What If (2013)

IMDb plot summary: Wallace, who is burned out from a string of failed relationships, forms an instant bond with Chantry, who lives with her longtime boyfriend. Together, they puzzle out what it means if your best friend is also the love of your life.

Directed by Michael Dowse. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, and Megan Park.

What If is a rom com starring Zoe Kazan and Daniel Radcliffe as two best friends navigating the question of whether what they feel for each other is more than friendship, even though Kazan is dating someone else. This is a simple but truly charming little romance that does an incredible job of building up the chemistry between our two leads. From the very first scene, their interactions have the easy, silly, comfortable banter of best friends, and it's impossible not to root for them. It also deals well with the theme of friends falling in love, acknowledging how difficult and complicated that can be for everyone involved. The supporting cast is also fun and engaging. While the story doesn't reach the full depth that would make it an all-time favorite, it's a sweet and entertaining watch that I had a good time with overall.

How it entered my Flickchart:

What If > Le voyage au Groenland

What If > Kuroneko

What If > Network

What If < Parasite

What If < Cape Fear (1962)

What If < Tarzan (1999)

What If < La Strada

What If < Beetlejuice

What If < The Goodbye Girl (1977)

What If > The White Tiger

What If < Secretary

What If < Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Final spot: #493 out of 3975, or 88%.

The Replacements (2000)

IMDb plot summary: During a pro football strike, the owners hire substitute players.

Directed by Howard Deutch. Starring Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, and Brooke Langton.

The Replacements is a sports movie from 2000 based on an actual football players strike. Here, Gene Hackman plays the old coach who comes back in to assemble a team of replacement players, headed up by Keanu Reeves. The group has to learn to work together so they can win the final games of the season and take home the championship. This movie has two things working against it for me: one, it's an inspirational sports movie, and two... it's an inspirational sports movie siding against striking workers. Sorry, folks, I'm just a little too pro-labor to feel sorry for the scabs being looked down on. The movie it kept drawing negative comparisons to, from earlier this challenge, was Next Goal Wins, another movie about underdog sports teams, but that one had more distinct characters and didn't require me to cheer for a mega corporation. The characters in this aren't super compelling, the romance isn't interesting, and just overall very little about it works for me. I know this is some people's favorite kind of story, but it's not mine.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Replacements < Pete's Dragon (1977)

The Replacements > Loving Annabelle

The Replacements < Fun Size

The Replacements < Water for Elephants

The Replacements < The Preacher's Wife

The Replacements < A Mighty Wind

The Replacements > The Devil's Brigade

The Replacements < The Spanish Prisoner

The Replacements < The Fundamentals of Caring

The Replacements > My Darling Clementine

The Replacements > Candy

The Replacements > Reminiscence

Final spot: #2942 out of 3974, or 26%.

Hit Man (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A professor moonlighting as a hit man of sorts for his city police department, descends into dangerous, dubious territory when he finds himself attracted to a woman who enlists his services.

Directed by Richard Linklater. Starring Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, and Austin Amelio.

Hit Man stars Glen Powell as a mild-mannered philosophy professor who gets an unexpected side career as a fake hit man who turns his clients into the cops once they hire him. However, things take a turn when he ends up developing feelings for one of his clients and they become involved. This is a fairly entertaining movie, largely for Powell's work -- yes, after this I can see why he suddenly became the enormous star he did. He plays all his various parts extremely well, including his "core self" who is dull and boring. Richard Linklater directs this, and you can definitely see his interest in humans and how they behave shining through this story. That being said, it is more of a flash-in-the-pan movie for me, that I enjoyed while it ran and then mostly forgot once it was over, aside from Powell's impressive performance. Totally watchable but not necessarily memorable for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hit Man > Le voyage au Groenland

Hit Man < Anna Karenina

Hit Man < The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Hit Man > Secret in Their Eyes

Hit Man > Chaos Theory

Hit Man > Talk Radio

Hit Man < The Salesman

Hit Man > George Takei's Allegiance

Hit Man < Saltburn

Hit Man < Joker

Hit Man < Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

Hit Man < Battle Royale

Final spot: #1536 out of 3973, or 61%.

Teen Beach Movie (2013)

IMDb plot summary: Two surfing lovers, whose doomed relationship is nearing to a close, find themselves swept into a dimension-traversing wave that sends them into a beach movie musical in the 60's.

Directed by Jeffrey Hornaday. Starring Ross Lynch, Maia Mitchell, and Gracie Gillam.

Teen Beach Movie is a musical about a teenage surfer couple who are about to break up because the girl is going to finish high school at an elite boarding school. The day she's supposed to leave, the two get caught in a bizarre ocean storm that lands them in the middle of the boy's favorite movie: a 1950s teen beach musical. The two have to figure out how to get back home. This was a slow start for me, but once the teens actually end up in the past, it suddenly became so much more fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed it from there forward. It's got a great meta sense of humor while also thoroughly embracing the musical numbers. The songs are extremely well-written and very dynamically choreographed, which brings so much life to the story. The dialogue is pretty solid in its parody style, and the actors playing the feuding surfers and bikers absolutely nail the over-the-top acting style. The actual plot is much less interesting than the little side quests to sing and dance, so whenever it gets plot heavy I tune out a bit, but overall there is more than enough to like in this silly little movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Teen Beach Movie > Le voyage au Groenland

Teen Beach Movie < Safe

Teen Beach Movie > The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Teen Beach Movie > All the Best: Fun Begins

Teen Beach Movie > Cats (2019)

Teen Beach Movie > Beyond the Sea

Teen Beach Movie > Barton Fink

Teen Beach Movie < Leaving Las Vegas

Teen Beach Movie > A Room With a View

Teen Beach Movie > The Nice Guys

Teen Beach Movie > Barbie

Final spot: #1010 out of 3972, or 75%.

