Ready Player One (2018)

IMDb plot summary: When the creator of a virtual reality world called the OASIS dies, he releases a video in which he challenges all OASIS users to find his Easter Egg, which will give the finder his fortune.
Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, and Lena Waithe.

I enjoyed the book pretty well, but found the movie a tough watch at first. (And I promise I went in with an open mind!) There's a *lot* of world-building required, and the first like 30 minutes of the movie are all the main characters explaining their world either out loud to each other or through narrative voiceover. That kind of world building works best in prose, where it's a lot easier to subtly explain the entire new social structure of the future. There were also smaller things -- like the changes they made to the challenges were probably a smart cinematic move since they made it more inclusive but they didn't ever hit that  pop culture nerd vibe with me, which was one of the things I liked the most about the book. By the last 45 minutes or so I was mostly on board because I really enjoyed the team rebellion aspect brought to the forefront in the film, but the first two hours were... kind of tough and awkward. Probably a better watch for someone who either didn't read or didn't like the book much, but I struggled with it.

2 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Ready Player One < Is It College Yet?
Ready Player One > Maggie's Plan
Ready Player One > Birdman of Alcatraz
Ready Player One < Red Eye
Ready Player One > A Christmas Carol (2004)
Ready Player One > The Dinner Game
Ready Player One > Shanghai Knights
Ready Player One > Deceiver
Ready Player One < Minority Report
Ready Player One > Where the Wild Things Are
Ready Player One > Legally Blonde

Final spot: #1556 out of 2755.

The Bad Sleep Well (1960)

I'm leaving out the IMDb plot summary because they *all* give away something that isn't revealed until over an hour into the movie that I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to know ahead of time. 
Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Starring Toshirô Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Kyôko Kagawa, and Tatsuya Mihashi.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Bad Sleep Well > Is It College Yet?

The Bad Sleep Well < Baby Driver

The Bad Sleep Well < Lyle, the Kindly Viking

The Bad Sleep Well > The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

The Bad Sleep Well > Adama

The Bad Sleep Well > A Hard Day's Night

The Bad Sleep Well > The Bells of St. Mary's

The Bad Sleep Well > The Crying Game

The Bad Sleep Well > Casino

The Bad Sleep Well < The Country Girl

Final spot: #1037 out of 2754.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

IMDb plot summary: Political involvement in the Avengers' activities causes a rift between Captain America and Iron Man.
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. Starring Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, and Sebastian Stan.

Sheesh, for a Captain America movie, they don't do much to make him seem very sympathetic, do they? In their fundamental debate he never listens to what anybody else has to say or offers any solutions of his own, he just digs in his heels and is basically all, "Nuh-uh, I don't wanna." And yet as they continue to destroy buildings and as we continue to hear stories of people hurt by their recklessness, it becomes more and more obvious that from the movie's POV, these folks do REALLY need somebody to reign them in.

Beyond the issue of Cap being kinda a jerk in this chapter, though, that's exactly what it feels like -- a chapter. It doesn't feel like a full self-contained story, it's too reliant on everything that came before and pointed forward too much to what's to come. It's a middle piece without an actual beginning or end, and the best that will ever earn from me is a shrug.

1.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Captain America: Civil War < Is It College Yet?
Captain America: Civil War > Maggie's Plan
Captain America: Civil War < What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Captain America: Civil War < Are You My Neighbor?
Captain America: Civil War > The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Captain America: Civil War > Mother (2009)
Captain America: Civil War > Transformers
Captain America: Civil War < Pretty in Pink
Captain America: Civil War > Ip Man
Captain America: Civil War > Lincoln

Final spot: #1906 out of 2753.

John Wick (2014)

IMDb plot summary: An ex-hitman comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him.
Directed by Chad Stahelski. Starring Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, and Willem Dafoe.

Storywise, there's little to elevate this movie above others of the same genre (though the motivation for revenge is nicely original) but my gosh, is it stylish. I saw a review that referred to the choreography of this movie, and that's absolutely the right phrase. There's a dancelike precision to the action here that made it interesting even for me, who is typically bored by action and even more by gun-based action.

