Arlo the Alligator Boy (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A young humanoid alligator travels to the big city in hopes of reuniting with his estranged father, meeting a colorful cast of characters along the way.

Directed by Ryan Crego. Starring Michael J. Woodard, Mary Lambert, and Tony Hale.

This is such a strange vibe, and it's definitely one that, if it clicks with you, will be consistent throughout. It never did fully click with me -- I could never quite grasp the rules of the world and how it felt about animal people or outcasts in general. The music is also, with one or two exceptions, the sort of droning electropop that is extremely popular currently and, at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old woman, I find its deliberately non-emotive style to be the opposite of everything I love in musicals. The characters' energy goes down every time they sing, which is a bummer, and often grinds the whole story to a halt. The soundtrack probably works fine on its own but I don't like them as supplementals to a narrative. There are definitely some good bits here, but overall this isn't my style.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Arlo the Alligator Boy < Sunday in the Park With George

Arlo the Alligator Boy > Dinner at Eight

Arlo the Alligator Boy < The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Arlo the Alligator Boy < Kiki's Delivery Service

Arlo the Alligator Boy > Checking Out

Arlo the Alligator Boy > The Fifth Element

Arlo the Alligator Boy < Marvin's Room

Arlo the Alligator Boy > 12 Days of Terror

Arlo the Alligator Boy < SpaceCamp

Arlo the Alligator Boy > The Deadly Affair

Arlo the Alligator Boy > Lovelace

Final spot: #2445 out of 3505, or 30%.

A Walk on the Moon (1999)

IMDb plot summary: The world of a young housewife is turned upside down when she has an affair with a free-spirited blouse salesman.

Directed by Tony Goldwyn. Starring Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, and Liev Schreiber.

This film has a few good moments that spice up an otherwise uninspiring little romantic drama. There are some interesting dynamics between Lane and her teenage daughter, played by Anna Paquin, who discovers her mother's affair and is completely disgusted to see her mother rebelling and experimenting the same way she herself wants to. Setting the film in 1969, during the summer of Woodstock and the moon landing, sets an interesting vibe of change and restlessness for the whole film. The long-term relationship between Lane and Schreiber is also more complex than it sometimes is in these stories. Of course, that plus the fact that Mortensen's character is a blank slate with literally nothing going for him but his sex appeal means that it's pretty easy to see which way the story's going to land, but the journey itself is... fine. No real complaints here but not much to write home about either.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Walk on the Moon < Hustle & Flow

A Walk on the Moon > The Fox and the Hound

A Walk on the Moon > Dark City

A Walk on the Moon > Venom

A Walk on the Moon > Shame (1968)

A Walk on the Moon > Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmelites

A Walk on the Moon < Raising Cain

A Walk on the Moon > It Comes at Night

A Walk on the Moon < To Be or Not to Be (1942)

A Walk on the Moon < Malignant

A Walk on the Moon < My Girl

A Walk on the Moon < Christine

Final spot: #1787 out of 3494, or 49%.

Old (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A vacationing family discovers that the secluded beach where they're relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day.

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps, and Rufus Sewell.

Old is M. Night Shyamalan’s newest movie, about a group of resort tourists who go on a day trip to a beach that, they soon learn, ages them startlingly quickly. As children become teenagers, medical problems progress rapidly, and the older among the group begin dying, they have to figure out a way to get off the beach and back home. This reminds me very much of The Happening, in the sense that there is a genuinely terrifying premise at the core here, but the script reads like it’s been written by an alien who’s never seen humans interact before. It’s such a shame, because there are some extremely creepy moments of existential crisis that could be bone-chilling in the right writer’s hands. Instead, we get repetitive dialogue, bizarre revelations that come out of nowhere, deeply unrelatable responses to the crisis at hand. A lot of the film looks fantastic, and the concepts they play with are wonderfully eerie, but it all falls apart during the dialogue. I watched a video essay recently that posited that Shyamalan films almost all fare better when watched in black-and-white with no sound, and this is another to add to that list.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Old < The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Old > Gladiator

Old > V/H/S

Old > The 'Burbs

Old < Air Force One

Old > Dumbo

Old < Swing Time

Old < Wallace & Gromit in A Close Shave

Old > Top Gun

Old < Pulp Fiction

Old < Out of Time

Old < L.A. Confidential

Final spot: #1879 out of 3450, or 46%.

Kate (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A female assassin has 24 hours to get vengeance on her poisoner before she dies.

Directed by Cedric Nicoas-Troyan. Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Woody Harrelson, and Miku Patricia Martineau.

