Battle of the Sexes (2017)

IMDb plot summary: The true story of the 1973 tennis match between World number one Billie Jean King and ex-champ and serial hustler Bobby Riggs.
Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. Starring Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea Riseborough, and Natalie Morales.

Fun, but the pacing is weird and ultimately it's going to be forgettable. I also somehow can't tell if Stone and Carell are really good in this or really not good.

2.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Battle of the Sexes < To Be or Not to Be (1942)
Battle of the Sexes > Passion
Battle of the Sexes > Mr. Pip
Battle of the Sexes > Rack, Shack & Benny
Battle of the Sexes > Music Within
Battle of the Sexes < Dear Frankie
Battle of the Sexes > The Whistleblower
Battle of the Sexes > Office Space
Battle of the Sexes < Cafe Society
Final spot: #1383 out of 2661.

What Lies Beneath (2000)

IMDb plot summary: The wife of a university research scientist believes that her lakeside Vermont home is haunted by a ghost - or that she is losing her mind.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Harrison Ford, Diana Scarwid, and Miranda Otto.

I was hopeful for this one. I like Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford, I like Robert Zemeckis, I like psychological thriller/horrors. This, however, was better in theory than in execution. The dialogue is pretty clunky, the acting is very over-the-top, and the final chase scene was pretty clearly supposed to carry the rest of the movie but went on for far, far too long and required way too much suspension of disbelief. The movie would have been significantly stronger if it had ended about 15 minutes earlier. Still not a strong movie, but stronger. It's a bummer it didn't work for me, because I do like the premise, and the mystery unfolds in an interesting way, but it is regrettably sloppy.

2 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
What Lies Beneath < Trainwreck
What Lies Beneath > Passion
What Lies Beneath < The Day of the Triffids
What Lies Beneath > Cinderella (1950)
What Lies Beneath > Saturday Night Fever
What Lies Beneath < Alice in Wonderland (1999)
What Lies Beneath > Marathon Man
What Lies Beneath < Legend
What Lies Beneath < Defending Your Life
What Lies Beneath < Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
What Lies Beneath > The Toy That Saved Christmas

Final spot: #1722 out of 2660.

Batman Returns (1992)

IMDb plot summary: When a corrupt businessman and the grotesque Penguin plot to take control of Gotham City, only Batman can stop them, while the Catwoman has her own agenda.
Directed by Tim Burton. Starring Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Christopher Walken.

Like most franchise movies, it's fairly difficult for me to evaluate this on its own as a partial story, much less to distinguish it from other movies in the series, but I think this is a pretty good one. It's definitely got a fun and distinct Tim Burton vibe to it, and the Danny Elfman score is great. Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman is my favorite part of the movie, though. She's got this amazing tragic arc that made me care about her in a way I didn't care about anyone else, and it made me far, far more interested in Catwoman as a character than I'd ever been before. Good flick, still going to confuse it with other Batman movies.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Batman Returns > Snakes on a Plane
Batman Returns < Zootopia
Batman Returns < A Matter of Life and Death
Batman Returns > Marathon
Batman Returns > Laura
Batman Returns > Inside Llewyn Davis
Batman Returns > Journey to the Center of the Earth
Batman Returns < Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Batman Returns > Stage Fright (2014)
Batman Returns < Star Trek: Generations
Final spot: #1012 out of 2659.

Man on Wire (2008)

IMDb plot summary: A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974, what some consider, "the artistic crime of the century".
Directed by James Marsh.

Documentaries are always kind of difficult to rank because on some level I have to trick myself into thinking they're "normal" movies so I can think of them in the same camp. My favorite documentaries are the ones that help me trick myself most. This one falls somewhere in the middle. There's no doubt it's a fascinating story, and the final 15-20 minutes are captivating to mostly sell me on the full film, but I appreciate it more than I enjoy it simply because the documentary format distances me. It does help that our central character is very charismatic and fun to watch. He clearly is so delighted by what he has done that it's easy for him to pull the audience in as well.