3.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
John Wick > Is It College Yet?
John Wick < Quartet
John Wick > The Return of the Living Dead
John Wick < The Ladykillers (2004)
John Wick > The Call
John Wick < Zero Effect
John Wick > I Saw the Devil
John Wick > Logan Lucky
John Wick < Ninotchka

Final spot: #914 out of 2752.

Baby Driver (2017)

IMDb plot summary: After being coerced into working for a crime boss, a young getaway driver finds himself taking part in a heist doomed to fail.
Directed by Edgar Wright. Starring Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, and Jon Hamm.

I expected to love this a lot more than I did. Baby is a great character and the use of the music in the film is excellent, but the way the plot plays out is lacking something. A tighter focus, perhaps? I'm not sure. I liked it but I was hoping to be transcended the way Wright's other work has done for me.

3.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Baby Driver > Gifted
Baby Driver < Quartet
Baby Driver > Lo
Baby Driver > Peeping Tom
Baby Driver > Wristcutters: A Love Story
Baby Driver > A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit
Baby Driver > The Impossible
Baby Driver > High Strung
Baby Driver > My Life as a Dog
Baby Driver > Reservoir Dogs
Baby Driver > Sweet Smell of Success

Final spot: #689 out of 2751.

Absolute Power (1997)

IMDb plot summary: A career thief witnesses a horrific crime involving the U.S. President.
Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, and Laura Linney.

This is another one I knew nothing about before my movie challenge. I didn't even know it was a Clint Eastwood movie. A lot of his films tend to be pretty straightforward crime stories with one or two interesting twists -- not twist endings, but sideways angles of looking at things. Here, the relationship Eastwood's character has with his daughter (played by Laura Linney) is probably the strongest element. On one level, it's just a combination of the "innocent man witnesses a crime" trope and the "criminals too powerful to be brought down" trope, but then that father-daughter relationship grounds it in a way that makes the rest of it work. It brings out the question of trust in some of the other film relationships, as Eastwood trusts his daughter even to his own detriment, but these themes never feel overt or excessive. They're just neatly tucked beneath a much more standard plot, hinting that they're there so I leave still thinking about them.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Absolute Power > Gifted
Absolute Power < Quartet
Absolute Power > Lo
Absolute Power < The Ladykillers (2004)
Absolute Power < The Call
Absolute Power < Thor
Absolute Power > Meet John Doe
Absolute Power < Lucky Number Slevin
Absolute Power > Nine to Five
Absolute Power < Gandhi

Final spot: #1003 out of 2750.

Hopscotch (1980)

IMDb plot summary: Grounded with a desk job by incompetent superiors, a clever CIA agent retires and writes a tell all memoir that will embarrass his bosses, prompting him to go on the run and elude them.
Directed by Ronald Neame. Starring Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Sam Waterston, and Ned Beatty.

I had never heard of this movie at all before it was assigned to me for my ongoing movie challenge. Overall, it's a pretty lighthearted action comedy starring Walter Matthau as a demoted CIA agent who starts writing a memoir about his time in the agency and goes on the run because of the secrets his book reveals. This plot could easily belong to a much more crime thriller-y movie, but the tone here is jaunty heist more than anything, and it works. It's light and fun and it's fun seeing Matthau one step ahead of his chasers. (I especially loved when he audaciously rented out his former boss's vacation home under an assumed name and wrote a memoir chapter there while said boss was looking for him all over the world.) I am not sure I'll necessarily remember it for long -- its overall narrative arc is not as strong as individual episodes, and arc is what tends to stick with me -- but it's an enjoyable one.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hopscotch > Gifted

Hopscotch < The Front

Hopscotch > Lo

Hopscotch < The Ladykillers (2004)

Hopscotch < The Wicker Man (1973)

Hopscotch < Frank

Hopscotch < Starship Troopers

Hopscotch > The Killing

Hopscotch < City Lights

Hopscotch > Stage Fright (2014)

Hopscotch > Unbroken

Final spot: #1015 out of 2748.

