Wrapped Above: 2025 Movie Top Ten List!

Here we are, my old friends. The entire point of the year! We need to count down our top ten, we got to. I know my cinephilia is diminishing, I really didn't get to watch that many 2025 films and the ones I did I largely did not like. Efforts I was pysched for like Friendship and Sinners I thought kind of sucked. But there is still a pretty good crop so here we go!

KPOP: Demon Hunters

I haven't seen this on too many lists, I think folks just feel like they're too good for it. You're not. All the songs were bops and when was the last time a song from a movie became a genuine hit? But not only is the animation really intricate and enticing but the film establishes its deal really early on, while also carefully revealing bits about its characters that have great pay offs and enhance the experience, and is also a ton of fun. It is full of coherent and powerful themes, too, like accepting who you are, flaws and all, combating destiny, and maybe, just maybe not being so racist. What more could you want?

The Naked Gun

It's really important to boldly note that the original Naked Gun movies were not all that great. I re-watched them a few years ago and they rely on a shocking amount of racism and lazy jokes but get away with it because Leslie Nielsen is insanely good. They degrade as they go, mostly because Nielsen leaned into mugging rather than being an unreal straight actor, but that's that. I never totally go for these sort of parody movies because you can start to see the jokes coming like any turn of phrase is going to be some literal gag. Angie Tribeca did a lot of this and it became unwatchable. The Naked Gun pulls it off, though, with a ton of bits that genuinely work, really game performances, and a compelling contemporary commentary that isn't a sledgehammer. It's no surprise it was directed by the Lonely Island's Akiva Shaffer and has some heart and integrity to it. In an era where comedy is largely dead, it's a huge win.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Alright, here is my real pick for the year. This has such a jarring opening and then slowly confronts and unravels its themes throughout a meager run time, but it operates with such bold character it can't be ignored. It's more subtle than you'd think and doesn't spell everything out but you need to really read into what is happening for it to really hit you over the head with some powerful messages of how families and communities deal with abuse, in pain both shared and private, but also ignorance, willful or not. It is a phenomenally shot movie and it is not always easy to make the mundane look this compelling.

Predator: Killer of Killers

I am actually not a huge fan of what this does to the lore of Predator, like Arnold and that Indian chick should have beaten their predators fair and square. But I do really dig the ideas of Predators just showing up and fighting random warriors over the years. It's the kind of fantasy we always had in the 90s come to life on screen. Each story is well told, especially the initial Viking lady and the fighter pilot. There is a great efficiency in motivation, execution, and action. Dan Trachtenberg can have the reins to Predator forever, he is doing great after Prey (2022) and this. He just doesn't have a lot of fluff or pretention going on. I did not get a chance to see Badlands yet but I feel like it would find a spot on my list as well.

Train Dreams

I balled my eyes out watching this movie. It really hit me hard and I feel like it will be one that will stick with me for a long time, forever on this Top List. It is gorgeous to look at with a unique 3:2 aspect ratio, big shots of woods and prairie, and a fully immersive natural lighting. I really identified with Robert Grainier, who maintains this sadness throughout his life but keeps searching for meaning. It isn't full of false or understated hope, nor is it entirely bleak. It just is. It literally helps me be a better man, father, and husband. Joel Edgerton and William H. Macy stand out but this is really well cast film.

Weapons

I was really debating these two, ultimately I think I have to put the obvious pick first. I just think it will have more staying power and has quickly become 2025's definitive film. We'll talk more when we get there, but rarely do we see a film so hyped up actually earn and even go beyond its hype. Weapons is full of mystery and twists, but earns it in a natural way with a pay off that makes sense for the story. It's awesome. It plays with time and expectations with its character cards and absolutely nails the ending, which you just never see anymore. It is also a film you can actually see with rich contrasts, which is amazing.

One Battle After Another

Yep. You guessed it! This ought to be Paul Thomas Anderson's year, and as this is the third film I placed on my Top 25 films of the past 25 years list, it does deliver. PTA doesn't have a single Academy Award or Golden Globe to his name, only a single BAFTA for Original Screenplay for Licorice Pizza (2021). This ought to get him a well-deserved recognition. I do somewhat think VistaVision is doing some of the heavy lifting in making this film look so damn good, but there is quite a bit of substance here. You've got Leonardo DiCaprio fulfilling his idiot trilogy of Don't Look Up (2021), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), but really having a lot of heart in his doofiness. Sean Penn is unreal and unrecognizable, filling his character with all sorts of ticks and quirks. Teyana Taylor ends up not being in it for too long but is a fiery initiator. Benicio del Toro is chillin and Chase Infiniti is engaging of a presence to fit along all these legends and ought to have a good career on her own. It has a ton of narrative momentum, irony, a deft hand with themes, and a really thrilling climax. It's everything you want.

I had some interest in but didn't get a chance to see the following films, and they could all appear on future lists:

Eddington

Life of Chuck

Predator: Badlands

Honey Don't

The Long Walk

Black Bag

The Running Man

Not all these got spectacular reviews, but they all peaked my interest. As I said at the start, there were plenty that disappointed me this year so whatever.

Movies Where It's Shitty Out

This has been on my mind for a few years now, mostly because of my upbringing in Western New York, but I really dig movies where it's shitty out. I had trouble Googling this or finding good examples because most people tend to think of Se7en (1995) or Kamino or something. No, I really mean movies where it's like, November or March and it's soaked in brown and leafless trees and hopefully, goes completely unnoticed or unacknowledged by the film.

For some reason this was a big mid-90s comedy thing, maybe just because there was a slew set in the Midwest and Northeast and if the budget is low enough, who cares about nice filming locations. To me, the holy trinity is the first bit of Dumb and Dumber (1995) set in miserable Rhode Island, but mostly Tommy Boy (1995) and Canadian Bacon (1995). Maybe it's just that all these creators suddenly came from crappy areas like the Farrelly Brothers from Rhode Island, Chris Farley from Wisconsin, and Jim Carrey and John Candy from Canada?

Tommy Boy really does it for me, though. Hanging around Sandusky, Ohio and neighboring Great Lakes States is incredible, one of the more authentic movies for that region. You just never see how it looks like for seven months of the year shown so accurately.

There are other movies like Prisoners (2013) and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987) that are both Thanksgiving movies and use their setting to artfully advance the plot, but hardly any that are as matter-of-fact shitty like Tommy Boy. Winter's Bone (2009) is the same kind of deal. Honestly I struggled to find another movie that is set in the Midwest or Northeast that features the kind of desolate winter that we're so used to. And again, I don't mean the winter wonderland, I mean the barren, brown hellscape of fresh melted snow or a bitter November.

I don't know if modern films could even pull this off anymore. Knives Out (2019) comes close, but the whole thing is too glossy and pampered to really feel cold and bitter. That may of course be more due to the affluence of the subject material, but I want a movie where it really feels like the bleak wind is beating through your coat and your toes are numb.

The only other movie I'll add is The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) which largely takes place in Western Pennsylvania and up to Buffalo, NY. What can I say? 90s Road Trip movies all had this coldness to them. I don't know what that means but I miss it and I think it's cool. What's the whole point? No movie has the setting or look of Tommy Boy, and that is an amazing distinction.

Top 25 Movies of the Top 25 Years

 Or just the last 25 years.

