries to get in the way of them. Some of these numbers are better than others, of course, and there's an extended pantomime sequence that doesn't work for me at all, but the majority of it works really well. I love the zaniness of jumping from one new hitchhiker to the next, as well as the sudden appearance of a plot to sabotage their journey, and our bus drivers have such a cheery attitude to every mishap that befalls them that it maintains that bright sunny feel over the whole movie. The visuals are nice, too -- some beautifully vivid costume and set design that helps bolster even the least inspiring tunes. It's not the best musical of this era, but it might be one of the MOST "musicals of this era," and it was exactly what I wanted to watch on the day I watched it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Summer Holiday > Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)

Summer Holiday > Dark Passage

Summer Holiday < Castle in the Sky

Summer Holiday < Jeopardy (1953)

Summer Holiday > Sansho the Bailiff

Summer Holiday < Au Revoir les Enfants

Summer Holiday > Tell It to the Bees

Summer Holiday < The Red Shoes

Summer Holiday < Last Night in Soho

Summer Holiday < Titanic

Summer Holiday < Turning Red

Summer Holiday < Out of Sight

Final spot: #777 out of 3688, or 79%.

Juno and the Paycock (1930)

IMDb plot summary: During the Irish Civil War in 1922, a family earns a big inheritance. They start leading a rich life, forgetting what the most important values are.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Sara Allgood, Edward Chapman, and Barry Fitzgerald.

Juno and the Paycock is a very early Alfred Hitchcock, before he became known for thrillers. This story is a straight-up melodrama about a poor Irish family who learn they are coming into some money that would change everything, but then things take a downward turn. If I hadn't known this was Hitchcock, I wouldn't have been able to identify it as being directed by anyone notable. It feels very much in line with the many other family melodramas I've been watching from 1930. There's an interesting amount of time paid in the center of the film to the family celebrating their good fortune and singing -- I think we get three full songs -- and while it's easy to view that as being a bit of a waste of time, I can see how Hitchcock is trying to set us up for the family's downfall by highlighting their celebration. It doesn't fully work, but it's an interesting choice. The cinematography is also full of intriguing closeups, which certainly don't look realistic but do a good job of highlighting the larger-than-life nature of the story. Definitely worth watching as an early film from a talented director, but it doesn't fully stand on its own.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Juno and the Paycock > Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)

Juno and the Paycock < Dark Passage

Juno and the Paycock > Incendies

Juno and the Paycock < The Producers (2005)

Juno and the Paycock < 35 Up

Juno and the Paycock < Summer Stock

Juno and the Paycock < Flight of the Navigator

Juno and the Paycock < All That Jazz

Juno and the Paycock > Cafe Society

Juno and the Paycock < Dan in Real Life

Juno and the Paycock < Koyaanisqatsi

Juno and the Paycock < The Family Man

Final spot: #1375 out of 3689, or 63%.

Billy the Kid (1930)

IMDb plot summary: In this version of the Billy the Kid legend, Billy, after shooting down land baron William Donovan's henchmen for killing Billy's boss, is hunted down and captured by his friend, Sheriff Pat Garrett. He escapes and is on his way to Mexico when Garrett, recapturing him, must decide whether to bring him in or to let him go.

Directed by King Vidor. Starring Johnny Mack Brown, Wallace Beery, and Kay Johnson.

Billy the Kid is a 1930 telling of the story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, the sheriff hunting him down. This version, as noted in an opening title card written by the then-governor of New Mexico, takes some liberties with the story, though the title card also says it captures the "spirit" of the character. This particular chapter of the story follows Billy trying to avenge his boss' death while Garrett tries to get enough evidence to bring him in. Billy is played by Johnny Mack Brown and Garrett by Wallace Beery, and the two of them are absolutely the most interesting part of a pretty uneven film. Brown brings a flirty playfulness to the role, and this is probably my favorite performance from Beery, who has shown up quite a few times throughout this 1930 project. Here they are good foils for each other in their tone, and the most engaging scenes are when they are connecting. A lot of the film, though, focuses on a dull romance between Billy and a recently widowed young woman, or on the other outlaws trying to bring Billy down, and that's a lot less interesting.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Billy the Kid < Pi

Billy the Kid < 13 Going on 30

Billy the Kid > A Fistful of Dollars

Billy the Kid < Easter Parade

Billy the Kid > Young Mr. Lincoln

Billy the Kid > Palo Alto

Billy the Kid > There's No Business Like Show Business

Billy the Kid > Abraham Lincoln

Billy the Kid < Roberta

Billy the Kid > Cinderella (2021)

Billy the Kid < The Omen (1976)

Final spot: #3008 out of 3690, or 18%.

