So, well… that’s 2025. Woohoo? On a global level, I think few would call it one of their favorite trips around the sun—and yet, if you’re reading this, you’re still here, and I say that counts for a lot. In the meantime, too, some pretty remarkable movies debuted on our screens! In deciding which to see, and what I then loved, I’ll admit it: I’m no tastemaker. I like what I like, and that typically involves at least one explosion or zombie per reel. Per usual, too, a lot of critical darlings didn’t grab my attention, so you won’t find Hamnet or Sentimental Value among my annual accolades. Still, visual storytelling means a lot to me, and ten motion pictures in particular this year went down as prospective classics!
(If you like these reviews, I’ve got expanded versions and much, much more on my Letterboxd!)
HONORABLE MENTIONS
i. Havoc
Scumbag cinema. Everybody here sucks and/or is having a bad time, while the script is like a stoic parody of edgy Aughts gangland thrillers, but—as expected from Gareth Evans—my God are these fights glorious. When I envision a melee in one of my own works, this is what it looks like: fast, loud, and tightly choreographed yet plausibly chaotic. Most of this schlock, you can take or leave, but when Tom Hardy shuts his mouth and picks up a weapon, lock in.
ii. The Home
Pete Davidson’s questionable comedy gig choices aside, The Home is—for a good while—just generic horror teeming with scattershot editing and flaccid jump scares. Stick around for that third act, though, and you’ll be treated to a hard left into what rivals Weapons (see below) as the most satisfying climax of 2025 that also involves… well, just see it. Especially if you’re under 35.
10) Hallow Road
A spooky little thriller that plays like a horror version of Locke, as our protagonists embark on a feature-length midnight car ride which grows increasingly ill-advised. A couple of cheesy visual flourishes do cramp an otherwise grounded presentation—looking at you, cyberpunkish text reflections (or rather, you’re looking at me). Nevertheless, this overall made for great pre-Halloween viewing, haunting score and all! Simple yet mysterious, and with an eminently applicable moral: don’t go driving off into the middle of the woods.
9) Bugonia
Everything and everybody kinda sucks. In the new Roaring Twenties (that’s pain you’re hearing, not partying), this is hardly an earth-shattering observation. Still, Greek/freak director Yorgos Lanthimos puts enough of his alarming, absurdist sauce on contemporary malaise to get Bugonia buzzing. Jesse Plemons (forever having a bad time) and Emma Stone, girlboss hostage, facing off is the main draw, but the sound deserves credit as well, in a sparse yet thunderous score which heightens dread amidst its humble setting. From a simple premise—an embittered conspiracy theorist and his autistic-coded cousin kidnap a CEO, believing her an evil alien—comes a stage for both galling violence and self-aware dialogues on how internet poisoning can be as toxic as any pesticide. From where does our own “colony collapse disorder” come? And wouldn’t it be nice if just one person was to blame? Well… be careful what you go looking for.
8) Sisu: Road to Revenge
Grindhouse Looney Tunes, just like I ordered. With double the budget of 2022’s Sisu comes double the thrills: a bigger bad guy (Stephen Lang, Soviet psycho), bigger stakes (with “The Immortal” toting a morose mobile home), and most critically, even gorier yet goofier action beats set along scenic expanses. It’s conventional yet niche (my theater had two screenings and zero attendees outside family), but as a descendant of Finns with a taste for tales of relentless retribution, that’s my favorite flavor of cheese. A silent protagonist, buckets of blood, and minimal regard for the laws of gravity—what more do you require?
7) Bring Her Back
If there’s ever a Mad Maxian gas shortage in Australia, that’ll be because director-bros Danny and Michael Philippou cooked with so much of it. While I liked but didn’t love Talk to Me, Bring Her Back is a sophomore escalation in all the right ways: greater scale, a higher-profile cast, but still a chiller that goes for the heart. Sally Hawkins is a standout like never before, warping her affable screen persona into something far darker and more desperate as a foster mom with designs for her new charges. Nauseating sound design, an alarming score, and ever-tense camerawork are in full force as well. You may predict the plot’s broad strokes, but gore comes swiftly and without mercy, and it’s seeing the lengths to which this villain will go and why that make the picture. Indeed, the recurrent circular imagery couldn’t be clearer: this is a story about cycles of grief, of violence, of life and death. If someone you loved was stolen from you forever… what wouldn’t you do to undo that?
