A Cure for Wellness (2016)

IMDb plot summary: An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps, but soon suspects that the spa's treatments are not what they seem.

Directed by Gore Verbinski. Starring Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, and Mia Goth.

A Cure for Wellness is a bizarre psychological thriller starring Dane DeHaan as an employee sent to a remote health resort to bring back the finance giant who abruptly checked himself in before a huge merger. The resort seems suspicious, though, with seemingly no residents ever leaving, and so as DeHaan tries to convince his particular target to return, he's also investigating what nefarious things might be happening here. This creates a very unsettling atmosphere of medical horror, which is mostly effective even when the plot itself just completely gives up on making any sense (which is most of the time). The film succeeds best when it leans on its creepy imagery to convey the sense that something is wrong, and it falls furthest when it tries to give us the details about what's going on at this resort. You can see the plot strings start to unravel pretty early, so it's not entirely a surprise when the whole story collapses on itself at the end, but it does make for a very disappointing second half knowing it's not likely to get better. Cut this film down to just its surreal unexplained horrors and this could be an effective 90-minute horror, but as it is, it's bloated with exposition that does nothing for it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Cure for Wellness < The Harder They Fall

A Cure for Wellness > Cassandra's Dream

A Cure for Wellness > Dark City

A Cure for Wellness > Venom

A Cure for Wellness > Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam

A Cure for Wellness > Poulenc; Dialogues des Carmelites

A Cure for Wellness > The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

A Cure for Wellness < Something to Sing About

A Cure for Wellness > Hellboy

A Cure for Wellness > Star Trek: Nemesis

A Cure for Wellness > Le Week-End

Final spot: #1772 out of 3514, or 50%.

Black Christmas (1973)

IMDb plot summary: During their Christmas break, a group of sorority girls are stalked by a stranger.

Directed by Bob Clark. Starring Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, and Margot Kidder.

Black Christmas is a very early slasher movie about a sorority house that is getting obscene phone calls... and then its members start being murdered, one by one. This one took me a little bit to get into, but once it hooked me, WHOO did it hook me! Its exceptionally low budget is reflected in the audio and video quality of the film, but it's paced beautifully, and I love the fact that since various characters are leaving to go on holiday break, the murders mostly go unnoticed until nearly the end of the film. I also, without spoiling anything, absolutely adore the film's ending. It's handled so perfectly and is so unsettling but so well done. It's fascinating to see the moments that clearly went on to inspire others in the slasher genre, that became established tropes, and see how they could still be effective in this early film as well. It does take a little suspension of disbelief and a willingness to buy into the film despite its sketchy technical quality, but I absolutely get why this took off and I'm glad I finally got the push to watch it!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Black Christmas > Hustle & Flow

Black Christmas > Chronicle

Black Christmas < Crimes and Misdemeanors

Black Christmas > Evil

Black Christmas < A Streetcar Named Desire

Black Christmas < Days of Wine and Roses

Black Christmas < Philomena

Black Christmas > Hollywood Ending

Black Christmas < Casualties of War

Black Christmas > The Great Race

Black Christmas > Coherence

Black Christmas > Lolita (1962)

Final spot: #637 out of #3503, or 82%.

Meek's Cutoff (2010)

IMDb plot summary: Settlers traveling through the Oregon desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.

Directed by Kelly Reichardt. Starring Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano, and Will Patton.

This is a slow, suffocating movie. Never have I felt so much the isolation of being so far away from safety and comfort, with no idea when they'll find water or if it'll be enough to save them from death. That being said, I want to re-emphasize the SLOW part of "slow and suffocating." If you're a plot-driven movie watcher, you might find this plotless wandering agonizing. I usually would, but somehow I got into the rhythm and really connected to the characters' sort of desperate hopefulness. It ends up being a mood piece more than anything else, and I'm not sure watching it again would draw me in the same way, but I'm glad I saw it -- I got more out of it than I thought I might.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Meek's Cutoff > Hustle & Flow

Meek's Cutoff < Chronicle

Meek's Cutoff < Fantasia 2000

Meek's Cutoff < Real Life

Meek's Cutoff > The Diary of Anne Frank (2009)

Meek's Cutoff > Cast Away

Meek's Cutoff < Two Weeks Notice

Meek's Cutoff > Viva Zapata!