25: Take Shelter (2011)

24: Beau is Afraid (2023)

23: The Departed (2006)

22: The Northman (2022) 

21: The Prestige (2006)

20: City of God (2002)

19:  The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

18:  American Honey (2016)

17 :A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

16:  The Green Knight (2021)

15: A Serious Man (2009)

14: The Lighthouse (2019)

13: The Brutalist (2024)

12: One Battle After Another (2025)

11: No Country for Old Men (2007)

10: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

9: Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

8: Return of the King (2003) - all Lord of the Rings can just go here

7: Under the Skin (2014)

6: Django Unchained (2012)

5: The Master (2012)

4: Blade Runner: 2049 (2017)

3: There Will Be Blood (2007)

2: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

1: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

It was a ton of fun putting this together. It was like all my greatest hits since starting this blog all in one place! This is assuredly full of my jams and it was rewarding to actually have enough space for everyone. Now, will this change next week? Certainly! But right now this is where I'm at.

I am clearly a Paul Thomas Anderson fan, with three of his films in my Top 11, but who isn't? A lot of Scorsese and Coen Bros as well, but maybe not as much Tarantino or Nolan as I would have guessed. Obviously we aren't highlighting a ton of franchise movies, but my top two are big tentpole, franchise efforts, so that's that!

By year:

2000: 

2001:

2002: 1

2003: 1

2004:

2005:

2006: 2

2007: 3

2008: 

2009: 1

2010:

2011: 2

2012: 2

2013: 1

2014: 2

2015: 1

2016: 1

2017: 1

2018: 1

2019: 1

2020:

2021: 1

2022: 1

2023: 1

2024: 1

2025: 1

We're definitely concentrated around 2006-2012. I'm not sure if that is the right kind of nostalgia mixed with the heydays of this blog so I was really paying attention or what. Or it's just that when doing lists like this individual bits can really shine.

I did not have a ton from the early 2000s, not sure exactly why. I did have a lot from that era that I barely left off, which we'll get to soon. I do think some of the films of the past five years need to marinate a bit.

Can we try to rationalize why this is? Well, the early 2000s were really this era of non-stop franchises. We had the Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter. It was after the 90s indie boom when all the corporations had latched on to that ethos for profit, and was pretty successful, if not ultimately soulless. It was at least emulating genuine efforts.

The late 2000s shifted to more like Transformers, monster superhero efforts like Iron Man (2008) and The Dark Knight (2008), as well as the ghosts of those earlier franchises like Harry Potter finishing up. Culturally we were facing the Great Recession and not really in any kind of mood for non-sense. The Writer's strike combined with the rise of streaming to create an endless need for content but required it to be cheap and not written, hence reality TV nightmares and terrible movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009).

I think we got this spurt of great films right before the recession where studios had some money from the early 2000s franchise success to be a little more bold and all those filmmakers like Tarantino and the Coens who earned their sea legs during the 90s indie boom were able to both exhibit a finely honed craft but also had the budgets to do so.

This melts in the early 2010s as the recession hits in and we begin this era of migration to the south and to the west. We get the YA adaptation boom and then The Avengers (2012) is both the culmination of the past ten years but also sets the standard that everyone else in Hollywood is going to chase, even up to today and the 3D craze sets in after AVABAR (2009). I dig a ton of films from this era, you have some great new films as digital technology starts looking really good and combines with both film and digital formats, but I am more focused on smaller films in this era. We get this sort of Second Indie Boom, not from cultural interest but from proliferation of access to filmmaking which gives access to a ton of new voices like Ana Lily Amirpour. We get all these failed American Dream movies like Pain & Gain (2013), The Big Short (2015), American Honey (2016), and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).

In the late 2010s we get a bit one - The Force Awakens (2015), which when combined with the same year's earlier Jurassic World really show that our culture as come full circle. Hell, I just watched the new Spinal Tap movie for some reason. These are never good EXCEPT for Mad Max: Fury Road which I named the best film of the past 25 years, but that's also because it stands completely on its own with no connection to earlier works. I argue that this whole thing started with Sylvester Stallone making Rocky Balboa (2006) and intra-franchise crossovers started with Fast & Furious (2009) but you can think what you like. So we're just totally bereft of new ideas. I have often thought of Pacific Rim (2013) as the last great franchise that started as an original film idea.

I notably don't have a ton from this era on my Top 25 list. Looking back at some of these years, maybe it's tough to have staying power? I wonder if that's because thanks to streaming, I really am just not really watching them all on repeat TV viewings, which makes for a greater cultural impact? I do think that some commercials stick in my head more than the actual movie sometimes. Still, some of these I do have ranked very high. This has really become a brutal era and I enjoy directors like Ari Astor, Robert Eggers, Yorgos Lanthimos, Denis Villeneuve, and Alex Garland out of this era. We see the indie directors being elevated to mainstream blockbusters, which are all just superhero movies, which obviously peak with Avengers: Endgame (2019) and on the other side, we have A24 which is a studio so good at creating good movies that it becomes its own style and creates this elevated horror.

Then we get to the early 2020s. Uhhhh....what the hell is going on here. The industry is rocked after COVID, we have another writer's strike, the rise of AI, the end of every movie star not named Glen Powell, the whole thing's a mess. I still threw about one good movie a year on here but it also just feels like a dying industry. I can't picture a mainstream film cracking this, there has been so many developments in special effects to the point that they become generic and muddy because it's easier to light and do post work. The whole craft slips because we can correct everything in post and not worry about the script, or frankly, even coverage. And so my most recent tentpole is an animated Spider-Man movie from 2018 and most recent live action is Blade Runner 2049, which did not do well in theaters at all. So my most recently tentpole that did well is....uh...not on this list.

There were a lot of others that I considered, so here is the rest of the Hit List, our runners up in no particular order but nearly enough to make another Top 25 List:

Oppenheimer (2023)

Gladiator (2000)

Memento (2000)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Stoker (2013)

The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

mother! (2017)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Pacific Rim (2013)

The World's End (2013)

Pain & Gain (2013)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2018)

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

MacGruber (2010)

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Uncut Gems (2019)

Midsommar (2019)

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

Gran Torino (2008)

Wall-E (2008)

Tropic Thunder (2008)

Red Rocket (2021)

2025 Wrapped up in it - Film MOMENTS, actors, you know the rest

There is so much more to the year than just the top films but I will admit my ever encroaching cynicism in that I straight up did not see aot of the big movies of the year like Minecraft or Superman. I'm just over it. I did see (and enjoy) Thunderbolts* but highlighting a moment felt too much like praising a token superhero film (and I'm not sure how many life-changing moments there were.)

However, there is one obvious winner and it is the Music Through the Ages Dance Jam from Sinners. I famously did not think Sinners was great at all, but I did really vibe with the first half and this scene obviously earns my respect. Even Sinners haters need to admit this scene rules.

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This doubles for musical moment of the year.

Runner up was "Frank Drebin" "Hey, me too!" from The Naked Gun. I busted up on that. Or the snowman scene.

Actor of the Year:

Is it possible to say Jack Black? Dude has had multiple big releases and maybe the line or song of the year with "Chicken jockey!" and "Lava Chicken." Pedro Pascal was in Fantastic Four, Eddington, The Last of Us, and Materialists, but it does feel like 2024 was more his year. Josh Brolin was in a ton of movies, too.

But I want to say Josh O'Connor. He was lauded in a mainstream gig, Wake Up Dead Man, had his indy credentials in The Mastermind, and is set to be in a Spielberg movie next year. Coming off great work in Challengers, it feels like he is a rising star and we're going to get him while he's hot!

Actress of the Year:

When you look at top movies, not a ton for the women this year. Superman, Minecraft, Captain America are all kind of male-focused. You have your Wicked, Lio & Stitch, Scarjo in Jurassic World: Rebirth, and Florence Pugh in Thunderbolts*, which does all give a nice balance, but none of these featured acresses that really dominated the year.

