Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Samara Weaving-whose latest project "Ready or Not 2: Here I Come" is now playing in theaters.
Samara Weaving's Filmography Ranked:
16.Monster Trucks (D)
15.Chevalier (C)
14.Last Moment of Clarity (C)
13.Borderline (C)
12.Snake Eyes (B-)
11.Eenie Meanie (B-)
10.Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (B-)
9.Mayhem (B)
8.The Babysitter: Killer Queen (B)
7.Azrael (B)
6.Bill & Ted Face the Music (B)
5.The Babysitter (B)
4.Guns Akimbo (B+)
3.Scream VI (B+)
2.Ready or Not (B+)
1.Babylon (B+)
Top Dog: Babylon (2022)
Damien Chazelle has been on quite the roller coaster since Babylon was released. His blockbuster ode to Hollywood's drastic transition from the debauchery of the silent movie era to the early days of the "talkies" where the whole industry suddenly got more buttoned up received mixed reviews and ate shit at the box office to the point where he had to wait over 3 years to get his next movie-a considerably lower key prison drama starring Cillian Murphy, Daniel Craig and Michelle William that just started shooting last week-off the ground, but quickly found a passionate cult following that views it as a misunderstood masterpiece. While I'm not quite willing to label it a masterpiece myself, I do believe that Babylon is an excellent movie that is better than the vast majority of prestige flicks that have been released so far this decade. Chazelle's blistering epic doesn't even think about coming up for air during its 3-hour runtime as it really revels in how unforgiving and dysfunctional the industry can be and how none of the madness that occurs behind the scenes matters when audiences see the beauty that was birthed from this off-camera chaos on screen. It's a really exhilarating, fascinating piece of work and definitely my favorite thing Chazelle has done since Whiplash.
Bottom Feeder: Monster Trucks (2017)
The only inspired thing about Monster Trucks is that it's not a movie about the preferred vehicle of county fair main attractions all across the United States, but instead monsters that live inside of trucks. Everything else about it is incredibly dull and based on how poorly it performed throughout its initial theatrical/VOD life cycle 9 years ago, I don't think its intended audience of young kids liked it very much either.
Most Underrated: Guns Akimbo (2020)
All of the common criticisms of Guns Akimbo are hard to argue with. It's a juvenile movie with video game-esque action and obnoxious characters that almost exclusively talk like Reddit posters circa 2018. Personally, I found all of these things to be absolutely perfect for the aesthetic that writer/director Jason Lei Howden was going for here. It would've been weird if a movie about an internet troll (Daniel Radcliffe) who gets forced to participate in an illegal online deathmatch game called Skizm after the founder of the game (Ned Dennehy) tracks his IP address following a shit-talking session gone wrong, goes to his apartment and glues a pair of pistols to his hands after knocking him out didn't great pride in being deeply immature. It's really the only movie I've seen recently that recreates the vulgar breed of manic action filmmaking that Neveldine/Taylor were delivering in the late 2000's and the cast-which also includes Weaving as Skizm's most lethal player Nix and Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Radcliffe's ex-girlfriend Nova who gets dragged into this messy situation-do an excellent job of operating on the trashy wavelength of a bygone era that makes up whatever percentage of the film's DNA that isn't pure Mountain Dew Code Red.
Most Overrated: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
I'm still stunned by the great Martin McDonagh's choice to largely sideline his signature sharp darkly comedic writing here in favor of bland melodrama that is often shockingly on-the-nose and manipulative. Strong performances from Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Weaving-who is easily the comedic highlight of the film as the ditzy, much younger girlfriend of McDormand's ex-husband (John Hawkes) prevent Three Billboards from completely falling apart, but it's still a baffling, frequently maddening film that falls well below the high quality standard McDonagh has established with his other work.


_poster.jpg)