Buddies (1985)

IMDb plot summary: The film follows a New York City gay man, in a monogamous relationship, becoming a "buddy" or volunteer bedside companion to another gay man dying of AIDS, and the friendship that develops. Restored in 2020.

Directed by Arthur J. Bressan Jr. Stars Geoff Edholm, David Schachter, and Billy Lux.

Buddies is a film from 1985, known as the first feature film to be about AIDS. Our story follows a young man hospitalized with the disease and a much more sheltered gay man who volunteers as a “buddy” to keep him company during his hospital stay. This is absolutely a low-budget, simply made film, and at times that feels wonky, but overall I found it incredibly moving. It is significant that this is such an early film to deal with the AIDS epidemic and how devastating that was. While the acting is all just a little tiny bit wooden and obvious, the characters do still somehow feel like real people. They have different reactions to both the disease and the public response, and even while everything feels very scripted out, the reality of the story rings true, which is an impressive take for something that is, could have been just like unbearably corny and cheesy. It does end up being a little stilted, but I found myself really drawn to the story regardless. Worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Buddies (1985)

📊 Ranked #793/4310 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 81

beat Hellboy (#2169 → #2404)

beat The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (#1086 → #1085)

lost to Dope (#549 → #556)

beat Spotlight (#821 → #819)

lost to Won't You Be My Neighbor? (#688 → #411)

lost to Running on Empty (#754 → #714)

lost to Philadelphia (#787 → #518)

beat The Wild Robot (#803 → #870)

beat The Shape of Water (#795 → #900)

lost to The Manchurian Candidate (held at #791)

lost to Megamind (held at #793)

lost to The Stepford Wives (held at #794)

Time of the Wolf (2003)

IMDb plot summary: When Anna and her family arrive at their holiday home, they find it occupied by strangers. This confrontation is just the beginning of a painful learning process.

Directed by Michael Haneke. Stars Isabelle Huppert, Anaïs Demoustier, and Béatrice Dalle.

Time of the Wolf is a Michael Haneke film set in a vaguely apocalyptic setting where food is scarce and people are fending for themselves. We follow a widow and her two children as they make their way and ultimately end up joining in with a large group of other wanderers hoping to make their way somewhere better. I really go back and forth on Michael Haneke. Some of his, like Amour or The Seventh Continent absolutely break me in the best way, and I love them. And then others, like The White Ribbon or this, just kind of leave me cold. On the surface, I should love the apocalyptic nature of this story, but it moves so glacially that I can't stay interested. That pace does lend itself to a sense of doom -- that the world is broken and can never be put back together -- but not in a way that I find particularly compelling. Overall, a good concept that ended up being pretty disappointing for me personally.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Time of the Wolf (2003)

📊 Ranked #2816/4307 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 39

lost to Lenny (#2168 → #2100)

beat The Forger (#3255 → #3287)

lost to The Asphalt Jungle (#2704 → #2623)

beat Anything Else (#2983 → #2998)

beat Flightplan (#2845 → #2833)

lost to Superman (#2779 → #2782)

lost to Green Street Hooligans (#2812 → #2791)

beat Mad Dog and Glory (#2828 → #2836)

beat ¡Three Amigos! (#2820 → #2828)

lost to The Love Witch (#2816 → #2757)

lost to Laura (#2818 → #2696)

beat Unsung Hero (#2819 → #2817)

Summer School (1987)

IMDb plot summary: Freddy the gym teacher has to teach remedial English in summer (high) school, if he wants tenure. As he can only teach gym and his students want fun, emphasis is on "field trips" - until he's fired unless all his students pass the test.

Directed by Carl Reiner. Stars Mark Harmon, Kirstie Alley, and Robin Thomas.

Summer School is a comedy starring Mark Harmon as a PE teacher who is unwillingly roped in to teach remedial English in summer school. He is not prepared for this and the students have no intention of letting him do it, so he has to resort to unorthodox measures to achieve those goals. I didn't have high expectations for this but it ended up mostly working for me. It's both cleverer and kinder than a lot of films in this vein often are, but it also manages to avoid being sentimental the way a film might be if it were striking a more dramatic tone. Obviously this is a horrible example of good boundaries in teacher-student relationships, but in the context of a film where we're letting our suspension of disbelief take the reins, it was a good time, and I did laugh a lot more than I thought I was going to, so nicely done.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Summer School (1987)

📊 Ranked #840/4309 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 80

beat EDtv (#2171 → #2176)

beat Open Your Eyes (#1087 → #1069)

lost to Argo (#548 → #601)

lost to The Karate Kid (#819 → #605)

beat Sisters (#953 → #996)

beat Brooklyn (#885 → #854)

lost to Back to the Future Part III (#852 → #888)

beat Shiva Baby (#868 → #968)

beat Society of the Snow (#860 → #891)

beat Bubba Ho-tep (#856 → #889)

lost to Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (#854 → #838)

lost to Roxanne (#855 → #839)

Mustang (2015)

IMDb plot summary: When five orphan girls are seen innocently playing with boys on a beach, their scandalized conservative guardians confine them while forced marriages are arranged.

Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven. Stars Günes Sensoy, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, and Tugba Sunguroglu.