Except for Julia Garner! A very impressive run of Fantastic Four, Wolf Man, and Weapons make this clearly her year and deservedly so! These were all radically different roles, genres, and box office, and it's the kind of range we're looking for. 2025 was Julia Garner's more than anyone else!

What else?

Yeah, I was totally out of the loop on mainstream movies this year. I actually only saw one out of the Top Ten movies of the year (Sinners) and four out of the Top 20. I'm just largely over a lot of current blcokbuster filmmaking, things like Jurassic World aren't grabbing me like they used to. That's a fun slow decline. I watched all the original trilogy in theaters, came back for the 2015 movie (TEN YEARS AGO?) and at least caught the other two on streaming. Now I just have no desire at all for this nonsense. Disney and animated sequels are generally out for me, although I did hear that Zootopia 2 and Elio were good. But playing on my phone is better!

I probably shouldn't be running a film site anymore, right? I literally don't like movies. But hey, I really dug The Naked Gun (2015).

Wrapped Up in It: Music

This is going to be quick, because I hardly listen to music, or at least not in the snobby, obsessive way such an article would necessitate but here it goes!

Album of the Year: Free by Kid Cudi

According to Spotify I was in the Top 48,000 of Kid Cudi listeners, which was the top 0.04 percentile, so I may be biased. But after some duds Cudi dropped a remarkably uplifting and energetic album full of listenable bangers. This dropped two weeks after he got married, and you can tell after settling in to sobriety and healthy relationships he's in a better place, and amazingly, that has actually translated into evolution of his music as an artist. Finding positivity and hope didn't make his music shitty! It's surprising. I feel a lot of kinship in finding ways to finally be happy and I really dug this, especially when listening to his earlier depression and drug-fueled earlier works 

Song of the Year: "Archbishop Harold Holmes" by Jack White

I just like it. It's got such a pulsing rhythm and feels like the only good rock song we've gotten in the past ten years. I sincerely dog the video and John C. Reilly's commitment as well.

Video of the Year: "Manchild" by Sabrina Carpenter

We already named her the Summer Jam Queen but this video takes the cake as well! I am going to acknowledge however, that this is basically just A$AP Rocky's "Taylor Swif" which we named the top video of last year. I do like Sabrina's insane charisma and the purely unironic Americana on display here. There is a sense of throwing caution and pretension to the wind which is really refreshing.

2025 Wrapped Up - 2024 Top 10 update!

We just ran through 2015 and so it's time to also update 2024! Last year seems odd, I only came up with nine movies like I even liked, and to be honest they're all pretty solid. I found myself really enjoying all these but it also really does feel like we're out of gas as a civilization. There is still a good mix

#9: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

The first maybe 30 minutes are such solid world-building and ideal screenwriting. It gets a bit meandering and the plot takes a bit to engage but it's still a good time.

#8: Blink Twice

The middle twist still gets me and while there are a lot of films with this sort if theme (hell, Barbie [2023] for one), this is the most artful and satisfying.

#7: The Bikeriders

We don't get a ton of these anymore. Well-acted mid-size dramas with a mix of established and rising stars. It captured my attention throughout and was a solid ride.

#6: Furiosa

It doesn't match Fury Road (2015) but gets a lot of marks for coming close and is a whole different kind if movie, more an epic saga than a prolonged hyper-specific chase.

#5: Dune II

I still think about how much I liked this more than the first Dune. It just has so much more narrative momentum. It feels like what a modern good blockbuster could be.

#4: Nosferatu

The greatest post-nut clarity of all time. Also maybe one of the best-looking films of the past ten years.

#3: Rebel Ridge

I am still blown away by this

#2: Challengers

Yes, Challengers was dethroned! Still a tight second. This is just the sexiest movie of all time.

#1: The Brutalist

Folks seemed to rag on this for its length and Adrian Brody being an absolute putz, both of which are true, but this is an epic like you'd see in the mid-2000s or 90s, a classic immigrant story except the immigrant is a huge heroin-addicted asshole! Amd not even the biggest asshole in the film!

I find myself really enjoying the Top Four here and can see myself coming back in 2034 without much change. It's a weird year, like super concentrated, be ause these goir are so rock solid to me but I could honestly take or leave everything else.

I have even less movies I like in 2025, and that could very well be more me getting older and being pulled in other directions and my interests getting more niche, but I like to think movies are just getting worse.

2015 Movies Ten Years Gone

Just in time, we're here to review the top films of 2015!

I find more and more it seems trite to make year end lists, even if it's the backbone of our industry. For one, I struggle to see every film that comes out, and also there is a big shift in staying power that I think is fair to asses after a decade. There is assuredly merit in films that are of their moment and give great first impressions, though as well. Hence why we do still keep listing movies the same year they come out for time capsule purposes but the ten year list is the real deal.

I also really like the ten year list because I am less worried about throwing on movies that would be utterly laughable to really call the best of the year. So here we go:

#10: Ex Machina

I had rated this pretty high back in 2015 and I think it's still enjoyable, remarkably more for thematic prescience over craft. It holds up but is no longer mind-blowing.

#9: The Night Before

Yeah, I couldn't rank this at the moment. I just re-watched this because I was drunk, but I think it remains one of the last true "Seth Rogen" movies, which doubles for movies starring that Freaks and Geeks Apatow crowd. I might even call it the last funny movie ever made. It is remarkably solid, has some tight themes of growing up and moving on, but earns them, and is consistently funny.

#8: Bone Tomahawk

Let's go the other way. This is such a brutal grim movie that I mostly remember for Kurt Russell having the exact same hair as he did for The Hateful Eight. But this holds up as an unsparing smaller film that exists out of time and an unheralded S. Craig Zahler effort.

#7: Krampus

I recognize I'm putting two really off-beat Christmas movies on this list, so be it. I keep returning to Krampus, though! It has remarkable energy, a game cast, a really established atmosphere, and the perfect mix of holiday cynicism with a tiny glimmer of hope.

#6: Joy

I feel like I am the only one who liked Joy, but there just doesn't exist any other movie that quite shows female ambition like this. There is an insane amount of films from the male perspective. For whatever reason this persists for me.

#5: The Big Short

I don't totally love how this movie tends to blow past the minutiae with Margot Robbie in the tub and stuff but I get why, but it still seems to not dig into why all this stuff happened. It's still an amazing collection of scenes and a monumental kinetic narrative effort.

#4: Straight Outta Compton

There have been a ton of biopics over the years, including a lot more of rappers but not many as honest as this. I still think about it, especially has many have somehow gotten worse.

#3: Creed

As I'm going through this list, a lot seems to be movies that are just different enough within their genres to stand out. This may be one of the few, if not only legacy movies to truly stand on its own with fully fleshed out characters that are able to go on their own journeys, a feat not even its sequels achieved.

#2: The Hateful Eight

I still don't think this quite nails the ending but it feels like a bottle film that Tarantino challenged himself to do, but because he's Tarantino he nailed it. The cinematography is astounding, moreso because of the ultra wide aspect ratio for a movie that largely takes place in a single room lodge. It had grown on me for sure.

#1: Mad Max: Fury Road

What can I say, this movie is perfect. There you go.

There were a handful more on my shortlist and I can't believe I found myself giving them the boot, especially Inside Out. I think I have retroactive Pixar fatigue setting in, but I also struggle getting excited about Inside Out ten years out where I don't have that for everything else on this list.

