Suspect (1987)

IMDb plot summary: When a homeless man is accused of murdering a Justice Department file clerk, a public defender is tasked with mounting his legal defense.

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Cher, Dennis Quaid, and Liam Neeson.

Suspect is a Peter Yates film starring Liam Neeson as a homeless man accused of murder, Cher as the attorney defending him, and Dennis Quaid as the juror doing his own investigating. Quaid continuously feeds information to Cher as he discovers it, despite concerns that they'll be discovered for jury tampering. Yates continues to be a very eclectic director as I make my way through his filmography, but this is a return to fluffy crime thriller as we saw with Eyewitness earlier this decade. The story doesn't try to overcomplicate itself, and while sometimes that comes across as tropey, it mostly means that it's just a fun, lighthearted ride. The mystery has a satisfying ending, and that's mostly what I care about. The romance between Cher and Quaid is a lot less exciting, but fortunately doesn't take up too much screen time, so I can just roll my eyes and tune out of those scenes until they get back to solving the murder question. Overall, not an amazing watch, but I enjoyed it more than Yates' previous thrillers and had a good enough time with it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Suspect > Love Exposure

Suspect < Anna Karenina (2012)

Suspect < The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Suspect > The Sword in the Stone

Suspect > Ben-Hur (1959)

Suspect < Talk Radio

Suspect < The Hunt (2020)

Suspect > VeggieTales: Are You My Neighbor?

Suspect < Three Thousand Years of Longing

Suspect > The Imposter

Suspect > American Outlaws

Final spot: #1577 out of 3937, or 60%.

The Last Picture Show (1971)

IMDb plot summary: In 1951, a group of high schoolers come of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied North Texas town that is slowly dying, both culturally and economically.

Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Starring Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, and Cybill Shepherd.

The Last Picture Show is a coming-of-age story by Peter Bogdanovich about a young adult graduating high school in a tiny Texas town. We follow him and a few of his peers as he tries to navigate life and relationships, including an affair with an older married woman. This is an extremely atmospheric movie, to the point where it made me deeply, almost viscerally claustrophobic. The choice to film in sepia-tinted black and white keeps the whole film feeling closed in, even in scenes featuring the sprawling Western desert that *should* feel more open. I admit some of this may come from my own growing up in a small town (though not nearly as small as this one) and having absolutely zero desire to return to it, so some of this might be a personal response. But I just couldn't get myself terribly interested in these people's lives that just seemed doomed to the same cycle over and over. There's clearly deliberate thought put into all the choices to make the movie. It just doesn't do much for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Last Picture Show < Le voyage au Groenland

The Last Picture Show < Obvious Child

The Last Picture Show < Annie (1982)

The Last Picture Show > Hidalgo

The Last Picture Show > The Story of the Weeping Camel

The Last Picture Show > Sahara

The Last Picture Show > The Country Bears

The Last Picture Show > Fun With Dick and Jane (2005)

The Last Picture Show > The Passion of Joan of Arc

The Last Picture Show > Cocktail

The Last Picture Show > No More Baths

The Last Picture Show > Mission to Mars

Final spot: #3445 out of 3936, or 12%.

Namastey London (2007)

IMDb plot summary: A man takes his thoroughly-British daughter to his home country, India. There, he arranges her marriage to someone she considers a fool. The daughter attempts to outwit them, but the groom quietly and patiently hatches his own plan.

Directed by Vipul Amrutlal Shah. Starring Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, and Rishi Kapoor.

Namastey London is a Bollywood romantic comedy about a British Indian woman whose parents are trying to set her up with a nice Indian husband from the home country. After she reluctantly participates in a traditional marriage ceremony in India, the couple returns back to England, where she declares the traditional ceremony won't be recognized as a legal marriage in London, and she intends to marry someone else. Her Indian husband sticks around to see if he can persuade her otherwise. This is a very silly movie that only sometimes works. Katrina Kaif isn't what I'd call a particularly *good* actress in this, but she's very charismatic, and watching her fight and manipulate her way into being able to make her own decisions was fun. Akshay Kumar jumps in and out on how much I root for his character, but we do get some good big romantic gestures that are entertaining even if they don't always hit on a deeper level. A very surface-level movie but fun and light enough to enjoy.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Namastey London < Le voyage au Greenland

Namastey London > In the Line of Fire

Namastey London < The Happiest Millionaire

Namastey London > The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Namastey London > Scotland, PA

Namastey London > Choke

Namastey London > Adam

Namastey London < No Highway in the Sky

Namastey London > Nothing Like a Dame

Namastey London < Mongol

Namastey London > Easy Rider

Final spot: #2480 out of 3935, or 37%.

The Color Purple (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A woman faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.

Directed by Blitz Bazawule. Starring Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, and Marsha Norman.

