#124: Eraserhead (1977)

That thing’s creepy as shit, y’all. Incredibly disturbing body horror that is accentuated by spot-on sound design. This was so very very uncomfortable to watch and you leave it feeling a bit sick in your soul but Lynch knows how to mess you up. A very good movie that I am confident I will never watch again.

#123: The Searchers (1956)

Possibly the most sumptuous cinematography I’ve ever seen, and a better performance from Wayne than I expected. But boy oh boy is his character racist. I think that the most likely interpretation is that we are supposed to think that his hatred of Native Americans is unjustified and cruel, but frankly there is little in the movie to explicitly argue that beyond his decision at the end to not murder Debbie for the horrible crime of having been sullied by being taken prisoner in a raid. I may be wishcasting a bit here.

#122: Collateral (2004)

Doesn’t *quite* fully work, but is well enough made and has enough good scenes to push it up the list regardless.

#121: Moonstruck (1987)

I wonder if the “wooden prosthetic hand” bit wasn’t really in the script but Cage just showed up with it one day and wouldn’t shut up about it so they wrote it in. Such a weird bit that doesn’t really fit into a nice family melodrama. Olympia Dukakis was the real discovery for me – she was just perfect in this, not too nice not too sassy.

#120: The Fly (1986)

Jeff Goldblum, romantic leading man! I never bought the too-quick romance or the lengths to which the jealous creep ex-boyfriend went to, or the bizarre world of high-stakes magazine exclusives, but the core of the story played great and the F/X were….well, incredibly gross? But also well done?

#119: Spiderhead (2022)

Hemsworth uses his comedic talents and natural likeability to play an unscrupulous techbro scumbag really convincingly! The set-up is better than the backstory but I deeply enjoyed watching his various machinations.

#118: Wanted (2008)

The best movie that could be made from this absolute batshit ridiculous premise. Lord knows I’m a sucker for secret society science fiction but they didn’t even *try* to make this remotely make sense. Lots of fun and surprising resolution given that they were obviously trying to set up a series. If someone had taken the time to figure out a better overarching system maybe it would’ve done well enough to make that happen?

#117: Do The Right Thing (1989)

Pretty sure that the point of Do The Right Thing is that the world doesn’t need plain vanilla white boys spouting off about the meaning of films like Do The Right Thing.

#116: Margin Call (2011)

Shockingly accurate portrayal of how a financial crisis would really go down from an inside-the-bank perspective, from the different types of people and their roles to the ultimate impact being felt largely by other people and scapegoats. Heartwarming!

#115: Turning Red (2022)

Super cute!

Up Next: Finally The Last of the “Good” Movies Before We Move On To a Different Nebulous Meaningless Category!

#135: Ava (2020)

I thought that this was a pretty decent job of showing the mental and emotional wear of being a professional assassin while still having room for things like Colin Farrell’s highly enjoyable “I am the meanie crime boss” turn. Malcovich also turns in a surprisingly touching turn as Ava’s mentor.

#134: Nope (2022)

I love Jordan Peele’s sick horror brain, and there is a lot of fun stuff in this, from the creature design, to the various broken characters struggling with their own crap, to the overall theme of the folly of trying to tame the untamble.

BUT! (and spoiler warning I guess)

Look, if it is going to be a major revelation in the second act that the mystery thing is a creature because it can learn, as proven by it having learned that the colored flags mean something is inedible, THEN DON’T HAVE THE BEAST EAT A TON OF STUFF COVERED IN COLORED FLAGS IN THE THIRD ACT! I mean come ON dammit! What the hell! How hard would it have been to avoid that???

#133: The Princess (2022)

100% exactly as advertised, more or less the best possible form of a movie like this with nonstop action.

#132: Raging Bull (1980)

Fantastic, transforming De Niro performance, but incredibly unpleasant and difficult to watch.

#131: Tragedy Girls (2017)

Same basic idea as The Princess – no new ideas in this that were not in Natural Born Killers, but it’s well executed and fun and the performances were fab.

#130: The Gold Rush (1925)

Now Charlie Chaplin, that’s the good stuff right there. The slapstick is top-grade but the plot here isn’t quite as compelling as in his other masterworks. We’ll get to those later.

#129: Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Even having not seen this movie before, I had seen this movie. Watching this was basically back-filling some plot points.

