Heathers: The Musical (2022)

IMDb plot summary: Veronica Sawyer does her best to survive her senior year while navigating the beautiful but cruel Heathers, the new to school Jason "J.D." Dean, and the constant pressure to fit in with everyone else.

Directed by Andy Fickman. Stars Ailsa Davidson, Simon Gordon, and Maddison Firth.

Heathers: The Musical is a London pro-shot of the musical based on the 1980s film. It follows a high schooler named Veronica who ends up becoming one of the popular girls but then falls in love with the bad boy new student, and then students start dying. I like the original movie a lot, but the musical is one of my favorite musicals ever. It has some incredible songs. This pro-shot, when it succeeds, succeeds on the strength of the songs themselves. I am not particularly impressed by any of the performances in this production, nor most of the directing choices. Veronica here comes across dopey and hapless, while JD insists on singing most of his songs through a clenched jaw, as if that's the only way you can convey the moodiness of the character. There were, of course, moments that absolutely worked for me, but those are all the moments that already work for me in the show: Kindergarten Boyfriend, the ending of Our Love Is God in act one, Meant to Be Yours, and Dead Girl Walking -- all absolute powerhouses of songs that would have hit me even harder with a more charismatic cast. There are ample bootlegs of the original cast, who I like significantly better than this, and given its popularity I would not be surprised if we get an official film adaptation in the next 10 years or so, so I think there are and will be better opportunities for people to be exposed to this show. I'm glad, because while this pro-shot is absolutely going to have some people fall in love with it, for a lot of folks it won't have the magic that I first found in this show.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Heathers: The Musical (2023)

📊 Ranked #1147/4024 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 72

That is unexpectedly high, but I guess that's just how good the songs are.

beat Descendants (#2008 → #2383)

lost to Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (held at #1002)

lost to Pushing Tin (#1505 → #1504)

beat Grand Illusion (#1756 → #2157)

beat Creation (#1631 → #1732)

beat Allegiance (#1568 → #1628)

lost to The Trojan Women (#1537 → #1535)

lost to Hereditary (#1552 → #1550)

lost to Oddity (held at #1560)

lost to Interview with the Vampire (#1564 → #1559)

beat Finian's Rainbow (#1566 → #1594)

lost to Anatomy of a Fall (#1565 → #1563)

Black Bag (2025)

IMDb plot summary: When intelligence agent Kathryn Woodhouse is suspected of betraying the nation, her husband - also a legendary agent - faces the ultimate test of whether to be loyal to his marriage, or his country.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Stars Michael Fassbender, Gustaf Skarsgård, and Cate Blanchett.

Black Bag is a Steven Soderbergh thriller/drama about a group of  couples who all happened to work together in the same intelligence agency. When there is a serious information leak inside the agency, Michael Fassbender has to figure out which of these other five were the source of the leak, including possibly his own wife, played by Cate Blanchett. Sometimes Soderbergh goes big and flashy with his visuals, but this is very restrained, and I think it works. This feels more like a well-crafted theatrical drama. Even though the scenes are structured like a film, the in-depth one-on-one discussions and dialogue are the kind of text-centric moments you typically get on stage. The supporting actors are fine in their roles, but Fassbender and Blanchett are both extremely engaging, and we care about the mystery of the leak because we want to see how this is going to play out in their relationship with each other. There are certainly some clunky moments where the film is trying to be smarter than maybe it actually is, but there was a lot to like about this, and it's fun to see a more paired down thriller that doesn't rely as much on big chase scenes or hyperactive editing. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Black Bag (2025)

📊 Ranked #1630/4023 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 60

beat Meet John Doe (#2008 → #2012)

lost to The Cranes Are Flying (#1005 → #1006)

lost to Wizards (#1505 → #939)

beat The Adam Project (#1757 → #1770)

beat Hans Christian Andersen (#1631 → #1944)

beat The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (#1574 → #1805)

beat VeggieTales: A Snoodle's Tale (#1539 → #1546)

beat Marooned (#1521 → #1528)

lost to Knight and Day (#1513 → #1488)

beat The Tragedy of Macbeth (#1518 → #1517)

beat National Treasure (#1512 → #1578)

beat Star Trek: Generations (#1514 → #1746)

That Night's Wife (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A desperate man with a sick daughter decides to commit a robbery in order to help her. He begins to feel remorse though, which makes him question his decision.

