Young Man of Manhattan (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Toby McLean, a reckless sports writer on a New York City newspaper, covers the Gene Tunney-Jack Dempsey heavyweight-championship fight in Philadelphia. There he meets Ann Vaughn, a feature writer for another newspaper, and they get married after a whirlwind romance.

Directed by Monta Bell. Starring Claudette Colbert, Norman Foster, and Ginger Rogers.

Young Man of Manhattan follows a husband-and-wife pair of newspaper writers trying to make it big, but things go wrong when she starts to gain fame and outearn him. He doesn't handle his jealousy well, and the two try to keep their relationship going despite all the stress her job brings. Look, it's 2024, I'm going to have a real hard time rooting for a couple to get back together when he's so deeply insecure about earning less than her, so I'm already uninvested in the key drama of the story, and he never proves me wrong. Claudette Colbert plays the woman and she's vastly more interesting on her own, and I'd rather the story was just her rocking the newspaper world. Any time her husband gets involved or their marriage is on the rocks, I lost interest real fast. Plus it's another one of those examples of 1930 movies I constantly had to look up the plot of to remind myself what it is, because the title bears almost no relation to the plot itself. Not one of the better rom-coms from this year, for sure.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Young Man of Manhattan < Love Exposure

Young Man of Manhattan < In the Line of Fire

Young Man of Manhattan > Mission to Mars

Young Man of Manhattan < The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Young Man of Manhattan < Simone

Young Man of Manhattan < The Killing of Sister George

Young Man of Manhattan > Jumper

Young Man of Manhattan > For Love of the Game

Young Man of Manhattan > Mr. Hulot's Holiday

Young Man of Manhattan > Run Fatboy Run

Young Man of Manhattan < Father Brown

Final spot: #3380 out of 3929, or 14%.

Musica (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A coming-of-age love story that follows an aspiring creator with synesthesia, who must come to terms with an uncertain future, while navigating the pressures of love, family, and his Brazilian culture in Newark, New Jersey.

Directed by Rudy Mancuso. Starring Rudy Mancuso, Camila Mendes, and Francesca Reale.

Musica is the story of a Brazilian college student struggling to figure out what he wants to do with his life, both professionally and romantically. His true passion is puppeteering, but that doesn't pay the bills, and he finds himself caught between the Brazilian woman his mom hopes he ends up with and his wealthy white college sweetheart. This is a very standard story on one level, but it has a few nice tricks up its sleeve that scoot it up a tiny bit from other lesser movies telling the same kind of story. One is that our main character is pretty likable. He's naive and wishy-washy and idealistic and a goofball who has conversations with his puppets, and even when he's making bad decisions you still want him to figure it out. The film also make some fun outside-the-box choices with its cinematography, particularly for the musical sequences, and its editing, particularly during the "dating two women at one" montage. Enough small sweet moments to turn the movie from watchable into enjoyable.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Música > Love Exposure

Música < Safe

Música < The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Música > Love Story

Música > Death at a Funeral (2007)

Música > Hereditary

Música < The Salesman

Música > Space Sweepers

Música > Something to Sing About

Música > Incendies

Música > The Romantics

Final spot: #1505 out of 3930, or 62%.

Hero (1992)

IMDb plot summary: A not-so-nice man rescues passengers from a crashed airliner, only to see someone else take credit.

Directed by Stephen Frears. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, and Andy Garcia.

Hero stars Dustin Hoffman as a deadbeat father constantly evading arrest who just happens to be in a nearby car when a passenger plane crashes in front of him. He ends up pulling several people from the plane and disappears. Before he realizes the media is looking for him, someone else has stepped up to claim they were the savior of the plane and are reaping all the benefits of it. This movie took me by surprise a bit -- I knew absolutely nothing going into it, and found myself absolutely wrapped up in the story. Hoffman gives an incredible performance, as do Geena Davis and Andy Garcia in their supporting roles. I like that the movie was willing to lean into Hoffman's character being unlikable and a master of bad decisions, even while we were also kind of rooting for him, but it didn't suddenly make him a model human. It manages to be heartwarming without being annoying. Definitely worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hero > The Bat Whispers

Hero > Safe

Hero < Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Hero > Theater Camp

Hero > Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Hero > Animal Crackers

Hero > Moonrise Kingdom

Hero < Men

Hero > Detroit

Hero > Women Talking

Hero > A Man for All Seasons

Hero < Bottoms

Final spot: #507 out of 3926, or 87%.