The Duke of Burgundy

The Martian

Spotlight

Carol

Dope

Inside Out

2015 has a nice mix of great big and small movies, franchise efforts, indy efforts, and mid-size efforts. Hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine films. Looking back it does feel like it is far as we got as a culture before turning around and heading straight to hell. There is great, compelling energy to all these films, all clear visuals, and crisp film language. Again, probably the last stop on the trolley before cinema became all haves and have nots and digital mud replaced everything.

Storytelling in Star Wars (1977)

Today people is what this blog, and ALL blogs, are actually for - I had a random thought in my head that the whole world needs to know about.

I have dabbled in writing, published nothing, but I have a few novels under my belt and I'm working on a new one that has really deep world and lore, but to make the story actually good, I wanted to take what I call the Star Wars (1977) approach.

See, the interesting thing about the original Star Wars is that it's a complex galactic war, but you only ever get exposed to it through the eyes of Luke Skywalker. You never really see anything that he doesn't see. You're just following him throughout the whole story, learning as he learns, and it makes for a remarkably tight narrative. The only narrative bit without him is the inciting incident, which happens immediately as Vader boards the Tantive IV looking for the stolen Death Star datatapes (sure, there are bits that don't feature Luke like Han talking to the Imperials over the intercom, some of Obi-Wan's fight with Darth and sneaking around the Death Star, but none of these have narrative importance to the story the movie is telling).

It wasn't until I was crafting my own work that I realized how gnarly it is that they pulled this off without the use of a ton of long exposition scenes. You get a bit with Obi-Wan both in his hut and on the Falcon, but it's such a simple story that you can get it and then hop on Luke's journey. This both opened up Andor to show a lot more of the nuance and grays within the black and white journey (and on a meta level, it totally ruins Star Wars because all the sacrifice of dozens of rebels in a real fight and spy game doesn't matter as much as this hick farmboy flying in and blowing it up and getting a medal. Where's Kleya's medal?!).

For nearly fifty years I also believe that people misunderstood this style, because it only works if the storytelling conventions are still solid. You don't necessarily need backstory, but you do need motivation. When you look at The Force Awakens (2015), it falls apart because we don't have backstory or motivation. JJ Abrams thought it was enough that people look cool and menacing. Vader is cool and menacing but we know immediately that he is searching for the stolen plans for the Death Star, and that's important because it's the Empire's new, super-powerful battlestation and if it's blown up their plans for domination are ruined. More importantly, the battlestation can blow up all the Rebels so they are fighting for existance, too!

The Force Awakens sucks for many reasons, but most of all, we have weird mysterious folks in masks and weird faces like Snoke and the Knights of Ren, but we also really don't know their motivation. The Emperor's motivation in the first two movies is a bit obscure, although from the Board Room scene with just one bit of dialogue: "The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away....The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station." You get all of what the Emperor is trying to do from that. Again, the motivation and stakes are clear for both the rebels and the Empire.

The First Order's motivation is....something? They built a bigger Death Star and use it to blow up...some random planets that aren't personally connected to anyone either in the Resistance or otherwise. I thought it was Coruscant. They aren't established, they aren't a thorn in anyone's side, they're just...there and then blown up. It makes me so angry to think about, not because it ruined Star Wars but because it's just bad storytelling.

You can also get away with a blanket evil Empire without a ton of backstory, like I get that that's bad. But it was destroyed, and we all know that, so I don't think you can pull that trick twice and reset everyone back to where they were with the First Order and Resistance just being the Empire and Rebellion again. No, that makes no sense, like you skipped a lot of beats there about how that happened. I think there are artful ways to do this, probably without the moronic idea to never have the original big three of Leia, Han, and Luke united on screen at the same time, because I think it's important to acknowledge that while the universe may have shifted, their friendships remained solid, because ultimately that's what the original trilogy was all about. Luke had friends and the Emperor didn't. Wah-wah Emperor! Man these movies are bad.

Anyway, this is all ten year old territory now and nothing new but I do like articulating why this stuff doesn't work instead of just saying "It's lazy writing!" It's actually not lazy writing, it's just really bad storytelling.

Summer Jam 2025: Fun While It Lasted

 Wow. What a summer of...absolutely nothing. We've called this for a few years now but there are a lot of factors at work, namely the difficulty for new artists to have staying power, fractured listening habits, drop-offs in radio and MTV listening (which honestly exposed me to a lot of new music back in the day...I think I first heard Gorillaz' "Clint Eastwood" on MTV at 8 am one morning before school), a trend towards younger people listening to older music, and this year in particular has a noted lack of big time major artists dropping well....anything. I couldn't even come up with eight songs for the whole summer that were popular.

So here's uh...our list I guess for the past almost twenty years:

2007: "Umbrella" by Rihanna
2008: "Bleeding in Love" by Leona Lewis
2009: "I Gotta Feeling" by Black Eyed Peas
2010: "California Gurls" by Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg
2011: "Park Rock Anthem" by LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennett & GoonRock
2012: "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen
2013: "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke ft. T.I. & Pharrell
2014: "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea ft. Charle XCX
2015: "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon
2016: "Can't Stop the Feeling" by Justin Timberlake
2017: "Despacito" by Daddy Yankee, Luis Fonsi ft. Justin Bieber
2018: "Never Be the Same" by Camila Cabello
2019: "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus

2020: "Rockstar" by DaBaby

2021: "good 4 u" by Olivia Rodrigo

2022: "Running Up that Hill" by Kate Bush

2023: "Kill Bill" by SZA

2024: "Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar

Let's go ten years back for a second, because I've always had issues with "Shut Up and Dance" technically being the summer jam winner. That's just nonsense. But damn, look at these legends. Looking back it's so tempting to elevate "Cool for the Summer", "Lean on", "Trap Queen", or "Post to Be" eatin that booty like groceries. I think it should probably be "Can't Feel My Face" which is a quintessential Weeknd song, but runner-up should actually be "Bad Blood" which feels like a very minor Taylor Swift song now. I suppose this is why we can't do this thing ten years later, it really has to be in the moment. Maybe we'll stick with the wrong choice so EVERYONE can be unhappy.

So what is it this year? Here are some candidates:

"Golden" by Huntr/x

Yes, from KPOP Demon Hunters! A song from a movie! Wow! "Golden" is I suppose the best song of the pop musical movie to include. We didn't track it, but it's coming a bit too late to really be THE song of summer,

"Ordinary" by Alex Warren

Honestly, I have never heard this song before seeing it on Summer lists. It's also really bad.

"What I want" by Morgen Wallen ft. Tate McRae

Morgen might be the artist of the summer, which just a million songs going on right now. Tate McRae is also the biggest up and comer right now. This is here more because it's a vacuum of any other talent right now.

"Love Somebody" by Morgen Wallen

I'm a total victim of not really being able to distinguish country, but it's important to acknowledge their place in pop culture and Morgen Wallen has really transcended like few others ever could. This is maybe his most popular? I guess? Or maybe it's "I got better" or "I'm the Problem." I don't know, he's not winning so go listen and pout if you want.

Others

There seems to be a middling Billie Eilish, sombr, Doja Cat, Chappell Roan, Playboi Carti, and Benson Boone song every other week this summer. It's all kind of mid and blurry. So let's give it to--

"Manchild" by Sabrina Carpenter

That's right! Not only is this the real only major release by an established pop artist (as much as you can call Sabrina Carpenter "established"), but it's a worthy follow up to "Expresso" which would have made great strides last year if not for the "Not Like Us" juggernaut. It's summer-y, buzzy, poppy fun, with just a bit of girl power, but also a music video that's super Americana but also surreal and bonkers. And I know, A$AP Rocky did this last year, I literally named that video the best of the year. You can't pull that crap, Sabrina. But it also shows just how funny she is. You know, outside of her Christmas special.

