The Little Mermaid (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A young mermaid makes a deal with a sea witch to trade her beautiful voice for human legs so she can discover the world above water and impress a prince.

Directed by Rob Marshall. Starring Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, and Melissa McCarthy.

The Little Mermaid is the live-action adaptation of Disney's classic 1989 animated film. It follows a mermaid named Ariel who falls in love with a human prince and trades away her voice to the Sea Witch Ursula for a pair of legs and a chance to pursue her romance. While this isn't a perfect film by any means and is definitely not as good as the original, there are quite a few things I appreciate about it. Halle Bailey as Ariel is fantastic, just the right combination of confident and vulnerable to make her easy to root for, and with, of course, a very lovely voice. The film also gives much more attention to Prince Eric, giving him a much more distinctive personality so that the romance between the two is actually convincing. Where it falls disappointingly flat are the visuals, particularly in the segments in the ocean, which are dark and gloomy with very few contrasting colors, making it both uninteresting and at times confusing to watch. The character design is upsetting too -- obviously Flounder looks blah, but I was also completely let down by Ursula. She is absolutely stunning in the animated film, but here her octopus tentacles are so completely disconnected from Melissa McCarthy's head and arms that it was actively distracting. I feel like this interview is coming out piecemeal rather than giving a sense of the whole, but that's kind of how I had to process it. I liked it more than I didn't, but it was disappointingly unimaginative in its visuals.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Little Mermaid > Captain Phillips

The Little Mermaid < Dark Passage

The Little Mermaid > Hustle

The Little Mermaid < The Country Girl

The Little Mermaid > Moonstruck

The Little Mermaid > The Song of Lunch

The Little Mermaid > Decision to Leave

The Little Mermaid > Whisky Galore!

The Little Mermaid < We're No Angels (1955)

The Little Mermaid < The Mummy (1932)

The Little Mermaid < Maria Full of Grace

The Little Mermaid > Ghost World

Final spot: #1226 out of 3881, or 68%.

Asteroid City (2023)

IMDb plot summary: Following a writer on his world famous fictional play about a grieving father who travels with his tech-obsessed family to small rural Asteroid City to compete in a junior stargazing event, only to have his world view disrupted forever.

Directed by Wes Anderson. Starring Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom Hanks.

Asteroid City is Wes Anderson's newest full-length film, a story following a group of people staying in a small desert town named Asteroid City when they are visited by an actual alien. Or, well, to be more accurate the movie's about a play that follows a group of people, etc. etc. I frequently like Anderson's films without loving any of them. There's no doubt he knows how to frame a scene and draw out dry comedic timing from his actors. But this one left me pretty cold, despite, oddly enough, being the premise I find most interesting across all of the director's work -- sci fi AND theater? Come on!. Somehow, though, despite the enormity of the question "is there intelligent life elsewhere" and the absurdity inherent in a random visit from them, I laughed at very litlte and felt even less. These characters feel overly broad, even for Anderson, leaving me almost nothing to hold onto emotionally, and the cold line deliveries feel dull and stilted rather than meticulously crafted. The too-bright vivid backdrops just escalate how much tonal color I'm missing in the rest of the film. A disappointment for me, though I'm not sure whether it's Anderson who dropped the ball or whether I just finally tired of him.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Asteroid City < Selma

Asteroid City > Frozen River

Asteroid City > Stepmom

Asteroid City < Pulp Fiction

Asteroid City > Melvin and Howard

Asteroid City < Cape Fear (1991)

Asteroid City > The Northman

Asteroid City > Broken Arrow

Asteroid City > Like Crazy

Asteroid City > Paris, je t'aime

Asteroid City < Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut

Final spot: #2246 out of 3880, or 42%.

Past Lives (2023)

IMDb plot summary: Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrested apart after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea. Twenty years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.

Directed by Celine Song. Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro.

