Platoon (1986)

IMDb plot summary: A young soldier in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
Directed by Oliver Stone. Starring Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, and Forest Whitaker.

While usually I find combat films incredibly dull, there are moments in this one that really work and highlight the terrifyingly... out-of-control nature of the work they're doing. It's not tidy and neat, things are going crazy and people are losing their minds and nobody has any idea what anybody's doing and then people die. There are still a lot of pieces in this, as in most war movies, that are slow, often tedious builds of an atmosphere, but I got enough out of it to be impressed.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Platoon > Star Trek: First Contact
Platoon < Brooklyn
Platoon < Swing Girls
Platoon < Sunday in the Park with George
Platoon < Must Love Dogs
Platoon > The Blues Brothers
Platoon > Man on Fire
Platoon < Bye Bye Birdie (1995)
Platoon > Love Me Tonight
Platoon < Imitation of Life
Platoon < Cake
Platoon > Dumbo
Final spot: #1475 out of 3111.

Psych-Out (1968)

IMDb plot summary: A deaf runaway arrives in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury hippie district looking for her missing brother.
Directed by Richard Rush. Starring Susan Strasberg, Dean Stockwell, Jack Nicholson, and Bruce Dern.

I'm a little surprised 1968 doesn't seem to have that many hippie movies. I guess it was early days. But that makes this kind of an interesting little time capsule. I also love that we have a deaf main character. However, I can't really figure out what this movie is trying to say aside from "Drugs are bad," and I'm not sure it's saying that terribly effectively. Some interesting pieces but doesn't hold up as well as I wanted it to.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Psych-Out < Secret Window
Psych-Out < Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging
Psych-Out > Saw
Psych-Out > There's Something About Mary
Psych-Out < The Swiss Family Robinson
Psych-Out < Shrek 2
Psych-Out < The Money Pit
Psych-Out < Meet Me in St. Louis
Psych-Out > Green Lantern
Psych-Out > Michael Clayton
Psych-Out > Hangman's Curse
Psych-Out > Out of the Past
Final spot: #2515 out of 3110.

Hellfighters (1968)

IMDb plot summary: The story of macho oil well firefighters and their wives.
Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. Starring John Wayne, Katharine Ross, Jim Hutton, and Vera Miles.

This is definitely more enjoyable than John Wayne's other 1968 movie, The Green Berets, which was a preachy pro-war propaganda film. This one aims for a genuine human connection in the story as well as focusing on a pretty unique type of dangerous occupation -- I've seen firefighter movies, but never specifically about folks fighting industrial oil fires. It's a little bland in how neatly things get wrapped up but it's got interesting pieces to it.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Hellfighters < Star Trek: First Contact
Hellfighters > Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging
Hellfighters < Ghost
Hellfighters > Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
Hellfighters < Give My Regards to Broad Street
Hellfighters > Apocalypto
Hellfighters > Crash
Hellfighters > Joe Versus the Volcano
Hellfighters < The Pajama Game
Hellfighters > Ivan the Terrible, Part One
Hellfighters > The Year Without a Santa Claus
Hellfighters > Where to Invade Next
Final spot: #2047 out of 3109.

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (2019)

IMDb plot summary: In a world where people collect Pokémon to do battle, a boy comes across an intelligent talking Pikachu who seeks to be a detective.
Directed by Rob Letterman. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, and Bill Nighy.

(Mild spoilers ahead.)

I am intrigued by how... sincere the tone of this is. It doesn't really attempt to lean into the meta self-awareness of the movie as much as I expected, and somehow it kind of works? It's pretty entertaining throughout, significantly more than it had any right to be. It is very strange however to realize that Ryan Reynolds is at the point in his career where he can play a grown adult's father. When did that happen?

How it entered my Flickchart:
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu < Star Trek: First Contact
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu > The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu > Ghost
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu > August: Osage County
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu > Lost in America
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu > Avengers: Age of Ultron
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu > If I Forget
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu > October Sky
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu < Stalag 17
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu > UHF
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu < Modern Times

Final spot: #1563 out of 3108.

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

IMDb plot summary: A murder inside the Louvre, and clues in Da Vinci paintings, lead to the discovery of a religious mystery protected by a secret society for two thousand years, which could shake the foundations of Christianity.
Directed by Ron Howard. Starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, and Jean Reno.

So, yeah, this is really goofy nonsense, but it somehow isn't even FUN goofy nonsense. I can't help but compare Tom Hanks' character to Nicolas Cage's in the National Treasure movies, who proposes equally ludicrous ideas but does so with a sense of gleeful adventure. In contrast, our protagonist here goes around with a sense of either smug self-righteousness or a gritty solemnity that feels wildly at odds with the off-the-wall popcorn adventure style of the narrative. I couldn't even enjoy it as a silly ridiculous story.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Da Vinci Code < Star Trek: First Contact
The Da Vinci Code > Bullitt
The Da Vinci Code < Beach Party
The Da Vinci Code < The Little Drummer Boy
The Da Vinci Code < A Girl of the Limberlost
The Da Vinci Code > Suez
The Da Vinci Code < Show Boat (1951)
The Da Vinci Code < Gosford Park
The Da Vinci Code < Nine
The Da Vinci Code < Good Night, and Good Luck.
The Da Vinci Code > Zero Charisma
The Da Vinci Code < A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Final spot: #2280 out of 3107.

Streets of Fire (1984)

IMDb plot summary: A mercenary is hired to rescue his ex-girlfriend, a singer who has been kidnapped by a motorcycle gang.
Directed by Walter Hill. Starring Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, and Amy Madigan.

What a weird, weird movie! It's like a post-apocalyptic noir musical parody. The dialogue is so over-the-top, the main character such a ridiculous caricature of macho toughness (toward the end of the movie he abruptly punches his lover to knock her out so he can go fight Willem Dafoe - WHAT), it's almost borderline grotesque. And yet also sometimes very compelling. I don't really know what to do with this movie at all, so I'll just shrug and rank it however I can.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Streets of Fire < Star Trek: First Contact
Streets of Fire > Bullitt
Streets of Fire > Beach Party
Streets of Fire < The Tempest (2010)
Streets of Fire < Captain Marvel
Streets of Fire < They Made Me a Fugitive
Streets of Fire > Gozu
Streets of Fire > Blue's Big Musical Movie
Streets of Fire > Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Streets of Fire < Sarah, Plain and Tall
Streets of Fire < Marvin's Room
Streets of Fire > Four Weddings and a Funeral
Final spot: #1897 out of 3106.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

IMDb plot summary: During the Napoleonic Wars, a brash British captain pushes his ship and crew to their limits in pursuit of a formidable French war vessel around South America.
Directed by Peter Weir. Starring Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D'Arcy, and Edward Woodall.

This film definitely looks good, but even in its enormous length it does little to give me a sense of most of the characters, then expects me to care about them. I think it was supposed to be significant who died, who lived, who got promoted, and whatnot, but given the fact that few of the characters besides the captain, the doctor, and maybe the child, get much in the way of character development, it all feels a bit flat. I wonder if I would have been more wowed by the look of this alone if I had seen the film in theaters.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Master and Commander < The Wiz
Master and Commander > Play Misty for Me
Master and Commander > Monster
Master and Commander > Captain Fantastic
Master and Commander < The Blind Side
Master and Commander < Sullivan's Travels
Master and Commander > An American in Paris
Master and Commander < The Kid Who Would Be King
Master and Commander > In & Out
Master and Commander > The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
Master and Commander > Coraline
Master and Commander < Revolutionary Road
Final spot: #1712 out of 3105.