Top 2020s Movies - this July!

I was thinking that the 2020s so far have been awful for movies. And that's largely true, I think we're totally beyond the era of a big widespread movie earning film of the decade honors. But I looked back a bit on what might be my favorites of the decade so far. I don't want to get into any specifics or anything here, just a list of 12 pretty good movies that can stand up to a lot from any decade. I have one thing on my mind for to categorize these:

They are all just, absolutely brutal. Like, everyone one of these is a trip. They don't end well, except maybe Barry Keoghan in Saltburn (2023). But here we go, in approximate, random July 2025 order:

Saltburn (2023)

Prey (2022)

The Holdovers (2023)

TAR (2022)

The Green Knight (2021)

The Northman (2022)

Godzilla Minus One (2024)

Nosferatu (2024)
Oppenheimer (2023)
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

Beau is Afraid (2023)

The Brutalist (2024)

The Brutalist might be heavy recency bias, since I just saw it like two months ago. I am always reevaluating. But Weird will stay on forever!

First Impressions Double Shot! Deadpool & Wolverine / Joker Folie a Deux

We've maybe done a double impression before but this one is special. I'd like to compare these two flicks - Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), which I saw in theaters last July, and Joker 2 (2024), which I saw on MAX a few weeks ago. Both handle fan service in wildly different ways and SPOILER - one was good! You know I'm difficult so gonna say this from the jump, I liked Joker 2 a whole lot better!

Let's rewind. I saw D&W in theaters a year ago (hence this timely post) and I was pretty pumped up. It was a really fun movie, had a lot of great action, enthralling performances, and actually found something to say. I want to go into all that in a bit, but then two things made it fall apart. First, I was pumped when it dropped on Disney+ because I genuinely wanted to ride that ride again but I found it fell totally flat. I think it was really because perhaps more than any movie maybe ever, it was ridiculously reliant on outrageous cameos. Once you know Channing Tatum's Gambit is coming, his actual presence doesn't hold much weight or push the story forward.

There is still a lot I liked about it. Mostly there is an actual thematic resonance there, which is kind of the search for a theme. Deadpool is searching for a reason to matter, which is all kinds of meta when he is trying to find his way in the new Disney / Fox merger that now lets him interact with the Avengers. How can he fit in? Well, that's a really tough puzzle, and just like Adaptation (2002), they just decided to make the movie about that.

This all comes together really well with a not so subtle plot conclusion - the collision of matter and anti-matter. They use Wolverine as a stand-in, since his Logan (2017) was really one of the weightier superhero movies ever, rich with meaning, though, and artistry. Stuff the Deadpool movies generally lack, they're just fun rides (although I really did enjoy Deadpool 2 [2018], I think there's a lot going on there), but they wallow in irreverence, compared to Logan and Wolverine as a character. But it also contrasts with the MCU, which is built upon a lot of big stories that actually matter (okay, fine, they don't, but they do pretend to!).

It made me think of Nathan Fielder's Rehearsal that just wrapped up. Is it possible to create comedy that inspires change? Where is that line? Can you make something silly that is also imbued with enough thematic resonance to actually matter? That is really at the heart of Deadpool & Wolverine. Does it stick the landing? Well, not really, but that final scene is pretty cool. Matter and anti-matter joined together in a climactic sacrifice.

Staying on that point, there were a few things I liked - one, that they didn't show Hugh Jackman's ripped physique until that moment, which seemed like definitely a way to not force him to work out and be shirtless for most of the movie. Again, there's meaning in that joke, though! It works for the theme, giving something goofy the big payoff. I also noted that they kept the mask on him for that, I really wonder if he was CGI...

Also I really hated the mask, a lot of people loved it, I don't think it worked on screen and there was a reason why they kept it off him for 24 years. Whatever, it definitely makes CGI Wolverine a lot easier. But the claws punching the machine was pretty much perfect.

Of course, though, this whole plot makes no sense, like, why was Deadpool rescued by the TVA, only to kill him later as some part of some other plot? It doesn't hold up, none of the TVA stuff really makes sense, you have to squint a lot. The first watch tumbles through on the strength of jokes and excitement. It melts pretty hard on the second watch.

I'll give Hugh Jackman a ton of credit for crafting a pretty different Wolverine than the one in Logan, but still one of the better, richer portrayals. I would have preferred a stronger background for his melancholy, like something out of Old Man Logan where he was tricked into killing the X-Men by Mysterio, but maybe that was too dark? I also noted just how much he said "fuck" in this movie. It's crazy. They really went for it.

Let's get into the rest - I think the whole 'nsync "Bye Bye Bye" gag of cool, violent guy ironically doing stereotypical gay shit is played out beyond played out by now. I feel like Deadpool is ending anyway, which is fine. There's unfortunately not a ton of evolution to be had once you've made that meta commentary. You can't just keep making it, the point is already there. I also found the ending love letter to the Fox-era Marvel movies to be laughable. I literally just ranked these on an unrelated jag and they're all terrible. What are we pining for here? X2: X-Men United (2003)? I mean, that movie's great, but it's not like this nostalgic era. And again, I don't think Deadpool totally earned the right to be sentimental. Deadpool just gets weird when he gets serious.

Okay, so why am I throwing Joker 2 into all this? Well, I really found these to be absolute polar opposite movies. D&W is really built on fan service. You're giving Wolverine the costume and the mask, you have him fight Sabretooth, oooh look it's Pyro! oooh look it's Elektra! oooh look...Gambit... Blake Lively as Ladypool! Like, all this stuff, layer upon layer. Wolverine on the cross, Age of Apocalypse, it's as if it was Leo Pointing at the Screen the Movie. Again, first time around, it largely works out of audacity, and there is some nice throughlines tying it together.

Actually, sidebar, I found it extremely ironic that at some point the plot was just that of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), where they completely remove a notably smaller grounded story and put it in a weird alternate world where they spend most of the run time. That's totally just what this movie did. Amazing what cameos can do you for you.

Joker 2 does none of this. Like, blatantly none of this. It's mind-blowing. I approached this with a certain disdain for the first Joker (2019). I really think Todd Philips can write and shoot a movie. The Hangover: Part II (2009) is an absolute gorgeous looking film that everyone ignores because it's The Hangover: Part II. Rich film stock, depth of field, high contrast, lights, shadows, a green yellow haze over the film that matches setting to theme and feeling that lifts when they reach their goal. It's really good. So I approached it with curious optimism, but found a disjointed film that wanted to be King of Comedy (1982) but couldn't be and whose plot beats didn't quite add up, and whose intent appeared ugly and was also taken out of context by pretty much everyone.

Joker 2 made me understand Joker, though. Because I finally got it - I don't think Todd Philips gave a rat's ass about making a Joker movie or a comedy movie. He wanted to make a weird introspective gritty 80s movie. But he couldn't, so he did it through DC and made a billion dollars. Then for some reason they let him do whatever he wanted, so he made an even more introspective film about choosing your identity, social pressures, and accidental inspiration, which happens constantly in this.

I am a firm believe that so many more people would have enjoyed this film if they didn't tie it to the Joker. Like, if it was just about a dude named Arthur Fleck, I think most people would be perfectly fine. But since it has to be an intellectual property, which is how these kinds of films are ever going to get made, people put their own expectations on to what should happen. However, I felt less like my expectations were being poured into this than I did for Deadpool & Wolverine! I literally just gave you a slight rewrite a few paragraphs ago. I was just along for this ride.