The China Syndrome (1979)

IMDb plot summary: A reporter finds what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant.

Directed by James Bridges. Starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas.

The China Syndrome is a suspense thriller from the 1970s in which Jane Fonda plays a TV anchorwoman who is touring a nuclear plant when she and her cameraman managed to catch on film a near-miss accident. The plant assures everybody that nobody was ever in actual danger, but Fonda and her cameraman (Michael Douglas) are not convinced of this, and they tried to approach the manager on the floor (Jack Lemmon), who is also beginning to think there might be a cover-up. This is definitely steeped deeply in the fear of nuclear power, which was definitely more present the 1970s than it is now, and as such it feels a little paranoid, but it definitely addresses that the issue is hasty or sloppy fixes more than the inherent instability of the system itself. Lemmon is unsurprisingly the star here, with the final third of the film working especially well and keeping the energy tense through to the very end. While Fonda doesn't get a whole lot to play with, and her dynamic was Douglas absolutely doesn't work on almost any level, she does hold her own regardless and does a good job standing in for the average person finding himself in the middle of this. It's a beautifully taut story, and definitely worth a watch, especially if this is a genre that you find yourself drawn to. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

The China Syndrome > Love Exposure

The China Syndrome > Anna Karenina

The China Syndrome < Two Days, One Night

The China Syndrome > Onward

The China Syndrome < The Jungle Book (1967)

The China Syndrome > Civil War

The China Syndrome < The Bay

The China Syndrome < Beautiful Boy

The China Syndrome < Dawn of the Dead (1978)

The China Syndrome > Tickled

The China Syndrome > Good Will Hunting

The China Syndrome < Shakespeare in Love

Final spot: #676 out of 3971, or 83%.

Macgruber (2010)

IMDb plot summary: Former special operative MacGruber is called back into action to take down his arch-enemy, Dieter Von Cunth, who's in possession of a nuclear warhead and bent on destroying Washington, D.C.

Directed by Jorma Taccone. Starring Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, and Val Kilmer.

I should probably start off by saying that I have no connection to the original character at all. I didn't watch a lot of SNL at that point in my life, so I don't have any touchstones. It does seem like a character that would make for a good movie, but the tone of this is a little weird. It's fairly light on the jokes, relying mostly on slightly hyperbolic depictions of 1980s hypermasculinity for its comedy, only to suddenly and abruptly lean really heavy into obvious gags. The whiplash between the two feels a little bit like the film couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to lampoon or playfully honor the 1980s action films, and while you absolutely can walk that line very well, I'm not sure that this captures that. There are one or two moments that made me chuckle, but for the most part most of these jokes don't land, and I don't have enough love for that style of movie to embrace the parody aspect of it. I enjoy that it's trying to do what it's trying to do, but it doesn't really work for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

MacGruber < Le voyage au Groenland

MacGruber > One 2 Ka 4

MacGruber < In & Out

MacGruber < Water for Elephants

MacGruber > The Disappearance of Alice Creed

MacGruber < Treasures of the Snow

MacGruber > State Fair

MacGruber < Shrek Retold

MacGruber > The Rookie

MacGruber > Millions

MacGruber < Dallas Buyers Club

MacGruber > Darkness

Final spot: #2809 out of 3970, or 29%.

Shin Godzilla (2016)

IMDb plot summary: Japan is plunged into chaos upon the appearance of a giant monster.

Directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi. Starring Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi, and Satomi Ishihara.

Shin Godzilla is a Godzilla movie centered around the endless bureaucracy needed to address a national danger like Godzilla. Not the exciting military decisions being made -- we've had plenty of those stories -- but the exhausting process of having to run your every decision by five other committees, who in turn need to consult with three other interest groups, before you can make a tiny change that may or may not affect anyone. So much of this movie is a bunch of men in suits sitting on comfy couches as they wait for information to come in that will let them act. That could be tedious, but this film manages to make it tense. Add to all that the few moments when we *do* in fact get to see our monster: the character design on this thing is entirely terrifying. Creative and very uncanny valley in a way that I find chilling. It's overall a fascinating take on the story that works for me on a lot of levels, even though I'm not necessarily drawn into the Godzilla mythos on a whole. But this one is well done and held my attention.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Shin Godzilla > Love Exposure

Shin Godzilla > Anna Karenina

Shin Godzilla < Network

Shin Godzilla < Onward

Shin Godzilla < Destroy All Neighbors

Shin Godzilla < The Blue Angel

Shin Godzilla < Shallow Grave

Shin Godzilla < Fruitvale Station

Shin Godzilla > My Life as a Dog

Shin Godzilla < Autumn Sonata

Shin Godzilla > Kill Bill Vol. 2

Shin Godzilla > Fresh (2022)

Final spot: #981 out of 3968, or 75%.