Dope (2015)

IMDb plot summary: Life changes for Malcolm, a geek who's surviving life in a tough neighborhood, after a chance invitation to an underground party leads him and his friends into a Los Angeles adventure.

Directed by Rick Famuyiwa. Starring Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori, and Kiersey Clemons.

Dope tells the story of a nerdy Black teenager and his friends who get themselves into some deep trouble when a drug dealer plants his supply in the lead's backpack during a nightclub raid. It ends up being up to the teens to get the drugs back where they belong. This is the setup for a dark gritty dramatic story in many other people's hands, but in writer/director Rick Famuyiwa's hands, is a hilarious high school comedy. Shameik Moore is immediately charismatic as our lead character who finds himself in way over his head but makes the most of it, and each silly new obstacle the kids encounter heightens the stakes in a really fun way. The ending is maybe my favorite part, though -- I found myself nervous about how the movie would close its loop, and I didn't need to be, because it's the perfect ending for the movie we were given. A smart, funny movie that works beautifully.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Dope > The Bat Whispers

Dope > Kuroneko

Dope < Network

Dope > Nope

Dope > The Fabelmans

Dope < Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Dope > The Kite Runner

Dope < My Life in Pink

Dope > Zero Effect

Dope > Cats and Dogs

Dope < Black Narcissus

Final spot: #577 out of 3967, or 85%.

The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)

IMDb plot summary: Best friends Audrey and Morgan unwittingly become entangled in an international conspiracy when one of them discovers that the boyfriend who dumped her was actually a spy.

Directed by Susanna Fogel. Starring Kate McKinnon, Mila Kunis, and Justin Theroux.

The Spy Who Dumped Me is an action comedy starring Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon as two best friends who suddenly find themselves in the middle of some international intrigue when Kunis finds out her ex isn't who she thought he was. While there's a lot about this movie that falls a little flat, where it works is in the chemistry between Kunis and McKinnon. They absolutely feel like genuine friends here, with a comfortable dynamic that shows off both of their characters' personalities, and the more heartwarming moments in the movie rely on that dynamic even more than the comedic moments. However, the film is definitely a little mixed in terms of tone, and there are a lot of strange missing steps, where characters who were adamant about something a moment ago now seem like they forgot what they wanted to do. Overall it feels like a film with a good start and a good center that was too rushed and needed a few more passes on the script. I like pieces of it, I just wish the film was... finished.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Spy Who Dumped Me < Le voyage au Groenland

The Spy Who Dumped Me > Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

The Spy Who Dumped Me > The Happiest Millionaire

The Spy Who Dumped Me > The Good Dinosaur

The Spy Who Dumped Me < Home Again

The Spy Who Dumped Me < The Savages

The Spy Who Dumped Me > The Vagabond King

The Spy Who Dumped Me > A Hard Day's Night

The Spy Who Dumped Me < Inland Empire

The Spy Who Dumped Me > Stagecoach

The Spy Who Dumped Me > Rushmore

Final spot: #2178 out of 3966, or 45%.

The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

IMDb plot summary: Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.

Directed by Mark Waters. Starring Freddie Highmore, Mary-Louise Parker, and Nick Nolte.

The Spiderwick Chronicles is a young adult fantasy movie based on a book. Freddie Highmore stars as twin brothers who, along with their sister and mother, move to the mansion they've inherited from an ancestor. One of the twins, Jared, discovers an ancient book detailing the world of fairy tale creatures, and soon he learns this was his great-great-uncle's life's work, and it's caught the attention of an evil ogre who wants to use the information in it to conquer the world. So I know that there are a lot of people who inherently love the faefolk kind of fantasy world and will eat up anything involving dark mysterious forests full of tiny magical people. I however find that kind of setting just... so, so dull. And this wasn't the movie to convince me otherwise. Highmore has given good performances, but he's at a weird place in his acting journey here, where his character choices feel forced and stilted, and having him play two separate characters doesn't help matters. The monster CGI is pretty messy and feels entirely separate from the actors, and the film draws a surprising amount of attention to it -- especially by withholding the "big reveal" of the main monster until the end, at which point it fully disappoints. I get someone having a soft spot for this movie, but very little of it works for me. Someday I'll have to see if the books fare any better!

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Spiderwick Chronicles < Le voyage au Groenland

The Spiderwick Chronicles > Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

The Spiderwick Chronicles < The Happiest Millionaire

The Spiderwick Chronicles < The Lost Weekend

The Spiderwick Chronicles < Sliding Doors

The Spiderwick Chronicles > Fracture

The Spiderwick Chronicles > The Devil is a Woman

The Spiderwick Chronicles < The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach

The Spiderwick Chronicles > Teorema

The Spiderwick Chronicles > Borderline

The Spiderwick Chronicles < The Forger

The Spiderwick Chronicles < Luther

Final spot: #2869 out of 3965, or 28%.

Ma vie en rose (1997)

IMDb plot summary: Ludovic is an innocent seven-year-old child who provokes horror in his community when he dresses in girls clothes and insists he's a girl.

Directed by Alain Berliner. Starring Georges Du Fresne, Michéle Laroque, and Jean-Philippe Écoffey.

