The Last Duel (2021)

IMDb plot summary: King Charles VI declares that Knight Jean de Carrouges settle his dispute with his squire by challenging him to a duel.

Directed by Ridley Scott. Starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, and Jodie Comer.

The Last Duel tells the story of two former friends in medieval France, one a knight and one a squire, who grow apart and end up challenging each other to a duel when one's wife accuses the other of rape. The film's gimmick is that it's told three times, Rashomon style, following each man and then the wife's version of the story. However, unlike Rashomon, the three different tellings don't really enhance the story as much as they just rehash what we already know. The film does add some subtle differences in the interpretation of the events between each person, but most of those differences are not interesting or unique enough to make me interested in watching the same story three times in a row. I like all the performances in this, however. Between this and Stillwater, Matt Damon is really leaning into the character of "ignorant wannabe hero." I think I would have enjoyed this a bit more if it had cut back and forth between three perspectives throughout instead of playing them one after another, because while the movie is fine, it's not not good enough for me to want to watch it three times in a row, and that's basically what I felt like I did. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Last Duel < Hustle & Flow

The Last Duel > Dinner at Eight

The Last Duel > Batman: Under the Red Hood

The Last Duel > Planes, Trains & Automobiles

The Last Duel < Stagecoach

The Last Duel < The King and I

The Last Duel > The English Patient

The Last Duel > Star!

The Last Duel > Miller's Crossing

The Last Duel < Once Upon a Time in the West

The Last Duel < Bedknobs and Broomsticks

The Last Duel > Blade Runner 2049

Final spot: #1924 out of 3510, or 45%.

The Group (1966)

IMDb plot summary: After graduating from a prestigious Eastern university, eight devoted women friends go their separate ways: one leaves for Europe, while the others experience troubled relationships. Sadly, they get to meet one last time as a group.

Directed by Sidney Lumet. Starring Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett, Elizabeth Hartman, and Shirley Knight.

The Group is a Sidney Lumet film about eight women who are all in the same graduating class in college. The film follows their lives after college: their marriages, their job prospects, their political activism, and the relationships they still keep with each other as part of the same group of college friends. The movie moves along very quickly in the kind of way that makes sense when you're marking time between big events. While it's really interesting to dip in and out of each woman's life, there are so many of them, and so many of him look similar to each other, that I could really only keep track of about half of them. This is the kind of thing that I would love to see remade in the current day, as well as one of those ensemble casts that would benefit from star casting because you would be easily able to track who is who. Because this is such an episodic film, much of the narrative doesn't actually emotionally land until the very end. Up until then everything that happens just feels like another small piece of the puzzle and feels a little inconsequential. It's still a very interesting movie and something very different than Lumet ever did again, so I'm really glad I got to see it and would definitely suggest watching it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Group > Hustle & Flow

The Group < Chronicle

The Group < About Elly

The Group < Real Life

The Group > The Diary of Anne Frank (2009)

The Group > Black Snake Moan

The Group > Lenny

The Group < Blow Dry

The Group > Les Miserables (1935)

The Group > 101 Dalmatians (1961)

The Group > Censor

Final spot: #1549 out of 3508, or 56%.

The Flintstones (1994)

IMDb plot summary: In a parallel modern-day Stone Age world, a working-class family, the Flintstones, are set up for an executive job. But they learn that money can't buy happiness.

Directed by Brian Levant. Starring John Goodman, Rick Moranis, Halle Berry, and Kyle MacLachlan.

The Flintstones is the 1994 live-action film adaptation of the Hanna Barbera cartoon about a world of prehistoric humans functioning in basically a modern world, powered by stone and dinosaurs. In this version of the story, incompetent work Fred Flintstone is promoted to high-powered executive so he can take the fall for his boss's embezzlement scheme, and in the meantime his promotion leads to him treating his less-fortunate best friends poorly. I had extremely low expectations for this, and it's... not quite as obnoxious as I anticipated. Don't get me wrong, I can't say I got anything out of it. This is clearly a movie for young children, and Elizabeth Taylor is criminally underused. But I wasn't as irritated as I thought I might be throughout. There are some genuine, if simple, character arcs, and McLachlan is always an entertaining villain, and none of the more annoying side characters were around long enough for me to resent them. It's definitely not a movie I'd recommend, but I guess it's fine that it exists and it's fine than I've seen it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Flintstones < Hustle & Flow

The Flintstones < Dinner At Eight

The Flintstones > Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

The Flintstones > Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin

The Flintstones < Night at the Museum

The Flintstones < Bedtime Story

The Flintstones > Dinner for Schmucks

The Flintstones < The Wages of Fear

The Flintstones > Madigan

The Flintstones > Enough

The Flintstones < Send Me No Flowers

Final spot: #2806 out of 3500, or 20%.

Hal King (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Hal King is a film musical; an epic coming of age romance set in the late 1950s beatnik jazz scene.

Directed by Myron Davis. Starring Sophia Stephens, Richard Phillis, and J. Ivy.

