Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

IMDb plot summary: In 1985 Dallas, electrician and hustler Ron Woodroof works around the system to help AIDS patients get the medication they need after he is diagnosed with the disease.

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Starring Matthew McConnaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto, and Denis O'Hare.

This is more focused than many biopics, but the focus is, for whatever reason, not as centered on the characters themselves as I was hoping and more on the logistics of their business. All that we learn about the characters we learn through those logistics. I kind of wonder what the purpose of this kind of movie is *now*, in 2013, when there have been so many other well-told stories about the AIDS epidemic. Not that you can only tell a story once, obviously, but what made *this* story one that inspired the director and the actors to bring it to life? And I just am not sure. That lack of focus shows itself in the broad strokes with which the non-McConnaughey characters are painted and the intense detail on the logistics of "how does one run a buyers' club in the 1980s?" I don't think it's a bad film, it just doesn't do much of ANYTHING, and I wish it was bolder in basically any sense of the word.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Dallas Buyers Club < Letters from Iwo Jima

Dallas Buyers Club > As Good As It Gets

Dallas Buyers Club < Spinning Into Butter

Dallas Buyers Club > Play Misty for Me

Dallas Buyers Club < Alice in Wonderland (1999)

Dallas Buyers Club > Two for the Money

Dallas Buyers Club > Peter Pan (2003)

Dallas Buyers Club < The Robe

Dallas Buyers Club > Mrs. Doubtfire

Dallas Buyers Club < Shrek Retold

Dallas Buyers Club > Millions

Final spot: #2153 out of 3257, or 34%.

SubUrbia (1996)

IMDb plot summary: A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.

Directed by Richard Linklater. Starring Gioovanni Ribisi, Amie Carey, Jayce Bartok, and Nicky Katt.

I grew up in the suburban Midwest and, hoooo, did I find this a claustrophobic familiar watch. Teens and college-aged people everywhere have their own existential crises, but there IS something distinct about small-town coming-of-age crises, where it's so easy to see your life just stretching in front of you as a neverending sea of... blah. Some of these characters tried and failed to get out and now feel even more stuck, some tried and succeeded, and some haven't tried yet so they still feel hopeful about their chances. Richard Linklater is a great director choice for this text, because he has such a great sense for directing dialogue that is a lot deeper than it seems on the surface. It hit hard enough for me to make it a difficult watch, but I would still recommend it. There's a lot in here to unpack, and it's probably worth it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

SubUrbia > Letters from Iwo Jima

SubUrbia < Chronicle

SubUrbia > I, Tonya

SubUrbia > M

SubUrbia > RoboCop

SubUrbia > Wonder Boys

SubUrbia > Hawking

SubUrbia > Oliver Twist (1948)

SubUrbia < Barton Fink

SubUrbia < Miss Saigon: 25th Anniversary

SubUrbia < The Road Warrior

SubUrbia > Match Point

Final spot: #825 out of 3256, or 75%.

Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)

IMDb plot summary: New York actors rehearse Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" in a dilapidated theatre.

Directed by Louis Malle. Starring Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, Brooke Smith, and Larry Pine.

So in 1994, an actual group of actors worked through performance workshops of Chekhov in an abandoned theater in their street clothes for no public audience, it was solely for their own artistic growth and development. And this is that play. It was pure coincidence that I watched this after another Dogville, another movie with a very pared down almost Brechtian aesthetic. And while I love the concept of it and find many of the performances very compelling, it's a movie that forces me to come to terms with one of my most guilty confessions as a theater lover and teacher -- I don't like Chekhov. I find his plays tedious and uninspiring and seldom rewarding enough to make the long journey into them. And that continues to be the case here. While I enjoy these performances (Brooke Smith and Wallace Shawn especially stand out) I am just so, so bored with the stories and the characters and their long wordy monologues about their deep-seated ideals. If you are a big fan of his work, this is an immensely talented cast doing a stripped-down text-focused production, and it's probably worth a watch. But it just didn't work for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Vanya on 42nd Street < Letters from Iwo Jima

Vanya on 42nd Street > An Ideal Husband

Vanya on 42nd Street > The Rescuers Down Under

Vanya on 42nd Street > Bananas

Vanya on 42nd Street > Wind River

Vanya on 42nd Street < Waterloo

Vanya on 42nd Street > Lost in America

Vanya on 42nd Street > The Sandlot

Vanya on 42nd Street < Waxwork

Vanya on 42nd Street > Melinda and Melinda

Vanya on 42nd Street < Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

Final spot: #1687 out of 3255, or 48%.

Dogville (2003)

IMDb plot summary: A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town she finds out that their support has a price.

Directed by Lars von Trier. Starring Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, John Hurt, and Stellan Skarsgård.