Challengers (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Tashi, a former tennis prodigy turned coach, turned her husband into a champion. But to overcome a losing streak, he needs to face his ex-best friend and Tashi's ex-boyfriend.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino. Starring Mike Faist, Josh O'Connor, and Zendaya.

Challengers is the story of a love triangle between three tennis players -- two men and one woman. The men are best friends until the woman gets in between them and their friendship breaks, and we see this play out both in past flashbacks and in the current day, where the three reunite for the first time in years and things are just as complicated. I was unenthused by the director's previous film Call Me By Your Name, and there's no denying I had a *better* time with this one, even if I don't think it tells a story of much depth. The trio's constant sparring, both on the court and off it, definitely made for an entertaining back-and-forth, in the vein of a "trashy" reality show where you keep tuning in to find out who's going to be mad at whom this week. Our three actors are all well matched to each other and do a nice job of demonstrating the changing dynamics they have with each of the other two members. Overall, an entertaining fast-paced love-and-sports story that I enjoyed but don't think I'd ever rewatch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Challengers > The Bat Whispers

Challengers < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Challengers < Kajaki

Challengers > Irma La Douce

Challengers < Walk on the Wild Side

Challengers < Once Upon a Mattress (2005)

Challengers > Jackie

Challengers > Roma

Challengers < Dark Shadows

Challengers > Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Challengers > The Recruit

Final spot: #1665 out of 3927, or 58%.

Climax (2018)

IMDb plot summary: French dancers gather in a remote, empty school building to rehearse on a wintry night. The all-night celebration morphs into a hallucinatory nightmare when they learn their sangria is laced with LSD.

Directed by Gaspar Noé. Starring Sofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic, and Souheila Yacoub.

Climax is a film by Gaspar Noé about a group of dancers at a party who inadvertently drink acid-spiked sangria and end up having a very, very, very bad collective trip. I had very low expectations for this film, given how much I disliked Enter the Void, but this one kind of worked for me. It is terrifying and claustrophobic and all the more unsettling from the audience vantage point as an outsider -- we're never put inside the minds of any of these characters, so all we see is their erratic behavior consistently escalating to nightmarish levels, without any ability to help them or for them to help each other. I think it benefits from its short runtime, at right around 90 minutes, which keeps the horror fresh instead of ever allowing it to settle. The first half, before the terror sets in, is also surprisingly engaging, setting the scene for all these characters' interactions and featuring really fantastic dance sequences. The film hired real dancers instead of actors, and while that may work against it sometimes, for the most part it works, as movement is such a core component of the horror of all of this. Not one I'd like to revisit any time soon or anything -- it's a lot -- but I was impressed by it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Climax > Love Exposure

Climax < Safe

Climax > Kajaki

Climax < All the Best: Fun Begins

Climax > Air

Climax < The Pirate Movie

Climax > Moonlight

Climax < Educating Rita

Climax > Prometheus

Climax < The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Climax > The Crying Game

Final spot: #1315 out of 3931, or 67%.

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

IMDb plot summary: Samantha Caine lives in a small town with her daughter. Eight years ago she emerged, two months pregnant, from a nearby river with no memory of her past or who she is. However, she's getting closer to finding out about her past.

Directed by Renny Harlin. Starring Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, and Yvonne Zima.