#128: The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Denzel and McDormand are two of our best and my faves, but honestly the plot is kind of hackneyed – whoever wrote this tripe should be ashamed that they couldn’t come up with something more original than these literally centuries-old themes.

Ok, har har, this was an excellent retelling of the tale, the actors really got their characters and conveyed the inner turnoil, etc etc. I was somewhat put off though by the adherence to the 1600s dialect and terminology, which took some time to get used to.

#127: Werewolves Within (2021)

So much fun! Enough fun that I had no idea that it was based on a game – although is being based on a game even a ding now? It certainly used to be, with good reason, but so many good movies exist now that are based on games (video and otherwise) that maybe it’s time to retire that. Anyway, Sam Richardson is a delight and the rest of the case is a lot of fun and it was a genuine mystery who the werewolf was.

#126: The Apartment (1960)

A delight to watch, although brought down some in my personal estimation by being one of those confusion-based comedies as between the main characters – there are plenty of reasons why Lemmon lies to everyone else but it didn’t ring true to me that he would keep up the pretense for a low-level worker he had a crush on. A minor quibble to be sure.

#125: The Batman (2022)

Unusual for a movie Batman to focus so much on the detective aspect, so that was gratifying to see. I also appreciated this expanding the customary “montage” portion of the batman creation. Thankfully no focus on parents getting shot, and not so much on the initial prep, but more on the “year one” type stuff of really hitting the streets and trying to make an impact. For my money, the best scene is the moment when he rushes to the edge of the rooftop to jump off and make his escape…and he looks at how high up he is, hesitates, and takes a beat before jumping.

Unfortunately they tried to cram a bit much in for my taste – if it had ended after the Penguin et al story wrapped up instead of going on to the somewhat muddled coda this would’ve moved up at least a tier.

Up Next: Still Yet Even More Good Movies!

#145: The Hunger (1983)

The plot is frankly a little bit of a mess, but the style is so fantastic that you don’t really notice. I am honestly very curious about how, exactly, Sarah became the alpha vampire and why Miriam is still “alive” in her crate but all of Miriam’s old lovers are gone now. Maybe I shouldn’t overthink it?

#144: Significant Other (2022)

Will they let Maika Monroe make a non-horror movie one of these days, or would that just be a waste given how great she is in them? The movie knows that you know that it isn’t just going to be a couple on a nice camping trip. So what is going to happen? It plays with you for a while, but ultimately the answer isn’t as interesting as the spooky atmosphere and the execution of the setup.

#143: The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

OMG dude.

#142: Sophie’s Choice (1982)

OMFG dude.

#141: The Devil’s Candy (2015)

The second-most metal movie I saw last year (oh, we’ll get there), Jesse and his wife and daughter all love metal music but Jessie is more of a sensitive artist type struggling to understand himself already when he starts having creepy-ass visions of dead children. Despite the, um, copious amounts of dead kids and, you know, SATAN, I actually thought that this was kind of heart-warming in its own way. Metal-head outlaw artists love their children too!

#140: Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Oh Sam Raimi, you rapscallion. The film tries too hard to make the Scarlet Witch both the hero and the villain (the downfall of the TV series too – she was just a villain, guys!) and has a lot of extraneous set-up lifting to do – America Chavez is always kind of a weird character / plot contrivance – but Raimi throws a lot of his signature touches in and Cumberbatch is game, so it’s pretty fun overall.

#139: Papillon (2017)

My understanding from after watching the movie is that this is a faithful but pointless lesser adaptation of the great 1973 film starring Dustin Hoffman (!) and Steve McQueen (!!). Having not known about the existence of the original, I really enjoyed the story and the largely off-kilter buddy dynamics. I’m torn about seeking out the (presumably superior) original now though, since I’ve apparently already seen it now. The attempts to portray this as a “true” story were kind of pathetic though – I mean, come on.

#138: Heist (2001)

Uses every trope in the book, but you know – they’re trops for a reason, right? Great grandstanding acting from everyone here – Hackman, Lindo, DeVito, hell even Pidgeon and Rockwell. Mamet scripts never sound quite like real people to me but you get in the rhythm of it and you go along for the ride.

#137: The Lost City (2022)

Is it wrong to have this disposably fun little bauble ranked 6-7 spots ahead of The Grapes of Wrath and Sophie’s Choice? Yes, clearly. However, in counterpoint: Screw you! Get your own movie ranking website! So there!

This moved way up the ranking for the whole Brad Pitt situation.

