**Note: The following content has adult wording. Discretion is advised
For a little over a month, there has been both so much upheaval in maintaining the 2,100 overall guaranteed Flickuum spots and painstakingly slow progress in filling out the group of movies vying for spots 2,101 through 2,201. But now things are slowly yet surely starting to settle down, and I’m going to break down some of those things, starting with the next paragraph.
First up, on the heels of me ousting the Johnny Knoxville movie “The Ringer” from The Project, I went back and forth for two days scrutinizing the close-out of another movie of his in “The Last Stand”. But after recalling a bit of a time delay between that close-out and the animation style rehashing of scenes during the beginning of the movie’s closing credits, as well as my mind not changing about why I enjoyed that movie in the first place, I decided to not revoke its overall guaranteed Flickuum status. Now it’s just a matter of fit for it within The Flickuum rankings.
In a splitting hairs type of thought process, I weighed the pros and cons of why “Upgraded” is getting stronger Flickuum consideration than “A Perfect Pairing”, as I recalled Camila Mendes’ performance in the former not being too different from Victoria Justice’s in the latter. But after A] Stating that I’d commit to the former being a Flickuum movie no matter how “The Perfect Date” does in its assessment, B] Seeing that Mendes’ upbeat vibe needs to be a part of Flickuum lore in some sort of capacity and C] Her coming off way more natural than Justice in her respective performance, I decided to not revoke its hard copy pending status, especially since there’s no guaranteed that “The Perfect Date” will pass its assessment. Besides, Justice already has two overall guaranteed Flickuum movies in “The First Time” and “Fun Size”, so it’s not like she’s hurting for the opportunities that Mendes has yet to get.
Another step was made in rounding out movies vying for spots 2,101 through 2,201, as “Say Anything” via its assessment yesterday proved to be as iconic as “The Breakfast Club”, the latter of which is a Tier 4 movie. In fact, not only did the 1989 movie live up to expectations because in addition, it became the first movie that was documented in Tier 8 to pass assessment/re-assessment since “Jimi: All Is By My Side” did during the wee hours of this most recent February 20.
Some movies just have the cozy vibe that can’t be denied from The Flickuum Project, as “Julie & Julia” was sent to Tier 8 for one last shot at finally making The Project. Furthermore, it’s almost impossible to say no to a movie in which the main characters have an adorable orange cat, thus that last shot will be a surefire success, especially since “Alone/Together” failed its assessment.
Movies such as “The Informers”, “A Good Old Fashioned Orgy”, “Pvt Chat” and potentially “The Voyeurs” are the types that fall under the category of “guilty pleasures”, in the sense that their subject matter might be deemed very controversial for The Project yet are/could be enjoyable movies. And of course, with all of that being said, that brings me to “Challengers”, which will be trading places with “Civil War” in the group of 2024 movies that are most likely going to get spots 2,179 through 2,200, due to both A24 grittiness being deserving of a 21storange spot, and the recent A24 success for the tandem of “The Iron Claw” and “Love Lies Bleeding” still resonating with me. Furthermore, that’s not the only reason for this trade because in addition A] “Civil War” comes out two weeks before “Challengers” does, B] “Challengers” can be the fallback option for “Civil War” if the upcoming Alex Garland movie doesn’t pass its assessment and C] The Zendaya-led movie can step right into the 2,101 through 2,177 Flickuum selection protocols if either “Road House ‘24”, “I Give It A Year”, “The Perfect Mate” or “Filly Brown” don’t pass assessment. Yes, “Challengers” is the weakest link out of all the upcoming 2024 movies that I want to assess theatrically, yet it could also offer a bit more substance than three of those four movies that I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, even if it gives off the appearance of being a surface-level sleaze fest.
And finally, I had my “good-bye viewing” of “Sharon 1.2.3.” to see if I would reconsider booting it from The Project. And of course, with that being said, I almost did reconsider because damn, every Nadine Velazquez scene challenged my intent. However, she is going to be The Queen of The Project, so it’s only right that her last chronological Flickuum movie is her best one, which is “The Bounce Back”.
Blog to you all again early next week.