The Long Kiss Goodnight stars Geena Davis as a woman who lost her memory several years ago and has re-invented her life since then. However, strange events start convincing her she might have a darker past than she at first thought, and she sets out to try to figure it out. This is a fluffy, fun female-led action thriller, and Geena Davis is a great lead for it, playing both the suburban mom and the ruthless assassin very well. Samuel L. Jackson works as a comedic foil, the everyman thrown into this situation without warning. The emotional arc of the film doesn't work particularly well, but it's mostly just trying to be a fun bombastic time, and it delivers on that for the most part. Not one I'm going to remember for long, but I had a good enough time watching it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Long Kiss Goodnight > Kodachrome

The Long Kiss Goodnight < Safe

The Long Kiss Goodnight < Kajaki

The Long Kiss Goodnight > Ender’s Game

The Long Kiss Goodnight > 12 Years a Slave

The Long Kiss Goodnight < Hereditary

The Long Kiss Goodnight < Cool Hand Luke

The Long Kiss Goodnight < Death to Smoochy

The Long Kiss Goodnight < Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

The Long Kiss Goodnight < Suddenly, Last Summer

The Long Kiss Goodnight > Ben-Hur (1959)

The Long Kiss Goodnight > Chaos Theory

Final spot: #1591 out of 3925, or 59%.

Late Spring (1949)

IMDb plot summary: Several people try to talk 27-year-old Noriko into marrying, but all she wants is to keep on caring for her widowed father.

Directed by Yasujirô Ozu. Starring Chishû Ryû, Setsuko Hara, and Yumeji Tsukioka.

Late Spring is a Japanese movie from the 40s by Yasujiro Ozu about a woman in her 20s who lives alone with her father taking care of him despite the pressure that's placed on her to marry. She is happy with the life that she has but keeps being pressured by everyone around her to do the adult responsible thing and get married, continue on with her life, and leave her father. Tokyo Story is the only other Ozu that I've watched and while it was interesting, it didn't capture my attention. Late Spring absolutely did. I felt myself so connected to this character who was working so hard to not disappoint the people around her but truly did not want to do what they wanted. There's something really heartbreaking about her just not being able to get what she wants. The movie is slow and quiet, and that adds to the sadness of the whole thing. Just like with Tokyo Story, I found a contrast between the cheery smiles these characters would put on and the discontent and the sadness that lay beneath that, and even though this sadness was a fairly mild form, it still felt very real and it felt very difficult and very sad and I really, really loved it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Late Spring > Sarah, Plain and Tall

Late Spring > Safe

Late Spring > The White Tiger

Late Spring > Dead Ringers

Late Spring < Tootsie

Late Spring < Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Late Spring < Seven Samurai

Late Spring < Moxie

Late Spring > Submarine

Late Spring < Bullets Over Broadway

Late Spring < Amahl and the Night Visitors

Late Spring < Everything Everywhere All at Once

Final spot: #237, or 94%.

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

IMDb plot summary: When Keith goes out with Amanda, the girl of his dreams, Amanda's ex-boyfriend plans to get back at Keith. Meanwhile, Keith's best friend, tomboy Watts, realizes she has feelings for Keith.

Directed by Howard Deutch. Starring Eric Soltz, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Lea Thompson.

Some Kind of Wonderful is a John Hughes-written teenage rom-com about a boy who falls in love with a girl in his school who is not super rich herself but has found popularity in the rich crowd. He and his female best friend work together to try to get her to give him a chance. There is a lot to like about this movie. The journey watching through John Hughes' writing work has been very up and down, with as many misses as hits, but this one brings out the best things I like about his work. It has very rewarding relationships and relationship dynamics -- and an ending that I didn't know if I was going to get, but was absolutely what I was rooting for the whole way through. There are enough fun little moments throughout that add light and levity to what could be a purely melodramatic story. Overall, it's a really enjoyable story that is heartwarming and sweet and fun and works a lot better than I thought it might.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Some Kind of Wonderful > The Invention of Lying

Some Kind of Wonderful < Safe

Some Kind of Wonderful > The Impossible

Some Kind of Wonderful > Time Bandits

Some Kind of Wonderful < Cats

Some Kind of Wonderful > Pain and Glory

Some Kind of Wonderful > Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Some Kind of Wonderful > The Bad Seed

Some Kind of Wonderful > 1917

Some Kind of Wonderful > Nina Wu

Some Kind of Wonderful < Gentleman's Agreement

Final spot: #1106, or 72%.

All of Us Strangers (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A screenwriter drawn back to his childhood home enters into a fledgling relationship with his downstairs neighbor while discovering a mysterious new way to heal from losing his parents 30 years ago.