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Feature adaptation of the animated short film interviewing a mollusk named Marcel.

Directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp. Starring Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer-Camp, and Isabella Rossellini.

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is a full-length version of the 2010 viral short film of the same name, starring the voice of Jenny Slate as a curious, philosophical little shell named Marcel, who has shoes and a face. In this story, Marcel and his Nana Connie live together in the house where they used to live with a larger community of shells, who were accidentally taken out of the house when one of the former occupants moved out. We follow them and their documentarian, Dean, as they go about their days in the house. Marcel was a viral sensation when the short video was released, and watching this reminded me why. He's a truly charming character, simultaneously bold and shy in an incredibly relatable way, and of course the design of these characters is adorable. The film does exactly what it should: just lets this character be this character. Even as the plot gets a little thicker and we have a more serious narrative arc playing out, there are still so many moments of just watching Marcel interact with his world, and that makes the more emotionally poignant moments really land. This was a delightful surprise, and I found myself very taken with this film.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > Hairspray (1988)

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On < Castle in the Sky

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On < Jeopardy (1953)

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > Kismet

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > Red Carpet

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On < Come from Away

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > The Joy Luck Club

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > 9

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > Mildred Pierce

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On > The Incredibles

Final spot: #721 out of 3687, or 80%.

My Daughter's Killer (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A father fights for decades to bring his daughter's killer to justice in France and Germany before taking extreme measures

Directed by Antoine Tassin.

My Daughter's Killer is a documentary about a man whose young daughter suddenly dies abruptly, and her father becomes convinced that her stepfather killed her, and he orchestrates an abduction to bring the stepfather from Germany to France, where he can be tried for his crimes. This feels less like a feature-length story and more like a 45-minute true crime podcast. That's not a bad thing, just a slightly different feel than I expected, and it leaves me feeling like I don't have enough to say about it. The film opens making you think it's leaning toward a much darker vigilante justice story than it ultimately is, so I started prepared to hate our main character and ended up being more sympathetic toward him than I was initially. There's just not a lot for me to comment on in this movie -- if you like this kind of story, you'll probably like this movie, and if you're iffy on them, as I am, it's fine but not spectacular.

How it entered my Flickchart:

My Daughter's Killer < Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)

My Daughter's Killer < 13 Going on 30

My Daughter's Killer > Blood Heat

My Daughter's Killer > Gosford Park

My Daughter's Killer > Speak

My Daughter's Killer > The Way We Were

My Daughter's Killer > Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

My Daughter's Killer < Christmas on the Square

My Daughter's Killer < Ice Station Zebra

My Daughter's Killer > The Thomas Crown Affair

My Daughter's Killer > Funny Face

My Daughter's Killer < The Little Drummer Boy

Final spot: #2788 out of 3686, or 24%.

Hustle (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A basketball scout discovers a phenomenal street ball player while in Spain and sees the prospect as his opportunity to get back into the NBA.

Directed by Jeremiah Zagar. Starring Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, and Juancho Hernangomez.

Hustle stars Adam Sandler as a basketball scout who finds himself at odds with the new owner of the team he works for. He's under a lot of pressure to find the next big star, but when he thinks he's found him, in a single father named Bo Cruz, the new owner is reluctant to take him up on it. So he gambles on the player himself, spending his own money to bring Cruz to the United States and get him noticed by the pros. The movie centers heavily around not only the logistical goal of getting Cruz into the NBA but also around the paternal relationship Sandler develops with the young man, and as a whole, that storyline works. Sandler's usual abrasiveness is channeled here into a fiercely protective attitude toward the people he cares about, and it works much better for me than most of his performances, even his serious ones. Like so many sports dramas, the beats feel familiar but that's not so much a knock on the movie because it hits those beats well and satisfyingly. A solid flick.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hustle > Hairspray (1988)

Hustle < Dark Passage

Hustle > A Scanner Darkly

Hustle < The Producers (2005)

Hustle < Spellbound (2002)

Hustle < Summer Stock

Hustle < Flight of the Navigator

Hustle > Don't Look Up

Hustle < The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Hustle < The Impossible

Hustle > Kanal

Hustle > Swing Shift

Final spot: #1363 out of 3684, or 63%.