Directed by Yasujirô Ozu. Stars Mitsuko Ichimura, Tokihiko Okada, and Chishû Ryû.

That Night's Wife is an early silent film by Yasujiro Ozu that follows a young family with a sick daughter. The father commits a robbery to get the money to pay for her care, but the police track him back to their home. The mother then holds the police hostage until their daughter makes it through the worst of her illness that night. I'VE only seen two other films by Ozu and while Tokyo Story was just kind of okay for me, I really loved Late Spring, and this one makes me even more interested in checking out more of his work. Silent films can be a tough sell for me, and foreign films can also be a tough sell, so silent foreign can often be extra daunting, but two of my favorite films from this 1930 project have both been silent foreign films, and this is one of them. There is a warmth to this story that is present in all aspects of it, which is something we very rarely see in crime-centered stories. I found the final scene very moving. I don't know whether the score that I heard along with the film was intended to be its original score, but it certainly fit beautifully and enhanced the noble sacrifice of the main character. This decade also tends to have a lot of overacting among its characters, but the style here is intimate and realistic in a way that is unique for this era, and I think that's what made it so accessible to me as a modern viewer. This  one is well worth watching.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 That Night's Wife (1930)

📊 Ranked #478/4022 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 88

beat Dark and Stormy Night (#2008 → #2012)

beat La La Land (held at #1001)

beat Punchline (#500 → #585)

lost to Gaslight (#250 → #230)

lost to Blood Simple (#375 → #366)

lost to Hearts Beat Loud (#437 → #434)

beat Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (#468 → #499)

lost to Shall We Dance? (#452 → #440)

lost to Black Narcissus (#460 → #458)

lost to Next Goal Wins (#464 → #463)

lost to The Grey (#466 → #441)

lost to Carrie (#467 → #464)

Cats Don't Dance (1997)

IMDb plot summary: Danny, an ambitious singing and dancing cat, goes to Hollywood and overcomes several obstacles to fulfill his dream of becoming a movie star.

Directed by Mark Dindal. Stars Scott Bakula, Jasmine Guy, and Natalie Cole.

Cats Don't Dance is an animated musical about a world in which anthropomorphic animals live and work alongside humans, although if they want to enter show business, they are relegated to background characters and ensemble. One young cat shows up in Hollywood full of dreams and ready to be a musical movie star, only to have his hopes dashed in the face of anti-animal prejudice. I was expecting something a little bit more traditional and straightforward in this film, knowing nothing about it as I started, but the humor here is very rooted in slapstick cartoons, with quick jokes and clever visual gags. While some of these don't land for me, it is a refreshing change of pace after watching a lot of animated movies from people's childhoods that did not hold up so well. There's also a pretty decent soundtrack, although those songs were more memorable in the moment than they were after the film finished. The final sequence musical sequence in which the animals put on a stunning show while the antagonist works tirelessly to destroy the theater that they are in, only for each scheme to backfire in a way that makes the animals look better than ever, is a really enjoyable climactic moment of the film. This is not necessarily one that I'd have an inclination to watch again, but it's something a little different from the 1990s animated movies that I've been catching up on thus far, and I enjoy that change of pace a lot!

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Cats Don't Dance (1997)

📊 Ranked #1089/4021 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 73

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2007 → #2012)

lost to Dust (#1004 → #909)

lost to The Iron Claw (#1506 → #1485)

beat The Brutalist (#1759 → #1765)

beat The Big Chill (#1631 → #1641)

beat Peeping Tom (#1568 → #1592)

lost to Total Recall (#1537 → #1534)

lost to Timecop (held at #1553)

lost to 20th Century Women (#1562 → #984)

beat The Children's Hour (#1565 → #1566)

lost to Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (#1552 → #1545)

beat Furlough (#1564 → #1586)

Mickey 17 (2025)

IMDb plot summary: During a human expedition to colonize space, Mickey 17, a so-called "expendable" employee, is sent to explore an ice planet.