Directed by Andrew Haigh. Starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, and Claire Foy.

All of Us Strangers is a movie starring Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal as two gay men who live in the same mostly empty building and end up beginning a relationship. Along the way we also see Scott visiting his parents, who he hasn't spent much time with and don't know much about the person that he is today. The story and the relationships unfold slowly, so I'm not going to go a whole lot more into detail than that, because I think a lot of it is good to watch unfold by yourself. I will say that this movie left me absolutely devastated. It's a beautiful movie but it's heart-wrenching in ways that I didn't anticipate. There were some moments of grief and loss that I saw coming and others that I did not. Ultimately, at the end, it left me wanting to cry, but in the best possible, horribly cathartic way of just emptying my soul out. Definitely a heavy watch, a tricky watch, but a really beautiful movie. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

All of Us Strangers > The Invention of Lying

All of Us Strangers > Safe

All of Us Strangers > The Legend of 1900

All of Us Strangers > Fatal Attraction

All of Us Strangers < Tootsie

All of Us Strangers < Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

All of Us Strangers < Seven Samurai

All of Us Strangers > Kes

All of Us Strangers > Last Crusade.

All of Us Strangers > Nightmare Before Christmas

All of Us Strangers < The Others

All of Us Strangers > Beasts of No Nation

Final spot: #220, or 94%.

Rosetta (1999)

IMDb plot summary: Young and impulsive Rosetta lives with her alcoholic mother and, moved by despair, she will do anything to maintain a job.

Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne. Starring Émilie Dequenne, Fabrizio Rongione, and Anne Yernaux.

Rosetta is a French film about a teenage girl who lives with her alcoholic mother and is trying to support them both. This is one of those stories that is just relentlessly depressing from beginning to end with zero no happiness in it, and that got very exhausting for me. I also got very overwhelmed with the cinematography choice to film the characters so close up that it was hard to tell what was actually happening. I perpetually felt like I was just standing inches away from them and couldn't process where their bodies were in the full space. This is the kind of movie that some people are going to absolutely love -- in fact, I watched this because it was a favorite of one of my movie fan friends -- but I just found it really dreary and depressing and didn't find a lot of redeeming value to it. It's not a bad movie per se, but it's one that I find hard to judge because I truly don't know what I'm supposed to get out of this.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Rosetta < The Invention of Lying

Rosetta > Avengers: Endgame

Rosetta < Wild Zero

Rosetta > Sweet Kitty Bellair

Rosetta > American Hustle

Rosetta < Internet Famous

Rosetta < Dead Man Walking

Rosetta < The Ascent

Rosetta > National Velvet

Rosetta > Marry Me

Rosetta > Mud

Rosetta < The Lost Daughter

Final spot: #2558, or 35%.

Chain of Fools (2000)

IMDb plot summary: Salma Hayek plays an avid detective assigned to the heist of a batch of precious coins that end up in the hands of a suicidal barber.

Directed by Bix Skahill. Starring Steve Zahn, Salma Hayek, and Jeff Goldblum.

Chain of Fools is a big, goofy comedy of errors starring Steve Zahn as a barber who accidentally kills someone who turns out to be responsible for a big dramatic bank heist, and Zahn thinks he knows where he can get the loot. Cue a long, over-the-top series of misunderstandings and botched crime moves as he tries to get the stolen items and run away with them. This has a lot of moving pieces in it and is a very quick-moving story with jokes coming very fast. Some of them work really well, but a lot of them fall pretty flat. Most of the main storyline with Steve Zahn himself -- and just about everything with his sidekick David Cross -- falls really flat. The part that I liked the most was Elijah Wood's subplot, where he plays a teenage hitman looking to make friends despite also trying to keep up his hitman persona. He is definitely the best part of the movie. So definitely a messy film, but had a few redeemable moments.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Chain of Fools < Sarah, Plain and Tall

Chain of Fools > Avengers: Endgame

Chain of Fools < The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Chain of Fools > Sweet Kitty Bellair

Chain of Fools > American Hustle

Chain of Fools > Internet Famous

Chain of Fools > Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Chain of Fools > The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Chain of Fools < No Highway in the Sky

Chain of Fools > Mongol

Chain of Fools > Eyewitness

Final spot: #2458, or 37%.