Skater Girl (2021)

IMDb plot summary: When a teen in rural India discovers a life-changing passion for skateboarding, she faces a rough road as she follows her dream to compete.

Directed by Manjari Makijany. Starring Waheeda Rehman, Amy Maghera, and Anurag Arora.

Skater Girl tells the story of a group of children living in a poor village in India. A visiting woman buys the children skateboards and even invests in building a skate park for them, and one young girl in particular discovers how much she loves to skate. I really like Rachel Sanchita Gupta as our titular skater girl. This is her first film, and she is likable and relatable and you want to root for her, even when the story doesn't work for me. Like a lot of inspirational sports stories, there are obstacles placed in the character's way that they must overcome to succeed, and here the obstacles seem so vast that I can't imagine her win could play out like it does. Like, really, what is actually going to happen to this child once the movie is over? The story and its successes aren't quite big enough to convince me, even in an inspirational movie where all they want to do is convince me, that they can make a meaningful difference against opponents like "societal traditions." If you are convinced, I think you'll like this movie a lot. If you aren't, you'll likely find this a little empty.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Skater Girl > Hairspray (1988)

Skater Girl < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Skater Girl < A Scanner Darkly

Skater Girl < Lucky Number Slevin

Skater Girl > Jeff, Who Lives At Home

Skater Girl > Meek's Cutoff

Skater Girl > Away We Go

Skater Girl > The Little Things

Skater Girl > Happy-Go-Lucky

Skater Girl < Girl Shy

Skater Girl < Fly Away Home

Skater Girl < Muppet Treasure Island

Final spot: #1619 out of 3685, or 56%.

Petite Maman (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Nelly has just lost her grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother's childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods. One day she meets a girl her same age building a treehouse.

Directed by Céline Sciamma. Starring Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, and Nina Meurisse.

Petite Maman follows an eight-year-old girl who is staying with her parents in her late grandmother's house as they clean it out. She ends up wandering the nearby woods and making friends with another little girl, only to discover they have a surprising connection. (It's not really much of a spoiler but the movie itself doesn't make it wholly obvious what their connection is until later, so I'll leave it vague here.) The film is very short at just 72 minutes, and the result is a simple, sweet fantasy story about two little girls' friendship. Sisters Josephine and Gabrielle Sanz play the two girls, and they have a very natural camaraderie together that really brings the story to life. They're delightful to watch interact, and as their bigger story unwinds it just piggybacks on that delightfulness. It's hard to come up with much more to say about it without going into details that I think work best if you don't know about them beforehand, but it's well worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Petite Maman > Camp

Petite Maman > The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Petite Maman > Six Degrees of Separation

Petite Maman < Equus

Petite Maman > Before Sunset

Petite Maman < Pygmalion (1938)

Petite Maman > Conspiracy Theory

Petite Maman > Hard Candy

Petite Maman > Bicycle Thieves

Petite Maman < Saving Mr. Banks

Petite Maman < I'm Not Scared

Petite Maman < Heathers

Final spot: #294 out of 3683, or 92%.

Little Nikita (1988)

IMDb plot summary: An F.B.I. Agent works to uncover an All-American family as Soviet sleeper Agents, and gets caught up in friendship with their unaware son.

Directed by Richard Benjamin. Starring Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, and Richard Jenkins.

Little Nikita stars River Phoenix as a teenager whose parents have a secret past and Sidney Poitier as the FBI agent determined to expose them. I'm hesitant to say much more because, despite how awkwardly this story unfolds its secrets, I do think it doesn't want us to know them all until about halfway through, so I'll leave it there. This is a pretty clunky one. The writing is awkward, the acting is wooden from some very good performers, the story plays out with big dramatic moments that aren't at all justified in-universe. With just a little bit more editing and finesse, this could have been a pretty fun coming-of-age thriller, but it's just all done so clumsily that none of it really works. The one thing I do want to give a nod to, however, is the musical score, which almost convinced me a couple times that the movie is better than it actually is. Aside from that, however, it's a strange and poorly-executed thriller that completely wastes the talent of its actors, director, and writer, all of whom have made much better movies.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Little Nikita < Hairspray (1988)

Little Nikita < 13 Going on 30

Little Nikita > Blood Heat

Little Nikita < Easter Parade

Little Nikita > The Bone Collector

Little Nikita < Spaceballs

Little Nikita > Stardust Memories

Little Nikita < Old Yeller

Little Nikita > You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

Little Nikita > Paramount on Parade

Little Nikita < Marathon Man

Final spot: #3065 out of 3680, or 17%.

