A Week Away (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Nowhere left to go, Will Hawkins finds himself at camp for the first time. His instinct is to run, but he finds a friend, a father figure and even a girl who awakens his heart. Most of all, he finally finds a home.

Directed by Roman White. Starring Kevin Quinn, Bailee Madison, Jahbril Cook, and Kat Conner Sterling.

This is a surprisingly nonspecific and nonpreachy Christian movie, which does make it an easier watch but also makes it very difficult to track a character arc, since it hints at Christian epiphanies but won't actually say any of them out loud. The CCM musical numbers are everything I wanted them to be -- enormous and cheesy and awkwardly choreographed and full of nostalgia for me. I wanted more of them, though. The few newer songs and original tunes we got didn't fit the vibe nearly as well, and since I was really only watching this for the nostalgia, I missed having more. Besides, how do you do a 90s CCM jukebox musical set at a youth group camp and not include "Friends" by Michael W. Smith? Overall, neither as bad nor as fun as I wanted it to be -- more knockoff Camp Rock than Facing the Giants.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Week Away < The Beach

A Week Away > Horton Hears a Who

A Week Away < The Hurt Locker

A Week Away > So I Married an Axe Murderer

A Week Away > Frida

A Week Away < The American President

A Week Away > Sunshine (2007)

A Week Away < The Autopsy of Jane Doe

A Week Away > Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

A Week Away < Genius

A Week Away < The Trouble With Angels

A Week Away < Dear Frankie

Final spot: #2153 out of 3332, or 35%.

Elle (2016)

IMDb plot summary: A successful businesswoman gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse as she tracks down the unknown man who raped her.

Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Starring Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Anne Consigny, and Charles Berling.

Isabelle Huppert got an Oscar nomination for her work here, and it's well-deserved. She conveys so much with so little, these subtle little moments that suddenly tell us so much about what's going on inside her. The narrative itself is... complex and tricky to sort out. While I think it's done well and thoughtfully in a way that gives Huppert's character a lot of agency and depth, I do sort of raise my eyebrow at this story being written and directed solely by men. It doesn't automatically disqualify it for me, but it means I hold it a little bit at arms' length and am a little less sure I like it than I was at first. It makes me wonder how much of its story is meant to be... tantalizing instead of thought-provoking. Huppert's work deserves recognition, but I'm still parsing out how much recognition the film deserves on its own.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Elle > One, Two, Three

Elle < Hoop Dreams

Elle < Harakiri

Elle < Holiday Inn

Elle < 21

Elle < Kinky Boots the Musical

Elle < The Keep

Elle < Nine Queens

Elle > Raising Cain

Elle < The Major and the Minor

Elle < Absolute Power

Elle > Escape from New York

Final spot: #1658 out of 3331, or 50%.

Pal Joey (1957)

IMDb plot summary: Joey Evans' a charming, handsome, funny, talented a-1st class, A-N°.1 - heel. When Joey meets the former chorus girl and now is the rich widow, Vera Simpson, the pair of lecherous souls seem made for each other.

Directed by George Sidney. Starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, and Barbara Nichols.

I've been enjoying a lot of classic musical movies recently -- Kismet, Call Me Madam, Bells Are Ringing -- but this one doesn't work for me much at all. I attribute that partly to how uninteresting the story is overall -- Joey's an unpleasant character and I don't particularly care who he ends up with -- but this movie also features primarily diegetic numbers sung by the characters at the nightclub where they work. This nearly always severs the emotional connection for me between the music and the story, though you can get away with it if the story is rich enough, like in Cabaret or Once. Pal Joey's story is not rich enough to stand up to that. So even though there are some good individual musical moments, none of them strengthen or are strengthened by the narrative, and it ends up falling a little flat.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Pal Joey < The Beach

Pal Joey > Big Business

Pal Joey < The Hurt Locker

Pal Joey > Pride and Prejudice (1940)

Pal Joey > Paint Your Wagon

Pal Joey > Happy Christmas

Pal Joey > Stephen King's The Stand

Pal Joey < Captain Fantastic

Pal Joey < Another Thin Man

Pal Joey < The Rescuers Down Under

Pal Joey < Gypsy (1962)

Pal Joey < Rigoletto

Final spot: #2107 out of 3330, or 37%.

The Lords of Salem (2012)

IMDb plot summary: Heidi, a radio DJ, is sent a box containing a record - a "gift from the Lords". The sounds within the grooves trigger flashbacks of her town's violent past. Is Heidi going mad, or are the Lords back to take revenge on Salem, Massachusetts?

Directed by Rob Zombie. Starring Sheri Moon Zombie, Bruce Davison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, and Judy Geeson.