Past Lives tells the story of a man and a woman who first met as children in South Korea, before her family immigrated to the United States. They reconnect a decade later when they're both young adults, and then again a decade after that. This is a very slow-moving, quiet movie that is mostly just the characters talking together, and that can be very difficult to do well, but these characters are so beautifully drawn and compelling portrayed that they instantly drew me into their story. It's truly an incredible feat of writing and acting that is able to make us sympathize with them from moment one. In a flashier, more comedic romance, I'd have recognized it as the simple fact of our leads having chemistry together, but it took me nearly the whole movie to be able to pinpoint why I was so invested in these two. The ending is lovely and feels very fitting, and I found myself slightly overwhelmed with emotion and just wanting to cry -- in the best possible way. Absolutely worth a watch, and one of my favorites of 2023.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Past Lives > Skyfall

Past Lives > Dark Passage

Past Lives > The Legend of 1900

Past Lives < The Great Dictator

Past Lives < Dick Tracy

Past Lives > Eyes Without a Face

Past Lives < Umberto D.

Past Lives > Citizen Kane

Past Lives > I.Q.

Past Lives < White Christmas

Past Lives < Les Miserables in Concert (1995)

Past Lives < Transamerica

Final spot: #401 out of 3875, or 90%.

River's Edge (1986)

IMDb plot summary: A high school slacker commits a shocking act and proceeds to let his friends in on the secret. However, the friends' reaction is almost as ambiguous and perplexing as the crime itself.

Directed by Tim Hunter. Starring Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, and Ione Skye.

River's Edge follows a group of teenagers (including Keanu Reeves and Crispin Glover) who learn that one of their friends has murdered his girlfriend in a fit of rage. We follow their reactions, from trying to help their friend hide out to debating whether they should turn him in to just trying to stay away from the whole thing. The film sets kind of a fascinating tone, where clearly big dark things are happening, but it's also got a strange undercurrent of humor that at first I found off-putting. But then I realized where it was centered and it suddenly really, really hit home for me: these teenage quote-unquote "hooligans" are so desperate to be taken seriously, that they're almost impossible to actually take seriously. Obviously their problems are serious and their questions are serious, but it truly captures that horribly awkward phase where all you want to do is yell "I'M AN ADULT" while not knowing yet how un-like an adult that will make you look. And that all snapped it into focus, and I found myself really loving these characters and their stubborn independence to do their own thing in the face of a group of adults who aren't much more capable than they are. There's a childish stubbornness to every person in the movie, and it's fascinating to watch it play out. I feel like this is one I could rewatch a whole bunch and find new pieces of it every time I did.

How it entered my Flickchart:

River's Edge > Selma

River's Edge < Key Largo

River's Edge > Hustle

River's Edge < Saving Private Ryan

River's Edge > Moonstruck

River's Edge < Wolf

River's Edge < Ikiru

River's Edge < Men in Black

River's Edge > Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

River's Edge < The Minus Man

River's Edge > Florence Foster Jenkins

River's Edge > Mother!

Final spot: #1321 out of 3878, or 66%.

High Treason (1929)

IMDb plot summary: Women unite to prevent financiers from engineering a second world war.

Directed by Maurice Elvey. Starring Benita Hume, Basil Gill, and Humberston Wright.

High Treason is a film from 1929 that imagines a future 20-30 years away in which peace is the expected societal standard worldwide, until a group of greedy financiers set out to start another world war and the women of the world have to band together and stop it. This is a very interesting premise but unfortunately it doesn't quite land in execution, and I found myself tuning in and out of the movie. The digital transfer I saw wasn't great, though, and there are aspects of the plot that I genuinely missed and I think it might have been partly due to the quality of the print. As I reread through the plot on Wikipedia, I kept thinking, "Hold on, that happened? How did I miss that? That's interesting!" I think I need to schedule a time to rewatch it to see if being able to follow the plot more clearly improves it, or if it's just poorly executed even with that extra understanding.

How it entered my Flickchart:

High Treason < Selma

High Treason < Frozen River

High Treason > Mission to Mars

High Treason < Bedtime Story

High Treason > A Farewell to Fools

High Treason > Alice in Wonderland (1951)

High Treason < Gosford Park

High Treason > Zero Charisma

High Treason > Billy the Kid

High Treason > Bad Teacher

High Treason > Dinner for Schmucks

High Treason < 101 Dalmatians (1996)

Final spot: #3184 out of 3879, or 18%.

Eyewitness (1981)

IMDb plot summary: A janitor who claims he's seen a murder becomes romantically involved with the glamorous TV reporter covering the story.

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, and Christopher Plummer.