Swing Shift (1984)

IMDb plot summary: A woman finds romance when she takes a job at an aircraft plant to help make ends meet after her husband goes off to war.

Directed by Jonathan Demme. Starring Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, and Christine Lahti.

Swing Shift features Goldie Hawn as a woman whose husband goes off to World War II. She, along with many other soldiers' wives, gets a job working in an airplane factory. As she works there, she begins to gain some independence, grow in confidence, and make some friends she wouldn't have before, including a man she develops feelings for (played by Kurt Russell). This is a perfectly middle-of-the-road movie highlighting some interesting relationships and the changing of gender norms in the 1940s. It never hits on any of the interesting pieces quite as much as I wanted it to, but it's there. The acting is solid, the writing is decent, the cinematography is efficient. There's very little exciting about this, which is kind of disappointing, but there's also not that much to complain about either. For anyone particularly interested in this time period, it's probably worth checking out.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Swing Shift > Closer

Swing Shift < Safe

Swing Shift > Creation

Swing Shift < Show Me Love

Swing Shift < Spellbound (2002)

Swing Shift < Summer Stock

Swing Shift < Family Business

Swing Shift > The Tragedy of Macbeth

Swing Shift < Kajaki

Swing Shift > Kanal

Swing Shift < The Impossible

Final spot: #1360 out of 3678, or 63%.

Hell's Angels (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Brothers Monte and Ray leave Oxford to join the Royal Flying Corps. Ray loves Helen; Helen enjoys an affair with Monte; before they leave on their mission over Germany they find her in still another man's arms.

Directed by Howard Hughes. Starring Ben Lyon, James Hall, and Jean Harlow.

Hell's Angels is a 1930 war epic following two English brothers going to fight in the World War. They could not be more different -- Roy is conscientious and careful, while Monte is reckless and hedonistic. Monte's behavior consistently gets him in trouble, with Roy having to clean up after him. Usually I find epic-length movies to be unnecessarily long, rarely with a justified runtime, but I really appreciated all the different ways we saw our protagonists interact with each other and the world around them. It really helped flesh them out in a way that made the film's ending sit a lot more powerfully. There's also some very creative early use of color here. While most of the film is in black-and-white, there are some dramatically tinted battle scenes as well as a full-color scene at an extravagant party that really use their deliberate color choice to convey a sense of mood and tone. Even the battle scenes here, which I would usually be bored by, are used effectively to communicate our protagonists' stories, and it all works together really well. Definitely one I'd recommend checking out.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hell's Angels > Camp

Hell's Angels < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Hell's Angels > Something to Sing About

Hell's Angels < The Producers (2005)

Hell's Angels < Spellbound (2002)

Hell's Angels < Summer Stock

Hell's Angels > Family Business

Hell's Angels < Idiocracy

Hell's Angels > Manhunter

Hell's Angels > Hamlet (1990)

Hell's Angels > The Ref

Final spot: #1338 out of 3681, or 64%. That feels too low.

Reaching for the Moon (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Wall Street wizard Larry Day, new to the ways of love, is coached by his valet. He follows Vivian Benton on an ocean liner, where cocktails laced with a "love potion," work their magic. He then loses his fortune in the market crash and feels that he has also lost his girl.

Directed by Edmund Goulding. Starring Douglas Fairbanks, Bebe Daniels, and Edward Everett Horton.