You know how you have those years when movies with identical premises come out at the same time? Well, Kate, which I just watched, reminds me very much of Gunpowder Milkshake -- both are neon-colored movies about female assassins who have to work together with the young daughter of a previous target to take down a now-corrupt organization before they die. In fact, the more I think about how to separate them out from each other, the harder it is to do so. I think Mary Elizabeth Winstead is probably the key factor for me in nudging Kate slightly ahead. She has a determined weariness that works really well for her in this film. I also really like Miku Patricia Martineau as Ani. She so naturally transforms her character's teenage angst into gleeful empowerment, and the two of them have some great interactions. The action scenes are pretty good, and the visuals are more interesting and prettier here than they were in Gunpowder, and even while the movie's ending is pretty easy to see coming, the actors pull off the emotional weight of it. It's fine.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Kate < Sunday in the Park with George

Kate > Our Idiot Brother

Kate > Batman: Under the Red Hood

Kate > Plains, Trains & Automobiles

Kate > Shame (1968)

Kate < Letters from Iwo Jima

Kate > The Lighthouse

Kate < The Firemen's Ball

Kate > The Dinner Guest

Kate > Downfall

Kate < Grand Illusion

Final spot: #1816 out of 3489, or 48%.

Hurlyburly (1998)

IMDb plot summary: Hollywood movers and shakers dissect their own personal lives when everything seems to clash together.

Directed by Anthony Drazan. Starring Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, and Robin Wright.

There's a lot of talking and high soul-searching and men saying truly awful things about women. It's all a little much for me, and it never ends up being entertaining or meaningful enough to cover the movie's other sins. It was based on a play, and while that's usually a vibe I like, here the endless "talky-ness" of it feels more pretentious than significant, and I found myself antsy for the scene to move on and do something more, only it seldom does. I did really enjoy seeing Meg Ryan in a role about as far away as she could get from the America's Sweetheart roles she did so many of in the 90s, and Sean Penn does a good job really bringing to life the unstable dread his character inhabits. I don't feel much sympathy for anyone in this story, but I ALMOST feel sympathy for him, because he seems truly miserable. If you're going to watch awful people being awful, there are better movies out there than this one.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hurlyburly < Hustle & Flow

Hurlyburly > A Prairie Home Companion

Hurlyburly < Dark City

Hurlyburly < Sweet and Lowdown

Hurlyburly < The Pajama Game

Hurlyburly > Destry Rides Again

Hurlyburly > Loving Annabelle

Hurlyburly < The Visitor

Hurlyburly < Phantom of the Opera (1943)

Hurlyburly < The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Hurlyburly < The Day of the Triffids

Hurlyburly < Army of the Dead

Final spot: #2538 out of 3493, or 27%.

Fatherhood (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A father brings up his baby girl as a single dad after the unexpected death of his wife who died a day after their daughter's birth.

Directed by Paul Weitz. Starring Kevin Hart, Alfre Woodard, Lil Rel Howery, and DeWanda Wise.

I've often said that some of the best dramatic performances can come from comedians, since comedy is already toeing the line of tragedy most of the time, and while Hart isn't stellar here, he definitely taps into that fine line here and delivers a pretty good performance. The script helps, letting him be just a regular guy with a good sense of humor, lending authenticity to his interactions with his in-laws, his daughter, his friends, and his new girlfriend. We've seen this kind of story before and this one doesn't tread much new ground, but we DON'T have as many stories featuring Black men and their daughters, so even if it's a familiar story in a lot of ways that does add a new layer that's worth telling. If this is your kind of genre, this is a perfectly good addition.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Fatherhood < Hustle & Flow

Fatherhood > The Merchant of Venice (2004)

Fatherhood > V/H/S

Fatherhood > Broken Arrow

Fatherhood > Waterloo

Fatherhood > The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini

Fatherhood < The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Fatherhood > Meet John Doe

Fatherhood < High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Fatherhood > My Girl

Fatherhood < Malignant

Final spot: #1770 out of 3467, or 49%.

Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989)

IMDb plot summary: The demonic forces in the Amityville house transfer to an ancient lamp, which finds its way to a remote California mansion where the evil manipulates a little girl by manifesting itself in the form of her dead father.

Directed by Sandor Stern. Starring Patty Duke, Jane Wyatt, Fredric Lehne, and Lou Hancock.

I saw this as part of a Rifftrax Live event where they made a big deal out of the fact that this movie is centered around an evil lamp, and that deserved every joke it got, because it is a ridiculous premise, and it plays it too straight to be anything but ridiculous. Because of that, though, it does make for great riffing -- it's taking itself so seriously and yet being so utterly goofy, and there's plenty to laugh at. It doesn't deliver on scares or depth of storytelling, but it'd be plenty of fun to watch with some snarky friends.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < A Prairie Home Companion

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < Clash by Night

Amityville: The Evil Escapes > Horse Sense

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < Miracles from Heaven

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < The Wild Bunch

Amityville: The Evil Escapes > God's Not Dead

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < Something's Gotta Give

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < 101 Dalmatians (1996)

Amityville: The Evil Escapes > Atlantic Rim

Amityville: The Evil Escapes > Carnival Magic

Final spot: #3354 out of 3479, or 4%.