Directed by Bong Joon Ho. Stars Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, and Michael Monroe.

Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson as a poor young nobody who signs up to be an "expendable" on a once-in-a-lifetime interplanetary journey to colonize an unknown planet. This means that he is continuously cloned with his memories and each new clone is used for experiments or exploration tasks that will likely result in death. We pick up with the 17th version of this character, who is supposed dead and reprinted, only to reappear and have to deal with having two versions of himself present at once. Bong Joon Ho is making some of the best movies about late stage capitalism, and this is another one that I really enjoyed. It's a fascinating mix of thriller and sci-fi and comedy, particularly in the absurdly incompetent leaders and the almost wackily obsequious personality of Mickey #17. Of course, as the story continues on, these moments feel less and less like comedy and more and more like horror, and that line blends beautifully here. The worldbuilding is spectacular and always feels just slightly a step ahead of where we are right now in reality. Pattinson is great here, as are Mark Ruffalo and Tony Collette as the leaders of the expedition with a cultlike following (and a snobbish obsession with sauce). There's a lot to enjoy about this movie, and I like that it functions both as a simple sci-fi clones-in-space thriller and some serious commentary on how we view ourselves and our place in the world. Nicely done.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Mickey 17 (2025)

📊 Ranked #1052/4020 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 74

beat Hellfighters (#2006 → #2398)

lost to Muriel's Wedding (#1001 → #998)

beat The Princess and the Frog (#1504 → #1533)

beat For a Few Dollars More (#1253 → #1435)

beat Beetlejuice (#1126 → #1134)

lost to Gremlins (#1063 → #1049)

beat Witchfinder General (#1094 → #1147)

beat Cheaper by the Dozen (#1078 → #1135)

beat The Happening (#1070 → #1285)

beat The Secret Garden (#1066 → #1091)

beat Cries and Whispers (#1064 → #1067)

Show Girl in Hollywood (1930)

IMDb lot summary: 'Rainbow Girls' has just opened and closed on Broadway when Dixie, a actress in it, runs into smooth-talking Hollywood Director Frank Buelow. He tells her she would be a natural and promises her a movie contract, so she goes to Hollywood, but there is no contract for her.

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Stars Alice White, Jack Mulhall, and Blanche Sweet.

Show Girl in Hollywood is a 1930 romantic comedy/drama about a showbiz couple whose latest Broadway hit flops, and when the woman, an actress, meets a Hollywood director who promises her a job, she leaves her partner to go pursue it, only to find out that it isn't exactly what she hoped. This is a fairly straightforward film about relationships being tested by success or lack thereof, and while it's not necessarily an exciting story, it's told fine here. The characters are clear and generally likable, and their story unfolds in a fairly satisfying way, especially for such a short film. There's a little bit more depth to this than a typical rags to riches story too. Our lead actress is talented and beautiful, but that doesn't mean that she's automatically going to make it in Hollywood without connections to push her up into the role she wants. This decade had a lot of stories of people being plucked out of obscurity and tossed into fame, and this turns that on its head in kind of a fun way. Totally watchable, not  incredible.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Show Girl in Hollywood (1930)

📊 Ranked #2230/4019 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 45

lost to Kanal (#1989 → #1677)

beat Sleeper (#3013 → #3188)

beat Isadora (#2520 → #2522)

lost to Must Love Dogs (#2305 → #2295)

beat Rushmore (#2372 → #2376)

beat The Dinner Guest (#2322 → #2325)

beat The Perks of Being a Wallflower (#2284 → #2296)

lost to And Then There Were None (#2263 → #2250)

beat As It Is in Heaven (#2267 → #2271)

beat Camelot (#2274 → #2439)

lost to Holiday Affair (#2272 → #2219)

lost to Raising Arizona (#2248 → #2089)

FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)

IMDb plot summary: The magical inhabitants of a rainforest fight to save their home, which is threatened by logging and a polluting force of destruction called Hexxus.