Eyewitness is a Peter Yates thriller starring William Hurt as a janitor who is the only person known to be in the building when a wealthy man is murdered. He is love with his local news anchor, played by Sigourney Weaver, and tries to spend time with her by teasing the possibility that he knows more about the murder than he lets on. But this, of course, puts a target on the back from the actual murderer. This is kind of a fun premise and it's structured pretty well as far as letting us guess who the murderer is and how it happened. It also manages to explore some surprisingly poignant plotlines about veteran neglect and PTSD. It's less successful in setting up the romance, as Hurt's "aw shucks" everyman comes across as more stalkerish than anything else -- definitely not as charming as the movie thinks it is. But from a thriller standpoint, it's decently successful, even if not anything terribly special.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Eyewitness < Captain Phillips

Eyewitness > Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Eyewitness < Quigley Down Under

Eyewitness > Blue is the Warmest Color

Eyewitness > The Big Heat

Eyewitness > The Resurrection of Gavin Stone

Eyewitness > Jurassic World

Eyewitness > Guarding Tess

Eyewitness > Kicking and Screaming (1995)

Eyewitness < No Highway in the Sky

Eyewitness > Outbreak

Final spot: #2426 out of 3874, or 37%.

Poor Things (2023)

IMDb plot summary: The incredible tale about the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter.

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe.

Poor Things is Yorgos Lanthimos' newest film, starring Emma Stone as a reanimated dead woman with the brain of a baby (then toddler, then child, and so on). As she grows and discovers more about the world around her, she sets off to explore, learn, and ultimately find herself. As one would expect with a Lanthimos film, this is a real weird movie. The premise is odd and it leans ALL the way into it and the steampunk aesthetics of the world in which it is set. And I absolutely fell in love with it. The colors and design of the movie are absolutely stunning and Stone is truly wonderful as our lead character, one of my favorite female characters onscreen in years and an incredible acting performance. Mark Ruffalo's supporting character is also extremely funny basically every time he shows up and is a great foil for Stone's straightforward honesty. I laughed so much throughout the film but also found myself caring deeply about our main character and marveling at the worldbuilding and pondering the deeper questions the story brought up. Definitely my favorite movie of 2023 so far, as well as my favorite from Lanthimos (and probably from Stone).

How it entered my Flickchart:

Poor Things > Captain Phillips

Poor Things > Key Largo

Poor Things > The White Tiger

Poor Things < The Great Dictator

Poor Things > Dick Tracy

Poor Things > Bicycle Thieves

Poor Things > 10 Cloverfield Lane

Poor Things > Sabrina (1954)

Poor Things < The Fly (1958)

Poor Things < Seven Psychopaths

Poor Things > The Bridge on the River Kwai

Poor Things < Some Like It Hot

Final spot: #255 out of 3876, or 93%.

Nina Wu (2019)

IMDb plot summary: Nina Wu, a girl who leaves small theatre company in the country for the big city in pursuit of her actress dream.

Directed by Midi Z. Starring Ke-Xi Wu, Vivian Sung, and Kimi Hsia.

Nina Wu follows the story of an aspiring actress who gets her breakthrough as the lead in a big successful movie, only to then start having strange experiences in the aftermath that may or may not be real. I'm not going to get too spoilery beyond that. While often I'm not drawn into vaguely surreal stories where it's hard to tell reality from dreams, it's done quite well here, largely because our emotional connection to the character is never dampened by her experiences not being "real." The story heavily features themes of young women being mistreated in the film industry, and that remains thematically central in all aspects of the story, so whether or not you can plot out the narrative it's clear what the emotional underpinning is intended to be. The film ends with a bit of a "twist" that I did anticipate, but it brought out strong reactions from folks who saw it -- some thought it was minimizing some of the character's most hurtful experiences. While I understand that point of view and wouldn't necessarily recommend the film to everyone because of that, I did not have that response to it and instead left feeling deeply moved by the story I'd seen.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Nina Wu > Captain Phillips

Nina Wu < Key Largo

Nina Wu > Swing Shift

Nina Wu > The Country Girl

Nina Wu < Last Action Hero

Nina Wu > Fail Safe (2000)

Nina Wu > Elvis

Nina Wu > The Awful Truth

Nina Wu > The Last Seduction

Nina Wu < The Secret Garden (1987)

Nina Wu < Cats (2019)

Nina Wu < Gentleman's Agreement

Final spot: #1098 out of 3877, or 72%.