A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

IMDb plot summary: Although wife and mother Mabel is loved by her husband Nick, her mental illness places a strain on the marriage.

Directed by John Cassavetes. Starring Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, and Fred Draper.

A Woman Under the Influence is a John Cassavetes film starring Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands as a working class couple with children. Rowlands clearly has some mental instability,  possibly something like bipolar disorder, given that we see what appear to be both manic and depressive episodes, but Falk has no idea how to deal with it. Worst of all, his big concern seems to be primarily how this will reflect on him in the workplace in the community. I have not yet found a Cassavetes film that I like... until this one. It's just as early mumblecore as all of his others, but for the first time I could track the characters and their frustrations and their motivations. Geina Rowlands is truly tremendous in this. Her character is clearly so unwell, but all of her husband's suggestions for dealing with it are so obviously going to make things worse, and it's impossible not to be on her side as she desperately tries to keep herself together so that she can stay with her children. There are a slew of other characters, doctors and coworkers and children, who fade in and out of the story, but the focus is always on the couple, and they are the ones who really captivate. Absolutely worth a watch. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Woman Under the Influence > The Anderson Tapes

A Woman Under the Influence > Dark Passage

A Woman Under the Influence > Six Degrees of Separation

A Woman Under the Influence < The Great Dictator

A Woman Under the Influence > The Gods Must Be Crazy

A Woman Under the Influence < Petite Maman

A Woman Under the Influence < It Follows

A Woman Under the Influence < Nosferatu

A Woman Under the Influence < The Producers (2005)

A Woman Under the Influence > Adaptation

A Woman Under the Influence < Nativity!

A Woman Under the Influence < Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar

Final spot: #352 out of 3799, or 91%.

The Deep (1977)

IMDb plot summary: In Bermuda, two amateur treasure-hunting divers have a run-in with local criminals when they inadvertently discover the secret cargo of a World War II shipwreck.

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Jacqueline Bisset, Nick Nolte, and Dick Anthony Williams.

The Deep was next on my Peter Yates watchlist. It tells the story of a couple on a diving expedition on their vacation who discovered some mysterious artifacts that then get them entangled in the middle of a big dramatic smuggling plot.  There are definitely some nice tense scenes involving the efforts to find more artifacts under the water, but my enjoyment of the film was largely hampered by how unlikable a character our lead is. He's played by Nick Nolte, who I've never been a huge fan of, but here he really leans into the ygly American stereotypes in a way where I'm mostly just rooting for him to lose the artifact and get sent back home. I will admit that this is mostly a personal preference, that his character just entirely rubs me the wrong way and I can't quite get over it. It might be worth watching the rest of the movie for some of the action sequences, but the plot and the acting and the writing are not going to be what recommends it primarily. This one definitely lands lower on my list of films by Yates.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Deep < The Last Dragon

The Deep > Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex...

The Deep < Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town

The Deep > Bandidas

The Deep < Doctor Zhivago

The Deep > Bronson

The Deep > August: Osage County

The Deep < Spinning Into Butter

The Deep < Prisoners

The Deep < Whoopee!

The Deep < And Then There Were None (1945)

The Deep > High Society

Final spot: #2520 out of 3798, or 34%.

The Ice Storm (1997)

IMDb plot summary: In suburban New Canaan, Connecticut, 1973, middle-class families experimenting with casual sex and substance abuse find their lives beyond their control.

Directed by Ang Lee. Starring Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, and Sigourney Weaver.

The Ice Storm is a talky family drama that feels very much like a Tennessee Williams kind of script, where all the characters are miserable and all of them are having affairs with everybody else... and I just don't care about any of them. This is despite a really solid cast, including Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline, and a young Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci. I did have medium-high hopes for this one but it just all sits in such a drudgery that I couldn't get into it. For this kind of thing to work I have to either really intellectually care about the themes or find a connection to the characters in some way or be given smart and thoughtful dialogue, and while I could see this attempting to do all three of those things, none of them ever really land. I'm not sure this is a bad movie so much is just one that is absolutely not for me. I would definitely be curious to hear from people who are big fans of this one because it feels like something that would have fans. I'm just not one of them.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Ice Storm < The Last Dragon

The Ice Storm > Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex...

The Ice Storm < Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

The Ice Storm > Bandidas

The Ice Storm > Doctor Zhivago

The Ice Storm > Ralph Breaks the Internet

The Ice Storm > Hitchcock

The Ice Storm < Withnail & I

The Ice Storm < Revolutionary Road

The Ice Storm < Kindergarten Cop

The Ice Storm < Matchstick Men

The Ice Storm > Sideways

Final spot: #2401 out of 3797, or 37%.

Paid (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Mary Turner goes up for three years on a crime she didn't commit. Once out she and former prison mates plan a scam in which old men can be sued for breach of promise - the "heart balm" racket.

Directed by Sam Wood. Starring Joan Crawford, Robert Armstrong, and Marie Prevost.