Directed by Bill Kroyer. Stars Samantha Mathis, Christian Slater, and Robin Williams.

FernGully is an animated film from 1992 about a magical area of the rainforest where the fairies have trapped the evil demon of pollution inside a tree, but when American landscapers come and start cutting down the trees, the demon is released. Our main protagonists are the princess of the fairies, who is naive about the impact of humans on her world, and a human worker who is accidentally shrunk down to fairy size and learns about the harm that he's doing. This is truly a strange movie, primarily because it has extremely trendy '90s musical styles right alongside a didactic environmentalism message, and the two mix in a really bizarre way. The most evident moment of this is when Robin Williams' character, a bat who was escaped from a laboratory that does animal testing, delivers a 90 style rap about all the horrible torture he's been put through. It's such a bizarre attempt to entertain while also delivering devastating information that it mostly leaves me confused more than anything. That's the case throughout most of this film. The musical choices are the most exciting thing about it while also being by far the weirdest. The rest of the movie is fine. It delivers a children's message about deforestation in a pretty straightforward way. Our lead characters are by no means charismatic, so that's a little disappointing, but it's clearly a message movie more than anything else, and while it makes strange choices about how to get that message out, I think it's fairly successful in conveying what it's trying to convey. But... yeah. This is a weird movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)

📊 Ranked #2126/4018 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 48

lost to Swing Time (#2006 → #1973)

beat Blue Is the Warmest Color (#3007 → #3002)

beat Gilda (#2502 → #3063)

beat National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art (#2257 → #2186)

lost to Pat and Mike (#2130 → #1972)

beat After the Wedding (#2197 → #2277)

lost to The Act of Killing (#2161 → #1806)

lost to Beauty and the Beast (#2179 → #2098)

beat X (#2182 → #2286)

lost to The Year of Living Dangerously (held at #2177)

lost to Absolute Power (#2185 → #2125)

lost to Jackie (#2181 → #1801)

The World According to Garp (1982)

IMDb plot summary: A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.

Directed by George Roy Hill. Stars Robin Williams, Mary Beth Hurt, and Glenn Close.

The World According to Garp stars Robin Williams as the titular Garp, and Glenn Close as his fiercely independent mother who had him on her own. As Garp tries to make his own way in the world as a writer, his mother becomes an international success  writing books of her own and opening up her home as a sort of haven to women who have no place else to go. This is based on a novel by John Irving, an author I have really liked before, and I would be curious to read the book, because this feels like a chaotic jumble as a movie. There's too much going on, I can't track the arcs of any of the characters, characters flit in and out with abrupt impacts on the story but none of it seems to match the themes that have been set up beforehand. My guess is that the novel suffered greatly from being smushed into the limitations of a two and a half hour movie. On the plus side, Glenn Close is incredible here. I don't understand her character even a little bit, but she is thoroughly engaging and I can believe her character built up a following in this world. I am intrigued by how relatively well they portrayed a trans woman, played by John Lithgow. Apparently Irving was unhappy with how they portrayed her and left work on the film because of it, but she does seem just like a regular character, although maybe a bit quirky -- though not any more than the rest of the world that they live in. The Roger Ebert review of this film said something like, "I finished the movie and then thought, 'What am I supposed to get out of that?'" And that's kind of how I feel about this myself. Individual pieces are engaging, but they don't add up to a coherent or satisfying whole.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The World According to Garp (1982)

📊 Ranked #2820/4017 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 30

lost to The Sword in the Stone (#2006 → #1966)

beat Did You Hear About the Morgans? (#3007 → #3009)

lost to Phantom of the Opera (#2507 → #2503)

lost to Pokémon Detective Pikachu (#2757 → #2547)

beat Bully (#2882 → #2885)

lost to Paint Your Wagon (#2819 → #2799)

beat Fedora (#2850 → #3431)

beat The Disappearance of Alice Creed (#2834 → #2909)

beat The 101-Year-Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared (#2826 → #2871)

beat Iron Eagle (#2822 → #2824)

lost to Three Days of the Condor (#2820 → #2694)

beat Immortal Beloved (#2821 → #2847)

Sinners (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

Directed by Ryan Coogler. Stars Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, and Saul Williams.