Mustang is a Turkish film about 5 orphaned sisters whose guardians begin to significantly restrict their freedom in an attempt to marry them off and get them settled. This one was kind of a mixed bag for me. I really appreciated the idea behind it and seeing all these different girls with their interests and their hopes and seeing how things all kind of went down for them was very interesting in theory. I found it difficult to keep the different girls straight in my mind though, so some of the character beats got lost in trying to decipher who was who. As the story went on, it became a lot more compelling for me and so I settled into it for sure, but it took me a long time to get started and in the end, I just didn't love it as much as I hoped I would. Still a very good movie, but not one that I am really in love with.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Mustang (2015)

📊 Ranked #1863/4308 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 58

beat The Crazies (#2168 → #2161)

lost to The Other Boleyn Girl (#1087 → #1101)

lost to I and You (#1626 → #1400)

beat The Green Knight (#1894 → #1900)

beat Ponyo (#1761 → #1785)

lost to Single White Female (#1692 → #1617)

beat Island of Lost Souls (#1725 → #1814)

lost to Singles (#1708 → #1626)

beat Sorcerer (#1716 → #1769)

beat Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (#1712 → #1779)

beat Radhe Shyam (#1710 → #1843)

beat Harakiri (#1709 → #1864)

Superman (2026)

IMDb plot summary: Superman must reconcile his alien Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as reporter Clark Kent. As the embodiment of truth, justice and the American way he soon finds himself in a world that views these as old-fashioned.

Directed by James Gunn. Stars David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, and Nicholas Hoult.

Superman is James Gunn's reboot of the classic superhero story, this time following Superman as he faces an enemy that is actually able to physically defeat him for the first time, as well as a shocking discovery about his own past. I like James Gunn a lot but have not liked superheroes and franchise movies for a while, so I was torn up whether I was going to see this or not. In the end it was... fine. Gunn's winky self-referential humor doesn't fit as well here as it does in something like Guardians of the Galaxy, though it works best when it works as a direct foil for Clark's sincerity. I like the idea of Superman grappling with a surprise past, and that is done pretty well but it never quite grasped me the way I thought it would. As a result, this version of Superman is only mildly more compelling to me than the bland versions that came before, and it certainly doesn't make me interested in watching any of the follow-ups.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Superman (2025)

📊 Ranked #1999/4306 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 54

beat Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (#2169 → #2251)

lost to The Other Boleyn Girl (held at #1087)

lost to A Serious Man (#1625 → #1434)

beat Abigail (#1893 → #1943)

lost to La Haine (#1760 → #1501)

lost to Krisha (#1828 → #1815)

beat Backbeat (#1860 → #1861)

beat The Detective (#1844 → #1846)

beat Hotel Rwanda (#1836 → #1892)

beat Once Upon A Mattress (#1832 → #1850)

beat Walk on the Wild Side (#1830 → #1844)

lost to Death at a Funeral (#1829 → #1835)

His House (2020)

IMDb plot summary: A refugee couple makes a harrowing escape from war-torn South Sudan, but then they struggle to adjust to their new life in an English town that has an evil lurking beneath the surface.

Directed by Remi Weekes. Stars Sope Dirisu, Wunmi Mosaku, and Malaika Wakoli-Abigaba.

His House tells the story of two refugees from South Sudan who are provided housing to live in as they seek asylum in the UK. But soon they began to worry the house is haunted, as they start seeing and hearing strange things. I really enjoy the spooky vibes of this story combined with realism based refugee story. The tragedy of both these stories blends extremely well, and by the time the final scene comes around, I was fully enthralled. There's a dreamlike quality to the whole thing as it merges the fantastical with the grimly realistic, and that atmosphere just becomes more and more powerful throughout the film's run. By the time it gets to the final scenes, I was fully sold. It's a unique and creative horror film.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 His House (2020)

📊 Ranked #843/4305 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 80

beat Sleepy Hollow (#2169 → #2170)

beat The Other Boleyn Girl (#1086 → #1087)

lost to The Lady Eve (#547 → #302)

lost to Role Models (#817 → #819)

beat The Grand Budapest Hotel (#951 → #947)

lost to Do the Right Thing (#883 → #882)

beat American Dreamz (#916 → #987)

beat Brothers (#899 → #897)

beat Brooklyn (held at #891)

beat Million Dollar Baby (held at #887)

lost to The Land Before Time (#885 → #884)

lost to Crossing Delancey (#886 → #597)

Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020)

IMDb plot summary: Aida is a translator for the UN in the small town of Srebrenica. When the Serbian army takes over the town, her family is among the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp.

Directed by Jasmila Zbanic. Stars Jasna Đuričić, Izudin Bajrovic, and Boris Ler.

Quo Vadis, Aida? is a story set during the Bosnian war, focused on Aida, a translator for the United Nations who is trying to save her family as the Serbs take over her town and the UN provides little protection. This is a tough watch, but I appreciate how tightly it narrows the story into just this one family, even as it's telling a much bigger story along with it. I know very little about this era of history, and this was a harrowing depiction of it and its effect on the people involved. It's infuriating how incompetent the US is in this story, as the people keep being promised help and then... nothing happens. Overall, the film is beautifully done, very human and heartbreaking.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Quo Vadis, Aida? (2021)

📊 Ranked #1302/4304 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 69

beat The Forest (#2164 → #2165)

lost to Chronicle (#1089 → #1091)

beat Killers of the Flower Moon (held at #1626)

beat Moonstruck (#1363 → #1506)

lost to OBEX (#1228 → #1229)

lost to Finder's Fee (#1294 → #1295)

beat Prometheus (#1329 → #1457)

beat Baby Driver (#1312 → #1311)

beat Ran (#1304 → #1303)

lost to Klaus (held at #1299)

lost to The Duellists (#1301 → #1038)

lost to Punch-Drunk Love (#1302 → #1301)