Maria (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as she confronts her identity.

Directed by Pablo Larraín. Stars Angelina Jolie, Pierfrancesco Favino, and Alba Rohrwacher.

Maria is a biopic of opera singer Maria Callas in the final days of her life. Callas is played by Angelina Jolie, and we see her reminiscing about her past fame, as well as working to restore her damaged voice. I didn't realize until after finishing the film that this is the third in the trilogy of famous women of the 1900s that included Jackie and Spencer before, but it makes sense, because this one is compelling in a very similar way. I was fascinated by its choice to hop in and out of the realism of the story, mirroring Callas' fragile mental state. This is one of Jolie's best acting performances, in my opinion, and not just because of the fact that she studied opera to be able to do her own singing, and while we would never believe her as Callas in her prime (thus using recordings for those sequences), I can totally buy her as a ruined Callas. It's a sad and contemplative film that overall really hits its markers for me. Definitely worth checking out if you are a fan of opera or Angelina Jolie or any of the other films in this biopic series.

🎥 Maria (2024)

📊 Ranked #797/4277 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 81

beat John and Mary (#2182 → #2183)

beat The Other Boleyn Girl (#1091 → #1093)

lost to I ♥ Huckabees (#570 → #572)

lost to The History of Future Folk (#852 → #863)

lost to Night Must Fall (#987 → #993)

beat Amistad (#1065 → #1113)

beat The Other Side of Sunday (#1023 → #1025)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (#1006 → #1009)

lost to Fruitvale Station (#1016 → #1017)

lost to The Wild Robot (#1014 → #831)

beat Kwaidan (#973 → #979)

lost to The Quick and the Dead (#1019 → #1021)

The Family That Preys (2008)

IMDb plot summary: Two families from different walks of life learn to work together.

Directed by Tyler Perry. Stars Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, and Sanaa Lathan.

The Family that Preys is a Tyler Perry movie about a family, focusing most frequently on the two grown daughters who have very different attitudes toward romance and money. As the two argue and fight and bring their other family members into it, secrets begin to be revealed. I don't have a wide knowledge of Perry's work, but this was enjoyable, if forgettable. Characters and motivations here are drawn with extremely big, broad strokes. In some ways it is a melodrama, where the villains are villains for very little reason aside from that they're just evil. That being said, it is a fun ride to watch the villains try to finagle their way into getting what they want, and it's satisfying to ultimately see the heroes win out in the end. There are a lot of plots going on here, and I wish they were a little bit more cohesive rather than just feeling slapped together, but hopping back and forth between them certainly meant that I was seldom bored. Not fully my style or genre, but I'm not mad I watched it.

🎥 Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys (2008)

📊 Ranked #2381/4276 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 49

lost to Memphis Belle (#2131 → #2101)

beat The Other Sister (#3225 → #3342)

beat Heartbeat (#2676 → #2693)

lost to In the Mood for Love (#2412 → #2213)

beat A Lady to Love (#2540 → #2510)

beat Pi (#2474 → #2396)

lost to Air Force One (#2443 → #2279)

beat The Bat Whispers (#2458 → #2495)

lost to Wide Awake (#2450 → #2290)

lost to Pete's Dragon (#2454 → #2296)

beat Love Exposure (#2456 → #2493)

beat Wreck-It Ralph (#2455 → #2514)

Caught Stealing (2025)

IMDb plot summary: When his neighbor asks him to take care of his cat, a former baseball prodigy now working as a bartender finds himself in the middle of gangsters without knowing why. He must use all his cunning to survive and understand what is happening.

Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Stars Austin Butler, Regina King, and Zoë Kravitz.

Caught Stealing stars Austin Butler as a washed-up baseball wunderkind who is now an alcoholic bartender. When he finds himself unexpectedly mixed up with his neighbor's shady dealings, he has to pull himself together and figure out how to keep himself and his loved ones safe. This is kind of a departure for Darren Aronofsky, as in many ways, it's just a straightforward action crime movie. I've always been most impressed with Aronofsky when he explores themes of obsession and how that brings people down, and he touches on that a tiny bit in the aspects where the character is having to confront their addiction to alcohol, but the big picture is not as intense as it often is with his films. Instead we get a more straightforward story about an unexpected getting caught up in a criminal scheme and it for the most part follows familiar and expected beats. Austin Butler is charismatic here and he is an easy hero to root for. A little on the expected side for this director, who often is a little bit more experimental, but it is ultimately well done.

🎥 Caught Stealing (2025)

📊 Ranked #1760/4275 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 60

beat Obvious Child (#2117 → #2290)

lost to Twister (#1086 → #932)

lost to Something to Sing About (#1599 → #1592)

lost to The Help (#1857 → #1951)

beat Sweet Bird of Youth (#1989 → #1984)

beat Serpico (#1921 → #1914)

lost to Swiss Army Man (#1888 → #1885)

beat Notes on a Scandal (#1903 → #1992)

lost to Splice (#1895 → #1890)

lost to Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (#1899 → #1896)

beat Lucky Number Slevin (#1901 → #1967)

beat 1408 (#1900 → #1966)

Red Rocket (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Washed-up porn star Mikey Saber returns to his small Texas hometown and decides if he wants to be with his ex-wife or the donut shop girl hes in love with.

Directed by Sean Baker. Stars Simon Rex, Bree Elrod, and Suzanna Son.