Sinners is a Ryan Coogler movie starring Michael B. Jordan as twins who return to their hometown to set up a juke joint, but things start going wrong when some unexpected visitors show up, looking to shake up the brothers' venture. I think it's pretty well out there what the primary villain is in this movie, but the film itself does not reveal that until a good portion of the way through, so I'm going to follow its lead and be a little cagey about what exactly the horror part of the story is. This is a really engaging story, though. It does what I really love horror movies to do, where it takes hypothetical abstract monsters in the night and blends them with very real world fears in this case the not-at-all hypothetical opposition that this black family faces in the South just trying to live their lives. Pairing these two together makes for a really dynamic and engaging thriller. Of course, no review of this movie would be complete without mention of the music. There have been heated debates on social media about whether or not this counts as a musical, and while I think mostly reveals that people's definition of musical is too small, I think it counts solely because the storytelling and the narrative pause to let the music take center stage multiple times. We get full musical numbers where the visuals are there to enhance the music, rather than the other why around. That's exactly what I love about musicals, and that's what this does very well. This is a pretty busy movie -- there's enough going on in the background of the story that I think it would absolutely benefit from a second watch. I know there are things that I did not connect with the first time around that would pop out to me afterwards. Really a great film though.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Sinners (2025)

📊 Ranked #305/4016 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 92

beat Meet John Doe (#2005 → #2001)

beat Blackbeard's Ghost (held at #1000)

beat Breakfast at Tiffany's (#490 → #492)

lost to Your Name. (#249 → #248)

beat The Edge of Seventeen (#375 → #412)

beat Liar Liar (#284 → #286)

lost to Requiem for a Dream (held at #280)

beat Operation Petticoat (#296 → #302)

lost to Shaun of the Dead (#288 → #289)

lost to Life of Brian (#292 → #291)

lost to The Guilty (held at #293)

beat Sabrina (held at #295)

Color Out of Space (2019)

IMDb plot summary: A secluded farm is struck by a strange meteorite which has apocalyptic consequences for the family living there and possibly the world.

Directed by Richard Stanley. Stars Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, and Madeleine Arthur.

Color Out of Space is a cosmic horror story based loosely on the H.P. Lovecraft short story of the same name. We follow a family in a small rural area whose lives are turned upside down when a bizarre meteor crashes into their front yard. What follows is a series of terrifying supernatural events that shake their sanity and their physical well-being. This is a genuinely terrifying and deeply upsetting film, in the best way. There's no sense that this family is going to be okay, not even the dog and the youngest child, who are often protected in horror films  because that would be just too much. The film makes really creative choices in its color palette. The meteor and the various things that come from it all contain an eerie neon pink that in many other situations would be a cheerful color but here bring along a sense of Otherworldly ominousness. Nicolas Cage is maybe the one piece that doesn't totally fit, as his character is a little bit zanier than the rest of the story. Ultimately, though, it does work together, despite a few strange tonal shifts midway through the movie. Overall, one of the best transfers to screen I've seen of a cosmic horror story.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Color Out of Space (2020)

📊 Ranked #535/4015 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 87

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2005 → #2009)

beat Leaving Las Vegas (#1000 → #998)

lost to Ex Machina (#499 → #493)

beat Big Trouble in Little China (#749 → #746)

beat The Muppet Movie (#624 → #758)

beat Tekkonkinkreet (#561 → #653)

beat Jojo Rabbit (#530 → #619)

lost to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (#514 → #530)

beat Into the Woods (#522 → #549)

lost to Network (#518 → #510)

beat Date Night (#520 → #730)

beat M. Butterfly (#519 → #561)

One Romantic Night (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A scheming mother wishes to make a successful match between her daughter and a prince, yet another man, a commoner, may stand in the way.