Meek's Cutoff > Man of La Mancha

Meek's Cutoff < Minority Report

Meek's Cutoff > Total Recall (1990)

Final spot: #1563 out of 3502, or 55%.

Till Death (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A woman is left handcuffed to her dead husband as part of a sick revenge plot. Unable to unshackle, she has to survive as two killers arrive to finish her off.

Directed by S.K. Dale. Starring Megan Fox, Eoin Macken, and Callan Mulvey.

Till Death is a horror movie starring Megan Fox as a woman cheating on her husband of over a decade. When he finds out, he concocts an elaborate revenge plot that leaves her fighting for her life in a remote location where no one is coming to help her. When I say elaborate, I do mean *elaborate*. To the point that it doesn't really make any sense after the halfway point because all the extra traps he adds it to basically negate the earlier traps? Like, you're not going to worry about starving to death and ALSO being framed for the murder and ALSO being killed by outside forces, so why bother making ALL of them part of the story? It's a ridiculous scheme. What it does do though is definitely keep things moving, and if you can suspend your disbelief a bit, it's a pretty solid little thriller. Megan Fox's blank-faced chilliness translates here into seething rage and determination, and they keep her moderately intelligent and don't have her take silly risks until she really HAS to. Really all you need of a thrill is for it to keep you anxious for how the main character's going to do, and this hit that mark for me!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Till Death > Monsters

Till Death < My Name Is Joe

Till Death > About Elly

Till Death > I and You

Till Death > The Bad Seed

Till Death > Hannah Arendt

Till Death > The Bells of St. Mary's

Till Death > Brave

Till Death > The Game

Till Death < Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962)

Till Death > Munich

Final spot: #879 out of 3499, or 75%.

Sreekaram (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Karthik hails from a poor farmer's family in a village near Tirupati. He works at an IT company in Hyderabad. Chaitra is his colleague and tries her best to make him fall in love with her. But Karthik has a mission. He quits his high-salaried job and returns to his village with an aspiration to bring back the lost glory to the farmers and agriculture.

Directed by Kishor B. Starring Sharwanand, Priyanka Arulmohan, V.K. Naresh, and Sai Kumar.

This is one of the less engaging Bollywood movies I've seen -- I'm definitely drawn more toward the more comedic films in that genre, and didn't find myself connecting with any of the characters. The film feels like it's here more to convey a message than tell a story, though the message is actually a pretty interesting one, about a return to farming in a world of high-tech careers. I was also fascinated by how the second act of the film actually takes place at the beginning of the rise of COVID, but it doesn't ever become *about* COVID, it's just another wrinkle for the characters to deal with as they pursue their primary goals. But all that message-heavy story leaves the movie pretty dry, and the song and dance numbers aren't all that exciting to draw us back into the story. It's all right, but it's not one of my favorites.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Sreekaram < Hustle & Flow

Sreekaram > Cassandra's Dream

Sreekaram > Batman: Under the Red Hood

Sreekaram < Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Sreekaram < Deep Red

Sreekaram > Anything Else

Sreekaram < Legends of the Fall

Sreekaram > Tulpan

Sreekaram > In & Out

Sreekaram > No Country for Old Men

Sreekaram > Streets of Fire

Final spot: #2105 out of 3497, or 40%.

Timecop (1994)

IMDb plot summary: Max Walker, an officer for a security agency that regulates time travel, must fend for his life against a shady politician who's intent on changing the past to control the future.

Directed by Peter Hyams. Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mia Sara, and Ron Silver.