#136: Titanic (1997)

Like most Cameron, more technically proficient than emotionally compelling (for me at least – I know many women who saw this as teenagers who would murder me for saying that). I was actually surprised at how compelling the story was.

Up Next: More Good Movies! What do you want, I saw a lot of movies in 2022 and a lot of them were good!

#155: American Ultra (2015)

What a weird, weird movie. Eisenberg is a stoner who is secretly a kickass fighter? Stewart is a his girlfriend but maybe also something else? Walter Goggins, Topher Grace, Bill Pullman, Connie Britton??? Somehow they pull it all together for a fun ride even if it never really makes sense.

#154: Den of Thieves (2018)

Bang bang bang! Booooom! Rat-a-tat-a-tat! Auuuguhhhh, he got me! <thud>

#153: The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Considerably less nasty than typical Coen Brothers – I’m not entirely sure what to make of Tim Robbins’s character, who is kind of a wise fool who varies highly in his amount of wisdom. At times he’s more of a Forrest Gump who just happens to be in the right place at the right time and at times he appears to be guided by genius. In any event, the art direction was the real attraction here – such a cool world that they built.

#152: A Horrible Way to Die (2010)

Amy Seimetz starts in an Adam Wingard thriller – yeah, the only question is how I didn’t this see before now. Really really fun in a dreading-your-inevitable-doom kind of way.

#151: Ben Hur (1959)

So, look, I’m clearly not going to gainsay the unquestionable accuracy of this sacred list and the ordained order of the films thereon, but there is essentially no difference between this and Spartacus. The plot was slightly more engaging here I thought. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#150: Spider-Man: No Way Home (2022)

Fan-service man, fan-service man, does whatever fan service he can.

#149: Frailty (2001)

Truly creepy Southern gothic horror. That Bill Paxton can direct a good movie. Really appreciated that the movie believed in the audience enough not to spell everything out.

#148: The Wicker Man (1974)

The bees!!! Not the bees!!!! AAAIGHIGHHHIEEEEEEESHIAHEEEEE!!!!!

Oh, no, wait, wrong one. This was awfully 70s for me but there was a lot of interesting stuff in this wild way-out-there flick.

#147: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Perfectly fine Disney action fare, elevated roughly 100 places up the list by Johnny Depp’s career-resurrecting gonzo crazy nuts performance. I really wish I knew how it went over during filming – clearly the higher ups were at least down with giving it a chance, but was Orlando Bloom like “oh my lord, screw this madness?”

#146: Bringing Up Baby (1938)

The original Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Hepburn is, of course, completely adorable, and Grant is a fabulous straight man. It’s a bit formulaic, but it’s hard to blame the movie for that when, you know, it helped invent the formula in the first place.

Up Next: More Good Movies!

#166: The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

With apologies to Paul Newman, nobody does Relaxed Cool quite like Steve McQueen, as proven by the paralyzingly dull remake.

#165: Spartacus (1960)

Ah, the days when Movie Epic meant you were in for 3+ hours of action, adventure, scenery, and getting in on, all with a nice biblical theme to appease the churchmice. Nice to see Kirk Douglas acting as a younger man and giving all sorts of dudes the business.

#164: Kimi (2020)

Very interesting, in large part because you’re not sure exactly what the mystery is – I mean, obviously it’s the murder, but was it just a random killing, or does it have to do with the creepy-as-hell tech company, or the billionaire owner, or the protests that are going on, or or or. And does Kimi’s agoraphobia play into it, or is that just an added complexity? They have a lot of fun putting obstacles in their own way and figuring their way out of them.

#163: Cabaret (1972)

Suffers from the classic issue with movies adapting musicals where they kind of throw a bunch of stuff at you but don’t have the time to examine anything too closely – which is kind of an issue when one of the themes is the rise of facist Germany. But boy oh boy did they get lucky with the performances – Joel Grey is incredible, Liza became synonymous with her role, and, well, Bob Fosse coming on for the movie (only Grey was involved in the Broadway run). I’m still not sure that it has anything original or interesting to say about the Nazis, but watching the show was great.

#162: Jackass 3D (2010)

Not, um, my usual cup of tea. Why I watched this is lost to the mysteries of time, but I’m really glad I did! Honestly, most of the stunts are not that great (I mean, they’re impressive in a way, but not like Oh My God Did You See That), but the camaraderie of these dudes who have been hanging out and doing this nonsense for decades, plus the rarely acknowledged but clearly much thought about knowledge that they really are getting too old for this shit and will have to find something else to do, makes it all fascinating to watch. Yes, I am recommending the emotional journey of Jackass 3D. Who knew???

