King Kong (2005)

IMDb plot summary: In 1933 New York, an overly ambitious movie producer coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to the mysterious Skull Island, where they encounter Kong, a giant ape who is immediately smitten with leading lady Ann Darrow.
Directed by Peter Jackson. Starring Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, and Thomas Kretschmann.

I have no doubt this would have been a fantastic movie to see in theaters. It's definitely going for a big spectacle feel to it. The problem comes in when the film attempts to attach meaning or profundity to what is, at its heart, just a series of dramatic images of monsters. The film is too heavily loaded with dramatic fight scenes and sweeping landscape panoramas to lend much weight to the humanity of the story beneath it. It's a little ironic that a movie about, in some ways, the dangers of prioritizing spectacle over empathy should be this off-balance. That being said, it does look great. But it doesn't look great enough or carry enough emotional depth to justify a 3 1/2 hour runtime.

2.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
King Kong < Stardust
King Kong > Awake
King Kong > The Librarian: Quest for the Spear
King Kong > The Circus
King Kong > The Day After Tomorrow
King Kong > Pleasantville
King Kong > Code 46
King Kong < Wonder Boys
King Kong > 17 Again
King Kong < George of the Jungle

Final spot: #1425 out of 2818.

Tag (2018)

IMDb plot summary: A small group of former classmates organize an elaborate, annual game of tag that requires some to travel all over the country.
Directed by Jeff Tomsic. Starring Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson, and Hannibal Buress.

The serious parts of this work better than the jokes, which are not particularly good.

2 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Tag < Stardust
Tag > Awake
Tag > The Librarian: Quest for the Spear
Tag < The Circus
Tag > Hotel Rwanda
Tag < Legally Blonde
Tag < The Barkleys of Broadway
Tag > Patriots Day
Tag > Crash (2004)
Tag < White Nights
Final spot: #1657 out of 2817.

Moms' Night Out (2014)

IMDb plot summary: Moms' Night Out is a movie starring Sarah Drew, Sean Astin, and Patricia Heaton. Hardworking mom Allyson has a crazy night out with her friends, while their husbands watch their children.
Directed by Andrew and Jon Erwin. Starring Sara Drew, Sean Astin, Patricia Heaton, and Trace Adkins.

As far as Christian movies, this wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. It's got a reasonably likable protagonist and more than a few jokes that land -- not enough, but a few. For the most part, though, aside from our lead character, everyone else is seriously underdeveloped and the message gets mangled. Like, this woman goes on this crazy Hangover-esque-but-not-really adventure, and the takeaway is "I appreciate my kids now"? Because, what, it could be worse? I'm just not convinced that the experiences she had would lead to the epiphany she did. And the other two ladies had their own mini crises that barely got resolved. (Actually, Izzy's NEVER gets resolved.) It's a step in the right direction for Christian entertainment but it's still sloppy and doesn't know how to naturally tie in a meaning for the story.

2 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Moms' Night Out < Julie & Julia
Moms' Night Out < Out of Time
Moms' Night Out > The Haunting (1963)
Moms' Night Out > Upstream Color
Moms' Night Out > Monster from the Ocean Floor
Moms' Night Out > Julia
Moms' Night Out > Sleeper
Moms' Night Out > After Hours
Moms' Night Out < Holiday Affair
Moms' Night Out < Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
Moms' Night Out < Heat
Moms' Night Out > Scrooged
Final spot: #2122 out of 2816, which seems a bit unfairly low since I didn't think it was that bad. Ah well.

Boogie Nights (1997)

IMDb plot summary: The story of a young man's adventures in the Californian pornography industry of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Burt Reynolds, Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, and John C. Reilly.