The gimmick of this film is that the "set" is actually just a giant soundstage, with chalk outlines marking the presence of walls, doors, and bushes. It's very theatrical, which I love from an aesthetic standpoint, but I'm still working out how this gimmick helps or hurts the movie's narrative. It definitely puts the town's lack of material goods front and center -- these townspeople don't appear to even have walls, much less anything else Kidman would have expected in her previous life. And like all Von Trier movies, it's unbelievably depressing. I went and read some reviews later and a lot of them bash it as being too cynical about humanity, but I think it actually makes some interesting points about our tendency to segregate and self-preserve and about tribalism, all of which have seemed more obvious here in the US over the last four years. I'm not entirely sure that I grasp Von Trier's ultimate message here, and unlike some of his others I feel he IS trying to make a definitive point here, rather than just tell a story, but I often find his films powerful and emotionally resonant despite not being convinced of his messaging, and that is true here as well. Definitely an engaging film that's likely to stick with me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Dogville > Letters from Iwo Jima

Dogville > The Black Cat

Dogville < Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation

Dogville > You Can't Take It With You

Dogville > Purple Noon

Dogville < Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Dogville < Ordet

Dogville < Regarding Henry

Dogville > Brothers

Dogville > Driving Miss Daisy

Dogville > The Royal Tenenbaums

Dogville < Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Final spot: #496 out of 3254, or 85%.

Sand Castle (2017)

IMDb plot summary: The story follows a young soldier, and his introduction into the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Based on true events, it bears witness to the destruction, and horrors of war.

Directed by Fernando Coimbra. Starring Henry Cavill, Nicholas Hoult, Tommy Flanagan, and Glen Powell.

This is apparently based on the screenwriter's experiences in Iraq. It definitely has its moments where it shines. Like so many war movies, most of the characters all blend into each other no matter how much personality they try to give them, but Hoult as a centerpiece brings more charisma to the role than the "young recruit audience viewpoint" characters in a lot of similar films. It's easy to connect with his disillusionment, his frustration, his hope, and his disappointment throughout the film. Without giving anything away, I thought the ending was interesting as well -- not necessarily emotionally powerful or thought-provoking, which is what I would REALLY want from this -- but it went a direction I didn't necessarily expect. This is however a film weighed down by the logistics of the task they're trying to accomplish, and a lot of the scenes feel less like stories and more like watching someone checking off checkpoints in a video game.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Sand Castle < Letters from Iwo Jima

Sand Castle > An Ideal Husband

Sand Castle < The Rescuers Down Under

Sand Castle < Play Misty for Me

Sand Castle > The Thin Red Line

Sand Castle < Cry-Baby

Sand Castle > Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Sand Castle > Zorba the Greek

Sand Castle > Apocalypse Now

Sand Castle < In the Heat of the Night

Sand Castle < On the Waterfront

Sand Castle < Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Final spot: #2292 out of 3251, or 29%.

Raising Cain (1992)

IMDb plot summary: The oncologist wife of a prominent child psychologist suspects her husband has an unhealthy scientific obsession with their child, unaware of what - or who - is really going on inside his head.

Directed by Brian De Palma. Starring John Lithgow, Lolita Davidovich, Steven Bauer, and Frances Sternhagen.

This is an obviously bad but kind of enjoyable movie. Even after the plot comes together, it really doesn't make much sense, and it includes all these long expository "So, you see, what happened was" scenes where characters explain the movie to each other. There's at least one dramatic scene that is supposed to be dark and sad I think but it's so over-the-top that I laughed out loud. And that plot! At one point I had to pause the movie and go find the synopsis on Wikipedia to read up to where I was thus far and figure out if I'd missed a section. I hadn't, it was just making confusing plot decisions on its own. John Lithgow is clearly having a blast hamming this up though -- he definitely gives it his all. I would mostly recommend this one for a group watch with a bunch of snarky friends.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Raising Cain > Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmelites

Raising Cain < The Black Cat

Raising Cain < I, Tonya

Raising Cain < The Fixer

Raising Cain < Ping Pong Playa

Raising Cain < Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Raising Cain < The Major and the Minor

Raising Cain > It Comes at Night

Raising Cain > Jumanji

Raising Cain > The Score

Raising Cain < Escape from New York

Final spot: #1604 out of 3253, or 51%.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012)

IMDb plot summary: A crime novelist, whose research on Victorian serial killers has turned him into a paranoid wreck, must confront his worst fears, when a film executive takes a sudden interest in his movie script.

Directed by Crispian Mills and Chris Hopewell. Starring Simon Pegg, Alan Drake, Clare Higgins, and Paul Freeman.

This movie has some promise but it squanders most of it by feeling too mean-spirited. It's exceptionally clear that this character has some mental health issues to deal with, and he seems in genuine distress, and while we are trapped inside his head with him, it feels just so cruel to try to laugh at his irrational fears. When we laugh at fear and anxiety it's usually because we find it relatable, and at first I thought I wasn't laughing just because I didn't relate that hard, but then during the middle section, there's an extended scene of him panicking in a social situation, something I DO relate to, and instead of feeling seen and laughing, I just felt mocked. And EVERY punchline revolves around this fear, so if the jokes they choose to pull out of it don't land for you in the first 10 minutes, none of it will. The lines between comedy, horror, and tragedy are all thin and this never quite tips over into the comedy section, despite trying very hard.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Fantastic Fear of Everything < Letters from Iwo Jima

A Fantastic Fear of Everything < As Good As It Gets

A Fantastic Fear of Everything < Annie (1982)

A Fantastic Fear of Everything > Sweet Home Alabama

A Fantastic Fear of Everything > Flywheel

A Fantastic Fear of Everything > Courageous

A Fantastic Fear of Everything < John Q.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything > Taxi

A Fantastic Fear of Everything > Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

A Fantastic Fear of Everything < Eagle Eye

A Fantastic Fear of Everything < Shrek the Third

A Fantastic Fear of Everything < Detropia

Final spot: #2877 out of 3252, or 12%.