Twisted Nerve (1968)

IMDb plot summary: Martin Durnley is a troubled young man who retreats into an alternate personality - that of six-year-old Georgie. It is Georgie who befriends Susan Harper, but friendship soon turns into obsession. When Susan begins to distance herself, something inside Georgie snaps and he embarks on a killing spree, with Susan as the next target.
Directed by Roy Boultin. Starring Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett, Billiw Whitelaw, and Phyllis Calvert.

(Spoilers.)

Well, right off the bat, I need to acknowledge that this movie's understanding of disability, mental illness and neurodiversity does NOT hold up. The film's implications definitely dabble in autism (and possibly Down's Syndrome) as explanations for the main character's psychopathic tendency, which was really uncomfortable to listen to.

Assuming those weird moments weren't there, though, it's a moderately compelling film. I like the amount of agency Hayley Mills gets -- up until the very end, when someone else has to come rescue her because she stupidly went around exploring her house with an almost-certain killer lurking in it. Hywel Bennett was engagingly over-the-top as the villain, bringing in some serious Alex DeLarge vibes (three years earlier). The final act feels contrived and falls apart, which was disappointing. It's got its lurid fun moments but seriously loses its way with its finale and its assessment of what makes someone a murderer.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Twisted Nerve > The Italian Job (2003)
Twisted Nerve < Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Twisted Nerve < Were the World Mine
Twisted Nerve < Kiss the Girls
Twisted Nerve < Father of the Bride Part II
Twisted Nerve < Ben-Hur (1959)
Twisted Nerve > Ender's Game
Twisted Nerve > Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood
Twisted Nerve > The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
Twisted Nerve > The Firemen's Ball
Twisted Nerve < Mrs. Miniver
Final spot: #1536 out of 3165.

The Color of Pomegranates (1968)

IMDb plot summary: A super-stylized, surreal biography of Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova, whose life is depicted through non-narrative amalgamations of poetic images.
Directed by Sergei Parajanov. Starring Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Alekyan, Vilen Galstyan, and Gogi Gegechkori.

All right, so this was never going to, like, wow me. Or it would have been extremely unusual for it to do so. Visual symbolism so seldom connects with me that an avant-garde biopic told almost entirely through visual symbols was going to be a rough ride. It's not at all a commentary on the quality of it, and I'm always open to trying to engage with these films, but typically I find myself zoning out without a linear plot to ground me to what's actually being said. That being said, this was at least a peaceful, slow, meditative time zoning out. Knowing it was (loosely) about the life of a poet made sense, because it felt like a series of poetic lines, and if I had sat down and paused on each individual image I could probably have muddled some meaning out of it. Some of the images and use of color were striking. So I admire the effort and suspect there's something good here, but it doesn't quite get through to me, so it's still getting ranked low.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Color of Pomegranates < Melinda and Melinda
The Color of Pomegranates > Green Book
The Color of Pomegranates < Bobby
The Color of Pomegranates < Cars
The Color of Pomegranates < Adam's Rib
The Color of Pomegranates < Wild Hogs
The Color of Pomegranates < Jake's Women
The Color of Pomegranates > Party Girl
The Color of Pomegranates < Petulia
The Color of Pomegranates > Annie Get Your Gun
The Color of Pomegranates < Steve Jobs
Final spot: #2357 out of 3164.

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

IMDb plot summary: An East European girl travels to the United States with her young son, expecting it to be like a Hollywood film.
Directed by Lars von Trier. Starring Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, and Peter Stormare.

(Spoilers ahead.)

This is definitely an unusual musical but hauntingly so. I think without the musical numbers it would have just felt needlessly melodramatic to me (a frequent criticism of this movie, it seems) but with them it brought it to a different level. The songs definitely have Bjork's sort of eerie dreamy style, which makes the whole thing so unsettling, especially as the number of songs ramps up the further we get into the film, so the worse life gets for Selma, the more interludes we have where she interprets them through cheery musical numbers. There's something very striking about Bjork's performance as well -- she seems to float through and above this movie even when she's not singing, with this dissociative quality that, for me, really drives home the horrors of everything happening to her.

I also love how, until the very very end, the movie never reveals how the outside world is reacting to the musical numbers happening inside her head. We see her singing joyously as she's leaving the crime scene or being arrested by police, so we get a sense of where the narrative's taken us, but it allows us to fill in the gaps and doesn't worry about providing every little plot detail, which I love.

Overall a movie that will definitely sit with me for a long time and I'm glad I finally got the push to see it.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Dancer in the Dark > The Italian Job (2003)
Dancer in the Dark > Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Dancer in the Dark < The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Dancer in the Dark > Big Trouble in Little China
Dancer in the Dark < Planet of the Apes (1968)
Dancer in the Dark > Face/Off
Dancer in the Dark > Summer Wars
Dancer in the Dark < Jesus People: The Movie
Dancer in the Dark > Scream
Dancer in the Dark > Fright Night (2011)
Dancer in the Dark < Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead
Final spot: #509 out of 3163.

