Midsommar (2019)

IMDb plot summary: A couple travels to Northern Europe to visit a rural hometown's fabled Swedish mid-summer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.

Directed by Ari Aster. Starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, and Vilhelm Blomgren.

Midsommar is an Ari Aster horror movie starring Florence Pugh as a woman who just lost her whole family under horrific circumstances, and finds herself tagging along with her boyfriend and his college friends to a remote Swedish commune to celebrate midsummer. I wasn't as taken with Aster's previous film Hereditary as many were, so my efforts to watch his follow-up just kept taking a backseat, and I'm glad to have finally gotten around to this, because this is *great*. For the first time I fully understand the Florence Pugh hype, because she is truly incredible in this film, just overflowing with grief she's trying not to express. There's a scene near the end of the film where she's finally able to let it out and not be alone, and it's one of the most powerful film moments I've seen in awhile. The more overtly horror elements of the movie are terrifyingly done -- I felt so keenly the entire time just how flimsy and easy-to-destroy the human body is. And the ending works for me on just about every level. This movie is fantastic, I'm definitely going to be thinking about it for a long time, and I'm glad I got the nudge to finally watch it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Midsommar > VeggieTales: Madame Blueberry

Midsommar > The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Midsommar > Network

Midsommar > Gravity

Midsommar < The Lives of Others

Midsommar < Gaslight

Midsommar < All of Us Strangers

Midsommar < Everything Everywhere All at Once

Midsommar > Fright Night (1985)

Midsommar < Tick, Tick... Boom!

Midsommar > 28 Days Later

Midsommar < Two Lovers and a Bear

Final spot: #239 out of 3995, or 94%.

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

IMDb plot summary: A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study.

Directed by Jack Arnold. Starring Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, and Richard Denning.

Creature from the Black Lagoon follows a group of archaeologists and marine biologists who discover a fossil unlike anything they've ever found and set out into the remote lagoon to try and find the rest of it. Of course, it turns out that some of those creatures still exist and that our adventuring party could be in danger from them. I'd never actually gotten around to seeing this monster classic, and it's a pretty solid one. The creature design is definitely a little "human in a monster suit"-ish, but it sells it well, and the many scenes of just a shadow on the wall or just one webbed hand poking out of the water do a good job of building the tension. I also appreciate how short it is, just long enough to play around with the creepy premise and then move on its way. I do wish there had been more interesting characterization for our humans. There was opportunity for some much more compelling examples of in-fighting or working toward opposite means of capture, but it mostly teased that possible and just went right back to showing creatures. Still, it was a fun watch, and I had a good time with it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Creature From the Black Lagoon > VeggieTales: Madame Blueberry

Creature From the Black Lagoon < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Creature From the Black Lagoon > Rachel Getting Married

Creature From the Black Lagoon < Waking Ned Devine

Creature From the Black Lagoon > American Teen

Creature From the Black Lagoon > Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Creature From the Black Lagoon < Just Imagine

Creature From the Black Lagoon < Cake

Creature From the Black Lagoon < The Happening

Creature From the Black Lagoon < The Hustler

Creature From the Black Lagoon > Hulchul

Creature From the Black Lagoon < Trick 'r Treat

Final spot: #1307 out of 3994, or 67%.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

IMDb plot summary: On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.

Directed by Céline Sciamma. Starring Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenal, and Luàna Bajrami.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire tells the story of a female painter in 1770s France who is commissioned to paint a wealthy woman. Her subject, however, does not want to be painted, as it is to be a wedding portrait for her marriage, which she opposes, so the painter is asked to pose as her companion and observe her covertly to complete the painting. I was a huge fan of Celine Sciamma’s film Tomboy, and how immediately likable and relatable those characters were. I feel the same way about this one. Even with so much subtext obscured beneath propriety and reserve in the first half of the film, the characters pop, and watching their relationship grow becomes both heartwarming and thrilling. The slow burn here is perfectly paced, and I was with these characters every second of the way. I love how much it explores the idea of *looking* -- as an artist, as a lover, as someone jealous of a freedom they'll never have. The camera plays with this even more than the script does, and it all comes together. This is definitely one that I think is going to stick with me for awhile, and I'm absolutely looking up our two lead actresses in everything else they've been in, because they were so charismatic here.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Portrait of a Lady on Fire > For Pete's Sake