The first line in the Wikipedia entry under "Themes and Analysis" says "Critics noted that the film was a work of metafiction designed to intentionally antagonize audiences who were fans of the first film." I disagree, I think intentional antagonization is a strong word. I think that's a reaction you have when you are so put back that you must assume it's intentional. It made a lot of sense to me watching it. Joker only works as the Joker when he is remorseless for his crimes. Joker 2 makes him not the Joker by giving him some humanity. He's a beta male who is tempted with alpha male-ness but then realizes what kind of monster that's making him and then owns up to his mistakes and experiences real growth as a human being. It's an astounding high wire act to pull off. GaGa is there totally wanting him to be Joker and he just refuses because that is all she wants from him. It's stunning.

Could you read GaGa as an audience surrogate, or his fans as audience surrogates? Sure, I guess. But I don't think it's extremely telegraphed that way. It feels more part of the story and authentic then a cheap ploy like that, like it's just a gut reaction. And what would that motivation be? To prank a billion dollars worth of fans of the first film?

I will admit, it's hard to see why Philips went in this direction. It seems like a direction that no one really liked, except maybe GaGa and Joaquin Phoenix. And me. It does feel a bit like a really expensive prank, but if so, I don't know why Philips wouldn't have owned it (like Fleck!) and instead supposedly spent opening weekend on his isolated ranch with the phone unplugged. It's confounding. Like, it was so brave to make this movie the way he did, and then he kind of slunk away in shame.

I can't think of a better commentary on our current culture. Deadpool & Wolverine went for cheap (well, probably not so cheap) cameos, hauling out 90-year old Hugh Jackman, and made fan service the movie and made all the money in the world. I'm not going to totally knock it, but it seems to me like it will struggle to have staying power. Joker Folie A Deux could have done that. They could have gone for big hammers and hyenas, and Batman, and whatever else. Instead, they just bucked fan service at every turn and made Joker into an actual human being and was one of the biggest flops of all time. Yay.

At the end, it does appear as if Fleck inspires the actual, possible Heath Ledger-esque Joker and that's a fun out. But I could live without it. I just keep thinking about how good this thing looks. And why the hell anyone would ever sit through a 2 hr and 18 minute courtroom drama about maybe one of the biggest character misrepresentations since Taskmaster. Why didn't it piss me off, though? Maybe because the Joker is an awful character. I mean, literally, like an awful person, maybe one of the worst people in fiction (but American, dammit!), so if you're going to make him your protagonist, you need to do something interesting with him? Or make him sympathetic in some way? I think it might be as simple as it's just well-constructed, well-shot, and well-acted movie, and those three big things are going to win me over every time.

So, listen, you probably read all the non-sense and wrote off Joker 2, I suggest you go see it. It's the least fan service movie of all time, and I really think that's more in service of crafting a good narrative rather than purposeful antagonization, which is supposedly what we all want. If you're fed up with recycled garbage (Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom! Superman again! Jurassic World: Afterbirth!), maybe check this thing out, I thought it was cool, and bold, and if it truly was just a massive career ending Todd Philips studio prank, well, I'm down for that, too.

The Quickest Note on Rankings!

Hello America and the World! We almost never do quick little update posts like this but I wanted to get ahead of some controversy. We keep extremely up to date Rankings of various clusters of movies, if you haven't checked it out, go for it!

But we have some curveballs, mostly with the new Superman (2025) movie that just came out. I thought really hard about whether I wanted to start a new DCU category in addition to our DCEU that has Aquaman and SHAZAM, and all that. That wouldn't quite be fair, because then I should slot like, Nic Cage's Ghost Rider (2007) in with Marvel, right?

Ultimately I decided to create a DCEU / DCU category. It is useful to compare current efforts with previous efforts (which is ultimately the larger point), and it also keeps things much less befuddled. I have previously had broad categories like Batman, which involves Burton, Schumacher, Nolan, and Reeves films and Spider-Man, which involves Raimi, Webb, and Spider-verse films, so I think I'm in safe territory.

So the big question now is, do I throw in those early 2000s SONY efforts into the MCU category? I don't think so, mostly because they just feel so different and aren't really connected in a major way. Nor do I really have a desire to throw in standalone efforts like Green Lantern (2011) or Jonah Hex (2010) in the DC category. These things just seem like one-off attempts that aren't fair to mix in. BUT maybe they do deserve their own category. Not Green Lantern. It's bad, let's leave it at that.

I'm also keeping all the Kanye albums. There are just a few artists where I've legitimately listened to all of their work, and that's basically Beatles, Zeppelin, and Kanye. I know he is currently controversial, and he largely wasn't when I was a big fan. Well, okay, he was controversial but just because he's an asshole, not a Nazi. I don't want to erase that history but I do want to acknowledge that people change, tastes change, but I don't think we get to pretend that I haven't listened to every Kanye album. In many ways I'M the real victim! Really though, I just want you to know that I know there are some problems there.

First Impressions: Thunderbolts*

I really had no desire to see this for a long time. All of recent Marcel output has kind of broken me. But then it got decent reviews, I still like the concept (which, don't get me wrong, is just Suicide Squad), and I do want to feel something again. Anything!

It turned out...that this thing is actually pretty good. One of the better Marvel movies...period. It is remarkably tight, balances a bunch of characters old and new, and has some legit enthralling action. Spoilers who cares, let's dive in.

I don't really know how this came about, we do have a lot of cast offs from various properties hanging around at this point. It's the tough thing, as a medium, comics are so disposable, you can have a one-off with the Leader or Yelena Belova and leave it at that. Lining up film production is such a bigger deal.

This movie feels like a melding of Black Widow and Captain America worlds, and those are pretty melded from Winter Soldier (2014). You've got Yelena, Red Guardian, and Taskmaster from Black Widow (2019) mixing it up with US Agent and Bucky from Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Throw in Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and we're all happy.

Oh, and Sentry of course. I was impressed with how accurate and organic they presented Sentry's origin and Lewis Pullman deftly played in between dope, God, and Devil. I read a lot of Dark Avengers and Siege storylines back in the day. This team definitely slides more akin to Dark Avengers with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss pretty much taking the Norman Osborn role, but it all works.

Let's get the rest out of the way. Taskmaster, already perhaps the most altered and wasted MCU character gets Slipknot'd here pretty much immediately. It's a bizarre game of poster and trailer editing from here. I get it. The character doesn't have too much to do, everyone hates her, why not just kill her quick.

Bucky is also weird. He brings a weariness here as the closest anyone on this team is to a real avenger but he's not the leader, definitely shouldn't be a senator, and is pretty far from the unstoppable badass he was 11 years ago. Just kind of a puppy now.

Red Guardian is David Harbour going nuts, I mean, this is the man who brought us Victor Frankenstein's Frankenstein after all. He largely hits the mark and the laughs aren't so much the "That just happened!" bullshit from Marvel, Star Wars, and SNL lately.

I do like how him, John Walker, and Taskmaster all have shields and basically everyone except Yelena have some variety of Super Soldier serum.

Ghost is...here. She's a super useful team member and the only one with real out there super powers. It'd be nice if she had any real character lifting work to do but we can't have room for everyone.

Wyatt Russell plays a really great asshole and there is enough depth here to make a somewhat well rounded character.

But the star is really Florence Pugh, who is not only effortlessly embodying this character, but somehow proving her late stage MCU value, being a WAY more interesting Black Widow than Scar Jo ever was, and being a really true Eastern European. I feel like I know girls like her, how she talks, how she reacts, is all spot on.

