Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

IMDb plot summary: The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once more in the final chapter of the Skywalker saga.
Directed by J.J. Abrams. Starring Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, and John Boyega.

(Spoilers ahead.)

I saw this two nights ago, and the longer I sit with it, the more I a) forget what actually happened in it and b) am left with irritation. I'm not usually annoyed by fan service, but I *am* when fan service and retconning takes the place of actual character and plot development. There are no narrative cohesive threads in this movie because they cut all the ones that the previous film set up, and then scrambled to make ends meet. I found the redemption arc wildly unconvincing and a very disappointing ending to someone who began as one of the most interesting villains we'd seen in the series. Also, four fake-out deaths is TOO MANY if your movie is not a comedy. It's just a messy, messy movie, but that's what happens when you try to conclude a trilogy while ignoring the entire middle section. Fortunately it's also forgettable so I can pull an Abrams and pretend this one didn't exist.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Rise of Skywalker < Red (2018)
The Rise of Skywalker > The TV Set
The Rise of Skywalker < Stand and Deliver
The Rise of Skywalker > Spy
The Rise of Skywalker < Legally Blonde
The Rise of Skywalker > Lilo & Stitch
The Rise of Skywalker > The Amazing Spider-Man
The Rise of Skywalker > Hollywood Homicide
The Rise of Skywalker > Brigadoon
The Rise of Skywalker > Cambio de ruta
The Rise of Skywalker > Where the Wild Things Are
Final spot: #1993 out of 3036.

A Song Is Born (1948)

IMDb plot summary: With her gangster boyfriend under investigation by the police, a nightclub singer hides out in a musical research institution staffed by bachelor professors - one of whom begins to fall for her.
Directed by Howard Hawks. Starring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey.

So apparently this is a musical version of Ball of Fire, which, to my shame, I have never seen. I do want to though after watching this, which is clearly just a very weird retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It's exactly what one would expect from a Danny Kaye musical comedy -- it's silly and light and goofy -- but it does have some great music, thanks to a plot piece that involves bringing together a bunch of actual 1948 musicians and bandleaders including Tommy Dorsey and Louis Armstrong. Super fluffy and pleasant, but not spectacular.

How it entered my Flickchart:
A Song is Born > Manhattan
A Song is Born < An American Werewolf in London
A Song is Born < Primal Fear
A Song is Born > Pitch Perfect 2
A Song is Born < Hedwig and the Angry Inch
A Song is Born > Lagaan: Once Upon a Time In India
A Song is Born > Aguirre: The Wrath of God
A Song is Born > Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
A Song is Born > The Wicker Man (1973)
A Song is Born > The Green Mile
A Song is Born > Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
Final spot: #1234 out of 3036.

Hot Millions (1968)

IMDb plot summary: Paroled London fraudster Marcus Pendleton poses as a computer specialist in order to work for an insurance company that entirely relies on its corporate server.
Directed by Eric Till. Starring Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, Karl Malden, and Bob Newhart.

Oh, this is a fun, silly ride. It's got a dry lightness to it that just makes me smile, with a lead character who's so pleasant and entertaining that we don't even mind that he's embezzling the entire time. There's also an unexpectedly sweet romance between him and Maggie Smith -- the scene where she proposes to him and he plays it off as a joke but then it becomes clear that they both very much want this is quite a lovely moment. Overall, one of the better films I've seen lately in my quest to watch 100 films from 1968.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Hot Millions > Peter Pan (1960)
Hot Millions > Dangerous Liaisons
Hot Millions < Vertigo
Hot Millions < Sergeant York
Hot Millions < The Florida Project
Hot Millions > Hannah and Her Sisters
Hot Millions > Kill Bill Vol. 2
Hot Millions < Finian's Rainbow
Hot Millions > Brave
Hot Millions > National Lampoon's Vacation
Hot Millions > Robot and Frank
Final spot: #677 out of 3035.

Knives Out (2019)

IMDb plot summary: A detective investigates the death of a patriarch of an eccentric, combative family.
Directed by Rian Johnson. Starring Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

This is such a charming watch. Rian Johnson is a master of blending tone here, as he manages to evoke all the feeling of a classic 1920s British murder mystery while also making it feel somehow very modern, never stale or outdated. Marta is a truly wonderful character to position as our lead, and the supporting cast and characters are all just over-the-top enough to be funny without seeming impossible. A really enjoyable flick.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Knives Out > Kiss the Girls
Knives Out > Thor
Knives Out < Jean de Florette
Knives Out > Sergeant York
Knives Out > King George and the Ducky
Knives Out < La Strada
Knives Out > The Jungle Book (1967)
Knives Out > Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
Knives Out > High and Low
Knives Out < Dog Day Afternoon
Final spot: #432 out of 3034.

The Stalking Moon (1968)

IMDb plot summary: A sympathetic retired army scout takes-in a white woman and her half-Apache son, not knowing that the boy's father, a murderous renegade Apache, is after them.
Directed by Robert Mulligan. Starring Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint, Robert Forster, and Noland Clay.