The Color Purple is based on the musical adaptation of Alice Walker's book, although I suspect most people are familiar with it through the Steven Spielberg movie. The story follows a poor, plain Black woman named Celie whose father marries her off to a rich abuser, and it follows her journey as she learns how to stand up for herself and seek out what she wants out of life. It's rare for me to say this about a musical, but I'm not sure the songs added much of anything to this story, aside from "I'm Here" and the finale, which do feel like emotional capstones on top of the full story. The performances, however, are good. Fantasia Barrino played this part on Broadway when it first debuted, and she returns to the role here, bringing a lot of warmth to Celie, and Taraji P. Henson is nicely charismatic as the successful Shug Avery. And while the songs don't contribute anything exciting to the story, they mostly don't take away from it either. Not a tremendous success, but pretty good.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Color Purple > Le voyage au Greenland

The Color Purple < Safe

The Color Purple > The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

The Color Purple < Batman Returns

The Color Purple > Loins of Punjab Presents

The Color Purple > The Pirate Movie

The Color Purple > Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

The Color Purple > Whisky Galore!

The Color Purple > Show Me Love

The Color Purple > Corrina, Corrina

The Color Purple < Time Bandits

Final spot: #1233 out of 3934 or 69%.

Destroy All Neighbors (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Struggling prog-rock musician William Brown finds himself in a living nightmare when he accidentally kills Vlad, the neighbor from hell.

Directed by Josh Forbes. Starring Jonah Ray, Kiran Deol, and Randee Heller.

Destroy All Neighbors stars Jonah Ray as a music studio technician who has dreams of creating his own progressive rock masterpiece, but all of that seems impossible as long as his next door neighbor turns his EDM music up obnoxiously loud. What starts as a small feud with the neighbors spirals in wild unexpected directions, and mayhem ensues. This is like... Airheads meets The Voices meets Studio 666, and I had a great time with it. It's so goofy and over-the-top, and our protagonist is such a loser of a character that we can never quite tell whether we want him to win or not, but it ends up being a very silly and satisfying arc at the end. It definitely builds to that atmosphere -- it takes a little while before we get there, but once he's got some more band members assembled, everything kicks into high gear and becomes way more fun. Overall, I had a blast with this and am glad I watched it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Destroy All Neighbors > Love Exposure

Destroy All Neighbors > Anna Karenina (2012)

Destroy All Neighbors < The White Tiger

Destroy All Neighbors < Onward

Destroy All Neighbors < City Lights

Destroy All Neighbors > The Paper

Destroy All Neighbors > BigBug

Destroy All Neighbors > Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Destroy All Neighbors > The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

Destroy All Neighbors > The Dictator

Destroy All Neighbors > Barbarian

Destroy All Neighbors < Wizards

Final spot: #862 out of 3933, or 78%.

Eleni (1985)

IMDb plot summary: A mother's love for her children leads to a son's revenge for her death in this dramatic thriller that begins during the Greek civil war.

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Kate Nelligan, John Malkovich, and Linda Hunt.

Eleni stars John Malkovich as journalist Nicolas Gage, who returns to his native country of Greece to try to find some details around his mother's death during the Greek Civil War. The film is told in a combination of current-day investigation and flashbacks revealing the things he learns about her fate. The flashbacks are by far the more interesting portion of the film, as Eleni is a slightly more engaging character to watch interact, so it's nice that the majority of the film follows her. The film seems unexpectedly low-budget for a well-known director and lead actor, but the portion of the story set in the past is engaging enough that it doesn't feel low-effort. It's a time I know very little about, historically, and it definitely raised my interest in learning more about it and how it affected people like Eleni. A decent movie with some good highlights.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Eleni < Le Voyage au Greenland

Eleni > In the Line of Fire

Eleni < The Happiest Millionaire

Eleni > The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Eleni > Scotland, PA

Eleni > Choke

Eleni < Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town

Eleni > Withnail & I

Eleni < Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Eleni < Satantango

Eleni > Jurassic World

Eleni > Diner

Final spot: #2499 out of 3932, or 36%.

Cure (1997)

IMDb plot summary: A frustrated detective deals with the case of several gruesome murders committed by people who have no recollection of what they've done.

Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Starring Masato Hagiwara, Koji Yakusho, and Tsuyoshi Ujiki.

Cure is a Japanese psychological horror film about a policeman trying to solve a bizarre series of crimes in which the murderers seem to attack out of nowhere and carve an "X" into their victims' bodies. The answer gets weirder and weirder the more they dig into it. Like a lot of crime movies, this drags for me around the more procedural bits of the story, but the ultimate answer and the reveals are delightfully unsettling, and it ends on a pretty perfect note. Those dragging moments get to me enough, though, that I may like it better as a concept than as an actual movie. I enjoyed rereading the Wikipedia article summarizing the story maybe more than watching the film, as the slowed pacing wasn't an issue for me. Worth a watch for its fun and creative concepts, but it may be an easier sell for folks who are already going to like the procedural aspects of a police drama to begin with.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Cure > Love Exposure

Cure < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Cure > Kajaki

Cure < Batman Returns

Cure > Air

Cure < The Song of Lunch

Cure < The Zone of Interest

Cure < The Sound of Music

Cure > Florence Foster Jenkins

Cure > Westfront 1918

Cure < Akira

Cure > Goosebumps

Final spot: #1337 out of 3928, or 66%.