Poltergeist (1982)

IMDb plot summary: A family's home is haunted by a host of ghosts.
Directed by Tobe Hooper. Starring Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, Beatrice Straight, and Dominique Dunne.

(Spoilers ahead.)

Well, this works pretty well for the most part. It's a good build, especially that moment near the end when you think it's mostly over and then it comes back WAY wilder than before. And that final scene of the house just collapsing into itself is intense. There's definitely some cheesy acting and dialogue but overall it manages to hold its own.

3.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Poltergeist > Pulp Fiction
Poltergeist < Baby Driver
Poltergeist > Blade
Poltergeist > His Girl Friday
Poltergeist < High and Low
Poltergeist > The Hateful Eight
Poltergeist > Captains Courageous
Poltergeist < Six Degrees of Separation
Poltergeist > Isle of Dogs
Poltergeist > Monsoon Wedding

Final spot: #797 out of 2787.

Detroit (2017)

IMDb plot summary: Fact-based drama set during the 1967 Detroit riots in which a group of rogue police officers respond to a complaint with retribution rather than justice on their minds.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Starring Ben O'Toole, Jacob Latimore, John Boyega, and Algee Smith.

This movie is suffocating and infuriating in the best possible way. I'd forgotten Kathryn Bigelow directed this, but I much prefer it to The Hurt Locker or Zero Dark Thirty, as the characters here really rise to the front in a way I didn't see happen in the other two.

4 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Detroit > Pulp Fiction
Detroit > Sweet Smell of Success
Detroit < Garden State
Detroit < Tropic Thunder
Detroit > We're No Angels (1955)
Detroit < The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Detroit > Sneakers
Detroit < The Pirates of Penzance (1983)
Detroit < The Basketball Diaries
Detroit < Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Detroit < Walking and Talking
Detroit < Manhattan Murder Mystery
Final spot: #587 out of 2786.

Blade (1998)

IMDb plot summary: A half-vampire, half-mortal man becomes a protector of the mortal race, while slaying evil vampires.
Directed by Stephen Norrington. Starring Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, and N'Bushe Wright.

This is a cool concept and has some good visual character design and fight scenes, but the script's pretty messy. Enjoyable enough overall, though.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Blade > In Time
Blade < Baby Driver
Blade > Finding Forrester
Blade < His Girl Friday
Blade < V for Vendetta
Blade < The Fly (1986)
Blade < Nine to Five

Flickchart keeps crapping out on me at this point, so we'll just leave it here for the moment. I don't see it climbing much higher. This puts it at #1044 out of 2785.

The Dark Side of the Moon (1990)

IMDb plot summary: In 2022, a repair crew is sent to fix an orbital weapon but their spaceship malfunctions and ends up heading towards the dark side of the moon. There, in a mysterious, seemingly abandoned space shuttle, a sinister force lies in wait.
Directed by D.J. Webster. Starring Robert Sampson, Will Bledsoe, Joe Turkel, and Camilla More.

As much as I have a fondness for cheesy sci-fi, this is a pretty uninspiring one, though I did laugh out loud when the big mystery turned out to be not only connected to the Bermuda Triangle, but to the actual devil and the number of the Beast. It's a very dated film, both in terms of aesthetics (though being so low-budget didn't help) and in terms of, well, things like its treatment of women, and it's not clever enough or well-scripted enough to overcome it. On top of that, it's just *dark*. Not sad dark, I mean about a third of the time I literally wasn't sure what was happening on the screen. There kept being these big reveals about who the new villain was and I couldn't follow them because I couldn't see them. I like dumb low-budget science fiction a lot of the time, but this one doesn't quite hit the mark for me.

1 star.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Dark Side of the Moon < Pulp Fiction
The Dark Side of the Moon < The Children's Hour
The Dark Side of the Moon > Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
The Dark Side of the Moon > The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Dark Side of the Moon < Bad Moms
The Dark Side of the Moon > 30 Minutes or Less
The Dark Side of the Moon > Redline
The Dark Side of the Moon > Taxi
The Dark Side of the Moon > Eagle Eye
The Dark Side of the Moon < The Boss
Final spot: #2180 out of 2784.

Hannibal (2001)

IMDb plot summary: Living in exile, Hannibal Lecter tries to reconnect with now disgraced F.B.I. Agent Clarice Starling, and finds himself a target for revenge from a powerful victim.
Directed by Ridley Scott. Starring Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, and Ray Liotta.

This has none of the intelligence and elegance of Silence of the Lambs, preferring instead to lean on grossness for grossness' sake. It's an adequate cheap horror that would have been better as a standalone not trying to stand on the shoulders of a much better film.

1 star.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Hannibal < Pulp Fiction
Hannibal < The Children's Hour
Hannibal > Agent Cody Banks
Hannibal < The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Hannibal > Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Hannibal < Facing the Giants
Hannibal > An American in Paris
Hannibal > Winter Passing
Hannibal > Gigi
Hannibal < And Then There Were None (1945)

Final spot: #2311 out of 2783.

American Pie (1999)

IMDb plot summary: Four teenage boys enter a pact to lose their virginity by prom night.
Directed by Paul Weitz. Starring Jason Biggs, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, and Eddie Kaye Thomas.

Well, this is horrifying and disgusting. It paints creeps as being owed sex and women as sexual objects to be tricked into use. Wacky sex hijinks can make for a funny movie, but not when they're coming out of such an awful worldview. The ending attempts to add some heart but doesn't do nearly enough to undo or even balance out the toxic attitudes toward women found in every second of the rest of the movie. Ewwww.

How it entered my Flickchart:
American Pie < Lord of War
American Pie < Shrek 2
American Pie < Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
American Pie < ...And Your Name Is Jonah
American Pie < Free Willy
American Pie < The Emperor's New Groove 2: Kronk's New Groove
American Pie < Alvin and the Chipmunks
American Pie < Big Daddy
American Pie < Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
American Pie > God's Not Dead 2
American Pie < The Pacifier

Final spot: #2780 out of 2782.

Brigsby Bear (2017)

IMDb plot summary: Brigsby Bear Adventures is a children's TV show produced for an audience of one: James. When the show abruptly ends, James's life changes forever, and he sets out to finish the story himself. Written by Brigsby Bear Productions
Directed by Dave McCary. Starring Kyle Mooney, Greg Kinnear, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., and Matt Walsh.

This is... so strange. I'm not sure what else to say about it yet. One of those movies that I genuinely can't classify as comedy or drama, not because it's both but because it might not be either? I think it might be great? But also maybe awful? I CAN NOT TELL.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Brigsby Bear > Pulp Fiction

Brigsby Bear > Sweet Smell of Success

Brigsby Bear < Smashed

Brigsby Bear > Bernie

Brigsby Bear < The Lady Eve

Brigsby Bear < The Red Violin

Brigsby Bear > The Graduate

Brigsby Bear < Planet of the Apes (1968)

Brigsby Bear < True Lies

Brigsby Bear > Anomalisa

Brigsby Bear > Apollo 13

Brigsby Bear < Whale Rider

Final spot: #495 out of 2781.