She's All That (1999)

IMDb plot summary: A high school jock makes a bet that he can turn an unattractive girl into the school's prom queen.

Directed by Robert Iscove. Starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Rachael Leigh Cook, and Matthew Lillard.

She's All That is a romantic teen comedy from the 90s starring Rachel Leigh Cook as the unpopular artistic girl and Freddie Prinze Jr. as the popular jock who makes a bet that he can make any girl homecoming queen, even Cook. The two start hanging out, but of course Prinze starts falling in love with her and Cook will find out any moment it was all a bet. The biggest problem with this -- well, aside from the hilarious "girl takes her glasses off and is suddenly hot" trope -- is that I don't buy the chemistry between the two leads at all. When they start to talk about having actual feelings for each other, it almost startled me because there was almost no indication of that up until that point. A rom com's job is pretty simple: have its audience live vicariously through its characters as they discover a new romance, and this seems to be missing the most important steps. Cook's journey is more about fighting her own demons by herself than it is anything to do with him, and his journey is almost nonexistent. On top of that, despite describing it as a rom com, there's not much actual humor in it. Overall, a pretty uninspiring watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

She's All That < Frank

She's All That > Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

She's All That < Adventures in Babysitting

She's All That < In the Mood for Love

She's All That < The 5th Wave

She's All That < Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1989)

She's All That < 13 Going on 30

She's All That < Christmas on the Square

She's All That > The Little Drummer Boy

She's All That > Who's That Knocking At My Door

She's All That > How to Deal

She's All That > Wrath of Man

Final spot: #2675 out of 3583, or 25%.

Metal Lords (2022)

IMDb plot summary: Two friends try to form a heavy metal band with a cellist for a Battle of the Bands.

Directed by Peter Sollett. Starring Jaeden Martell, Adrian Greensmith, and Isis Hainsworth.

Metal Lords is a coming-of-age movie about two high school outcast best friends who are in a metal band together. One of them is really, really serious about the music, while the other is mostly just trying to survive high school. Things ramp up when the group decides to compete in the Battle of the Bands and have to double down to be good enough to win. One of the things I appreciated about this movie is that even when the situations they're in are a little outlandish, these kids do feel fairly realistic. Their concerns and reactions are grounded and feel like something kids might actually think and feel and worry about. I also enjoy how this movie brings its love of metal music to the foreground. Is it pretty cheesy, maybe even to the point of feeling written BY an actual teenager? Sure, but it feels like it's having so much fun I can't mind too much. It's cute and sweet and does what it's supposed to do, and even though I can't imagine wanting to rewatch it any time soon, it was a fun enough one to see.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Metal Lords > Les Miserables (2012)

Metal Lords < Woman in the Dunes

Metal Lords > The Mauritanian

Metal Lords < L'atalante

Metal Lords < Mean Girls

Metal Lords > Bottle Rocket (1996)

Metal Lords < Oh Darling Yeh Hai India

Metal Lords > The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Metal Lords < The Miracle Worker

Metal Lords < Marooned

Metal Lords < The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Metal Lords > Lady Bird

Final spot: #1283 out of 3614, or 64%.

Benedetta (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A 17th-century nun in Italy suffers from disturbing religious and erotic visions. She is assisted by a companion, and the relationship between the two women develops into a romantic love affair.

Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Starring Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, and Daphne Patakia.

Benedetta is a Paul Verhoeven movie about a young woman who grows up in a convent in 17th century Italy. As an adult, she begins a secret affair with one of the other women in the convent, while also publicly having visions and experiencing stigmata, though some of the other nuns are suspicious she is faking these miracles. This is apparently based on a non-fiction book, though there's not a lot of material I can find on the book so I can't tell you how close the story is to the actual story. I can tell you that I didn't enjoy this at all. Verhoeven always rides the line between exploitation and profundity, and here I think it falls pretty solidly in the former camp, with erotic and religious images being combined in a way that feel less thoughtful than flippantly salacious. There is an interesting exploration to be had of how young women with culturally taboo desires may conflate quote-unquote "holy ecstasy" with "carnal ecstasy," but I don't think this film handles it in at all an interesting manner. There's a story in here I'm interested in seeing, but Verhoeven obscures it seemingly only for shock value.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Benedetta < Les Miserables

Benedetta > Wrath of Man

Benedetta < Hitchcock

Benedetta > Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Benedetta < Into the Dark: Pooka!

Benedetta < Less Than Zero

Benedetta > Burning Annie

Benedetta < The Adjustment Bureau

Benedetta < The Unsinkable Molly Brown

Benedetta < Paint Your Wagon

Benedetta < Nine

Benedetta > The Conjuring

Final spot: #2451 out of 3609, or 32%.

8-Bit Christmas (2021)

IMDb plot summary: In 1980s Chicago, a 10-year-old sets out on a quest to get the Christmas gift of his generation: the latest and greatest video-game system.

Directed by Michael Dowse. Starring Winslow Fegley, Neil Patrick Harris, and Steven Zahn.