#161: Easy Rider (1969)

I do not have anything original to say about Easy Rider. Personally I could’ve done without the extended drug sequence, but I am totally a square, man.

#160: Tower Heist (2011)

Very odd that I don’t remember anything about this from back in the day. Bunch of big names, it did pretty well, and it was a lot of fun! Alan Alda makes for a great scumbag.

#159: Fright Night (2011)

Just look at that smug asshole! They make an interesting choice in light of the original to make it clear early on that he is, indeed, a vampire, and to frankly make him kind blasé about kids knowing that also, figuring what the heck, nobody will ever believe them anyway. But the real fun here is Ferrell’s weary, I’m-going-to-win-can-we-just-get-on-with-it approach as the villain. Pour one out for a young Anton Yelchin.

#158: The Highwaymen (2019)

Costner can play these gruff non-nonsense lawmen in his sleep at this point, but the real stinger is a surprisingly subtle performance from Woody Harrelson as a man that feels like he’s been fully used up trying to find a purpose again.

#157: Spontaneous (2020)

Black comedy that wants to be the new Heathers. It doesn’t get to that point, but it is a fair bit of fun and it does effectively keep you from ever really feeling comfortable about what is going on. “Enjoy life while it lasts…the fuck else ya gonna do?”

#156: Late Spring (1949)

Undone by duty. Noriko is too old to not be married off, but she loves taking care of her widowed father, who she adores. My understanding is that this is an extremely traditional Japanese attitude – the young serve the old, etc. But it brings her great joy to do so. Until her aunt decides that she has to get married and orchestrates everything, clearly against Noriko’s wishes and desires, but the aunt’s belief that Noriko has to find someone takes precedence and everybody else is too polite and tactful to just tell her to stop. This is a slow-moving tragedy and Setsuko Hara plays it magnificently.

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Up Next: More Good Movies! Huzzah!

Oh yeah you know what I like

Now we’re getting into the stuff that I would be excited for someone else to see. See these movies! I mean, if you haven’t already. I get that I am a bit late to the historical canon.

#177: Freaks (2018)

Great mystery about what the hell is going on here – is the dad protecting her? Abusing her? Hiding her? And if so from what? Sadly, the answer is less interesting than the mystery but it does make sense and work even if it’s a bit too pat.

#176: West Side Story (1961)

It has all the problems that the remake does along with some truly unfortunate casting, but something about it is just ineffably *better*. Maybe it’s the sense of joyfulness, maybe the 60s choreography was less robotically perfect, maybe it’s just that I wasn’t constantly wondering WHY they made it, but this was definitely the superior version.

#175: Swing Time (1936)

Did someone say dancing??? There is no particularly interesting plot here and, um, well let’s just say that there is a part that is worse than the West Side Story casting Natalie Wood as a Puerto Rican. But man alive, you watch Rogers and Astaire on the floor going to town and you forget that there could be anything better.

#175: Licorice Pizza (2021)

The performances are great, the plot is generally a pleasant low-stakes slice of life, and the characters are lots of fun. Even with that I’m not sure why this got the kind of awards love that it did. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s kid is good, Alana Heim is shockingly great, but this is just a summer fun kind of flick. (And that is deliberately avoiding the weird age gap romance part of the plot, which I think is a bit of a red herring for two people just looking for a connection that don’t know how to put it in a better context.)

#173: Jeepers Creepers (2001)

A solid horror thriller for most of its run – the above still makes it look much sillier than it was. I definitely appreciated that the old fortune teller didn’t exactly know everything there was to know. Apparently there are four more of these for reasons beyond my understanding.

#172: Battleship Potemkin (1925)

I don’t know about you, but I’m sure convinced that the Bolshevik Revolution was well warranted!

#171: A Night at the Opera (1935)

Groucho I get – he’s ascerbic and witty and if he didn’t invent the comedic aside he might have perfected it. And his regular straight-woman Margaret Dumont is a wonderful counterpoint. But the brothers….ooof. I guess the humor for one of them is that he’s Italian? But Groucho’s timing in this is flawless and that’s enough.

#170: Taken (2008)

This movie has a very special set of skills….and it uses them to make an excellent action movie.