Portrait of a Lady on Fire > Safe

Portrait of a Lady on Fire < The People Under the Stairs

Portrait of a Lady on Fire > Onward

Portrait of a Lady on Fire > The Fabelmans

Portrait of a Lady on Fire > Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Portrait of a Lady on Fire < 56 Up

Portrait of a Lady on Fire > It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown

Portrait of a Lady on Fire < Edge of Tomorrow

Portrait of a Lady on Fire > Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Portrait of a Lady on Fire > Ex Machina

Final spot: #539 out of 3993, or 87%.

Three Men and a Baby (1987)

IMDb plot summary: Jack Holden and his friends, Peter and Michael, spend most of their time having flings with several women in their apartment. Their life changes when a mysterious baby appears at their doorstep.

Directed by Leonard Nimoy. Starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson.

Three Men and a Baby is exactly what the title promises: three bachelor roommates, played by Tom Selleck, Steve Gutenberg, and Ted Danson, find a baby left on their doorstep from one of their short love affairs, and they have to figure out what to do about that. There's also a subplot involving a mistaken drug delivery. This is generally a charming but deeply forgettable little comedy. Extremely watchable. A lot of this comes down to very relatable performances from our three leads, who absolutely could ham it up to the level of a cartoon villain, but they all just seem like regular self-absorbed career guys, which makes their fumbling both more realistic and more sympathetic. The slow development of compassion for the helpless baby thrust in their lives plays out in a plausible way, so it's easy to believe the emotional arcs. The pacing of the story is a little strange toward the end -- what was set up as the primary subplot is suddenly resolved with a half hour left to go, and the final scene creates a brand new obstacle that is then wrapped up much more neatly than makes sense, structurally -- but that's a minor gripe. None of this breaks new ground or does anything *exciting* with its material, but it does it all quite well, and that made for a satisfying watch, even if I don't need to rewatch it any time soon.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Three Men and a Baby > For Pete's Sake

Three Men and a Baby < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Three Men and a Baby < Stargate

Three Men and a Baby > Footlight Parade

Three Men and a Baby < Suddenly, Last Summer

Three Men and a Baby < Clueless

Three Men and a Baby > The Dawn Patrol (1938)

Three Men and a Baby > Green Room

Three Men and a Baby < Rachel, Rachel

Three Men and a Baby < Lo

Three Men and a Baby > Dark Shadows

Three Men and a Baby < Strictly Ballroom

Final spot: #1696 out of 3992, or 58%.

The Triplets of Belleville (2003)

IMDb plot summary: When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters--an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire--to rescue him.

Directed by Sylvain Chomet. Starring Michèle Caucheteux, Jean-Claude Donda, and Michel Robin.

The Triplets of Belleville is a mostly-silent French animated film about a woman whose grandson is kidnapped on the Tour de France, and she has to figure out how to find him. This was my second wordless European animation film watched in the same day, and this probably suffered a bit in comparison to Flow, which I absolutely adored. The animation in this is a very deliberate style, but it happens to be one that I find ugly and hard to track. I genuinely thought for the first third of the movie that the grandson was dying, because his character design made him look deeply unwell, but nope, all the bikers looked like that, it was just a stylistic choice. The pacing is also a little strange for me -- about halfway through the film I looked at the plot synopsis for the story and none of it had even happened yet. I had high hopes for this one because so many people whose opinions I respect and often share have praised it, but ultimately I found myself bored for much of the movie, and I couldn't even enjoy the animation during those slower parts, because of how much I disliked its visuals. This one was not for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Triplets of Belleville < For Pete's Sake