This was pretty fun. Some good fight sequences, and it allows the time travel rules to be present and active without ever feeling like too much of an expository infodump. (And, whoo, does that Chekov's gun pay off at the end, in an unexpectedly delightful and weird moment.) The film's pacing is also effective, getting right to the meat of the given situation and then moving on before it wears out its welcome. This doesn't break new ground or wow me, but it was an enjoyable way to spend an evening, and if you like fight-sequence-heavy action movies with a dash of sci-fi, this is probably one you should check out if you haven't!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Timecop > Sunday in the Park With George

Timecop < My Name Is Joe

Timecop < Fantasia 2000

Timecop > Real Life

Timecop > Ant-Man

Timecop > Chaos Theory (2008)

Timecop > Cool Hand Luke

Timecop > Cinema Paradiso

Timecop > Lifeforce

Timecop < Hereditary

Timecop > I Saw the Devil

Final spot: #1318 out of 3504, or 62%.

Arlo the Alligator Boy (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A young humanoid alligator travels to the big city in hopes of reuniting with his estranged father, meeting a colorful cast of characters along the way.

Directed by Ryan Crego. Starring Michael J. Woodard, Mary Lambert, and Tony Hale.

This is such a strange vibe, and it's definitely one that, if it clicks with you, will be consistent throughout. It never did fully click with me -- I could never quite grasp the rules of the world and how it felt about animal people or outcasts in general. The music is also, with one or two exceptions, the sort of droning electropop that is extremely popular currently and, at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old woman, I find its deliberately non-emotive style to be the opposite of everything I love in musicals. The characters' energy goes down every time they sing, which is a bummer, and often grinds the whole story to a halt. The soundtrack probably works fine on its own but I don't like them as supplementals to a narrative. There are definitely some good bits here, but overall this isn't my style.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Arlo the Alligator Boy < Sunday in the Park With George

Arlo the Alligator Boy > Dinner at Eight

Arlo the Alligator Boy < The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Arlo the Alligator Boy < Kiki's Delivery Service

Arlo the Alligator Boy > Checking Out

Arlo the Alligator Boy > The Fifth Element

Arlo the Alligator Boy < Marvin's Room

Arlo the Alligator Boy > 12 Days of Terror

Arlo the Alligator Boy < SpaceCamp

Arlo the Alligator Boy > The Deadly Affair

Arlo the Alligator Boy > Lovelace

Final spot: #2445 out of 3505, or 30%.

A Walk on the Moon (1999)

IMDb plot summary: The world of a young housewife is turned upside down when she has an affair with a free-spirited blouse salesman.

Directed by Tony Goldwyn. Starring Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, and Liev Schreiber.

This film has a few good moments that spice up an otherwise uninspiring little romantic drama. There are some interesting dynamics between Lane and her teenage daughter, played by Anna Paquin, who discovers her mother's affair and is completely disgusted to see her mother rebelling and experimenting the same way she herself wants to. Setting the film in 1969, during the summer of Woodstock and the moon landing, sets an interesting vibe of change and restlessness for the whole film. The long-term relationship between Lane and Schreiber is also more complex than it sometimes is in these stories. Of course, that plus the fact that Mortensen's character is a blank slate with literally nothing going for him but his sex appeal means that it's pretty easy to see which way the story's going to land, but the journey itself is... fine. No real complaints here but not much to write home about either.

How it entered my Flickchart:

A Walk on the Moon < Hustle & Flow

A Walk on the Moon > The Fox and the Hound

A Walk on the Moon > Dark City

A Walk on the Moon > Venom

A Walk on the Moon > Shame (1968)

A Walk on the Moon > Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmelites

A Walk on the Moon < Raising Cain

A Walk on the Moon > It Comes at Night

A Walk on the Moon < To Be or Not to Be (1942)

A Walk on the Moon < Malignant

A Walk on the Moon < My Girl

A Walk on the Moon < Christine

Final spot: #1787 out of 3494, or 49%.

Old (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A vacationing family discovers that the secluded beach where they're relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day.

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps, and Rufus Sewell.