#169: Village of the Damned (1960)

Legitimately terrifying! They were right to blow up those damn children!

#168: Come True (2020)

Deliciously ambiguous but emotionally true mystery of the psyche. If that sounded at all interesting I highly recommend this.

#167: I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

Is approximately 8% more clear than Come True!

Up Next: More Real Good Movies!

#194: Guns Akimbo (2020)

Daniel Radcliffe has been using his fuck-you money to do whatever projects he feel like….so, okay then! This feels very much like a series of video game cut scenes but he was having a lot of fun with it and the F/X were better than your average Marvel movie so it was a good watch.

#193: Dead End (2003)

So the mystery was pretty obvious (I mean, I guessed it early, as Movie Club will attest) but stylistic feel, quality directing that ramped up the sense of dread throughout, and the gonzo performance choices made it pretty enjoyable to watch.

#192: The Hidden (1987)

Interesting sci-fi fun, but also a deliberately deadpan performance from Kyle MacLachlan lowered it substantially – I understand it was a conscious choice, man, and I get why, but it did not help the viewing experience.

#191: Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

I do wonder what the reputation of this film would be if it hadn’t had the prescience to have cast Madonna right before she became the biggest thing in the world. Without that it’s a tidy little 80s action comedy, but Madonna makes it something special with her own special sense of style.

#190: The French Dispatch (2020)

I am a big, big, huge Wes Anderson fan, but this was a bit too twee even for me. Not the hugest fan of the assemblage of somewhat disparate stories either. How about another Fantastic Mr. Fox or Isle of Dogs, Wes?

#189: Dunkirk (2017)

Quite the accomplishment to film this, and of course a mind-bendingly great true story. War movies are not really my thing though, even ones as good as this. I am still sad about the kid.

#188: Waking Ned Devine (1998)

Just a delight.

#187: The Rental (2020)

Dan Stevens and Allison Brie in a horror thriller? Sign me up! Unfortunately none of the characters is even remotely likeable and their decision-making is….poor. Great ending though! Does it sound like I’m kind of conflicted? I am!

#186: Ambulance (2022)

Say what you will about him, but that Michael Bay can definitely make an action thriller. Lots of tropes here – one last job, I thought I was out then you dragged me back in, what about my brother, the hostage who is more than she seems, etc etc etc. But stuff blows up reeeeeeeal gooooood!

#185: Don’t Say a Word (2001)

Lots of weird disparate elements actually hold together pretty well. And you know I love a movie that depends on a psychologist making a big breakthrough with a patient. Demerits for the imperiled little kid (who, of course, is precociously smart in an extremely stressful situation).

#184: Final Destination 2 (2003)

They perfected the formula with this one. Just a lot of ridiculous, deadly fun.

#183: The Skeleton Key (2005)

So obviously SOMETHING BAD is going on, but they do a good job of disguising exactly what the bad thing is. The atmosphere doesn’t hold together as much as they want it to and some of the attempts at N’awlinsing it all up were….well let’s say unconvincing.

#182: The Protege (2021)

Nice no-frills action fun with a solid, reliable cast. Doesn’t try anything too fancy, nobody leaves their comfort zone, the movie just gets the job done.

#181: Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

Denzel at his most laid-back cool in a Walter Mosely (think Dashiell Hammett but contemporary, although his books are set close to Hammett’s time) classic-style mystery. A darn good time.

#180: Sputnik (2020)

Fascinating alien suspense mystery – the thing is a nasty little piece of business to be sure, but the more interesting subject is who wants to do what with it, and why.

#179: Smile (2022)

Spooky as hell but drops the ball at the end. Also, I am desperately craving more horror movies where the protagonist doesn’t find the researcher / shaman / holy woman who just happens to know the backstory behind the evil creature / curse / haunting.

#178: Dual (2022)

I’m honestly not sure why I didn’t like this even more, but I have great affection for this movie from the director of my favorite short ever (The Cub, obviously) and starring Karen Gillian and Aaron Paul. Great high-ish concept too. I definitely recommend it to me as a rewatch.

Up Next: Good Movies!

#206: This Is The End (2013)

More entertaining than it has any right to be, but clearly this was done so that they guys could hang out for a while and get a paycheck for it.

#205: One Cut of the Dead (2017)

Forty minutes in, I was wondering why I was wasting my time and how this got such good reviews. Then….something happens to make you think of everything in a completely different and much more fun way…..but you still had to sit through those first forty minutes. So consider this a compromise ranking.