This film is all about trauma, and that's kind if something the MCU has needed for like six years. There us A LOT of collective trauma in this Universe that everyone ignores or plays with sarcastic disdain like Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). It took a really great screenwriter to realize this was the common bond between all these wretches, and then pull it off.

This is most centered around the Void, who is really just an unstoppable nightmare. I remember in Siege, Loki had to employ the Nurn stones just so all the heroes could fight it together and then Thor struck it with the biggest lightning bolt of all time. We really needed to see Sentry ripping Ares in half tho.

There's no way to fight this thing, the only way us to heal. While Brave New World (2025) did this with the elegance of performing surgery with a piece of wet fish, Thunderbolts* does the work and it pays off. Plus they kill a little kid! That might be the boldest move ever in the MCU.

This thing is shot pretty well, I actually struggle to remember a Marvel movie that made NYC look so big and authentic. You always got to remember that Whedon shot the Avengers like a TV show with the flatest lighting imaginable. There is good contrast here, even if it is filled with quite a bit of grays and browns, as is typical.

There is also a nice progression of moments and beats, it focuses in character, and as mostly street level blokes, it has a lot of grounded action instead of big weightless CGI. Basically everything is good and it's astounding.

I couldn't give less than a crap about the Fantastic Four (2025), no matter what the reviews will say. I'm also sincerely doubtful about Doomsday (2026), it seems way too desperate. But I do find myself for the first time in a long time really interested in seeing more of these characters and not the same old played out actors.

Where do they go from here, though? I'm not talking about that excessive Doomsday cast list. Who is still in play? I don't think Doc Strange has used up his welcome. Nor Spider-Man but they gotta figure out what to do with him. I'd like to see more Namor but I think that actor got in trouble? And man, where the hell is the most charismatic dude they got right now, Simu Liu?!

But the iced Wanda, iced Vision, I don't think the Shuri Black Panther works, no one's clamoring for Iron Heart, Kate Bishop maybe, and the Marvels, despite me being a big Teyona Parris fan, were such a dud they might just can the MCU's most powerful character.

Michael Shannon for Beta Ray Bill!

First Impressions: Sinners

 Hello there! It's been a while since I saw anything in the Theaters and I was happy to break that streak with Sinners (2025) which has gotten magnificent reviews and widespread acclaim. I didn't like it that much! I do think my criticisms are totally in line with any of the reviews that have been harsh on it, so I'll try to add to that fire. There were bits that were so rock solid in this as well, though. SPOILERS FOREVER, let's get into it!

The best summation is that this movie has an unreal first half that's grounded, interesting, well-produced, and frankly, amazing, and then a big turn into supernatural nonsense that goes completely off the rails. Let's talk about what works in the first half first and then how it all falls apart.

Longtime collaborator Michael B. Jordan rejoins Ryan Coogler in dual roles here. It's nice that this isn't really a gimmick, it's pretty motivated. Jordan plays both Stack and Smoke, twins from the Mississippi Delta region who went up to Chicago to be gangsters and then came back home to open a Juke Joint. Everything about the character set-ups are really great and the performances are fantastic. Michael B really nails playing two characters, who are separated by red and blue hats, but also in subtle personality differences and mannerisms. Stack is a bit kinder, more empathetic. Smoke is more ruthless. But they both support each other and it feels pretty real. They're also both nuanced characters. Smoke will shoot a thief in the street on principle but also has the more stable and loving relationship. Stack will argue that hardworking sharecroppers should get a break, but he's also going to insult them (Cornbread) until they buy in. It's all really great stuff.

Delroy Lindo has had a resurgence with this and Da 5 Bloods (2020) where he also shined. He's a little bit comic relief but he has an intensity to him as well. Sammie is the guitarist whose soul is on the line (although it never really feels like it, probably because Michael B. Jordan is just too charismatic to be a tempter), Wunmi Mosaku plays a weary exposition dumper but also shades of empathy. The two Asian shopkeepers really have a nuanced relationship that's developed rapidly and they end up being the most stable love story that's really sold. I loved them dancing to the blues, it's a jarring but fitting mix of multi-culturalism. And they actually have a pretty pivotal part to play.

Then there's the white folk. This gets into the second half but the acting and characters are all great. This is B movie material that is elevated because of the commitment to these roles. There's a lot of structural problems here, none that have to do with acting or characters, except the Head Vampire was the one dude whose motivation was muddy as hell, but we'll get into that.

The first half shows this step by step set up of the Juke Joint. The Twins go around town, doing their thing, recruiting everyone they need. It's all motivated, no one is random, nothing really out of place. It's shot with impeccable composition and high contrast. The endless cotton fields of Mississippi have never been seen on film like that. They center around black neighborhoods and gatherings and it feels like a really coherent world. You get bits and pieces of backstory, constantly caught in a middle of a conversation but it's clear enough that you can figure out each characters' relationship. It's equally brilliant and sadistic when Stack gets Slim to play their joint by offering him a cold beer. It speaks to his desperation, alcoholism, Stack's moral gaps, and Slim's background, that a cold beer would be so rare that he'd instantly throw away his regular Saturday night gig. Stuff like that is amazing.

The movie puts all its pieces in place and then gets them all in one room for a huge party. The Juke Joint is great but the first flaw rears its head in that the spacing is difficult to establish. It's hard to know where the entrance is, where those huge barn doors are, where the backrooms are, all of which play a really important part but it's all kind of random. I kept thinking about The Hateful Eight (2015), which plays in a similar enclosed wooden place but has such a crystal clear sense of geography.

I also find it insane that Coogler seems to have trouble lighting black faces at night. There was a scene where Stack is talking to Hailee Steinfeld and he's wearing a hat and you just can't see the work he's doing at all. The white girl is fine. He eventually takes off the hat and you see him better. I couldn't really believe that Coogler would drop the ball on something like that, but all the great contrast and lighting in the first half evaporated in the second half.

Before we start trashing this, let's talk about the obvious best scene, when Sammie starts playing unreal blues that connects to music and ancestors from the past and future. It's a really cool moment (and one that shows good spatial geography!) and you see African drummers, modern funk guitarists, DJs, and you get this really great sense of everything. It's a soulful scene, one that I think people mistake for the whole movie when they call it good.

Immediately after things go off the rails from here. Vampires stop by and start killing people. So, the idea of vampires invading a party and a group led by two gangster brothers holding out until morning is basically From Dusk Till Dawn (1995), except much less zany. Where the movie trips is that all that careful plotting and character set-up and foundation of arcs immediately starts getting rushed. We don't get a ton of pay off for Delroy Lindo, who cuts his wrists to tempt the vampires but he doesn't really take any of them out with him nor does he really buy any of the survivors more time. It's a huge waste. Other important, established characters die really quickly without getting a moment.

I did get FROM vibes, which was cool. They were pretty strict about the vampires being unable to enter houses and they did a good job trying to trick people to come in. But maybe most importantly, I do not understand how the vampires in this film operate at all.

What is their deal here. Wunmi talks about how their souls are caught between life and the only way to free them is through death. But that is wildly inconsistent. We know that when you're turned you start sharing a collective memory. But what does that mean? Is it good to be a vampire? Like, they seem instantly happy but also instantly evil? Or is it even evil to want to turn others? Do they want blood or do they want to increase their brood?

This is going to sound weird, but I started thinking about Neighbors 2 (2016), which I though really fell apart by making the opposing sorority way too sympathetic. They spent so much time justifying every motivation that you didn't know who to root for and then felt bad when the good guys won. Sinners does something similar, but skips the motivation part. Are we supposed to sympathize with the Irish vampire whose culture was also taken away? It's just a hard pill to swallow and reeks of neo-conservative "Irish were oppressed, too!" bullshit, which is true but the Irish are so ingrained in white American culture by now that it's just not a leg anyone can stand on.