Old is M. Night Shyamalan’s newest movie, about a group of resort tourists who go on a day trip to a beach that, they soon learn, ages them startlingly quickly. As children become teenagers, medical problems progress rapidly, and the older among the group begin dying, they have to figure out a way to get off the beach and back home. This reminds me very much of The Happening, in the sense that there is a genuinely terrifying premise at the core here, but the script reads like it’s been written by an alien who’s never seen humans interact before. It’s such a shame, because there are some extremely creepy moments of existential crisis that could be bone-chilling in the right writer’s hands. Instead, we get repetitive dialogue, bizarre revelations that come out of nowhere, deeply unrelatable responses to the crisis at hand. A lot of the film looks fantastic, and the concepts they play with are wonderfully eerie, but it all falls apart during the dialogue. I watched a video essay recently that posited that Shyamalan films almost all fare better when watched in black-and-white with no sound, and this is another to add to that list.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Old < The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Old > Gladiator

Old > V/H/S

Old > The 'Burbs

Old < Air Force One

Old > Dumbo

Old < Swing Time

Old < Wallace & Gromit in A Close Shave

Old > Top Gun

Old < Pulp Fiction

Old < Out of Time

Old < L.A. Confidential

Final spot: #1879 out of 3450, or 46%.

Kate (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A female assassin has 24 hours to get vengeance on her poisoner before she dies.

Directed by Cedric Nicoas-Troyan. Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Woody Harrelson, and Miku Patricia Martineau.

You know how you have those years when movies with identical premises come out at the same time? Well, Kate, which I just watched, reminds me very much of Gunpowder Milkshake -- both are neon-colored movies about female assassins who have to work together with the young daughter of a previous target to take down a now-corrupt organization before they die. In fact, the more I think about how to separate them out from each other, the harder it is to do so. I think Mary Elizabeth Winstead is probably the key factor for me in nudging Kate slightly ahead. She has a determined weariness that works really well for her in this film. I also really like Miku Patricia Martineau as Ani. She so naturally transforms her character's teenage angst into gleeful empowerment, and the two of them have some great interactions. The action scenes are pretty good, and the visuals are more interesting and prettier here than they were in Gunpowder, and even while the movie's ending is pretty easy to see coming, the actors pull off the emotional weight of it. It's fine.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Kate < Sunday in the Park with George

Kate > Our Idiot Brother

Kate > Batman: Under the Red Hood

Kate > Plains, Trains & Automobiles

Kate > Shame (1968)

Kate < Letters from Iwo Jima

Kate > The Lighthouse

Kate < The Firemen's Ball

Kate > The Dinner Guest

Kate > Downfall

Kate < Grand Illusion

Final spot: #1816 out of 3489, or 48%.

Hurlyburly (1998)

IMDb plot summary: Hollywood movers and shakers dissect their own personal lives when everything seems to clash together.

Directed by Anthony Drazan. Starring Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, and Robin Wright.

There's a lot of talking and high soul-searching and men saying truly awful things about women. It's all a little much for me, and it never ends up being entertaining or meaningful enough to cover the movie's other sins. It was based on a play, and while that's usually a vibe I like, here the endless "talky-ness" of it feels more pretentious than significant, and I found myself antsy for the scene to move on and do something more, only it seldom does. I did really enjoy seeing Meg Ryan in a role about as far away as she could get from the America's Sweetheart roles she did so many of in the 90s, and Sean Penn does a good job really bringing to life the unstable dread his character inhabits. I don't feel much sympathy for anyone in this story, but I ALMOST feel sympathy for him, because he seems truly miserable. If you're going to watch awful people being awful, there are better movies out there than this one.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hurlyburly < Hustle & Flow

Hurlyburly > A Prairie Home Companion

Hurlyburly < Dark City

Hurlyburly < Sweet and Lowdown

Hurlyburly < The Pajama Game

Hurlyburly > Destry Rides Again

Hurlyburly > Loving Annabelle

Hurlyburly < The Visitor

Hurlyburly < Phantom of the Opera (1943)

Hurlyburly < The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Hurlyburly < The Day of the Triffids

Hurlyburly < Army of the Dead

Final spot: #2538 out of 3493, or 27%.