Kin-dza-dza! (1986)

IMDb plot summary: Two Russians push the wrong button on a strange device and end up on the telepathic planet Pluke with its strange societal norms.

Directed by Georgiy Daneliya. Starring Stanislav Lyubshin, Evgeniy Leonov, and Yuriy Yakovlev.

Kin-dza-dza! is a very silly Soviet Union comedy about two people who accidentally get transported to a foreign planet in a faraway galaxy and find themselves trapped and trying to find their way back home. They team up with some people who try to fill them in on the customs of the new area that they're living in. It's all very wacky and silly and confusing and surreal, and I never found it quite as funny as I wanted to given the absurdity of the initial premise. It always felt a little bit dreary, continuously watching them trudge across this desert and encounter new nonsensical characters with seemingly very little overarching story. It reminded me a bit of Alice in Wonderland in terms of structure. and that's just not a style of storytelling that I typically find compelling. However, it was certainly creative, and I enjoyed everything conceptually. In theory, everything was really interesting. I just found myself getting bored of the actual story several times partway through.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Kin-dza-dza! < Sarah, Plain and Tall

Kin-dza-dza! > Avengers: Endgame

Kin-dza-dza! > Wild Zero

Kin-dza-dza! > Batman Forever

Kin-dza-dza! > Ghost in the Invisible Bikini

Kin-dza-dza! > The Misfits

Kin-dza-dza! > Vampyr

Kin-dza-dza! > The Fear of ThirteenKin-dza-dza! 

Kin-dza-dza! < The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Kin-dza-dza! > The Gray Man

Kin-dza-dza! < The Blues Brothers

Kin-dza-dza! > Triangle of Sadness

Final spot: #1969, or 50%.

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret (2023)

IMDb plot summary: When her family moves from the city to the suburbs, 11-year-old Margaret navigates new friends, feelings, and the beginning of adolescence.

Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig. Starring Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams, and Kathy Bates.

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret is based on the Judy Blume book of the same name, which I never read. It tells the story of a young girl in the 1970s growing up and trying to figure out what it means to be a human -- especially an adult woman. She and her family have moved to a new town where she's suddenly needing to discover that identity among a new group of friends. If this movie is anything like the book, I can absolutely see why it was formative for so many people. It's very relatable. Margaret is simultaneously eager and terrified for the experiences of womanhood, and when she can't pinpoint how she feels about it, she is creative, curious, bold, and determined to know herself and what she wants. I was a little bit surprised how keeping the 1970s timeframe for this movie didn't in any way diminish its relatability. Even though the name brands were different, it still tapped into the same universal concerns and excitement about growing up that is still present today. Super charming, super sweet, totally worth watching.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret > Sarah Plain and Tall

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret > Safe

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret < The Legend of 1900

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret > The Farewell

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret < The Cat Returns

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret > Star Trek (2009)

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret < Summer Wars

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret < Beautiful Boy

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret < Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret < Super

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret < Face/Off

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret > 5 Centimeters Per Second. 

Final spot: #671, or 83%.

Sin Takes a Holiday (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A plain secretary works for a womanizing divorce lawyer who only dates married women. To avoid having to deal with the matrimonial pursuits of any of his potential romances, he offers her financial support if she marries him in name only.

Directed by Paul L. Stein. Starring Constance Bennett, Kenneth MacKenna, and Basil Rathbone.

