Speak No Evil (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A family is invited to spend a whole weekend in a lonely home in the countryside, but as the weekend progresses, they realize that a dark side lies within the family who invited them.

Directed by James Watkins. Stars James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, and Scoot McNairy.

Speak No Evil is about two families who befriend each other on vacation. One family takes the other up on their offer to visit their country home, however things start getting uncomfortable, and the couple begins to wonder if something sinister is going on. As far as horror thrillers go, this one is pretty good. It has a nice balance of genuine creepy moments and slightly exaggerated twists that keep it entertaining throughout. It also does a pretty good job of maintaining the characters' need to stay at the home, even as things come up that feel like they should push them away. It's seldom irritating when they return and more understandable given the circumstances. This isn't an incredible movie, but it is a fun and interesting watch and I'm glad I got to see it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Speak No Evil (2024)

📊 Ranked #1119/4178 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 73

beat Cypher (#2099 → #2100)

lost to Walk Don't Run (held at #1038)

beat Manchester by the Sea (#1562 → #1563)

beat A Grand Day Out (#1301 → #1302)

beat The Nanny Diaries (#1168 → #1169)

lost to Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (held at #1103)

beat Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (#1135 → #1136)

beat Crocodile Dundee (#1119 → #1120)

lost to Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (held at #1111)

lost to Luca (held at #1115)

lost to Baby Driver (held at #1117)

lost to Match Point (held at #1118)

A Troll in Central Park (1994)

IMDb plot summary: An evil Queen banishes a flower loving troll named Stanley to New York City, where he befriends two young children.

Directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. Stars Dom DeLuise, Cloris Leachman, and Charles Nelson Reilly.

A Troll in Central Park is a Don Bluth film in which a young troll, played by Dom DeLuise, is more interested in growing flowers than wreaking havoc with his troll comrades, and as a result he is banished to Central Park. He ends up befriending of couple of New York children who then find themselves in danger from the trolls. It feels like summarizing the movie plot itself took longer than the movie itself. This movie goes by so fast and tries to cram so much in, and it mostly feels overwhelming. I've never been a huge Don Bluth fan, but when his movies work for me, they really work. This one, I think, really needed to be seen as a child for me to have any affection for it. As an adult, I just find it kind of awkward and messy without a lot of real stakes to ground it. Definitely not the best of Bluth's work.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 A Troll in Central Park (1994)

📊 Ranked #3123/4177 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 25

lost to Cypher (held at #2099)

beat A Prairie Home Companion (#3140 → #3141)

lost to Mystic River (held at #2624)

lost to 3, 2, 1... Frankie Go Boom (held at #2882)

lost to Jake's Women (held at #3011)

lost to Alice in Wonderland (held at #3075)

lost to People on Sunday (held at #3107)

beat Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (#3123 → #3124)

lost to The Milagro Beanfield War (held at #3115)

lost to A Man Called Peter (held at #3119)

lost to In the Year of the Pig (held at #3121)

lost to Everyone Says I Love You (held at #3122)

Fly Me to the Moon (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Marketing maven Kelly Jones wreaks havoc on NASA launch director Cole Davis's already difficult task. When the White House deems the mission too important to fail, the countdown truly begins.

Directed by Greg Berlanti. Stars Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, and Woody Harrelson.

Fly Me to the Moon is a historical romantic comedy/drama starring Channing Tatum as a NASA employee working on getting the first man on the moon, and Scarlett Johansson as the fast-talking marketing executive tasked with selling the journey to the public. Her disregard for the truth and his rigid moral code don't always work well, but they learn to work together. This is a fun concept for a romance but doesn't ultimately do that much with it. Scarlett Johansson feels weirdly out of place here. She's a good actress in general but this always feels very consciously like a performance. Even more surprisingly, Channing Tatum is weirdly charisma-less. The side characters and cast are perpetually more engaging all the way along, and that's not a good sign for a romance movie. I don't know what went wrong here exactly but it does all kind of fall apart and ends up being pretty blah.

🎥 Fly Me to the Moon (2024)

📊 Ranked #2859/4173 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 32

lost to The Sparks Brothers (held at #2089)

beat Le Cercle Rouge (#3131 → #3132)

lost to The Inspector General (held at #2612)

beat The Whole Nine Yards (#2871 → #2872)

lost to Popcorn (held at #2741)

lost to Kicking and Screaming (held at #2806)

lost to The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (held at #2838)

lost to Four Weddings and a Funeral (held at #2854)

beat Sullivan's Travels (#2862 → #2863)

lost to Come to the Stable (held at #2858)

beat Adventures in Babysitting (#2860 → #2861)

beat Bully (#2859 → #2860)

A Nice Indian Boy (2025)

IMDb plot summary: When Naveen brings his fiancé Jay home to meet his traditional Indian family, they must contend with accepting his white-orphan-artist boyfriend and helping them plan the Indian wedding of their dreams.

Directed by Roshan Sethi. Stars Karan Soni, Jonathan Groff, and Sunita Mani.

