**Note: This entry has controversial wording in it. Discretion is advised
Four separate times since late-December 2022, I had this feeling of my energy being drained, with three of those times being complete mysteries to me. But after doing a test of my DVD for “Another Simple Favor” six days ago, I finally figured out why I was feeling that way. You see, those other three times were after both an evaluation and a viewing of “A Simple Favor”, as well as after the assessment of the aforementioned sequel, and the common thread for both of those movies is that they feature the constantly exhausting Blake Lively. And when I mean constantly exhausting, I mean other people, in addition to me, all just want her to stop being the 21st century equivalent of the woman that Snoop Dogg references in the outro of the song “All Bout U”. But we can only wish, as I feel that we’ll get continuously served with her vacuous word salad.
Yes, the simple task of testing a DVD of a Blake Lively exhausted me to the point that I couldn’t muster any energy to evaluate “Shrek 2” last week. But instead of looking at this feeling from a “woe is me” perspective, which is a perspective that I don’t allow myself to look from, I’ve come up with some strategies to get back on track for The Flickuum Project.
Let’s begin.
First up, eight of my last nine assessments/re-assessments have either been questionable or not Flickuum-worthy, including three (Prospect, Priscilla, Climax) of the movies that I most recently added to the roster of assessments/re-assessments. And while it was frustrating trying to find more movies to reward with 40F designations, The Project has gained additional space, which I have decided to put towards to the two “El Dorado” movies that feature Natalie Martinez. Yes, The Project needs more of her movies, because such movies are reliable in being jump-starters and I’ll need a lot of those for the duration of The Project.
During this decade, Sean Baker has gained a fan in me to the point that I’ll check out all of his completed directorial efforts. Well, all of them, except for his directorial debut “Four Letter Words”, which is a movie that is impossible to access for assessment. But as for the other ones, well “Tangerine” is already on the roster and I’ll be assessing that movie today, while I had “Take Out” and “Prince Of Broadway” on my list of undocumented assessments, prior to this entry being written. And now that I want to apply the “ASAP” selection protocol to both of those movies, well they too have been elevated to the roster, especially since it’d be very cool to see seven of his directorial efforts over a year-plus span. Now let’s see if he can it make a perfect 7-for-7 in movies of his making The Project, as “Red Rocket”, “The Florida Project”, “Starlet” and “Anora” all overall guaranteed Flickuum movies.
And finally, my already eventful summer of theatrical outings has gained yet another addition, in the form of “Sketch”, a movie that could be this summer’s version of “Harold And The Purple Crayon”. Yes, I enjoyed the latter of the two movies during its assessment, so there’s no question that I’ll double down for a theatrical outing of a similar movie this summer.
Well, the Blake Lively-perpetuated fatigue ended up being a silver lining for me, as I was able to brainstorm potential new additions to The Project. And given the expectations that I have for those five movies, I’m confident that they will all add to the amount of 2,454 overall guaranteed Flickuum spots.
Until the next time.