Red Rocket is a Sean Baker film about an adult film star who returns to his hometown in search of his next career move. He attempts to rekindle things with his ex, while simultaneously falling for a high schooler working at the local donut shop. Baker and I have been kind of all over the place -- I loved The Florida Project and was bored by Anora, and this one sits right in the middle. Our main character is exactly the kind of character that Sean Baker really excels in highlighting, someone who is absolutely trapped in the world that they live in with not even a hint of being able to get out of it, and some of that world is of their own making. The whole film feels perpetually claustrophobic, and even as the characters are dreaming big dreams you have this sense that it's obviously never going to make it there. There's a hopelessness pervading the entire film that is relentless. I found the ending provocative in the same way The Florida Project was, albeit with a slightly more ambiguous vibe. It's a depressing watch, but it's a well-made one, and certainly one that pulled me into the world of the characters.

🎥 Red Rocket (2021)

📊 Ranked #1819/4274 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 59

beat All Quiet on the Western Front (#2101 → #2246)

beat Going My Way (#1087 → #1147)

lost to Naughty Marietta (#621 → #503)

lost to The Cutting Edge (#826 → #869)

beat Oxygen (#958 → #1037)

lost to An American Werewolf in London (#901 → #876)

lost to The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (#926 → #921)

lost to Feet First (#948 → #808)

lost to Synecdoche, New York (#955 → #754)

beat Whale Rider (#957 → #1034)

beat TiMER (#755 → #1789)

lost to The Thursday Murder Club (#869 → #648)

Vengeful (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Raymond, wrongly convicted of a crime enters prison. Upon release, Raymond faces rejection by society and his estranged daughter. Raymond's despair deepens. Fueled by anger, Raymond's focus shifts to revenge.

Directed by Chuck Browne. Stars Bobby J. Coleman, Christoph David Cording, and Linsey Davis.

Vengeful is a film about a man who is unfairly imprisoned and when he is finally released on parole and finds that he is unable to resume any semblance of a normal life, he decides instead to take revenge on those who put him in prison in the 1st place. This is... pretty not-great. The writing and acting feels amateurish at basically every level. You can feel the passion in telling this story, but you can also feel a single writer's unedited voice, when it could use an editor for sure. It clearly is also wanting to make some bigger point about the prison industrial complex and how it affects Black families, but it never lands that message. There are much better examples of better crime movies.

Miami Connection (1987)

IMDb plot summary: A martial arts rock band goes up against a band of motorcycle ninjas who have tightened their grip on Florida's narcotics trade.

Directed by Woo-sang Park and Y.K. Kim. Stars Y.K. Kim, Vincent Hirsch, and Joseph Diamand.

Miami Connection is a martial arts film about a rock band who are all super into Taekwondo, and they fight a bunch of criminals and ninjas in Miami. This film feels tailor-made for an MST3K feature. It's bananas. There's so much going on, and none of it makes sense together. That's not to say it's not entertaining -- I particularly enjoyed the extended scenes of metal songs singing about peace, love, and Taekwondo. But truly the story is extremely confusing and makes very little sense. A silly, fluffy romp that had some enjoyable moments but overall will not sit with me for long.

🎥 Miami Connection (1987)

📊 Ranked #2925/4273 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 36

lost to All Quiet on the Western Front (held at #2118)

beat Cinderella (#3210 → #3211)

lost to Melinda and Melinda (#2659 → #2609)

lost to With Byrd at the South Pole (#2939 → #2842)

lost to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (#3074 → #3075)

beat The 101-Year-Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared (#3142 → #3143)

lost to Water for Elephants (#3107 → #3108)

lost to The Untouchables (#3125 → #3127)

beat Lolita (#3133 → #3134)

beat The Divorcee (#3129 → #3130)

lost to Little Women (#3127 → #3129)

beat High Society (held at #3128)

Mazes and Monsters (1982)

IMDb plot summary: When a group of friends decide to take their role-playing gaming to another level, one of their own's mental instability begins to take it too far for him.

Directed by Steven Hilliard Stern. Stars Tom Hanks, Wendy Crewson, and David Wysocki.

Mazes and Monsters is a TV movie featuring Tom Hanks in his first lead role. He plays a college student who has a mental break during a tabletop roleplaying game (modeled after Dungeons & Dragons) and begins to believe he is the actual character. This made the rounds on TikTok for his infamously cringey final scene and take on roleplaying, but it wasn't quite as bad as that scene made it look like out of context. It's definitely got cheesy TV movie dialogue, but it's not being dogmatic about the evils of Dungeons & Dragons, which would have made this a very different story. Hanks is pretty good in his first feature, really embodying this character's fragile psyche and making us feel a little worried for his well-being right from the beginning. The ending definitely does lean into earnestness in a way that is a little eye-rolly, but it's just silly, not irritating. 

🎥 Mazes and Monsters (1982)

📊 Ranked #2919/4272 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 36

lost to Hamlet (#2112 → #2113)

beat Captain January (#3214 → #3351)

lost to The TV Set (#2652 → #2649)

beat Born Reckless (#2939 → #2971)

beat Enemy of the State (held at #2800)

lost to Uptight (#2727 → #2652)

lost to Bill Cunningham New York (#2766 → #2717)

beat Mission: Impossible III (#2783 → #2749)

lost to Dr. Seuss on the Loose (#2774 → #2789)

beat Ace High (#2779 → #2790)

beat Adam (#2777 → #2884)

lost to UHF (#2776 → #2722)