A Nice Indian Boy follows a young Indian American doctor as he falls in love with a white man raised by Indian parents. Together, the two navigate the doctor's familial expectations around sexual orientation, race, and culture. This movie is, above all, very sweet. The central couple has believable, easy chemistry, and I found myself genuinely rooting for them and wanting the best possible outcome. I like how the movie makes family just as important a theme as romance, giving both arcs space, which rounds out the story and gives it depth. There are no big tearjerker moments and no laugh-out-loud jokes, at least for me, but it's consistently warm and everything lands solidly, even if quietly. It's the kind of movie you put on when you just want to watch something pleasant.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 A Nice Indian Boy (2025)

📊 Ranked #1064/4182 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 75

beat Cypher (#2100 → #2101)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (held at #1038)

beat Single White Female (#1563 → #1564)

beat New York Stories (#1301 → #1302)

beat Center Stage (#1168 → #1169)

beat It's Such a Beautiful Day (#1103 → #1104)

beat Kuroneko (#1070 → #1071)

lost to Shin Godzilla (held at #1054)

lost to Elf (held at #1062)

beat The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (#1066 → #1067)

beat Point Break (#1064 → #1065)

lost to Key Largo (held at #1063)

Last Night (1998)

IMDb plot summary: A group of very different individuals with different ideas of how to face the end come together as the world is expected to end in six hours at the turn of the century.

Directed by Don McKellar. Stars Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, and Roberta Maxwell.

Last Night follows a varied group of people in Toronto in the final hours before the world ends. We see each of them dealing with their impending doom and taking charge of the things they CAN do in the meantime. This movie absolutely blew me away. It's astonishing and devastating. Every individual's thread is compelling on its own, but it's even better as they begin to intersect and affect each other. It's a bleak story on its surface, yet ultimately deeply life-affirming, examining the purpose of humanity through the lens of the end. The fact that the film is so quiet makes it hit harder than a lot of apocalypse stories. Clearly I need to seek out more of Don McKellar's work, and honestly, the rest of the films that were part of this same "stories about the millennium" series sound fascinating too. This is a movie that I think is going to stay with me for a long time.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Last Night (1998)

📊 Ranked #118/4157 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 97

beat Frances Ha (#2077 → #2078)

beat Guilty as Sin (#1038 → #1039)

beat The Mummy (#519 → #520)

beat That Thing You Do! (#259 → #260)

beat The Ring (#129 → #130)

lost to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (held at #64)

lost to My Neighbor Totoro (held at #96)

lost to Little Shop of Horrors (held at #112)

beat Up (#120 → #121)

lost to The History Boys (held at #116)

beat Cloverfield (#118 → #119)

lost to Doubt (held at #117)

The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Four irrepressible retirees spend their time solving cold case murders for fun, but their casual sleuthing takes a thrilling turn when they find themselves with a real whodunit on their hands.

Directed by Chris Columbus. Stars Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, and Ben Kingsley.

The Thursday Murder Club follows a group of retirees who spend their spare time solving cold cases, until a real murder lands right in their laps. I watched this because my husband is a fan of the books and this adaptation, and it made me want to read the novels too. The characters are a bit broadly drawn, but they’re undeniably charming and well acted (with a powerhouse cast -- Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie, and Pierce Brosnan), and that goes a long way. I actually guessed the solution toward the end, not because the clues were airtight, but because it felt like the most interesting narrative choice, and it was satisfying when that was in fact the direction the story went. It didn't blow my mind, but it's gentle, cozy, and pleasant. The kind of sweet, low-stakes watch that makes for a very pleasant evening.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

📊 Ranked #1170/4181 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 72

beat Blackadder: Back & Forth (#2097 → #2098)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (held at #1038)

beat Single White Female (#1562 → #1563)

beat A Grand Day Out (#1299 → #1300)

lost to Center Stage (held at #1168)

beat The Cable Guy (#1233 → #1234)

beat The Secret Garden (#1200 → #1201)

beat Call Me Madam (#1184 → #1185)

beat The Ten Commandments (#1176 → #1177)

beat The River (#1172 → #1173)

beat The Hill (#1170 → #1171)

lost to Dicks: The Musical (held at #1169)

The Addams Family Values (1993)

IMDb plot summary: The Addams Family try to rescue their beloved Uncle Fester from his gold-digging new love, a black widow named Debbie.

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Stars Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, and Christopher Lloyd.

Addams Family Values follows, well, the macabre Addams as they welcome a new baby and a murderous nanny into their home. I'm usually not into sequels, but maybe the key is not to see the original, because I had a great time with this movie. There's a really fun vibe throughout, balancing gothic spookiness with just the right amount of absurdity. Without that silliness, the whole thing wouldn't work nearly as well. I was genuinely surprised by how often I laughed out loud. Joan Cusack, in particular, is delightful. I never get to see her play villains OR seductresses, and she excels at both here. Do I feel compelled to go back and watch the first one? Absolutely not. One Addams movie is enough for me, but I'm glad this was the one I saw.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Addams Family Values (1993)

📊 Ranked #1040/4180 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 75

beat Blackmail Is My Life (#2097 → #2098)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (held at #1038)

beat Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (#1562 → #1563)

beat New York Stories (#1299 → #1300)

beat Dicks: The Musical (#1168 → #1169)

beat Look Out, Officer! (#1103 → #1104)

beat Woman in the Dunes (#1070 → #1071)

beat Fresh (#1054 → #1055)

beat Kiss Me, Stupid (#1046 → #1047)

beat Guilty as Sin (#1042 → #1043)

beat The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (#1040 → #1041)

lost to Robin Hood (held at #1039)