Directed by Paul L. Stein. Stars Lillian Gish, Rod La Rocque, and Conrad Nagel.

One Romantic Night is a 1930 romance movie starring Lillian Gish as the Princess Alexandra, who is given two men with whom she can pursue a romantic relationship: one is her brothers' tutor, who has been in love with her for a long time, and the other is the Crown Prince, which would be a much better match but she's not at all sure that she likes him. This was Lillian Gish's first talking film and she does quite well -- I wouldn't have known that she had only done silents before this. The story of this one meanders a little bit, with characters' goals and motivations changing at a moment's notice, and that gets a little exhausting, but overall the story plays out okay. Princess Alexandra  has a nice amount of autonomy for a woman in this film year, and even though I'm not fully sold on how the love story plays out, there's nothing really objectionable in it either. A thoroughly mediocre movie that I'm not going to remember at all.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 One Romantic Night (1930)

📊 Ranked #2660/4014 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 34

lost to Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2004 → #2006)

beat Shane (#3005 → #3010)

lost to Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (#2505 → #2338)

beat Wedding Crashers (#2754 → #2756)

lost to Convict 13 (#2629 → #2623)

beat Melvin and Howard (#2691 → #2696)

lost to Adam's Rib (#2660 → #2648)

beat The Spanish Apartment (#2675 → #3157)

lost to Matchstick Men (#2667 → #2631)

beat Anything Else (#2671 → #2688)

beat Manhattan (#2669 → #2674)

beat Choke (#2668 → #2679)

Memoir of a Snail (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel - a hoarder of snails, romance novels, and guinea pigs.

Directed by Adam Elliot. Stars Jacki Weaver, Sarah Snook, and Charlotte Belsey.

Memoir of a Snail is an animated film about a young girl in Australia who is orphaned at a young age and separated from her twin brother. We follow her life as she struggles to make it on her own, with the loss of her family and, in a sense, loss of her self-identity constantly looming over her. The film is from the same filmmaker as Mary and Max, which was obvious even before I saw the credits -- not only in the style of animation, but also in the tonal mix of super-depressing and ultimately life-affirming story. The claymation here serves an interesting function in that it makes our character feel deeply claustrophobic. The clunky clay models of the characters seem too big for the locations there inhabiting. We see them take up space in a way that 2D animation doesn't always do, and here it contributes to the sense of the world closing in on our central character. It lends itself as well to this sense of impending doom. Even when things seem to be going pretty well, we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and usually it does. The film gives me a happier ending that I honestly thought it would be willing to, and I appreciate that. It was nice to allow some hopefulness to land in a film that seemed determined to leave me only devastated. It's a tough watch but I like where it lands. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Memoir of a Snail (2024)

📊 Ranked #899/4013 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 78

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2002 → #2004)

beat Oliver Twist (#999 → #1041)

lost to Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (#499 → #500)

lost to Cats (#745 → #742)

lost to The Beauty Inside (#881 → #874)

lost to Mr. Brooks (#935 → #936)

lost to The Kid (#949 → #923)

lost to Long Day's Journey Into Night (#984 → #985)

lost to Safe (#970 → #971)

beat Take Shelter (#994 → #1007)

lost to Last Action Hero (#992 → #994)

lost to Crazy Rich Asians (held at #982)

Wag the Dog (1997)

IMDb plot summary: Shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.

Directed by Barry Levinson. Stars Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Nirom and Anne Heche.

Wag the Dog is a political satire starring Robert De Niro as a publicist trying to get the sitting president re-elected. With the election less than a month away, a scandal breaks, and De Niro decides to fully manufacture and stage a fictional war that the president can save the country from to boost his chances of winning. It is indeed depressing how relevant this kind of story still is, especially now in the era of fake news and ever more obvious lying from our politicians. I don't know how genuinely plausible this story felt in the 90s -- I was too young to have a sense of political tone from then -- but most of this does not feel like much of a stretch. That being said, I really enjoyed the characters. I laughed a lot and groaned a lot and said, "Oh, my gosh, that's too close" a lot. Dustin Hoffman as the producer of the war, straight from Hollywood, is the perfect mishmash of the political and the showbiz world, and nearly every one of his lines is a hit. Overall, this is an enjoyable watch as long as you don't get bogged down in the depression of real world politics in the aftermath.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Wag the Dog (1997)

