Basic Instinct (1992)

IMDb plot summary: A police detective is in charge of the investigation of a brutal murder, in which a beautiful and seductive woman could be involved.
Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone.

Back when I was like 13 and hadn't really seen many movies, I used to get this movie mixed up with Single White Female and Fatal Attraction. But while those two are pretty solid thrillers, this is a dumb, sleazy movie with bizarre acting and ridiculous dialogue. I kept feeling like this was a student film - it had a distinctly amateur feel about it, especially when it came to the writing. Lame story, lame execution, so unless you're watching this for the sex scenes (as I suspect many do), there's not a lot of point to it. 1 star.

Flickchart: #1681 out of 1932, below VeggieTales: Gideon, Tuba Warrior and above The Littlest Rebel.

The Avengers (2012)

IMDb plot summary: Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army.
Directed by Joss Whedon. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth,  Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Tom Hiddleston.

...Meh.

I liked almost all the original movies with these characters. I loved Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. I was pretty iffy about both The Incredible Hulk, but that wasn't Ruffalo's Bruce Banner so I'm not sure if that counts or not. But, in the end, I didn't end up liking The Avengers as much as any of those.

The reason for that is simple: It felt like it was telling five or six separate stories.

Part of the reason team superhero movies and comics are fun is that it lets them all work together. It's a group of individuals acting as a team, and the main character is the team rather than any one person. Sure, it may switch the focus to a person here and a person there, but overall, the team itself is the central character.

Not here. I understand that it's an origin story, but 90% of the time, the Avengers weren't even in the same room as each other. We spend most of our time following individual members of the team off doing their own thing, and it's only in the last scene that we get any sense of oneness.

As a result, it's scattered. The big action scenes are split between like five different things that are all happening at once. The movie keeps trying to reestablish different things as the central storyline, but in the end, it's just five, possibly six different superhero movies that kind of sort of connect and then mush into one movie at the end. Fairly satisfying ending, and none of these five or six stories are *bad* ones, but because of its scatteredness, I just can't love it. Disappointing, because I really hoped I would. 3 stars.

Flickchart: #872 out of 1931, below Gypsy and above Videodrome.

Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (1977)

IMDb plot summary: An outcast donkey in Roman era Judea with overlong ears finds his destiny on the way to Bethlehem.
Directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr. Starring Roger Miller and Brenda Vaccaro.

This is the conversation my fiance and I had at the end of the movie:

Me: So this is pretty much exactly Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Him: But with more awful death.
Me: And completely unexplained resolution.
Him: Yup.

It's rather weird how *wrong* this whole movie is. Its story itself isn't bad - a donkey with freakishly long ears turns out to be the one chosen to carry Mary and the as-yet-unborn baby Jesus to Bethlehem - but everything about the execution was just wrong. Nestor's story is far more awful and cruel at the beginning than fits in a children's movie (for example, his mother freezes to death while lying on top of him to keep him warm), and then it gets ridiculously cheerful for no reason. A cherub shows up, they go skipping through ponds for awhile, he carries baby Jesus with the help of his magically long ears, and then he returns to the stable he came from and... everybody is celebrating him now. Even though they would have no way of knowing that he had done anything special. At all. It's all very weird and very false and certainly not one of the better Rankin & Bass Christmas specials. 1.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1626 out of 1930, below New in Town and above My Friend Irma.

The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974)

IMDb plot summary: Mrs. Claus tells us about the time Santa had a bad cold and decided to take a vacation from Christmas.

Directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. Starring Shirley Booth and Mickey Rooney.

This is cute and charming enough, and I suspect if I had grown up watching it I'd love it a bit more. The Snow Miser and Heat Miser characters are great fun, Santa is likable (if a bit emo), and even if it gets a bit heavy-handed with the "YOU MUST BELIEVE IN SANTA FOR CHRISTMAS TO WORK" message (gosh, I hate that one) it's pretty fun. 3 stars.

Flickchart: #889 out of 1929, below Remember the Titans and above How to Rob a Bank.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)

IMDb plot summary: As Johnny Blaze hides out in Eastern Europe, he is called upon to stop the devil, who is trying to take human form.
Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. Starring Nicolas Cage, Violante Placido, and Ciaran Hinds.

This whole movie is pretty ridiculous. Nicolas Cage is so over-the-top it is impossible not to laugh at him, and the scenes where he is the Ghost Rider are some of the least ominous, least suspenseful moments I've ever seen in an action movie. Thank goodness I watched it with Jacob and was able to make fun of it the whole way through, because I would not have enjoyed it at all otherwise. Granted, I haven't seen the first one, but this doesn't strike me as a series where much continuity is really needed. 1 star.

Flickchart: #1792 out of 1928, below Angels in the Outfield and above Mr. Baseball.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

IMDb plot summary: After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.
Directed by J.J. Abrams. Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

This is a worthy addition to the Star Trek movie series. It's fun, light-hearted, has plenty of nods to the original series (both movies and TV) and, best of all, my very favorite actor Benedict Cumberbatch is the villain. It's always hard for me to see the Star Trek movies as a movie series and not just long episodes of a TV show, so it's not going to stick with me for a terribly long time, but it was definitely a fun viewing. 3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #724 out of 1927, below 12 Angry Men (1997) and above Lolita (1997).

Cypher (2002)

IMDb plot summary: An unsuspecting, disenchanted man finds himself working as a spy in the dangerous, high-stakes world of corporate espionage. Quickly getting way over-his-head, he teams up with a mysterious femme fatale.
Directed by Vincenzo Natali. Starring Jeremy Northam, Lucy Liu, Nigel Bennett and Timothy Webber.

Oh, this movie was so ridiculous, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think part of that was due to the fact that Jeremy Northam is very likable in it. I was rooting for him the whole way through. The plot gets very silly very quickly, but I can overlook silly in sci fi a lot more easily than I can anything else. If you have a fondness for goofy conspiracy theory sci fi, you'll probably enjoy this too. 3.5 stars.

Flickchart: #847 out of 1926, below Cry-Baby and above Dark City.