Hal King is a musical retelling of Shakespeare's Henry IV and V, set in the African-American jazz scene of the 1950s. Hal is the partying-hard son of a man running for political office, who has to take up his father's mantle after his death. The movie is entirely sung through with primarily an R&B musical style. I went into this blind and was delighted to find it was not only a musical, but a musical setting of Shakespeare. It's an ambitious and interesting concept, and I wish the execution followed through. The sung dialogue bits in between major songs are incredibly tuneless and repetitive, and many of the actual songs don't offer much more, though there are a couple good ones. The choreography and blocking are decidedly not great (surprising, since the choreographer has some Broadway cred!) and, weirdly, the ensemble scenes *don't have enough people*, and so I'm left trying to assess the actual popularity of Hal's jazz poems or his father's political campaign when their audience is less than a dozen people. It's the kind of thing you can get away with in theater but is a jarring disconnect set against these more realistic set pieces. I really WANT to love this but it doesn't make it there.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hal King < Gas Food Lodging

Hal King > Cassandra's Dream

Hal King < Batman: Under the Red Hood

Hal King > Sweet and Lowdown

Hal King > Crash (2004)

Hal King > Little Big League

Hal King > Three Days of the Condor

Hal King < National Treasure

Hal King > Red Notice

Hal King < No Sudden Move

Hal King < A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Hal King < Run Lola Run

Final spot: #2219 out of 3518, or 37%.

Guarding Tess (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A former U.S. First Lady wants a particular Secret Service agent to head her bodyguard detail, even though he can't stand her.

Directed by Hugh Wilson. Starring Shirley MaClaine, Nicolas Cage, and Austin Pendleton.

Guarding Tess stars Shirley MacLaine as a former First Lady and Nicolas Cage as the Secret Service Agent tasked with keeping her secure. MacLaine is a terrible boss, and Cage would like nothing more than to get away from her, but she's taken a liking to him and keeps using her influence with the president to get him re-assigned to her. This movie isn't entirely sure what genre it wants to be, whether it wants to be a comedy or a heartwarming drama or an action thriller, and as a result it doesn't really stick any of its landings. One scene toward the end where Cage is pulling an aggressive thriller Nic Cage move, and I genuinely have no idea if I was supposed to laugh, or be worried about his state of mind, or be like "YEAH GET 'EM!" MacLaine does a pretty good job bringing some depth to her character and making us care about her right on schedule, but she's rising above the material to get it done. It's OK, it's kind of sweet, it just is also very mediocre.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Guarding Tess < The Harder They Fall

Guarding Tess > Dinner at Eight

Guarding Tess > Batman: Under the Red Hood

Guarding Tess < Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Guarding Tess < Onibaba

Guarding Tess < Confessions of a Shopaholic

Guarding Tess > The Imitation Game

Guarding Tess > Satantango

Guarding Tess > Dr. No

Guarding Tess > For Your Consideration

Guarding Tess < Fun and Fancy Free

Final spot: #2145 out of 3516, or 39%.

Exotica (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A man plagued by neuroses frequents the club Exotica in an attempt to find solace, but even there his past is never far away.

Directed by Atom Egoyan. Starring Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Don McKellar, and Mia Kirshner.

Exotica centers most of its action around the strip club named in the title. We follow the owner, the act announcer, one of the dancers, a frequent customer, and a drug smuggler, who doesn't at first seem to be connected to the story. The story unfolds a little at a time, drawing lines between characters and their motivations gradually, until finally we start seeing how everything fits together. The mystery of it all, surprisingly, doesn't feel as sensationalized as you would assume from the broad strokes of the synopsis. It's almost got the atmosphere of a slice-of-life story, just one with less traditional centerpieces like drugs and strippers and murder. I found myself genuinely involved with these characters and their concerns and wanting to know how things were going to play out for them. The ending holds on to that understated tone, which, again, feels odd to say when murder and intrigue are so much a part of the ending, but it ends somehow... very gently. It's a unique and interesting movie that kept me engaged the whole time.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Exotica > Gas Food Lodging

Exotica < Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962)

Exotica < Timecop

Exotica > Source Code

Exotica < The Fly (1986)

Exotica > White Nights

Exotica > The Three Musketeers (1993)

Exotica < Rabbit Hole

Exotica > The Act of Killing

Exotica > Never a Dull Moment

Exotica > Anna and the King

Final spot: #1443 out of 3515, or 59%.

Encanto (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A Colombian teenage girl has to face the frustration of being the only member of her family without magical powers.

Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard. Starring Stephanie Beatriz, Maria Cecilia Botero, John Leguizamo, and Mauro Castillo.

Encanto is the newest Disney release, about a magical family in a remote village in South America. We mostly focus on one daughter, Mirabel, the only one in her family to not be gifted a magical superpower, but now she's also the only one who is starting to notice that the magic they've relied on for decades might be fading. This is the third musical released this year featuring music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, so it's no surprise that the soundtrack is really fantastic. It does such an excellent job of creating the world through song. But the story is lovely, too, with a rich cast of characters (many of whom get their own song and distinct story arc) and a beautiful message about family and acceptance. The magical realism of the story brings with it levels of metaphor that will fly over kids' heads but had me thinking about them for days. It's one of those special kids' movies where it's easily entertaining enough for children but also goes a little deeper to provide a great story for adults too.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Encanto > Gas Food Lodging

Encanto > Till Death

Encanto < A Little Princess (1995)

Encanto < Broadcast News

Encanto > Taxi Driver

Encanto > The Shape of Water

Encanto < Eve's Bayou

Encanto < Picnic at Hanging Rock

Encanto > Back to the Future Part III

Encanto < Cats (1998)

Encanto < The Joy Luck Club

Encanto < Don't Drink the Water

Final spot: #708 out of 3520, or 80%.