Rob Zombie's aesthetic is... not mine. There are a lot of pieces of this that have some great ideas, and a few of the scenes involving the record itself are genuinely creepy, but for the most part it's not scary so much as just... grimy, and occasionally silly. There's a gleeful earnestness with which Zombie tosses subverted Christian symbols into the movie, but they seldom make any *sense*, they just feel like they were put there by someone convinced that was enough to be edgy and creepy. But... no, just showing me an image of a nun or a weird shape around a cross isn't a big deal. Maybe for others it is, but it feels like so many of these images were thrown together haphazardly, like Zombie made a mood board on Pinterest and then just decided to film it all, regardless of whether it connects narratively. It drowns out an otherwise unsettling story by feeling, honestly, just kind of silly.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Lords of Salem < The Beach

The Lords of Salem > Big Business

The Lords of Salem < The Woman in Black

The Lords of Salem > Rust and Bone

The Lords of Salem > Bandidas

The Lords of Salem > Crash

The Lords of Salem < Stephen King's The Stand

The Lords of Salem < Mr. Holland's Opus

The Lords of Salem > The Dirty Dozen

The Lords of Salem < Hitch

The Lords of Salem > A Dangerous Method

Final spot: #2124 out of 3329, or 36%.

Bells Are Ringing (1960)

IMDb plot summary: A Brooklyn answering service operator becomes involved in the lives of her clients, including a struggling playwright with whom she begins to fall in love.

Directed by Vincente Minnelli. Starring Judy Holliday, Dean Martin, Fred Clark, and Eddie Foy Jr.

I knew one or two of the tunes from this show before watching but really didn't know the plot or most of the score at all, and I found myself very pleasantly surprised. It's light and funny and heartwarming, and many of the songs are much more interesting than your typical classic musical sound. The only song that didn't fully land for me was the big ensemble number at a party, and I suspect that's because the story's magic comes from the individual performances. The star here is undoubtedly Judy Holliday, whose charm didn't quite sell me on Born Yesterday but who just delights me here, somehow managing to be both blissfully dreamy and pragmatically down-to-earth. I laughed out loud more than once and adored watching all her clients realize the common threads tying together their dramatic life changes. If you're at all a fan of golden age musicals, this is one to watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Bells Are Ringing > The Beach

Bells Are Ringing > Hoop Dreams

Bells Are Ringing > The Great Muppet Caper

Bells Are Ringing < Frozen

Bells Are Ringing < 50/50

Bells Are Ringing > Trust

Bells Are Ringing > The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

Bells Are Ringing > Nativity!

Bells Are Ringing > 25th Hour

Bells Are Ringing > Fail-Safe (1964)

Bells Are Ringing > The Lady Eve

Bells Are Ringing < Shattered Glass

Final spot: #314 out of 3328, or 91%.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)

IMDb plot summary: In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.

Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour. Starring Shela Vand, Arash Marandi, Marshall Manesh, and Mozhan Marnò.

This isn't a plot-centric movie, it's all about the cinematic atmosphere being created, and wow, is it a haunting one. This film moves slowly and deliberately through its world, and that meant it frequently took me by surprise by how intense I found it. I'd be vaguely bored with long slow shots of characters sitting sadly, and then all of a sudden I'd realize I was terrified, or deeply sad, or some other big emotion. Ana Lily Amirpour's directorial choices really crept up on me. Aside from the cinematography, the score is always startlingly impactful. It's never what I would have expected as a film score for any particular scene, but it always set the mood perfectly. A lot of times I find that films relying this heavily on film language can become predictable for me, but I genuinely never knew where this film was taking me, and I loved that. This is one that is going to sit with me for quite some time, I'm sure.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night > One, Two, Three

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night > The Black Cat

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night > Revengers Tragedy

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night < Frozen

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night < 50/50

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night > Citizen Kane

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night < The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night < The World's End

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night < Once

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night > (500) Days of Summer

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night > I.Q.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night < White Christmas

Final spot: #359 out of 3327, or 89%.

End of Days (1999)

IMDb plot summary: At the end of the century, Satan visits New York in search of a bride. It's up to an ex-cop who now runs an elite security outfit to stop him.

Directed by Peter Hyams. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Byrne, Robin Tunney, and Kevin Pollak.

This movie is absolutely ridiculous, but not in a fun or interesting way. The woman being protected is an extremely poorly-written character, with no agency or personality whatsoever. The camerawork frequently relies on unjustified shaky shots that made me a little sick for no good reason, as well as way-too-fast-to-be-useful editing. The film is hilariously confused on whether firearms are or are not effective weapons against Satan, because while they want him to be beyond the reach of mere mortal tools, you can't NOT have your action hero coming in with guns ablazing. Even with the script attempts to be mildly thoughtful, such as the flashback to the protagonist's family when they were alive, is muddled by the script's unclear motivations. This film is a hot mess, and a boring one to boot.

How it entered my Flickchart:

End of Days < The Beach

End of Days < Big Business

End of Days < VeggieTales: The Star of Christmas

End of Days > The Art of War

End of Days < Stand Up and Cheer!

End of Days > Me Before You

End of Days < Pokemon: The First Movie

End of Days < Detour

End of Days < Yes Man

End of Days < Breach

End of Days < Song of the South

End of Days > Avalanche

Final spot: #3066 out of 3326, or 8%.