Paid stars a very young Joan Crawford as a woman who is sent away to prison for a crime she didn't commit. When she's finally let out, she vows to take her revenge on the male species as a whole by running a series of scams in which she romances older men and then sues them for breach of contract. While the plot for this one didn't really stand out among the (surprisingly large) number of women-in-prison stories from 1930 that I've seen so far, Joan Crawford is very good in it, unsurprisingly. She's definitely leaning into an earlier 1930 style of melodramatic film acting, but there is a genuineness to her portrayal that makes her character really relatable, and it's easy to root for her as she goes about her nefarious plans. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to those who aren't already Crawford fans, as it doesn't offer a whole lot else, but she's worth checking out in this.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Paid < Bad Education

Paid > Pepito and the Magic Lamp

Paid > Adam

Paid < Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Paid > The War

Paid > The Jerk

Paid > The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Paid < Skylark

Paid > Je t'aime, je t'aime

Paid < The Hoober-Bloob Highway

Paid > The English Patient

Final spot: #2154 out of 3795, or 43%.

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known (2022)

IMDb plot summary: Fifteen years after the Tony-winning Broadway run of Spring Awakening, the original cast and creative team reunite for a spectacular, one night only concert.

Directed by Michael John Warren. Starring Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, and John Gallagher Jr.

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known is a documentary focusing on a reunion of the original cast of the musical Spring Awakening for a concert performance fifteen years after its Broadway run. Virtually the entire original cast, down to the minor characters and ensemble, were available to reunite, so we get some really great interviews with all of these cast members, many of whom hadn't made a name for themselves when they were first in this show and are now regularly working actors. They reflect on the show's journey to Broadway and its impact on musical theater for teenage audiences. I've never actually been a fan of Spring Awakening but I appreciated the layout of the documentary, where we would get a good mix of information about the show, mixed with video footage of the original performance, mixed with footage of the concert, all of which did a really great job of selling the show and its themes and its importance. It almost made me want to go see the show, which is about as high a compliment as you could get for something like this. For those who are much bigger fans of either the show or the people involved I'm sure this is very much a love letter for them. As it is, I'm not sure it's an essential Broadway documentary but it certainly an earnest one, and I appreciate the enthusiasm with which all these characters view this work.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known > Bad Education

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known < Key Largo

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known < Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known > Liberal Arts

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known < Aliens

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known < Knight and Day

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known > The Wedding Singer

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known > Junebug

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known < Quiz Show

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known > The Act of Killing

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known > Jackie

Final spot: #1608 out of 3791, or 58%.

National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art (2010)

IMDb plot summary: Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden.

Directed by Nicholas Hytner and Robin Lough. Starring Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings, and Adrian Scarborough.

The Habit of Art is a filmed version of the stage play by Alan Bennett which focuses on a fictional meeting between poet W. H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten. The world premiere production from 2009 was filmed and aired as a National Theatre Live production. While the story centers around the meeting between the two characters, it's really Auden, played here by Richard Griffiths, who is the centerpiece. The story is told in a play-within-a-play fashion, showing a production of this Auden/Britten play in rehearsal, with the actors stopping to interject about pieces of the play that don't seem to work. While I like a lot of Alan Bennett's work, this gimmick really does nothing for me and ends up watering down a lot of what I like about the story. In fact, I felt this whole thing would be much better if it was just a short one act focusing on the second half of the show where the two interact. That's where the meat is, that's where the interest is, and the rest of it feels a little bit like self indulgent wandering. Granted, the theater has always been the place for self-indulgent wandering, but it doesn't work here the way that it has in Bennett's other place. I do think this is an issue with the script rather than the performance, but I would be intrigued to see if a different production highlighted something in this that I didn't see here.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Habit of Art < Bad Education

The Habit of Art > Everything You Always Wantd to Know About Sex...

The Habit of Art > Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town

The Habit of Art > Steamboat Bill, Jr.

The Habit of Art > The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

The Habit of Art < Nine Queens

The Habit of Art < Strawberry and Chocolate

The Habit of Art < Hopscotch

The Habit of Art < Mrs. Miniver

The Habit of Art > Grand Illusion

The Habit of Art < The Firemen's Ball

The Habit of Art < Muppet Treasure Island

Final spot: #2012 out of 3796, or 47%.

