PopGap #07: Closing out Flickchart's Top 150

This month my viewing project is going to take me through the 17 movies I need to watch to have seen the entirety of Flickchart's Top 150.

What is Flickchart?

Flickchart is a movie-ranking website that help users generate a list of their favorite movies by forcing the user to choose their favorite from random pairings of movies. It's free to join, and a fun way for list-obsessed data-junkies to feel like they are doing something while actually accomplishing nothing!

A couple of months ago, I finished my year-long project of ranking every movie I can recollect, generating a list of my favorite-to-least-favorite movies, from #1-3094. I rank every new movie after I watch it.

This Month's Movies

Here's what I'll be watching, and how they are currently ranked on Flickchart's global chart.

I've seen 6 of these previously (*), but only once each, and long, long ago, so I haven't ranked them on my own Flickchart. One of them I've seen parts of several times (**), as my kids love it, but I have not yet summoned the patience to endure it in its entirety.

• #13. Ikiru (1952) Dir.: Akira Kurosawa
• * #21. the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Dir.: Sergio Leone
• * #63. Paths of Glory (1957) Dir.: Stanley Kubrick
• #79. High and Low (1963) Dir.: Akira Kurosawa
• #84. Le samouraï (1967) Dir.: Jean-Pierre Melville
• #89. Cool Hand Luke (1967) Dir.: Stuart Rosenberg
• #91. the Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Dir.: Carl Theodor Dreyer
• * #101. His Girl Friday (1940) Dir.: Howard Hawks
• * #104. the Rules of the Game (1939) Dir.: Jean Renoir
• * #112. A Fistful of Dollars (1964) Dir.: Sergio Leone
• #124. Grand Illusion (1937) Dir.: Jean Renoir
• #125. Aguirre: the Wrath of God (1972) Dir.: Werner Herzog
• #136. the Great Escape (1963) Dir.: John Sturges
• ** #139. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Dir.: Hayao Miyazaki
• * #141. For a Few Dollars More (1965) Dir.: Sergio Leone
• #142. Throne of Blood (1957) Dir.: Akira Kurosawa
• #144. Sherlock Jr. (1924) Dir.: Buster Keaton

A sort of diverse selection there, but heaviest on foreign and long movies, which I sometimes resist due to laziness. Also a couple of silents, including one that's only 45 minutes, so that will help balance out the 2.5+ hour selections.

• I think I'm most looking forward to Throne of Blood, because I've recently watched Macbeth performed live (in a cemetery!) and then watched a bit of Orson Welles' 1948 film version. My favorite Kurosawa is Ran, also a Shakespeare adaptation of sorts.
• It's nice to have four quality Japanese movies on this month's list, since last month's kung fu movies list featured a virtual parade of anti-Japanese sentiment.
• I do find it a little interesting that there are three Kurosawa movies on the list, alongside a French movie named Le Samourai, but three of the four are not about samurai. I'm not sure about Throne of Blood.
• I'm somewhat nervous about The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I haven't seen it in 20 years. I did try to rewatch that trilogy a few years ago but not get through the first two movies. Although Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite western, there are some directors who completely fail for me when they don't perfectly nail it, and I think Leone might be one of them. I'll be watching the extended, 175 minute version of TGTBATU.