📊 Ranked #1125/4012 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 72

beat Metropolis (#2002 → #2004)

lost to Crazy Rich Asians (#999 → #995)

beat All About My Mother (#1501 → #1525)

beat Fanny and Alexander (held at #1249)

beat Doctor Strange (#1123 → #1146)

beat Grosse Pointe Blank (#1061 → #1064)

beat South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (#1030 → #1028)

lost to Walking and Talking (#1014 → #448)

lost to The Lady Vanishes (#1022 → #1021)

beat Guys and Dolls (#1026 → #1212)

beat Ghostbusters II (#1024 → #1097)

beat The Terminal (#1023 → #1037)

Wicked Little Letters (2024)

IMDb plot summary: When people in Littlehampton--including conservative local, Edith--begin receiving letters full of hilarious profanities, the rowdy, Irish migrant, Rose, is charged with the crime. Suspecting that something is amiss, the town's women investigate.

Directed by Thea Sharrock. Stars Jessie Buckley, Olivia Colman, and Timothy Spall.

Wicked Little Letters stars Olivia Colman as a shy religious spinster who begins receiving extremely vulgar anonymous letters. When her parents persuade her to go to the police about it, she reveals that she thinks it is a former friend of hers, a foul-mouthed Irish woman played by Jessie Buckley. The suspect is quickly arrested but while she is awaiting trial, other women of the village begin to suspect that she’s not the one to blame. This was a really fun watch. It took me a little while to process whether the tone was going to be more dramatic or more comedic, because in the first few scenes it's treading that line so carefully, but it definitely lands on the comedic mystery side of the spectrum, and it does that very well. Both Colman and Buckley are electric in their roles and delightful to watch in their interactions with each other. The variety of smaller characters making up the village are also each engaging and fun to watch come together for solving the mystery. I found the ending very satisfying from both a mystery standpoint and a character development standpoint. This was a solid one that I'm glad I got a chance to see.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Wicked Little Letters (2024)

📊 Ranked #865/4011 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 78

beat John Carter (#2002 → #2006)

beat Zoolander (#999 → #1051)

lost to Magnolia (#498 → #488)

lost to Cats (#749 → #747)

beat Anomalisa (#874 → #881)

lost to Annihilation (#811 → #264)

lost to Do the Right Thing (#842 → #840)

lost to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (#858 → #811)

beat Stowaway (#866 → #910)

lost to Key Largo (#862 → #857)

beat The Postman (#864 → #873)

lost to Anne of Green Gables (#863 → #859)

The Truth About Youth (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Richard Carewe has raised his deceased friend's son from childhood with the help of his housekeeper and her beautiful daughter Phyllis. He arranges a marriage between the lad and Phyllis, but the rascal impulsively marries a notorious nightclub singer known as "The Firefly."

Directed by William A. Seiter. Stars Loretta Young, Conway Tearle, and David Manners.

The Truth About Youth is a 1930 romantic drama about a young engaged couple where the young man is cheating on her with a cabaret star. When he is almost found out, an older friend helps out by pretending he's the one dating the star, when in actuality he is in love with the engaged woman. This is a very predictable story with very familiar themes for my 1930 project. The characters are written in a straightforward but relatively likeable way, and it's not an uncomfortable watch the way some romances from this era are, but it's not a very exciting one either. The most interesting component of it is watching the blooming romance between the engaged man's friend and the engaged woman, although of course nothing will come of it while she is actively engaged because she is the epitome of good behavior, in contrast to the Myrna Loy character. Ultimately a very forgettable but inoffensive romantic drama from the era. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Truth About Youth (1930)

