The Call (2013)

IMDb plot summary: When a veteran 911 operator takes a life-altering call from a teenage girl who has just been abducted, she realizes that she must confront a killer from her past in order to save the girl's life.
Directed by Brad Anderson. Starring Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin.

(Lots of spoilers ahead.)

This is the fourth movie in a row where I started off enjoying a movie and ended up disappointed. 2/3 of the way through, I was all set to LOVE this movie. I loved the pacing and the set-up and I loved Halle Berry's character and I loved watching all the steps they took to find her. It was gripping and thrilling and tense. Then... oh, man. Then everything went awful.

Halle Berry sets off on her own to find the killer, magically does so, it turns out he's a psycho serial killer who, of course, does weird creepy stuff with his victims because of his incestuous relationship with his dead sister. Every serial killer cliche in the book is pulled out, every terrible thriller exploitation trick is thrown at us, and the ending is completely and thoroughly unsatisfying.

What could have been a smart and intelligent thriller *completely* wasted its final act. Kudos to Michael Eklund for his portrayal of the bad guy, and kudos to the opening 2/3 for not feeling like we had to have all the answers (and they didn't have to be sensational) to create a tense story. If that philosophy and that brilliant natural tension had continued through to the end, I could easily have given this 4 1/2 stars. As it is, it gets a disappointed 3.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Call > Destry Rides Again
The Call < Seven Up!
The Call > The Devil's Backbone
The Call > The Red Shoes
The Call < The Tree of Life
The Call < Lo
The Call < Pushing Tin
The Call < Once Upon a Mattress
The Call < The Kite Runner
The Call > The Majestic
The Call < Hot Fuzz
Final spot: #607 out of 1950, below Hot Fuzz and above The Majestic.

Side Effects (2013)

IMDb plot summary: A young woman's world unravels when a drug prescribed by her psychiatrist has unexpected side effects.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Channing Tatum.

(Major plot twisting spoilers ahead.)

Well, this movie was just all over the place. I was intrigued by the first half of it or so. I felt like it perfectly captured the despair and the emptiness of depression, and I was fascinated by the heroine's story. Then everything went downhill. As soon as Jude Law began finding uncovering the truth (and he turned out to be right), I found myself rolling my eyes at every dramatic reveal. What was a fascinating psychological study of a woman and her possibly incompetent physician turned into a bizarre, sleazy, needlessly complicated cat-and-mouse who-will-win who-can-manipulate-more thriller. It lost its subtlety and its depth, and it lost my interest. 2 stars.

Flickchart: #1246 out of 1949, below Django Unchained and above On the Town.

Trading Places (1983)

IMDb plot summary: A snobbish investor and a wily street con artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.
Directed by John Landis. Starring Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

I forget sometimes how truly funny Eddie Murphy used to be. His delivery in this movie is pitch perfect on nearly every line. Dan Aykroyd's character gets less of an opportunity to be funny, for some reason. His breakdowns are too dramatically motivated. What could have been very funny meltdown scenes seemed tragic and awful. Neverthelesss, I found enough to like about this movie until the climactic revenge scene, starting with the bizarre nationality switches on the train. From that point out, the movie doesn't make any sense and isn't nearly funny enough to make up for the fact that it's getting more and more ludicrous by the moment. A much simpler ending would have been greatly appreciated. 2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1097 out of 1948, below What's Up, Tiger Lily? and above Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Destry Rides Again (1939)

IMDb plot summary (truncated from original): The unscrupulous boss of Bottleneck has Sheriff Keogh killed when he asks one too many questions. The mayor appoints the town drunk as the new sheriff assuming that he'll be easy to control. But what the mayor doesn't know is that he is able to call upon the formidable Tom Destry Jr to be his deputy.
Directed by George Marshall. Starring James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, and Charles Winninger.

Apparently James Stewart is the only actor I can tolerate in westerns, as I really liked him in both this and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. However, this one was not nearly as interesting. It starts off good, but then takes several bizarre turns before ending on a surprisingly dark note. All the websites I found for this movie listed it as a comedy, so, um... clearly I missed something, because it felt pretty much like straight western drama all the way through. I had high hopes for it in the first half, but then everything kind of... fizzled. The pay off was not nearly interesting or satisfying enough to work. 2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #975 out of 1947, below Minority Report and above The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009).

The Birth of a Nation (1915)

IMDb plot summary: The Civil War divides friends and destroys families, but that's nothing compared to the anarchy in the black-ruled South after the war.
Directed by D.W. Griffith. Starring Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, and Henry B. Walthall.

I can enjoy silent comedies, but when it comes to my dramas, I really have a very difficult time giving a crap about any of it unless it's got either plenty of dialogue or realism-based acting. Silent dramas have neither, and as such, I find Birth of a Nation to be a long, horrifically boring drama about a family of people I care nothing about. Dialogue and acting subtlety are so important to me when it comes to dramatic scenes that I just can't get past this movie having none of either. 0.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1792 out of 1946, below A Man Called Peter and above Pierrot le fou.

Fun Size (2012)

IMDb plot summary: Wren's Halloween plans go awry when she's made to babysit her brother, who disappears into a sea of trick-or-treaters. With her best friend and two nerds at her side, she needs to find her brother before her mom finds out he's missing.
Directed by Josh Schwartz. Starring Victoria Justice, Jackson Nicoll, and Chelsea Handler.

(Mild spoiler ahead.)

For a movie about a girl and her brother, her brother is in it very little, which turns out to be great, because he is the least interesting part of the movie (especially when it turns out at the end that the one thing that made him interesting isn't even true). Get rid of the whole "my brother annoys me" plotline and you've got a pretty decent, if typical, teen story about not giving into the pull of popularity. It's hardly a good movie, but it does have a moment or two. I particularly like when the mom breaks down at the party - it has a very truthful ring to it. Totally acceptable for young teens, not worth watching for adults.

As a complete side note, I find it eye-rollingly ridiculous that the characters mock the name "Keevin" when other characters in this movie (including one who was doing the mocking) are named Wren, Roosevelt, and, uh, Fuzzy. 2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1075 out of 1945, below Biloxi Blues and above The Toy That Saved Christmas.

March of the Penguins (2005)

IMDb plot summary: A look at the annual journey of Emperor penguins as they march -- single file -- to their traditional breeding ground.
Directed by Luc Jacquet. Starring Morgan Freeman.

I understand people really like penguins. I get that. But even with animals as cute as these, I can only watch them for about 10 minutes before I get bored and wish there were some people in this movie. It's well-made, I suppose, so I'll give it a couple stars for that, but I don't have a great grasp on what makes a well-made animal documentary different from a poorly-made one, as they all end up boring me. If you like penguins, you should definitely see it, but I was glad when it was over. 2 stars.

Flickchart: #1827 out of 1944, below Anne B. Real and above Hop. I feel bad rating it this low, but it really did nothing for me.