This was more engaging than a lot of westerns I've seen (and 1968 especially seems to have just an endless supply of them), but, like all of them, their focus is always on the least interesting characters. Gregory Peck saving the day isn't even half as interesting to me as the interaction between the two Apache/white mixed characters, or the story of Eva Marie Saint's survival after being captured. But I did appreciate the oddly quiet tone for the story, given how much danger the characters were in -- it helped put the emphasis on them as people rather than archetypes.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Stalking Moon > Blow Out
The Stalking Moon < Thor
The Stalking Moon < State and Main
The Stalking Moon < Letters from Iwo Jima
The Stalking Moon > The Tourist
The Stalking Moon < A Foreign Affair
The Stalking Moon > Along Came a Spider
The Stalking Moon > Neighbors
The Stalking Moon > L.A. Confidential
The Stalking Moon > Kung Fury
The Stalking Moon > No eres tu, soy yo
Final spot: #1376 out of 3033.

Yellow Submarine (1968)

IMDb plot summary: The Beatles agree to accompany Captain Fred (Lance Percival) in his Yellow Submarine and go to Pepperland to free it from the music hating Blue Meanies.
Directed by George Dunning. Starring The Beatles, Paul Angelis, John Clive, and Dick Emery.

After watching Head earlier this year and *hating* it, I was a little nervous about another surreal absurdist musical featuring a 1960s band. But overall, this is kind of engaging. The calm, dry personalities of the Beatles characters help to tone down what could be an exhausting over-the-top hour and a half, and some of the visuals paired with the music were really captivating. ("Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" was my favorite.) It's not something I ever feel a need to watch again, but it's got charm and I can see why people like it.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Yellow Submarine < Blow Out
Yellow Submarine > Deja Vu
Yellow Submarine > Midnight Cowboy
Yellow Submarine > The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Yellow Submarine > The Whole Nine Yards
Yellow Submarine < John Dies at the End
Yellow Submarine > Office Space
Yellow Submarine > How to Rob a Bank
Yellow Submarine > The Day After Tomorrow
Yellow Submarine > The Blues Brothers
Yellow Submarine < Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (what an interesting match-up...)
Final spot: #1566 out of 3032.

The Stand (1994)

IMDb plot summary: After a deadly plague kills most of the world's population, the remaining survivors split into two groups - one led by a benevolent elder and the other by a maleficent being - to face each other in a final battle between good and evil.
Directed by Mick Garris. Starring Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Jamey Sheridan, and Laura San Giacomo.

So, I have this longstanding problem with Stephen King's work. Or, well, film adaptations of it, since I don't think I've actually read anything by him. But the issues I have with his films are plot-based, and from reading book synopses on Wikipedia I think I'd have the same problem with them, and regardless King wrote this teleplay, so it's definitely his writing I dislike here.

The thing is, he comes up with these decently creepy premises and then throws *everything* at them without bothering to connect them. In The Shining, the hotel is full of ghosts AND Jack Torrance also just happens to be a little crazy to begin with AND his son just happens to have ESP. And it's never clear whether one is influencing the other at all, so it just looks like multiple separate stories he's trying to smush together.

The Stand is (I think mostly?) just two stories: A mysterious flu kills off most of the population, and the survivors have to fight Satan. The first half of the miniseries is about the flu and survival, the second half is about going off to fight Satan in the desert. But there's also all this weird throwaway stuff about visions from God, Satan trying to make a baby with a human woman, a healing ghost, several characters with disabilities that I don't know WHAT he's doing with them, a bunch of drama about choosing town council members, and more. All of these issues flare up with great significance like they're going to play major roles in how things go, and then they seem to be either resolved or forgotten within minutes. What does King think this story is *about*? Nothing stays, nothing holds, nothing matters.

Speaking of nothing mattering -- that final scene. The good guys are captured by Satan who decides to tear them apart at a public execution, but then one of our (very uncomfortable) disability characters shows up with an atomic bomb, and then some sort of ghost comes out of two of Satan's dead minions and sets off the bomb. And back in the town, everybody lauds the dead heroes' sacrifice and talks about how they went out there to "stand, and that's what they did." But, like... What? Aside from I guess gathering everyone in one place for the execution, nothing they did made any difference at all. (And if it's an atomic bomb, they don't need to be *that* close together for it to do the trick.) They didn't make the ghosts happen (right?), they didn't make the bomb appear, they did ab.so.lute.ly.no.thing and are treated like they saved the world.

The first hour or so is good. Watching the world get slowly taken down by the flu and seeing the survivors trying to figure out what to do next is fascinating. But when it suddenly turns into a supernatural God's-people-vs-a-literal-demon battle, it loses me entirely and tosses out a thousand threads it can never resolve well.

I don't get it, y'all. I don't get King, and I don't get this adaptation, and it was a very long four-and-a-half hours once it started going off the rails.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Stand < Blow Out
The Stand > A Farewell to Fools
The Stand > Ulysses
The Stand < Cellular
The Stand < The Robe
The Stand > Thoughtcrimes
The Stand < Company (1997)
The Stand < Ghost
The Stand < The Love Bug
The Stand < Reality Bites
The Stand < Sunshine
The Stand > The Iceman
Final spot: #1844 out of 3029.