The Bay (2012)

The Bay is what I suppose you would call a found footage film, but in structure I'd call it a horror mockumentary. It's about a mysterious outbreak in a coastal town that all seems to center around the fish in the bay. The story is set several years after the outbreak ravages the city, and we see leftover footage cobbled together from the one young student reporter who happened to be there covering a different story. This is the kind of horror movie that is very easy to make when you have no money and no equipment -- found footage is always or often intentionally made to look cheap so it's a great entry point, but as a result a lot of found footage is also extremely sloppy and lazy and amateurish. This one, however, is really stellar. There are some truly terrifying moments that use the found footage gimmick at its best and make smart choices about what we can and cannot see that were clearly made for dramatic effect rather than just effects limitations. The story itself also certainly hits a little harder after a couple years of a global pandemic where nobody could quite figure out what was going on, but this also meets the body horror angle in a really effective and interesting way. Definitely a horror movie I would suggest folks check out if they haven't. It totally works for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Bay > The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair (1990)

The Bay > Key Largo

The Bay < The Goodbye Girl (1977)

The Bay > Spencer

The Bay < Down With Love

The Bay > Face/Off

The Bay < Buried

The Bay > Beautiful Boy

The Bay > See You Yesterday

The Bay > Yojimbo

The Bay > Summer Wars

Final spot: #623 out of 3792, or 84%.

Dixiana (1930)

Dixiana is a pre-code romantic comedy about a young female circus performer who falls in love with a wealthy aristocrat. She at first tries to cover up her past and assimilate into his family, but she is found out and driven away in disgrace. This is the second movie from 1930 that I've seen that includes the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey, here serving as the comic foils and sidekicks to Dixiana, and ultimately the ones who get her in trouble in the first place. Their antics are more enjoyable than the rest of the movie, although both Dixiana and her romantic interest are decently relatable. and it is an easy sell to want them to get together. With the characters being set in the world of circus, there are a number of performances that are just there to enjoy, which doesn't always work for me but it does really help to set the scene in this particular instance. This probably won't stand out in my mind among other 1930s romances about mismatched classes falling in love, but I had a fine time watching it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Dixiana < The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair

Dixiana < Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex...

Dixiana > Charlie Chan at the Opera

Dixiana > The Wages of Fear

Dixiana < Make Mine Music

Dixiana > Jake's Women

Dixiana > Annie Live!

Dixiana > Antichrist

Dixiana > Shanghai Knights

Dixiana > The Black Cauldron

Dixiana > The Last of the Mohicans

Final spot: #2965 out of 3793, or 22%.

Plane (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A pilot finds himself caught in a war zone after he's forced to land his commercial aircraft during a terrible storm.

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet. Starring Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, and Tony Goldwyn.

Plane is a 2023 action movie starring Gerard Butler as the pilot of a plane that crash lands on a remote island, and Butler must find a way for them to get off before the inhabitants of the island  find them and hurt them. For being a movie named Plane, there's actually very little time spent on the plane, which was somewhat of a disappointment to me. You can absolutely create a compelling and creative story set entirely in the air, just look at something like Red Eye or, to a lesser extent, Snakes on a Plane. This one seems to run out of ideas pretty quickly, and we're left with a series of uninspired jungle fight sequences that could have been found in any other movie. The film does a decent job of building up the character development of one of the side characters, a criminal being extradited to the US who finds himself with unexpected freedom and nowhere to go with it, and that character's interaction with Butler is probably the most interesting part of the whole movie, followed closely by the first 20 and final 20 minutes where they're actually on the plane. A decent but unexceptional action thriller.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Plane < The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair

Plane > Pepito and the Magic Lamp

Plane > Adam

Plane < Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Plane > The War

Plane > The Jerk

Plane > The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Plane < Casino

Plane < The Kids Are All Right

Plane < Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Plane > Along Came a Spider

Plane > Tab Hunter Confidential

Final spot: #2160 out of 3794, or 43%.

Feet First (1930)

IMDb plot summary: An ambitious shoe salesman who unknowingly meets his boss's daughter and tells her he is a leather tycoon has to try to hide his true circumstances.

Directed by Clyde Bruckman and Harold Lloyd. Starring Harold Lloyd, Barbara Kent, Robert McWade.

Feet First is a Harold Lloyd comedy about a shoe salesman who falls in love with an upperclass woman but doesn't want  her to find out about his lowly status. This is the first Harold Lloyd movie I've seen that was a talkie, and for the most part the humor works just as well. There are some really funny clever bits of wordplay that go along with these smart slapstick moments, and as I've found in other Harold Lloyd movies, Lloyd himself is a thoroughly likable protagonist, bumbling without being truly stupid, just often unlucky and uncertain how to proceed. The more I watch of his, the more I think Lloyd might be my favorite of the classic 1930s film comedians that include names like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Now there is a fair amount of plot here that is pretty disposable, but it spends most of the time just enjoying the silliness of the characters in the situation they've gotten themselves into, so it's easy to skip over the filler pieces that are trying to set up the next gag. Definitely worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Feet First > Bad Education

Feet First < Key Largo

Feet First > Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella

Feet First > Rock of Ages

Feet First > The Secret Garden (1987)

Feet First > Grosse Pointe Blank

Feet First > Barton Fink

Feet First < The Menu

Feet First > Amistad

Feet First < Leaving Las Vegas

Feet First > The Palm Beach Story

Final spot: #966 out of 3790, or 75%.