#204: The Purge (2013)

Giving this one the credit for an interesting idea and the willingness to ride with it as far as it can go. Not pulling any punches here.

#203: U.S. Marshals (1998)

If you were told that there was a late-90s action thriller starring Tommy Lee Jones, Wesley Snipes, and Robert Downey Jr., it would not take much for you to guess that Jones is the ornery no-nonsense hero, Snipes is the daring and capable wrongly-accused man on the run, and Downey is the snake in the grass actual bad guy. But this is so capably done that you can get lost in just watching the gears turn, even if there are no surprises.

#202: Shaolin Soccer (2001)

Also by-the-numbers, but extremely fun! “I want to say thanks to my parents and my Kung Fu master…but they’re all dead.”

#201: Final Destination (2000)

The set up is just an excuse for the ridiculous “murders” but boy do they have a lot of fun with it. Balances the scares with more of a playful tone than you would expect for the first in the series, even leaning into various fakeouts without making the whole thing seem *too* ridiculous.

#200: Some Like It Hot (1959)

Not as uproariously funny as its reputation, which also means that the stitching in the plot shows a bit much. Marilyn’s natural charisma is overwhelming though, even though they rely on her too much as just a sexpot.

#199: Love and Monsters (2020)

Uneven, as many travelogues are – some of the vignettes are surprisingly deep and/or touching, while others are just banal. I liked the feeling of the ending but not the particulars. I do wonder if there was a better story here without the sci-fi trappings (although of course I likely wouldn’t have watched it but for that).

#198: Cat People (1942)

I try not to use publicity stills for these pictures but the above was just too good to pass up. This is more than they actually show in the film, of course, which uses the restrictions of the movie standards to hint around the supernatural danger in a way that is much more effective than it would’ve been if they could just show it.

#197: The Vanishing (2018)

On the verge of becoming an interesting look at impoverished men who start to go nuts trapped on an island, it becomes an entirely different kind of interesting thing as an examination of grief and guilt and the madness it can bring. The switch is a bit too sudden and complete for me, but it’s overall very interesting.

I just looked up the director to see what else he’s done, and realized that among other things he was one of the main forces behind Forbrydelsen (the original Norweigan version of The Killing) that I raced through a couple years back. Nice!

#196: Tokyo Story (1953)

Another one where I admire the craft but can’t connect to the characters. The noble self-sacrificing father and the conflicted daughter fraught with guilt for actually (gasp!) doing some small number of things for herself instead of her parents are the only decent people in the whole enterprise. The filmmaking is too good for this to come across as a polemic against changes in Japan, but the director steadily guides you toward that feeling regardless.

#195: Werewolf By Night (2022)

We got Swamp-Thing! They gave us Swamp-Thing!!

Up Next: More I Kinda Liked That! WE’RE HALFWAY THROUGH! WOOOOO!!!!

#218: In The Earth (2021)

I tend to be very forgiving on horror / sci-fi movies that maintain a mood even if the plot doesn’t really exist or make much sense. Like the characters here, I never really felt like I knew what was going on, but that honestly fed into the vibe that it was going for so I just went along with it.

#217: Black Sheep (2006)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA

#216: Spring (2014)

I guess I won’t give anything away because I want people to see this and the…..um, twist I guess?…..should be a surprise, but the first half as a semi-mysterious love story was better than the second half after the reveal. I wish that they had skipped a lot of that, honestly, and went to the pretty touching ending.

#215: A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

This seems like the right place for the most generic Eastwood – Leone spaghetti western.

#214: The Taking of Deborah Logan (2019)

It’s movies like this that make me respect the ones that never really explain the hideous underlying evil. Our imagination will almost always be better that whatever McGuffin the film comes up with. This was very scary right up until they figured out what was going on.

#213: The Thin Man (1934)

Cute, a nice solid mystery, and gets credit for more or less inventing the killer-reveal-at-the-dinner-party style, but the leads came off less as “witty and adorable” to me than they did as “drunk.”

#212: X (2022)

Well that was certainly something. I think my lingering distaste for the ’70s may have colored my mood on this one, but it didn’t grab me as much as it seems to have a lot of folks. I did appreciate the motivation for all the murdering being more or less the opposite from what would be expected.