Ma vie en rose is a French film about a family whose youngest son begins dressing like a girl and saying he will be a girl someday. The family doesn't know how to respond, the community doesn't know how to respond, and the seven-year-old transgender girl at the center of the story can't quite figure out how her search for identity is causing so much trouble. This is a very moving film, if a difficult one to watch at times, particularly in the moments where the daughter's new behavior causes ripple effects in the parents' lives and they blame her for being so difficult, either directly or indirectly. I was fascinated by the choice to, very occasionally, sprinkle in some fantastical elements, usually to show the young girl's method of processing her world, and while there were times where I found it jarring, I think ultimately it works, even if I can't explain what that means *actually* happened at the end of the movie. Overall, a powerful story handled very well.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Ma vie en rose > Le voyage au Groenland

Ma vie en rose > Woman in the Dunes

Ma vie en rose < The People Under the Stairs

Ma vie en rose > The Farewell

Ma vie en rose > The Fabelmans

Ma vie en rose < Black Panther

Ma vie en rose > The Kite Runner

Ma vie en rose < A Letter to Three Wives

Ma vie en rose > Zero Effect

Ma vie en rose > Cats and Dogs

Ma vie en rose > Black Narcissus

Final spot: #574 out of 3964, or 86%.

The Legend of the Titanic (1999)

IMDb plot summary: A grandfather mouse tells his grandchildren the "real" story of the Titanic disaster, including himself, evil sharks, a giant octopus, and an evil whaling scheme.

Directed by Orlando Corradi and Kim Jun Ok. Starring Gregory Snegoff, Francis Pardeilhan, and Jane Alexander.

The Legend of the Titanic is an animated film set on the Titanic, in which the iceberg is thrown into the way of the ship by an octopus child, on behalf of an evil shark who is helping a greedy human procure whaling rights from a wealthy duke. Also it's mostly told by mice. How do you even rank or review something this ridiculous? It's terrible and baffling (and very unclear on who did and did not survive the disaster). The voice acting is messy, with many of the more distinct character voices being fully incomprehensible. The animation is awful, with some hilariously abrupt CGI giving us full shots of the ship in a way that is so jarring against the clunky stiff 2D character scenes. It is a fun watch, though, and I even watched it a second time with my husband so we could snark it together. An impossible film to rank, so that should mostly be disregarded, but enjoyably terrible.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Legend of the Titanic < Le voyage au Groenland

The Legend of the Titanic > K-19: The Widowmaker

The Legend of the Titanic < The Happiest Millionaire

The Legend of the Titanic > Father of the Bride (1950)

The Legend of the Titanic < Nowhere Boy

The Legend of the Titanic > August: Osage County

The Legend of the Titanic > Little Big League

The Legend of the Titanic < The Big Heat

The Legend of the Titanic > Rancho Notorious

The Legend of the Titanic < The Verdict

The Legend of the Titanic < Ever After

The Legend of the Titanic < Teacher of the Year

Final spot: #2624 out of 3963, or 34%.

Next Goal Wins (2023)

IMDb plot summary: The story of the infamously terrible American Samoa soccer team, known for a brutal 2001 FIFA match they lost 31-0.

Directed by Taika Waititi. Starring Michael Fassbender, Oscar Knightley, and Kaimana.

Next Goal Wins is Taika Waititi's take on the true story of the American Samoan football team, which was a true disaster, and the outside coach they brought in to help them out of last place. If I recall correctly, this got pretty mixed reviews when it was released, but fortunately for me, Waititi's style of humor in his films is nearly identical to mine, and his particular method of mixing heart with laughter is also the exact right proportion for me, so I had a great time all the way through. I laughed a lot, and I also enjoyed how it subverted the white savior trope a bit by having the new coach's style nearly tank them in the end, and I appreciated the subplot about the trans player who is so at home in her own self and so unconditionally accepted by her teammates. It's a pleasant film that gets elevated for me by how close Waititi's storytelling sensibilities are to my own, so anyone who is less a fan of his voice probably would find it grating, but it worked for me!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Next Goal Wins > Le voyage au Groenland

Next Goal Wins > La La Land

Next Goal Wins < The People Under the Stairs

Next Goal Wins > Raya and the Last Dragon

Next Goal Wins > Le bonheur

Next Goal Wins > The Way, Way Back

Next Goal Wins < 56 Up

Next Goal Wins > It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown

Next Goal Wins > Ex Machina

Next Goal Wins > Into the Woods (2014)

Next Goal Wins < Christmas in Connecticut

Final spot: #529 out of 3961, or 87%.

Home Again (2017)

IMDb plot summary: Life for a single mom in Los Angeles takes an unexpected turn when she allows three young men to move in with her.

Directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer. Starring Reese Witherspoon, Michael Sheen, and Candice Bergen.

Home Again stars Reese Witherspoon as a separated mother moving back home to the house she inherited from her father. She soon crosses paths with three aspiring filmmakers who end up living in her guesthouse and becoming very close with her and her family. This is... an exact medium movie. Witherspoon is always a charismatic actress, and it's pleasant to watch her forming relationships with these younger men as she figures out her new life, but none of them have much chemistry with her, and the dramatic scenes have a very forced earnestness that often made me roll my eyes a bit. I do appreciate on one hand that it doesn't end with the predictable romance formula I thought it was setting up, but it's kind of clumsy in how it handles it and makes it feel like the movie is a bit unfinished. So... an extremely mixed bag. Nothing horrendous, but nothing great, and it lands right around the middle of my chart.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Home Again < Pete's Dragon (1977)

Home Again > K-19: The Widowmaker

Home Again > The Happiest Millionaire

Home Again > The Good Dinosaur

Home Again < Wreck-It Ralph

Home Again > Dunkirk

Home Again > The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

Home Again > Maverick

Home Again > Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites

Home Again > Certain Women

Home Again > The Wailing

Final spot: #2106 out of 3962, or 47%.