4 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Man on Wire > Snakes on a Plane
Man on Wire > Hannah Arendt
Man on Wire < Benny & Joon
Man on Wire < Nativity!
Man on Wire < Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Man on Wire > Crossing Delancey
Man on Wire < Anne of Green Gables
Man on Wire < Widow's Peak
Man on Wire < Leap of Faith
Man on Wire > Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Man on Wire < Mad Max: Fury Road

Final spot: #619 out of 2658.

The Black Stallion (1979)

IMDb plot summary: While traveling with his father, young Alec becomes fascinated by a mysterious Arabian stallion who is brought on board and stabled in the ship he is sailing on. When it tragically sinks both he and the horse survive only to be stranded on a desert island. He befriends it, so when finally rescued, both return to his home where they soon meet Henry Dailey, a once-successful trainer. Together they begin training the stallion to race against the fastest horses in the world.
Directed by Carroll Ballard. Starring Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr, and Clarence Muse.

While I have to give this movie some credit for its creative choice to seriously limit the dialogue and make an almost-silent movie, horse movies are never going to rank highly on my chart.

1.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Black Stallion < Snakes on a Plane
The Black Stallion > To Have and Have Not
The Black Stallion < The Day of the Triffids
The Black Stallion > Arlington Road
The Black Stallion > Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
The Black Stallion < Blackadder Back & Forth
The Black Stallion < The Secret War of Harry Frigg
The Black Stallion > Spaceballs
The Black Stallion < Sullivan's Travels
The Black Stallion > Stardust Memories
The Black Stallion < Give My Regards to Broad Street

Final spot: #1730 out of 2657.

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

IMDb plot summary: The Borg travel back in time intent on preventing Earth's first contact with an alien species. Captain Picard and his crew pursue them to ensure that Zefram Cochrane makes his maiden flight reaching warp speed.
Directed by Jonathan Frakes. Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and LeVar Burton.

I had a good time with this. When it comes to Star Trek I'm more a TOS fan than TNG (I can't even say I've seen all TNG episodes) so I went in with a little less character buy-in than would be ideal, but this was a fun saga. None of the individual storylines wowed me, but all together they combined to make an entertaining movie. It's difficult to write this review without simply using the word "fun" all the time, because a stronger adjective oversells my experience and a weaker adjective doesn't do it justice. It was... simply fun. No more, no less.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Star Trek: First Contact > Snakes on a Plane
Star Trek: First Contact < Zootopia
Star Trek: First Contact < A Matter of Life and Death
Star Trek: First Contact > Quills
Star Trek: First Contact > Let the Right One In
Star Trek: First Contact > Dan in Real Life
Star Trek: First Contact < Flight of the Navigator
Star Trek: First Contact > Finding Dory
Star Trek: First Contact < The Stepford Wives (1975)
Star Trek: First Contact > Hamlet (1990)
Star Trek: First Contact > Logan's Run

Final spot: #1022 out of 2656.

Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars (2010)

IMDb plot summary: Young spy Harriet Welsch crosses paths with popular student Marion Hawthorne as the two girls vie to become the official blogger of their high school class.
Directed by Ron Oliver. Starring Jennifer Stone, Kristin Booth, Wesley Morgan, and Doug Murray.

I ... don't really know why this exists. I'm not a mega fan of the original but it's a much better version of this story. This adaptation adds nothing to the characters or themes. Harriet the Spy does *not* need to be updated to include weirdly secret-not-secret blogs and Disney channel musical star parodies. Nor does the story really work when you age your character up to like 15 but still make her act like she's 11. All the "modernized" changes don't really work and shove out any room the movie had for actual character development. It's just a sloppy modern remake with an incredibly awkward ending, bad acting, and a juvenile plot. I guess the good news is I can't take it seriously enough to *really* hate it.

0.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars < Snakes on a Plane
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars < The Hiding Place
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars < Big Business
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars > Super Troopers
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars > Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars < Basic Instinct
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars < The Painted Veil
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars > VeggieTales: An Easter Carol
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars < Mission to Mars
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars < Son of Flubber
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars > Revenge of the Sith
Final spot: #2394 out of 2655.