#211: The World’s End (2013)

I understand that the alien replicant thing is basically the entire point of this, but I enjoyed it a LOT more before that became the focus. I very much enjoyed the interpersonal stuff with this group of man-children recreating what were (sadly) the best days of their lives.

#210: Midnight Cowboy (1969)

I never knew that this was Jon Voigt’s big breakout role until now. So that required some mental adjustment. A lot of this *almost* worked for me – Joe and Ratso and their relationship (friendship? something more?) were the really interesting things about this movie, but the plot someone taking these losers to flamboyant parties and suddenly viciously attacking people (maybe if it had actually explored Joe’s feelings more that could have been believable?). I dunno. I can see something great lurking in there but it seems like the film was too busy showing us how brave it was to actually be brave enough to explore it?

#209: Lawless (2012)

Ah, the good ol’ days when villains were truly villainous and seemed invulnerable until they get their overdue comeuppance. It’s not the most original formula, but it’s a good one.

#208: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

I do not have a bad word to say about this movie, and its importance in portraying the real struggles of fighting people reacclimating to civilian life (whereas all contemporary films merely showed heroes and their triumphs) cannot be understated. I respect it more than I like it though, with the theme having been subsequently explored a thousand times over.

#207: Black Bear (2020)

Aubrey Plaza was enough to get me through this interesting but extremely challenging movie. Meta enough that not only does it switch to “Part II” halfway through, changing the roles and the scene but not the actors, it becomes a film about people making a film – which is not the film from the first half but is remarkably similar to it. I do tend to enjoy a movie where at the end I have to ask myself what really happened vs what bizarre hallucinations the characters were going through, etc. I have *an* answer, but I have no idea whether it’s the “right” answer. But it works for me.

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Shut up, I can use Facebook “graphics”

I am using this as the official demarcation of the line for movies I would actually recommend. These are movies that I enjoyed and have good feelings about and would say go for it if asked, but I don’t feel passionate about.

#230: The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)

Succumbs to the sequel curse, but still has a good bit of fun and has enough twists to make it feel worthwhile.

#229: Last Night in Soho (2021)

Wanted to love it, ended up liking it fine. Great cast and cool vibes save a shaky script.

#228: Shazam (2019)

Zachary Levy knows how to play this kind of character in his sleep (god did I love Chuck) and that plus a general genial sense of fun was enough to push it over the edge for me despite an all-world bad ending and a character that I have always generally thought was kind of lame and ill-defined.

#227: Corpse Bride (2005)

Had been avoiding this for a while due to the obvious unfavorable Nightmare Before Christmas comparison, but it was still fun in its own right. Nothing remotely close to Nightmare, but that is to be expected.

#226: Summer of Soul (2021)

Documentaries are so hard to place. The Stevie Wonder segment was incredible and a couple others were great but there was too much of what felt (to me) like padding to rank the overall experience much higher.

#225: She Dies Tomorrow (2020)

I didn’t get it. I’m not entirely sure that there was an it to get, but if we were supposed to take anything other than a general malaise away from this I’m not sure what it is. And that’s ok! The vibes were interesting, the concept was fascinating, and it was all well realized, which was enough for me. It seems that a lot of viewers took a meaning from it that I think came more from them than from the film. Or I just didn’t get it.

#224: Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Aside from the incredible image above, there really isn’t too much cool about Luke, honestly. The other inmates roll over into idolization awfully quickly – maybe if you look like Paul Newman that sort of thing just happens. Extremely ’60s message about the power of refusing to conform.

#223: Capote (2005)

No reason for this film to exist other than to enable a fantastic Phillip Seymour Hoffman performance. Of course, just watching that is definitely reason enough.

#222: Trollhunter (2010)

If, unlike me, you are only going to watch one Norwegian-made film about trolls this year, make it this ridiculous mockumentary.

#221: Candyman (2021)

Not as good as the original and blunter with the social commentary, but it still had its own sneaky thrills and psychodrama.

#220: Throne of Blood (1957)

Shockingly faithful to the original Shakespeare in everything other than the iambic pentameter. Probably more interesting in a time where there weren’t 10,000 productions like “The Scarlet Letter….but IN SPACE!” but still cool to watch it play out in this context.

#219: Oldboy (2013)

Now that is some sicko shit. I very much want to see the Korean original, since the only reason that this isn’t higher is some out-of-place Hollywood touches (what was Samuel L. Jackson doing in this movie???).

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