Fatherhood (2021)

IMDb plot summary: A father brings up his baby girl as a single dad after the unexpected death of his wife who died a day after their daughter's birth.

Directed by Paul Weitz. Starring Kevin Hart, Alfre Woodard, Lil Rel Howery, and DeWanda Wise.

I've often said that some of the best dramatic performances can come from comedians, since comedy is already toeing the line of tragedy most of the time, and while Hart isn't stellar here, he definitely taps into that fine line here and delivers a pretty good performance. The script helps, letting him be just a regular guy with a good sense of humor, lending authenticity to his interactions with his in-laws, his daughter, his friends, and his new girlfriend. We've seen this kind of story before and this one doesn't tread much new ground, but we DON'T have as many stories featuring Black men and their daughters, so even if it's a familiar story in a lot of ways that does add a new layer that's worth telling. If this is your kind of genre, this is a perfectly good addition.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Fatherhood < Hustle & Flow

Fatherhood > The Merchant of Venice (2004)

Fatherhood > V/H/S

Fatherhood > Broken Arrow

Fatherhood > Waterloo

Fatherhood > The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini

Fatherhood < The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Fatherhood > Meet John Doe

Fatherhood < High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Fatherhood > My Girl

Fatherhood < Malignant

Final spot: #1770 out of 3467, or 49%.

Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989)

IMDb plot summary: The demonic forces in the Amityville house transfer to an ancient lamp, which finds its way to a remote California mansion where the evil manipulates a little girl by manifesting itself in the form of her dead father.

Directed by Sandor Stern. Starring Patty Duke, Jane Wyatt, Fredric Lehne, and Lou Hancock.

I saw this as part of a Rifftrax Live event where they made a big deal out of the fact that this movie is centered around an evil lamp, and that deserved every joke it got, because it is a ridiculous premise, and it plays it too straight to be anything but ridiculous. Because of that, though, it does make for great riffing -- it's taking itself so seriously and yet being so utterly goofy, and there's plenty to laugh at. It doesn't deliver on scares or depth of storytelling, but it'd be plenty of fun to watch with some snarky friends.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < A Prairie Home Companion

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < Clash by Night

Amityville: The Evil Escapes > Horse Sense

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < Miracles from Heaven

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < The Wild Bunch

Amityville: The Evil Escapes > God's Not Dead

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < Something's Gotta Give

Amityville: The Evil Escapes < 101 Dalmatians (1996)

Amityville: The Evil Escapes > Atlantic Rim

Amityville: The Evil Escapes > Carnival Magic

Final spot: #3354 out of 3479, or 4%.

Wolf (1994)

IMDb plot summary: Publisher Will Randall becomes a demon wolf and has to fight to keep his job.

Directed by Mike Nichols. Starring Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, and Kate Nelligan.

This is delightfully ridiculous. While the movie hardly ever winks at the camera too overtly, the premise and the way it plays out are both rife with comedy, largely because the music and the actors play it so straight, but then abruptly James Spader sniffs a woman's crotch in public or Jack Nicholson starts jumping around on all fours, and the ludicrousness of it all just set me giggling. It reminds me so much of a dramatic 1950s horror B-movie, something like the original The Fly. There weren't nearly enough of these in my trek through 100 movies from 1994, so it was delightful to watch this, particularly in the second half as it just got sillier and sillier.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Wolf > Hustle & Flow

Wolf < Jack Goes Boating

Wolf > About Elly

Wolf < The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

Wolf > Sling Blade

Wolf > Porco Rosso

Wolf < The Hustler

Wolf > The Matador

Wolf > Monsters Vs. Aliens

Wolf < Evita

Wolf < A Little Night Music

Wolf > Carefree

Final spot: #1124 out of 3496, or 68%.

Once Were Warriors (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A family descended from Maori warriors is bedeviled by a violent father and the societal problems of being treated as outcasts.

Directed by Lee Tamahori. Starring Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison, Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell, and Julian Arahanga.