The Triplets of Belleville > The Day of the Triffids

The Triplets of Belleville < No Country for Old Men

The Triplets of Belleville > Shane

The Triplets of Belleville > Marry Me

The Triplets of Belleville < Kindergarten Cop

The Triplets of Belleville < Batman: Under the Red Hood

The Triplets of Belleville < Coraline

The Triplets of Belleville > Run Lola Run

The Triplets of Belleville > My Favorite Wife

The Triplets of Belleville < The Man Who Came to Dinner

The Triplets of Belleville > Night Falls on Manhattan

Final spot: #2606 out of 3991, or 35%.

Flow (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences.

Directed by Gints Zilbalodis.

Flow is a Latvian animation film about a group of animals trying to survive in a human-less, rapidly flooding world. This movie is one I feel like I'm going to be thinking about for a long time. The animation style is simple and effective against the wordless meandering narrative, making it feel more like a moving painting than a typical film. The animals behave like animals, not humans with animal bodies, and it makes the whole story feel otherworldly. Is this post-apocalyptic? Do humans exist in this world? Did they recently? No clue, and really it doesn't matter, because the animals aren't seeking the answer, they just want to survive. There are some strangely supernatural elements that seem to appear partway through the story, and they seem to not feel out of place at all. There are so many great little moments of personality and character and friendship being built throughout this film, all without words, and creating a fascinating balance of slow meditative journeying and almost existential tension in an inexplicable world. It's a beautiful, unique film that I'm glad I got to experience.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Flow > For Pete's Sake

Flow > Safe

Flow > Network

Flow < Parasite

Flow > Cape Fear (1962)

Flow < The Guilty

Flow < Aftersun

Flow > Primal Fear

Flow > Nosferatu (1922)

Flow < The Young Girls of Rochefort

Flow < Together Together

Flow < Mommy

Final spot: #350 out of 3990, or 91%.

Fools Rush In (1997)

IMDb plot summary: After a one-night stand with Alex, Isabel realizes that she is pregnant and they decide to get married. However, along with the marriage comes compromise of one's own cultural traditions.

Directed by Andy Tennant. Starring Matthew Perry, Salma Hayek, and Jon Tenney.

Fools Rush In is a 1997 romance starring Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek as a couple who get pregnant after a one-night stand, and they decide to risk it all on an impulsive marriage, despite their very different backgrounds. My general reaction to almost everything that happened in this movie was, "Oh, those poor sweet dumb kids." Our two leads come across as so deeply unequipped for any kind of relationship but so well-intentioned, and they make such bad decisions and then make even weirder decisions trying to fix them, but you kinda hope it'll work out because they just seem like college kids with no clue how to communicate. There's a sincerity to both their performances that transfers what would have been an irritating relationship dynamic to just... a cheerfully incompetent one. Perry's character has no ability to have difficult conversations, so he just constantly lies to avoid them, even if the lie will ABSOLUTELY INEVITABLY be discovered in the next 10 minutes, and Hayek's character acts so heavily on impulse while claiming she doesn't. Should they be having a baby together? Absolutely not. Do I kind of hope it works out because I feel bad for them like they're clueless teenagers? Absolutely. I kind of feel the same way about the movie. Does it work as a romance? Mostly not. Do I kind of root for it anyway because I feel bad for how sincere everything in this feels? Absolutely.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Fools Rush In < For Pete's Sake

Fools Rush In > The Day of the Triffids

Fools Rush In > The Conversation

Fools Rush In < The Tempest (2010)

Fools Rush In < The Rescuers

Fools Rush In > Pokémon: Detective Pikachu

Fools Rush In > Superman

Fools Rush In > The Secret War of Harry Frigg

Fools Rush In > Till the Stars Come Down

Fools Rush In > National Theatre Live: Everyman

Fools Rush In < Camelot

Final spot: #2372 out of 3989, or 41%.