Sin Takes a Holiday is about a receptionist in love with her boss, who is trying to avoid marrying a socialite. To get out of it, he proposes to his receptionist, with the understanding that he'll provide for her and let her live off on her own wherever she wants. Her friends are jealous of her opportunity for independence, but she's not convinced she wants to be in a sham marriage. This really, this worked for me for the most part. I found the story and especially the lead character really engaging. I found myself disappointed with the ending, which I won't spoil, but it seems like a little bit of a cheesy cop out for the kind of story that I hoped that they were setting up to tell. Constance Bennett, though, as the main character is really delightful and really relatable and charming. It's impossible not to root for her. It's very much a wish fulfillment kind of story, which is thoroughly enjoyable.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Sin Takes a Holiday > The Invention of Lying

Sin Takes a Holiday < Safe

Sin Takes a Holiday < The Impossible

Sin Takes a Holiday > Paris, Texas

Sin Takes a Holiday > The Chorus

Sin Takes a Holiday > I Saw the Devil

Sin Takes a Holiday > A Scanner Darkly

Sin Takes a Holiday > Juno and the Paycock

Sin Takes a Holiday > Killers of the Flower Moon

Sin Takes a Holiday < All That Jazz

Sin Takes a Holiday < Don't Look Up

Sin Takes a Holiday < May December

Final spot: #1476, or 62%.

A Notorious Affair (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A scheming musician seduces a wealthy woman for love and money.

Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Starring Billie Dove, Basil Rathbone, and Kay Francis.

A Notorious Affair is the story of a wealthy young woman who defies her father's wishes and runs away with a poor Italian violinist, played by Basil Rathbone. But Rathbone turns out to be a poor husband, and the woman ends up having to reap the consequences of the mistake that she made. This is an interesting story because it does not go the direction that I expected. I thought this would be firmly on the side of love overcoming class, but that brings her nothing but misery in this story. Basil Rathbone is a lot of fun as the pretentious violinist, and Kay Francis, who I've been enjoying in my 1930 project, does a great job as the woman who lures Rathbone away. (Looking at my list, this is my fifth Kay Francis movie from 1930 I've seen, and there are still more!) Overall, it's enjoyable melodrama. It's not spectacular, but it was a good quick watch, and I enjoyed seeing how things played out.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Notorious Affair > The Invention of Lying

A Notorious Affair < Safe

A Notorious Affair < The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain

A Notorious Affair > Paris, Texas.

A Notorious Affair < How to Marry a Millionaire

A Notorious Affair > Ant-Man. 

A Notorious Affair > Anybody's Woman

A Notorious Affair < I Remember Mama

A Notorious Affair < Cairo Station

A Notorious Affair < Y Tu Mama Tambien

A Notorious Affair > The Boondock Saints

A Notorious Affair > Were The World Mine

Final spot: #1616, or 59%.

Her Man (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A Havana bar girl with a tough "protector" falls for a young sailor.

Directed by Tay Garnett. Starring Helen Twelvetrees, Phillips Holmes, and Marjorie Rambeau.

Her Man is a story about a woman who is a pickpocketing prostitute working in Cuba trying to get to the U.S. She falls in love with a sailor who promises to sweep her off her feet, but between her own uncertainty and her boss not being pleased with her leaving, she ends up being very concerned that she's not going to be able to make it happen. This is a pretty mediocre film. There are some engaging background character interactions, especially with two of the sailor's drunken shipmates who come to the rescue at the end, which is really exciting. And I did find it extremely funny that our main character's shirt just got progressively more ripped throughout the course of the movie, until at the end it's like hanging and rags off of him as he's fighting. But for the most part, this is a very standard and uninteresting version of this story.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Her Man < The Invention of Lying

Her Man > Frozen River

Her Man > The Secret of Nikola Tesla

Her Man < Dark City

Her Man < Mission Impossible 3

Her Man < In the Heat of the Night

Her Man < Street of Chance

Her Man < Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

Her Man < Funny Girl

Her Man > Marathon

Her Man < Fish Tank

Her Man > The January Man

Final spot: #2318, or 41%.

Elemental (2023)

IMDb plot summary: Follows Ember and Wade, in a city where fire-, water-, earth- and air-residents live together.

Directed by Peter Sohn. Starring Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, and Ronnie Del Carmen.