Once Were Warriors follows a New Zealand family with five children, an abusive father, and a mother who's at the end of her rope and determined to care for her children. We see the various family members react to the father's control in different ways, as well as deal with their indigenous heritage and what that means for who they are now. This is a raw, no-holds-barred story that at times is very uncomfortable to sit through because of that -- an early violent scene in particular is brutal to watch -- but it really drives home the difficult situation this family is in. We root for them HARD to find stability, from the older boys who find themselves really working to set themselves apart from their father's violent behavior but not being sure how, to the younger two who have absorbed this as just a normal fact of life, to the mother and middle daughter who see a way out as an almost impossible dream. This film drew me into it and didn't let me go until the credits rolled, and it's definitely one I'm adding to my list to rewatch sometime.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Once Were Warriors > Hustle & Flow

Once Were Warriors > My Name Is Joe

Once Were Warriors < Crimes and Misdemeanors

Once Were Warriors < Clue

Once Were Warriors < Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Once Were Warriors > Mr. Brooks

Once Were Warriors < Cyrano (2021)

Once Were Warriors < The Beauty Inside

Once Were Warriors > This Boy's Life

Once Were Warriors > Identity

Once Were Warriors > VeggieTales: A Snoodle's Tale

Once Were Warriors > Hairspray Live!

Final spot: #805 out of 3492, or 77%.

Titane (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Following a series of unexplained crimes, a father is reunited with the son who has been missing for 10 years.

Directed by Julia Ducournau. Starring Vincent Lindon, Agathe Rousselle, Garance Marillier, and Laïs Salameh.

Titane is a strange, unsettling crime/horror movie that is very difficult to describe the plot of. It follows a woman, Alexia, who had a steel plate put in her head after a near-fatal car accident as a child. Now she is pregnant and a serial killer, and then she changes her appearance to pass herself off as a missing boy ten years later returning to his family. I have no idea what it is about the French cinema culture, but I so frequently feel that French dramas fly over my head, that they're doing something but I can't grasp it at all, and that's certainly the case here. It's a very visceral movie, with several moments I had to actually cover my eyes because the level of violence was overwhelmingly unpleasant -- and I'm not particularly squeamish. There are certainly some striking visual choices and memorable moments, but I'm not sure any of them are things I want to remember. I didn't come away from this film with a net positive of things I liked about it in comparison to things I hated. This is probably a movie some folks will love, but definitely not me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Titane < Sunday in the Park with George

Titane < A Prairie Home Companion

Titane < Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Titane > Thr3e

Titane < Playtime

Titane > The Child

Titane > The Green Berets

Titane > The Wolfman

Titane < Saw

Titane < Bye Bye Birdie

Titane < Fist Fight

Titane < The Host (2013)

Final spot: #3170 out of 3482, or 9%.

The Harder They Fall (2021)

IMDb plot summary: When an outlaw discovers his enemy is being released from prison, he reunites his gang to seek revenge in this Western.

Directed by Jeymes Samuel. Starring Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, RJ Cyler, and Edi Gathegi.

This film is notable for being a western story with an all-Black lead cast, and that alone would make it something worth checking out, but it's also a tremendously stylish film. It uses its editing and music and blocking and cinematography in such creative ways that capture the attention. It reminds me a bit of Tarantino's recent westerns, but way better and more engaging. The story is pretty standard, but it brings some unique characters and some truly astonishing visuals into it and makes the whole thing pop. I think I let out an audible gasp at a few of the shots and set pieces. I'm most likely going to forget the story shortly, but I'm not going to forget how great the movie looked.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Harder They Fall < Hustle & Flow

The Harder They Fall > Cassandra's Dream

The Harder They Fall > Batman: Under the Red Hood

The Harder They Fall > Planes, Trains & Automobiles

The Harder They Fall > Stagecoach

The Harder They Fall > Letters from Iwo Jima

The Harder They Fall > Raising Cain

The Harder They Fall > Zelig

The Harder They Fall > The Misfits

The Harder They Fall > The Keep

The Harder They Fall > Gas, Food, Lodging

The Harder They Fall < Monsters

Final spot: #1751 out of 3498, or 50%.