8-Bit Christmas is a holiday movie where a man tells the story of one of his childhood Christmases -- in particular, one where he was trying desperately to get a Nintendo, whether by purchasing it, winning it, or begging his parents until they got it for him. This is absolutely A Christmas Story for kids who grew up in the 80s, with its episodic storytelling and hyperbolic flights of fantasy and adult voiceover wryly commenting on the action. And it definitely taps into a fresher version of that childhood nostalgia and works for me about as well as that one did, which is to say it's charming and has some fun moments but I don't find it moving or deeply relatable for my own experience, and it's definitely banking hard on its relatability. It's the kind of thing that does indeed only make sense to watch around the holidays, when my nostalgia levels are turned way up and I can be nostalgic for a childhood that wasn't even mine and still have a good time with it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

8-Bit Christmas > C'mon C'mon

8-Bit Christmas < The Game

8-Bit Christmas < The River Wild

8-Bit Christmas > Divergent

8-Bit Christmas < Green Room

8-Bit Christmas > Inspector Clouseau

8-Bit Christmas < Children of Paradise

8-Bit Christmas > The Sword in the Stone

8-Bit Christmas < You've Got Mail

8-Bit Christmas < The Gold Rush

8-Bit Christmas < Bowfinger

8-Bit Christmas > Footlight Parade

Final spot: #1494 out of 3577, or 58%.

Nobel Son (2007)

IMDb plot summary: A professor of chemistry wins the Nobel Prize. His wife joins him to Stockholm but his PhD. working son gets kidnapped. The kidnapper demands $2,000,000 = prize sum.

Directed by Randall Miller. Starring Alan Rickman, Bryan Greenberg, and Shawn Hatosy.

Nobel Son is a way, way, way too complicated thriller about an insufferable Nobel Prize winner, his wife, and his son, who is kidnapped while he's away accepting the Prize. I guess I won't spoil this by going any further into detail, but there are about 10 different "twists" going on here, and none of them are clear. I think there was an attempt to make this partially a dark comedy -- some of the big dramatic moments are so silly they feel like they must have been somewhat self-aware and meant as jokes -- but I think a startlingly large number of them were probably intended to be cool mindbending reveals. None of them are, especially as they render earlier scenes just absolutely baffling and obscure character motivation so many times it's impossible to know or care who is on whose side by the end. There is some enjoyment to be gotten out of the over-the-top performances of Alan Rickman as the Nobel Prize winner, who is level 10 obnoxious for no reason, and Eliza Dushku, the son's love interest, a spoken word poet who is just constantly writhing with pleasure at the small beauties of life. But overall it's just too convoluted and too convinced it's clever.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Nobel Son < Frank

Nobel Son < Annie (1999)

Nobel Son > Move Over, Darling

Nobel Son < Spider-Man 3

Nobel Son > Jane Eyre (1997)

Nobel Son > Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

Nobel Son > Bullitt

Nobel Son > American Graffiti

Nobel Son > The Zen of Bennett

Nobel Son > The Machinist

Nobel Son < There's No Business Like Show Business

Final spot: #2914 out of 3581, or 19%.

The Doorway to Hell (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Despite his efforts to go straight, a young gangster keeps falling back into crime.

Directed by Archie Mayo. Starring Lew Ayres, James Cagney, and Dorothy Mathews.

The Doorway to Hell is a 1930 gangster movie about a man getting ready to give up a life of crime and settle down with his romantic partner. Little does he know, however, that she is cheating on him with one of the other men in his gang, and his plans to get away from that lifestyle may not work out and may instead endanger himself, his new wife, and his younger brother. This is an early James Cagney movie -- he plays the cheating friend involved with the lead's wife -- and it's interesting to see him as a side character instead of a lead, especially since the lead himself isn't very interesting in this story. In preparation for writing up this review a few days after seeing the movie, I revisited the Wikipedia page to refresh myself on the plot details and realized, to my surprise, I remembered very little of it. It all kind of blurs together for me into other gangster pictures of the same era. It certainly is one of the earlier examples, and I'm sure aficionados of the genre would notice where later movies took their lead from films like this, but it wasn't particularly interesting for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Doorway to Hell < The Keep

The Doorway to Hell > Big Fat Liar

The Doorway to Hell < Sullivan's Travels

The Doorway to Hell < Labor Day

The Doorway to Hell > The Devil's Brigade

The Doorway to Hell < So I Married an Axe Murderer

The Doorway to Hell > Our Paradise

The Doorway to Hell > The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

The Doorway to Hell < Tombstone

The Doorway to Hell < The Amazing Spider-Man

The Doorway to Hell < Stand and Deliver

The Doorway to Hell < After the Thin Man

Final spot: #2520 out of 3565, or 29%.

Mass (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Aftermath of a violent tragedy that affects the lives of two couples in different ways.

Directed by Fran Kranz. Starring Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd, and Reed Birney.

Mass is a one-room story about two couples meeting to talk about their children, one of which was the victim of a school shooting six years ago, while the other was the shooter. The film stays on these couples throughout their whole meeting. To pull off this kind of stagey story, all in one room in real time, you have to have a really tight script, incredible actors, and cinematography that keeps the focus on them, and that's all absolutely the case here. We've got Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton as the victim's parents and Reed Birney and Ann Dowd as the perpetrator's parents, and each one of them is such an interesting character. It feels like a play in the absolute best way, the kind of play that keeps you riveted to the edge of your seat because the dramatic tension in the story and the characters has hooked you in, and when the time is up you barely even realize you've just spent two hours watching the same scene. The script flows naturally from one moment to the next but still manages to hit all the essential beats and give each character a chance to really shine in the narrative. It's kind of an incredible accomplishment.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Mass > Fahrenheit 451

Mass > The Black Cat

Mass > Castle in the Sky

Mass < Bullets Over Broadway

Mass > Savannah Smiles

Mass > Requiem for a Dream

Mass > Unforgiven

Mass < A Charlie Brown Christmas

Mass < Seven Psychopaths

Mass > Sabrina (1954)

Mass < The Bridge on the River Kwai

Final spot: #247 out of 3580, or 93%.