Boogie Nights has been on my watch list for ages. And now that I've finally seen it, my response is similar to that of a lot of Paul Thomas Anderson movies -- there are individual pieces of total brilliance, but I am uninvested in the narrative as a whole. There are a few scenes in here that almost stun me with how perfectly scripted and shot they are (Wahlberg's confrontation with his abusive mom is one, as well as the scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman's attempted kiss). But the sum of all these individual parts leaves me a little cold, especially in the last 15 minutes or so when what has been an increasingly Requiem-for-a-Dream-esque nightmare suddenly flips upside down and everything is abruptly lovely and awesome again, with no hints at any of the darkness that happened before. I'm glad I finally saw it, but I'm not totally sold on it.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Boogie Nights > Ghostbusters II
Boogie Nights < Fruitvale Station
Boogie Nights < Being John Malkovich
Boogie Nights < Peggy Sue Got Married
Boogie Nights > In and Out
Boogie Nights > Star Trek Into Darkness
Boogie Nights < Ramona and Beezus
Boogie Nights > The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Boogie Nights > Mad Max
Boogie Nights > Ran
Boogie Nights < It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown

Final spot: #1257 out of 2815.

Incredibles 2 (2018)

IMDb plot summary: Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible) is left to care for the kids while Helen (Elastigirl) is out saving the world.
Directed by Brad Bird. Starring Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, and Huck Milner.

So it's a decent movie. It's fun and enjoyable. The first one was also a decent, fun, enjoyable movie. But there's no world in which we need to have both of them. They don't enhance or complement each other, they mostly just get in each other's way. *shrug* It's just really, really hard to care about this movie.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Incredibles 2 > Aliens
Incredibles 2 < Fruitvale Station
Incredibles 2 < Nine to Five
Incredibles 2 < To Sir, With Love
Incredibles 2 > Deconstructing Harry
Incredibles 2 > Selma
Incredibles 2 < It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown
Incredibles 2 < The Revenant
Incredibles 2 > The Last Unicorn
Incredibles 2 > John Dies at the End
Incredibles 2 > Logan

Final spot: #1265 out of 2814.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)

IMDb plot summary: Roman J. Israel, Esq., a driven, idealistic defense attorney, finds himself in a tumultuous series of events that lead to a crisis and the necessity for extreme action.
Directed by Dan Gilroy. Starring Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo, and Lynda Gravatt.

Denzel's performance is phenomenal here -- he really gets swallowed up in this character -- but overall the movie falls pretty flat.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Roman J. Israel, Esq. < Hustle and Flow

Roman J. Israel, Esq. > After Hours

Roman J. Israel, Esq. > Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons

Roman J. Israel, Esq. < Last Holiday

Roman J. Israel, Esq. > An Ideal Husband

Roman J. Israel, Esq. < Drive

Roman J. Israel, Esq. > Patriots Day

Roman J. Israel, Esq. > The Barkleys of Broadway

Roman J. Israel, Esq. > Shanghai Knights

Roman J. Israel, Esq. > God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!

Roman J. Israel, Esq. > As Good As It Gets

Final spot: #1627 out of 2813.

Contact (1997)

IMDb plot summary: Dr. Ellie Arroway, after years of searching, finds conclusive radio proof of extraterrestrial intelligence, sending plans for a mysterious machine.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Starring Jodie Foster, Matthew McConnaughey, Tom Skerritt, and William Fichtner.

When Arrival came out a couple years ago, a lot of people compared it to Contact, but honestly the two are extremely different. Contact is concerned with the big-picture questions, the grandiose nature of life on other planets and the bigness of the universe and the existence or non-existence of God and how faith fits into the realm of science. Arrival is about the details, the details of linguistics and the details of one mother's journey through motherhood, and even though there are big-picture concerns with Arrival as well, it's very much a more focused story. Contact is good, and Jodie Foster is so very good in her role, but it drowns a little bit in its bigness, especially in its third act, and that keeps the emotional component from coming through as clearly as I wanted it to. Still solid, still a very interesting ride, but not as emotionally powerful as I expected and hoped for.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Contact > Tarzan
Contact > Sleeping with Other People
Contact < Breakfast at Tiffany's
Contact < The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall
Contact > Corrina, Corrina
Contact > Gone Baby Gone
Contact < Mr. Brooks
Contact < Father of the Bride (1991)
Contact < Hairspray Live!
Contact < Match Point
Contact < Center Stage
Contact < Shakespeare Behind Bars

Final spot: #571 out of 2812.