Fresh (1994)

IMDb plot summary: Death and violence anger a twelve-year-old drug courier, who sets his employers against each other.

Directed by Boaz Yakin. Starring Sean Nelson, Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson, and N'Bushe Wright.

One of the things I find fascinating about this is how pragmatic a protagonist we have in Michael (or "Fresh" as he's known on the street). He's a smart, ambitious kid making a path for himself the best way he knows how. This is a potential career for him -- his primary dealer boss even gives him advice on what drugs are best to sell if you want to grow old and retire with your money. I found myself most struck by his interactions with his best friend, who thinks he'd be a great runner and likes to talk tough but doesn't have the maturity Michael does to succeed, and even though Michael clearly wants his friend to do well along with him, he knows he's going to get them both into trouble someday. It's a heartbreaking story that the writer drew on his own experiences for, and the actors playing these young kids are all capable enough to carry a challenging movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Fresh > The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Fresh < Jack Goes Boating

Fresh > Charlie St. Cloud

Fresh > A Serious Man

Fresh < The Shallows

Fresh > Last Year at Marienbad

Fresh < Hell in the Pacific

Fresh > Nick of Time

Fresh > It (2017)

Fresh < 1917

Fresh > Logan's Run

Final spot: #1007 out of 3474, or 71%.

PCU (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A high school senior visits college for the weekend, and stays at the wildest house on campus.

Directed by Hart Bochner. Starring Jeremy Piven, Chris Young, Megan Ward, and Jon Favreau.

PCU is a comedy about a hard-partying frat house that's come under criticism from the ever-more politically correct student body. The dean gives them an ultimatum: raise enough money to cover the damage they've done to the house, or they'll get kicked out. So they decide to throw a massive party and get all the "woke" students to put their differences aside and join them. So full disclosure, there's no part of me that is going to be won over by a movie whose core message is "social justice is stupid and we'd all get along better if we just didn't care about things so much." It's just such a lazy message that relies on not listening to anybody who's affected by anything being protested against. As such, I find these characters pretty obnoxious in their sense of moral superiority to everyone around them. Raunchy drugs-and-sex-party comedies seldom work for me regardless, but toss in the underlying message and it just became something I hated. It's just so weirdly mean-spirited and none of it lands for me, so I'm happy to let this one just disappear from my radar.

How it entered my Flickchart:

PCU < Sunday in the Park With George

PCU < Our Idiot Brother

PCU < Drive Me Crazy

PCU > Thr3e

PCU < Thor: The Dark World

PCU < The Child

PCU < Watership Down

PCU < Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

PCU < The Beastmaster

PCU > Rescue Me

PCU > Murder a la Mod

PCU < Reefer Madness (1936)

Final spot: #3265 out of 3487, or 6%.

The Card Counter (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Redemption is the long game in Paul Schrader's THE CARD COUNTER. Told with Schrader's trademark cinematic intensity, the revenge thriller tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past.

Directed by Paul Schrader. Starring Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, and Tye Sheridan.

This film has two separate movies in it -- a poker heist movie and a movie about military trauma -- and they don't blend as well as I hoped they might, instead just sort of awkwardly ping-ponging back and forth. Isaac, unsurprisingly, does a great job here, conveying the same type of controlled mystery he brings to so many of his parts. But the relationships between characters unfold in confusing ways that hold the audience at arm's length, so when the film's final resolution comes around, I can't tell where the movie's trying to go anymore -- and that wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except by that point I don't care. It's a disappointing watch that never fully feels like it gets off the ground.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Card Counter < Hustle & Flow

The Card Counter < Our Idiot Brother

The Card Counter > Drive Me Crazy

The Card Counter > Hush (1998)

The Card Counter < Syrup

The Card Counter > Superman Returns

The Card Counter > Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?

The Card Counter > The Rainmaker

The Card Counter < Tallulah

The Card Counter < Wuthering Heights

The Card Counter < Swiss Family Robinson

The Card Counter < Make Mine Music

Final spot: #2735 out of 3483, or 21%.