A Ghost Story (2017)

When I first finished this movie I just sat there, kind of stunned. No movie has hit me that hard on an emotional level in more than a year (Silence was the last comparable one). I ended up processing it out loud as part of a Flick Fights podcast where we did *not* all agree and the more people explained why they hated it, the more I realized how much I love it, and now as I review it a few days later, I feel a strong, visceral adoration for it. It's just narratively focused enough to keep the thread there below the surface, but ambiguous enough that it felt like dozens of potential stories could sprout out of this film at any time, and we just got to see snippets of them in (I presume) the same scattered, disoriented way as our titular ghost now sees his word. There's both an enormity and an intimacy to it, and both work for me. It's... er, well, I think I have to use the word is haunting. It's going to sit with me for a long, long time.

How it entered my Flickchart:
A Ghost Story > They Made Me a Fugitive
A Ghost Story > Quartet
A Ghost Story > Garden State
A Ghost Story < The Birdcage
A Ghost Story > Once
A Ghost Story > Dead Poets Society (which is too high)
A Ghost Story < Waking Life
A Ghost Story > The Lion in Winter (1968)
A Ghost Story < My Neighbor Totoro
A Ghost Story > Rashomon
A Ghost Story > Spirited Away
Final spot: #199 out of 2747.

You Only Live Once (1937)

IMDb plot summary: The public defender's secretary and an ex-convict get married and try to make a life together, but a series of disasters sends their lives spiraling out of control.
Directed by Fritz Lang. Starring Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, and Jean Dixon.

How it entered my Flickchart:
You Only Live Once < Gifted
You Only Live Once > Drive Me Crazy
You Only Live Once > Good Night, and Good Luck.
You Only Live Once > Bunraku
You Only Live Once < The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
You Only Live Once < The Fortune Cookie
You Only Live Once < Yankee Doodle Dandy
You Only Live Once < The Room
You Only Live Once < The Chalk Garden
You Only Live Once < Little Women (1933)
You Only Live Once > The Lost Skeleton Returns Again

Final spot: #1542 out of 2746.

Get Carter (1971)

IMDb plot summary: When his brother dies under mysterious circumstances in a car accident, London gangster Jack Carter travels to Newcastle to investigate.
Directed by Mike Hodges. Starring Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland, and John Osborne.

Oh my goodness. This was not pleasant at all. Such a... grimy feel to it, both in terms of the visuals and the plots and the casual sexism and violence toward women. It has some great camera framing moments, but those don't make up for the rest of the movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Get Carter < Gifted
Get Carter < Maggie's Plan
Get Carter > Hamlet 2
Get Carter < Anastasia
Get Carter > Dumb and Dumber
Get Carter > Annie (1999)
Get Carter < Steel Magnolias
Get Carter < Mannequin
Get Carter > Roger Dodger
Get Carter > Cujo
Get Carter > I Accuse My Parents

Final spot: #2263 out of 2745.

Charlie's Angels (2000)

IMDb plot summary: Three women, detectives with a mysterious boss, retrieve stolen voice-ID software, using martial arts, tech skills, and sex appeal.
Directed by McG. Starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, and Bill Murray.

Well, this is utterly terrible. It's basically just Female Objectification: The Movie, and it makes me uncomfortable on pretty much every level. Not to mention the effects look spectacularly awful for 2000. It's tough to find anything redeeming to say about this.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Charlie's Angels < Is It College Yet?
Charlie's Angels < Jumper
Charlie's Angels < Bye Bye Birdie
Charlie's Angels < Heidi
Charlie's Angels > The Stupids
Charlie's Angels < Breathless
Charlie's Angels > Deathstalker III: Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell
Charlie's Angels < The Other Sister
Charlie's Angels < There's No Business Like Show Business
Charlie's Angels > The ButterCream Gang II: The Secret of Treasure Mountain
Charlie's Angels < The Space Between Us

Final spot: #2634 out of 2744.