Elemental is a Pixar movie about a world in which elements are our main characters. The story follows a fire girl poised to take over her father's store, when she meets a water boy and everything kind of falls apart. Before I watched Elemental, I listened to a podcast in which somebody reflected that the movie was, at its heart, a romance. And I'm really glad that I saw that before watching this, because that helped me contextualize it. As a romance, it's super sweet, and it absolutely works. I buy the chemistry between the two leads, and I am, of course, always going to be a sucker for a story about somebody sacrificing themselves for their loved ones, so the ending absolutely drew some tears from me. As a story about someone trying to find their way in the world, it's a little bit less compelling, and the world building isn't as robust as I would have hoped. It's clearly trying to leave room for further explorations in sequels, but I'm not sure it stands up to that. It does have some really creative and fun animation exploring just the fire and water worlds, so I enjoyed large pieces of this. It's still better than a lot of the animated stuff that gets turned out for kids, but it is not as exciting as a lot of Pixar movies often are.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Elemental > Sarah, Plain and Tall

Elemental < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Elemental < Kajaki

Elemental > Imitation of Life (1959)

Elemental > Wristcutters: A Love Story

Elemental > The Black Phone

Elemental > Incendies

Elemental > Love, Life, and Goldfish

Elemental < May December

Elemental < The Tragedy of Macbeth

Elemental < The Family Man

Elemental > The Count of Monte Cristo

Final spot: #1480, or 62%.

If (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A young girl who goes through a difficult experience begins to see everyone's imaginary friends who have been left behind as their real-life friends have grown up.

Directed by John Krasinski. Starring Cailey Fleming, Ryan Reynolds, John Krasinski.

If tells the story of a young girl who discovers a group of forgotten imaginary friends living in the upstairs apartment, and while her dad is having heart surgery, she decides to help them all find new homes. So, this is a pretty clunky movie. The description of the world doesn't really make a lot of sense. The beginning especially is extremely confusing in setting up the parameters of the world. The big twist at the end was absolutely telegraphed from moment one, although possibly not for kids, who this movie is definitely intended for. I thing I did appreciated was that it didn't completely feed me information about the illness. It did a pretty good job of telling those parts of the story cinematically in a way that it was clear but not obvious. And I have learned that I am exactly the kind of person who buys hook, line, and sinker into Ryan Reynolds playing "slightly distanced and cynical, but really having a heart of gold underneath." Apparently, that character he plays is just intended for me. But overall it's definitely better for kids than for adults. It fell flat for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

If < Sarah, Plain and Tall

If < Cars

If < Annie (1982)

If > The Cowboys

If > The Story of the Weeping Camel

If > New in Town

If > The Country Bears

If > The 40-Year-Old Virgin

If > The Passion of Joan of Arc

If > Charlie Chan at the Opera

If > 17 Miracles

Final spot: #3426, or 12%. That is definitely too low -- it appears I have the 1982 Annie lower than it should be -- but this is where it sits for now.

Love Exposure (2008)

IMDb plot summary: A bizarre love triangle forms between a young Catholic upskirt photographer, a misandric girl and a manipulative cultist.

Directed by Sion Sono. Starring Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima, and Sakura Andô.

Love Exposure is a four-hour comedy/drama/romance about three extremely damaged teenagers looking for love and acceptance and... OK, I can't actually figure out how to summarize this movie. There has not been a movie recently that I've so needed the word ambivalent for. Ambivalent, to be clear, does not mean apathetic. It means strong, conflicting feelings. There are parts of this that I absolutely loathe and parts of this that I absolutely love. And overall, it ends up landing more on the loathe side because there's more of that, because it doesn't come together the way that I want it to, and because it is four hours long and I'm not sure any of that is justified. I really enjoy some of the dynamics between characters. But there's just so much going on that it's hard to cohere any of it in a way that I got anything out of. I think I'd like this better in individual tiny chunks, maybe a series of short movies that I could, short films that I could choose what to watch and what not to. Large portions of this, I just did not care about. So it's landing on the lower end, but I could see why people might love this. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

Love Exposure > The Invention of Lying

Love Exposure < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Love Exposure < Kajaki

Love Exposure < Imitation of Life (1959)

Love Exposure < Land

Love Exposure < Laal Singh Chaddha

Love Exposure < Chasing Amy

Love Exposure < Hamlet (2009)

Love Exposure < For Pete's Sake

Love Exposure > The Bat Whispers

Love Exposure < Pete's Dragon (1977)

Love Exposure < The Voyage to Greenland

Final spot: #1941, or 50%.