Reaching for the Moon is a 1930 romance about a wealthy man falling in love on a cruise. That's... about all I can tell you, because this movie has not survived well. And I mean that in the sense that apparently most surviving versions of this movie are just over 60 minutes, roughly 2/3 of its original runtime. I'd like to blame the general aimlessness and awkwardness of the plot on that, because there are some good moments. Douglas Fairbanks as our lead makes the most of his physicality, jumping and leaping around the space, often for no apparent reason at all but it's engaging nonetheless. We also get one song performed by a very young Bing Crosby -- apparently this was originally a musical but most got cut as musicals became less popular. But as a romance or, really, narrative of any kind, the story is thin and confusing. It definitely seems to be missing large portions that would help us connect the dots on the plot and characterization. Of course, it's possible that the 30 cut minutes didn't elaborate on that any further, but I'd like to give this film the benefit of the doubt, so I'll pretend that half hour would fix everything.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Reaching for the Moon < Hairspray (1988)

Reaching for the Moon > The Little Princess (1939)

Reaching for the Moon < Satantango

Reaching for the Moon < *batteries not included

Reaching for the Moon < Mulholland Dr.

Reaching for the Moon > Sex Tape

Reaching for the Moon > Baby Boom

Reaching for the Moon > When Strangers Click

Reaching for the Moon > The Iceman

Reaching for the Moon < Before I Fall

Reaching for the Moon < Show Boat (1951)

Reaching for the Moon > We're No Angels

Final spot: #2652 out of 3682, or 28%.

Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)

IMDb plot summary: A confined but troubled rock star descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone.

Directed by Alan Parker. Starring Bob Geldof, Christine Hargreaves, and James Laurenson.

Pink Floyd: The Wall is a musical based on the Pink Floyd album "The Wall." It loosely follows the story of a young musician dealing with trauma, mental illness, and substance abuse. I should probably start this review saying I've never really been a fan of Pink Floyd's music. Their songs always feel just like atmospheric soundscapes rather than music, which I'm just less interested in listening to. But turns out that works kind of perfectly when paired with intriguing visuals hinting at a story. This is definitely a case of the whole working better for me than the sum of its parts -- the images and the sounds help to make sense of each other and together they create an experience I like much, much better than if I'd been dealing with either separately. They work so well as a whole, I have difficulty identifying individual moments that worked for me, but the experience as a whole was powerful and intense and I maybe kind of loved it? This is definitely one to add to my list to revisit in the near future, but I found it very emotionally moving on a first watch and am delighted to have found a way into a band I don't usually care for.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Pink Floyd The Wall > Closer

Pink Floyd The Wall > Safe

Pink Floyd The Wall < Castle in the Sky

Pink Floyd The Wall > Spencer

Pink Floyd The Wall > Down With Love

Pink Floyd The Wall < Animal Crackers

Pink Floyd The Wall > Dogville

Pink Floyd The Wall > I've Loved You So Long

Pink Floyd The Wall > In the Loop

Pink Floyd The Wall > The Way, Way Back

Pink Floyd The Wall > Black Panther

Final spot: #519 out of 3679, or 86%.

Annie Live (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A young orphan opens the heart of billionaire Sir Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks.

Directed by Lear Debessonet and Alex Rudzinski. Starring Celina Smith, Harry Connick Jr., and Nicole Scherzinger.

Annie Live was the live television production of the classic musical Annie, about a spunky orphan girl during the Great Depression and her adoption into a new wealthy family. This particular version starred newcomer Celina Smith as Annie and a supporting cast that included Harry Connick Jr., Taraji P. Henson, Titus Burgess, and Nicole Scherzinger. The last version of this show I saw was the 2014 film adaptation that took some serious liberties with both the music and the story, and rewatching this one reminded me how much I really hate this show. There's just nothing about the pacing of this show that works, there's no opportunity for character development, and while the songs are catchy, I don't really like any of them. This version in particular, though, really lacks in the performances, particularly from Smith and Connick Jr., who are both incredibly stiff and bland, bringing nothing whatsoever to the role. On the flip side, we have Henson, who is chewing the scenery like she's in an entirely different show, and while it's at least lively, it mostly doesn't work either. A messy performance of a show that needs good performances to work at all.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Annie Live < Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Annie Live < The Night of the Hunter

Annie Live > Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Annie Live > Bad Teacher

Annie Live < The Hunt (2012)

Annie Live > Quitting

Annie Live > A Most Wanted Man

Annie Live > Get Smart

Annie Live < It's Always Fair Weather

Annie Live > A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)

Annie Live < Kelly's Heroes

Final spot: #2883 out of 3677, or 22%.