The reason why this sticks is because it seemed like the Irish Vampire's big desire was to bite Sammie so that he could co-opt his music to connect with his ancestors. This is just thematically all over the place. Is it a metaphor for white people seeking to dominate black culture and call it their own? That's what it seems on the surface but it also feels like the vampire's desire to connect with his past comes from a place of genuine pain and longing, not pure evil white folk stuff. But also, wasn't that whole dance scene a metaphor?! He didn't actually bring back his ancestors, right?! It seems to confuse all this stuff and just blows apart all the good work they did.

My understanding would be that when you're bitten, you're just a part of the vampire collective. But they explicitly say that killing the head vampire won't bring everyone back. Once you're bit, that's it. Fine, so kill them all to give their souls peace. But they they don't do that! They blatantly refuse and after Stack is bit, Smoke really should have been the one to kill him, although there is zero catharsis there. Stack needed to have some kind of sin, something to atone for, some big issue. They touch on their father and his abusiveness, but Smoke killed him, seemingly without regrets. There's not really an emotional motivation in the film for Stack to become a vampire and then it does not make sense that Smoke would not be able to grow enough to let go of his brother to kill him.

But then the ending entrenches further in two big ways. First, it does seem to ease off the vampires as being the main villains by just having a bunch of white former Klansmen show up and becoming a revenge fantasy for like, two seconds. Again, I kept thinking about the incredible spatial composition of a super similar scene in Rebel Ridge (2024), which is set up with such careful tension. Here it's just time to kill white folks. Again, Tarantino-esque in justified fantasy, but it didn't seem to have anything to do with the story or Smoke's arc. It was just a reason for him to be badass.

The moral of the story seems to be don't trust the white man? Or worse, that all black-businesses are doomed to failure? Shut up and keep sharecropping? They all die because they were tempted by making a bit of money! Or maybe it's that white folk come in and ruin everything with their cultural assimilation. There are some questions there. Would we be better off with a homogeneous and harmonious cultural stew or should we appreciate black businesses and black culture for its own sake and honor those differences? I'm not sure this movie has an answer, and that's not totally a bad thing.

And then there's the mid-credits scene. Little Sammie grows up to be Buddy Guy and has a great blues career and then is visited in 1992 by Stack and Hailee Steinfeld for some reason. First, I found it insane that Steinfeld literally didn't have a line here and is more a trophy in a film that has honestly been pretty great for female characters. This was the big clincher - is it bad to be a vampire or not?! Like, they just never show the horror. Are they even killing people if they're just turning them? They seem to have their memories and personalities intact. So where is the regret? Where is the conflict after being turned? Where is the struggle? Wunmi says "That's not your brother anymore!" to Smoke. ... Is he? Is it all manipulation by the Head Irish Vampire? I kind of feel like it isn't. Maybe killing the head vampire freed them of his memories? I don't know.

All of this is just from packing in two decent ideas into one movie. I think if it was to go this deep into mysticism we needed some kind of foreshadowing of vampires, some kind of set up for emotional catharsis, and some kind of pay off for all the work they did in the first half. I think about the title, who were the Sinners and what was their sin? I don't think I need stuff spelled out but when there's so much conflicting motivation present it makes it really muddled. This movie makes me angry for how good it could have been. It's not like just watching a bad movie. It's like watching the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl. You had it! And then blew it.

I will say again - the acting is amazing, the characters are so rich, the shots and progression in the first half are so good it makes this movie worth watching. 

2025 Oscar - PICK REVIEW

As any reputable publication would put out in a timely fashion, it's about time that we review those Oscar picks! I actually think I did sort of good this year. Here is goes!

Annual Records:

2025: 16/23

2024: 16/23

2023: 11/23

2022: 12/23

2021: 12/23

2020: 13/24 

2019: 13/24 

2018: 16/24 

2017: 13/24 

2016: 14/24 

2015: 13/24 

2014: 20/24 

2013: 14/24 

2012: 16/24 

2011: 14/24 

2010: 12/24 

Best Picture

Prediction: Anora

Winner: Anora

Yay! I so often get Best Picture wrong, especially in tight years. It is really surreal to see Sean Baker win four times this night.

Leading Actor

Prediction: Brody

Winner: Brody

Oof, and let's let him never win again and let that career spiral back into nothingness.

Leading Actress

Prediction: Moore

Winner: Madison

Unreal win here, very surprising, I can't quite wrap my head around it, but oh well, this was an upset for most everyone.

Supporting Actor

Prediction: Culkin

Winner: Culkin

Easy work here.

Supporting Actress

Prediction: Saldana

Winner: Saldana

Again, pretty easy pick here. I'm catching up, this was just for that one funny song, right? That's catchy.

Director

Prediction: Baker

Winner: Baker

He's deserved this for some time but it's still wild to see him with this prize.

Adapted Screenplay

Prediction: Conclave

Winner: Conclave

This was nice to get but really not a ton of competition here.

Original Screenplay

Prediction: A Real Pain

Winner: Anora

Anora just went nuts with four wins for Baker, which I'm not sure anyone would have predicted. Best Picture hardly ever gets the screenplay but yet again movies like Anora don't win all that often.

Animated Feature

Prediction: Flow

Winner: Flow

Unreal to get the Flow! I'm so pumped.

International Feature

Prediction: Emilia Perez

Winner: I'm Still Here

Really surprising considering the Emilia Perez buzz but man, this thing just dropped hard. Everyone was saying I'm Still Here would get it and I resisted the train, thinking Perez could still pull it off. Oh well, I probably should have gotten this one.

Documentary Feature

Prediction: No Other Land

Winner: No Other Land

Crushed it, no problem. Easy peasy.

Cinematography

Prediction: Dune: Part Two

Winner: The Brutalist

I had that as a possible number two pick, I should have gone with it. I really didn't think folks knew the Brutalist that well.

Costume Design

Prediction: Wicked

Winner: Wicked

A lot of this year seemed to be pretty easy to pick. Well, I still got this one!

Production Design

Prediction: Dune

Winner: Wicked

I think...this was stupid.

Film Editing

Prediction: Anora

Winner: Anora

Nailed that one, even if I missed some others, which is rewarding.

Makeup and Hairstyling

Prediction: Substance

Winner: Substance

Really rewarding to see this offbeat, insane film earn an Oscar that absolutely deserves it, too. It's so rare that stuff like this actually happens.

Original Score

Prediction: Brutalist

Winner: The Brutalist

I don't know how I picked this one, folks.

Original Song

Prediction: "El Mal"

Winner: "El Mal"

I don't get Emilia Perez, it plunked on a lot of the categories it had led in, but some just seemed too far and away a guarantee win? The Academy sucks. But I actually like this song, it's fun and engaging and got a good rhythm.

Sound

Prediction: Dune

Winner: Dune

DUNE

Visual Effects

Prediction: Dune

Winner: Dune

When will an Apes movie win? They really need to come out with a year where every bad movie happens. Maybe this year!

Animated Short Film

Prediction: Wander to Wonder

Winner: Cyrpess

Who cares!

Documentary Short Film

Prediction: Orchestra

Winner: Orchestra

Obviously I know what I'm talking about.

Live Action Short Film

Prediction: The Last Ranger

Winner: Robot

It all seems obvious sometimes. I think the Lone Ranger should have won.

Ultimately I think the only category I really should have nailed was International Feature, I don't think I would have changed anything else, some toss ups, but all in all a pretty good showing. Here's to One Battle After Another (2025)!