**Note: The following content has adult wording. Discretion is advised
Some movies just know how to be pleasant surprises, such as “The Menu”, “The Blackening” and the remake of “School For Scoundrels”. Of course, in my opinion, the latter of the three won’t outrank those two 2020s movies, but it has two components that I really like, with them being A] The way that Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Heder play off each other and B] The brief appearance of Jessica Stroup. So, because of the aforementioned remake being a pleasant surprise, I decided to award it the overall guaranteed Flickuum spot of “Sling Blade”, yet the 1996 movie will get a re-assessment for a fair chance to get back into The Project. Stay tuned.
In a move that I was tempted to make last month, I finally revoked the overall guaranteed Flickuum status of “Public Enemies” because A] I don’t like ANY film portrayals of J. Edgar Hoover, B] The historical inaccuracy of John Dillinger dying after Pretty Boy Floyd, Homer Van Meter and Baby Face Nelson really annoyed me, and C] I really didn’t see good chemistry between Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard. So, because of all that, I sent the Michael Mann-directed movie back to the Movie-Ocrity/Dishonorable Mention page, followed by filling its spot with “Margin Call”.
Things come in threes, as the third singular (and final overall) Flickuum purge of this entry is the 1995 movie “Hackers” because I’m still having a hard time attempting to justify a movie about computer hackers being in The Project. However, I will re-assess it because it might overcome the stigma of having a “Mortal Kombat” tone about it, along with the fact that it has Angelina Jolie. Of course, with all of that being said, the 1995 movie was among the 2,100 overall guaranteed Flickuum movies, so I’ve both expedited “Top Gun” from Tier 5 to Tier 4 and expedited “Evolution” from Tier 7 to Tier 5.
With all the expediting that I’ve been doing, I’ve decided to somewhat overstock the current roster of assessments/re-assessments, as A] Not everything that’s on the roster will necessarily make The Project and B] I can always have fallback options on hand if “Civil War”, “Challengers”, “Night Swim” and/or “Immaculate” fail their assessments. So, with all of that being said, I’ve added “Vampire Bats” to the current roster because it will give Jessica Stroup a larger role, compared to “School For Scoundrels”. And of course, that’s not all because in addition, I’ve A] Added “Swelter” because maybe it can be a pleasantly surprising post-1999 Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, B] Added “Eight Heads In A Duffel Bag” as a “flier” movie and C] Added “Lousy Carter” because if a movie (Booty Call) with a lazily spelt name in “Rushon” can be in The Project, then a movie that features a character named “Lousy” should at least be assessed.
And finally, the Universal Pictures release “Monkey Man” has had the hard copy pending tag removed, due to it getting a pre-order listing on Amazon. Of course, the listing didn’t come as quickly as other Universal Pictures releases in “Trolls Band Together”, “Migration”, “Lisa Frankenstein”, “Drive-Away Dolls” and “Kung Fu Panda 4”, but the Dev Patel-directed has the listing, thus it will beat the New Year’s Day 2025 deadline, although that date is predicated on what happens with “Your Monster”.
Well, yesterday I got the first defensive out via throwing three straight strikes (School For Scoundrels, Monkey Man, Woo). Now it’s time to go get defensive out number two.
Until the next time.