The Black Phone (2021)

IMDb plot summary: After being abducted by a child killer and locked in a soundproof basement, a 13-year-old boy starts receiving calls on a disconnected phone from the killer's previous victims.

Directed by Scott Derrickson. Starring Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, and Ethan Hawke.

The Black Phone is a horror movie based on a short story by Joe Hill. It's set in a town where children are going missing, and one day our protagonist goes missing as well. We follow him trying to escape his captor with the help of the previously missing children, who are communicating with him from beyond the grave via the titular black phone. It's an interesting conceit, and I appreciate how the film keeps so much of the mystery intact. We never really know how this works or why the killer is doing what he's doing. It stays in murky uncertainty, which makes it much more interesting than if we got a big old back story. It sets up a good creepy atmosphere that works even as the film *feels* like a short story -- somewhat incomplete, though it's hard to pinpoint exactly what is missing here. It's not a stellar horror film but it does its job pretty well and is a fun little diversion as far as horror movies go, even if it doesn't always hang together.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Black Phone > Beauty and the Beast (1946)

The Black Phone < La La Land

The Black Phone < Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

The Black Phone > The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

The Black Phone > Five Graves to Cairo

The Black Phone > Island of Lost Souls

The Black Phone > Event Horizon

The Black Phone < Charlie St. Cloud

The Black Phone > I Saw the Devil

The Black Phone < Hereditary

The Black Phone < Timecop

The Black Phone < It's a Gift

Final spot: #1399 out of 3676, or 62%.

The Congress (2013)

IMDb plot summary: An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.

Directed by Ari Folman. Starring Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, and Jon Hamm.

...What did I just watch? OK, let's see. The Congress begins with Robin Wright playing herself, agreeing to become a digitized actress. And then it's twenty years in the future and everyone's on hallucinogenic drugs that let them see each other as animated avatars. And then... it's the real world again and Robin Wright is searching for her son. This is a TRIPPY movie and I'm not at all certain that I got everything that was going on, even after looking back through Wikipedia at the plot synopsis and piecing together what happened. Even at the end, I don't quite understand what was gained by making the main character a real-life actress, as it didn't seem to be important to the narrative thread at the end. French films often go over my head in terms of how they communicate their themes, and this is definitely one of those. It has some fascinating visuals and I kind of dig the concept as a whole, I just couldn't track the story as it went and thus stopped caring. I guarantee there are a lot of people who would LOVE this though.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Congress < Beauty and the Beast (1946)

The Congress > 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

The Congress > 10

The Congress > The English Patient

The Congress > Jack Strong

The Congress < Fatherhood

The Congress < Raffles

The Congress < 12 Monkeys

The Congress > Pokemon: The First Movie

The Congress < JFK

The Congress < Internal Affairs

The Congress < Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood

Final spot: #1943 out of 3673, or 47%.

The Flamingo Kid (1984)

IMDb plot summary: A recent high-school graduate unsure of his future gets a summer job at the Flamingo beach club, and meets the charismatic Phil Brody.

Directed by Garry Marshall. Starring Matt Dillon, Hector Elizondo, and Molly McCarthy.

The Flamingo Kid stars Matt Dillon as a plumber's son who gets a job as valet and cabana boy at a ritzy summer resort, which makes him uncertain what he wants to do with his life. It's a pretty straightforward story that is rooted in some decent performances, particularly Hector Elizondo as Dillon's father, who mistrusts his son's new wealthy mentors. There's a warmth to their father-son relationship even when they're at each other's throats, and it helps provide believable stakes to Dillon's coming-of-age crisis. Much of the movie is pretty meandering, which gets a little tiresome as the movie wears on, but it does make the final scene all the more compelling when we finally get to see some action happening. That final scene goes a long way toward making the rest of the movie work, but the acting from the supporting cast helps as well. It's not an amazing movie but if you like the characters and the setting, it'll do just fine.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Flamingo Kid > Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

The Flamingo Kid < La La Land

The Flamingo Kid < Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

The Flamingo Kid < The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

The Flamingo Kid > Deceiver

The Flamingo Kid > The Client

The Flamingo Kid < Star Trek: Generations

The Flamingo Kid < The Aristocats

The Flamingo Kid > The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Flamingo Kid < Two Weeks Notice

The Flamingo Kid < The Appointment

The Flamingo Kid > Lenny

Final spot: #1656 out of 3675, or 55%.