Your Name. (2016)

IMDb plot summary: Two strangers find themselves linked in a bizarre way. When a connection forms, will distance be the only thing to keep them apart?
Directed by Makoto Shinkai. Starring Ryûnosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi, Ryô Narita, and Aoi Yûki.

This is a strange movie to try to write about because I can feel it gripping onto my heart but not because of reasons I can put into words. It feels more like... Here's an odd example. When I'm especially anxious, there is a general fear that doesn't stem from anything in particular, it just seems to permeate through every bit of me and stick. That is how I'm feeling about this movie, but with satisfaction instead of fear. When I start thinking about the pieces of this and trying to pinpoint what worked for me and what didn't, I can't figure out what it is. It is a lovely story, with some gorgeous animation and creative storytelling and great characters. But somehow they all add up into something more. This is one that I think is going to sit with me and in my soul for awhile before I can figure out what to say about it. But it works, and it is beautiful.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Your Name > The Italian Job
Your Name > Shall We Dance? (2004)
Your Name > The Maltese Falcon
Your Name < Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Your Name > My Man Godfrey
Your Name > Bambi
Your Name < Parasite
Your Name < Night of the Living Dead
Your Name > High Noon
Your Name < Blindspotting
Your Name > That Thing You Do!
Final spot: #237 out of 3162.

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)

IMDb plot summary: The life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach as presented by his wife, Anna.
Directed by Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Starring Gustav Leonhardt, Christiane Lang, Paolo Carlini, and Ernst Castelli.

This feels less like a film than just a Bach concert in period costume with occasional readings explaining pieces of Bach's life. I feel like that would be a more interesting way to see this as well, as perhaps it would allow for readers who had a bit more expression. I had to actually slow down the video and audio during the spoken portions because they are spoken so quickly and with so little inflection that I had a great deal of difficulty following along with them. The music of course was very nice, but I'm not at all well-versed in Bach and couldn't tell you if it was an especially good performance of any of these. Certainly an interesting format for a music history movie, but it didn't draw me in as much as I hoped it would.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach < The Sandlot
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach > One 2 Ka 4
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach < Tulpan
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach > Goldfinger
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach > Tiramisu
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach < Steel Magnolias
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach < Four Weddings and a Funeral
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach < Lovelace
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach > Gozu
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach > Mission: Impossible
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach < The Core

Final spot: #2064 out of 3161.

Volver (2006)

IMDb plot summary: After her death, a mother returns to her home town in order to fix the situations she couldn't resolve during her life.
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, and Blanca Portillo.

My last Almodóvar I'll get to this month, I think, and easily my favorite. It's one of the best performances I've seen thus far from Penélope Cruz, it's another one with a rich cast of nuanced and complex women, the plots seemed to unfold from each other and connect thematically rather than be thrown down from the sky at random... And the visuals here are truly stunning. I noted Almodóvar's use of color in other films, but this is the first time it actually brought up an emotional response from me. Either I saved the best for last or I'm finally finding my way to understanding his work. Either way, as I most likely take a break from him for a bit, I'm glad to have gone out on a high note.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Volver > Hook
Volver < Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Volver > Captains Courageous
Volver > The Whistleblower
Volver > Le samourai
Volver > Sneakers
Volver < Notting Hill
Volver < The Great Silence
Volver > Auntie Mame
Volver > Hoodwinked!
Volver < Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
Final spot: #829 out of 3160.

All About My Mother (1999)

IMDb plot summary: Young Esteban wants to become a writer and also to discover the identity of his second mother, a trans woman, carefully concealed by his mother Manuela.
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, and Antonia San Juan.

As I've been watching a LOT of Almodovar, I reach this one, which one the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film as well as being his #1 film on Flickchart. I hoped this would be my turning point in understanding his films, as this seems to be one of his more accessible, but... it isn't quite. I really appreciate a film with so many rich female characters (I LOVE that the first man credited on IMDb is a full seven spots down -- that like never happens), and I thought many of them had interesting moments in and of themselves, but as always I can't find his narrative throughline. What experience is he trying to convey? What questions is he trying to raise or answer about motherhood or female relationships or gender identity? No clue. It all feels engaging enough as it goes along but ultimately I can't find the heart of it. Were it not for the more grounded character of Manuela, the entire thing would have felt more like the sensationalized soap operas his other films conjure for me, but her groundedness just conveys a sense that *something* deeper is meant to be going on here and it's just whooshing past me.

How it entered my Flickchart:
All About My Mother > The Lion in Winter (2003)
All About My Mother < Hairspray Live!
All About My Mother < Nick of Time
All About My Mother > Beverly Hills Cop
All About My Mother > The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
All About My Mother > A Man Escaped
All About My Mother < The Killing of a Sacred Deer
All About My Mother < At First Sight
All About My Mother < The Sound of Music
All About My Mother < Never a Dull Moment
All About My Mother < The Miracle Worker
All About My Mother > Quiz Show
Final spot: #1233 out of 3159.