📊 Ranked #2811/4010 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 31

lost to Wristcutters: A Love Story (#2002 → #1773)

beat Frantic (#3002 → #3067)

lost to Nacho Libre (#2502 → #2483)

beat The Irishman (#2751 → #2792)

lost to Hitchcock (#2626 → #2615)

lost to Convict 13 (#2688 → #2627)

lost to Dreamgirls (#2719 → #2727)

lost to The Tomorrow War (#2735 → #2733)

lost to In the Mood for Love (#2743 → #2734)

lost to Dallas Buyers Club (#2747 → #2715)

beat Hamlet (#2749 → #2813)

lost to The Big Trail (#2748 → #2587)

The Man From Snowy River (1982)

IMDb plot summary: In 1880s Australia, after young Jim Craig's father dies, he takes a job at the Harrison cattle ranch, where he is forced to become a man.

Directed by George Miller. Stars Kirk Douglas, Tom Burlinson, and Terence Donovan.

The Man from Snowy River is about a young ranch hand from the mountains who gets a job working for a wealthy rancher. He falls in love with the rancher's daughter, only to be told there is no way he's ever going to be good enough for her, and he must find a way to prove himself, while also discovering the secrets of the rancher's past. This is one of those movies that I always remember sitting on the shelves at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, but I never actually picked it up because it didn't actually look that exciting to me. My instincts were right, this movie is not for me. For most of its runtime I was incredibly bored and had zero investment in any of the character objectives. It picked up a little bit once it started getting into dramatic family squabbles, but that's clearly not the point of this story. It's about the young man trying to make his way in the world, and I just could not care less about him or what he's doing. There are some nice landscape shots, so it is at times very pretty movie, but that was not enough to keep me interested. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Man from Snowy River (1982)

📊 Ranked #3631/4009 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 10

lost to Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (#2001 → #2007)

lost to The Big Pond (#3001 → #2997)

lost to The Secret Life of Pets (#3505 → #3498)

beat Kingpin (#3756 → #3758)

lost to In Cold Blood (#3629 → #3571)

beat Taxi (#3691 → #3697)

lost to The Godfather Part II (#3660 → #3630)

beat The Boy Friend (#3675 → #3677)

beat When Zachary Beaver Came to Town (#3667 → #3672)

beat Special (#3663 → #3666)

lost to The Tribe (#3661 → #3659)

beat The Battle of Algiers (#3662 → #3665)

The Brutalist (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A visionary architect flees post-war Europe in 1947 for a brighter future in the United States and finds his life forever changed by a wealthy client.

Directed by Brady Corbet. Stars Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, and Guy Pearce.

The Brutalist stars Adrien Brody as a Jewish immigrant from Hungary, right after the second World War. In his home country he was a celebrated architect, but here in the US it takes some time for him to become noticed by a wealthy man, played by Guy Pearce, who hires him to design a community center. As we follow this project over the years it is plagued with difficulties and toxic relationships and slowly destroys Brody. I'm going to start off this review by saying I think this film was absolutely too long. I know it was trying to give a sense of the many years engulfed in this project, but I think I could have had the exact same -- or even a better -- emotional response at half the time. The piece that resonated with me the most was the climactic scene before the end, in which some of the negative treatment of Brody comes to a head. I thought the way that ended was both fascinating and satisfying. I didn't expect it to go down the way it did, but it really worked for me. I continue to think Felicity Jones is one of the least interesting actors getting work today, and that remains the same here, even when she's given kind of a fascinating character to work with. So overall, this has some good moments, and I think the grandiose feel of it captivated a lot of people, but it was only okay for me. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Brutalist (2024)

📊 Ranked #1748/4008 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 57

beat The Dissident (#2001 → #2006)

lost to Fargo (held at #999)

lost to Charlie St. Cloud (#1500 → #1497)

beat Roma (#1749 → #1750)

lost to Death to Smoochy (#1624 → #1626)

lost to The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (#1686 → #1676)

lost to Ant-Man (held at #1717)

lost to Abigail (#1733 → #1719)

lost to The Magnificent Ambersons (#1741 → #1739)

lost to Dark Shadows (held at #1745)

lost to Quiz Show (#1747 → #1746)

beat Challengers (#1748 → #1749)