6) Weapons
There’s hooks, and then there’s hooks. With as much as I enjoyed writer/director/Whitest Kid I Knew Zach Cregger’s Barbarian, I was sold as soon as I saw this front-of-the-poster premise. As I should’ve seen coming, though, the follow-through isn’t a grim, linear thriller but rather a comic mystery box, splitting skulls and sides in equal measure. Weapons taps an ensemble cast for a quasi-anthology about an Everytown upended when a classroom’s worth of kids go missing, where modern American fears and foibles—teachers, child-snatchers, digital witch hunts, bad cops, the homeless—come alive in relentless succession. Unlike Ari Aster’s Eddington, though (all I’ll say here on that is: too soon, man), such timely themes and imagery aren’t a cushion but a springboard, launching viewers somewhere between suburban fantasy and a love letter to the greats (Kubrick, Lynch, Raimi, et al.). The closing minutes may abandon physics in favor of applause, but with how twisted both its plot and imagery get, this journey matters so much more than the destination.
5) Frankenstein
Has a man ever spiritually helmed a film as much as Guillermo del Toro has Frankenstein before finally earning the byline? Without doubt, the man’s skills and fixations are on rapturous display: sympathy for the creature (a patchwork yet hunky Jacob Elordi), opulent costumes, grim yet grandiose set design, and formidable genre alums—chief among them, Oscar Isaac as the scenery-chewing Victor (here solidified as an arrogant, controlling creator damaged by an abusive father) and Mia Goth as the macabre bride-to-be who astutely calls him out on his BS. The project accomplishes its own feat of genius by balancing Mary Shelley’s cerebral sci-fi novel with the lurid spectacle of its Universal incarnation: the Monster bodies bystanders with Tromatic zeal, but the truest villain here is the good Doctor, warmonger money in pocket and designs on his brother’s girl while he tries to imitate mommy. I’d hesitate to call this the definitive version, but is it the most lavish, poetic, yet ruthless? I think GdT has that one in the (body)bag.
4) 28 Years Later
Let it be known: this is how you make a belated sequel. It hasn’t actually been that long since director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland’s original collab, but thank goodness they didn’t wait any longer for another crack at a post-apocalyptic U.K. This time, the focus is on island-bound Scots, whose community fractures once a resentful tween resolves to bring his ailing mum to a mainland mad doctor (Ralph Fiennes, in a hell of a pivot from Conclave). Since 28 Days Later, innumerable media took inspiration from its portrait of a city fallen to inhuman hordes, so the tropes here will be familiar to most: agrarian communes, bowhunting, an “alpha” zombie, etc. However, Years delivers not only tension and gross-out moments head and shoulders (and severed spine) above intervening imitators but also artful, iconic sequences like our protagonists fleeing an Infected while seeming to run on water, or pillars of bones which evoke a birch grove. An alternately ethereal and raucous score and rock-solid performances don’t hurt either! Mind only that The Bone Temple could either raise or lower this rating—suffice it to say that Garland must be quite confident in Nia DaCosta’s pending follow-up to end such a shocking, somber picture with what feels like a crunkcore music video.
3) Superman
Good to have you back, Kal-El. The Snyderverse was a bracing diversion, but James Gunn—appointed by DC to save their world in his own right—recaptures the color, optimism, and vulnerability which befit a “Metahuman” powered by sunshine. There’s the irreverence and icky moments for which the writer-director is known, but also his strengths: an exposure-therapy approach to absurd spectacle and a cavalcade of characters as goofy as they are unforgettable. Smartly, this isn’t an origin story, yet for all the expanded-universe ambitions, neither does it require knowledge of prior lore. Classic characters are back and well-cast (I love Nicholas Hoult’s tech-bro take on Lex Luthor), but the new faces are a delight as well, Mr. Terrific in particular (or maybe I’m just biased towards a badass nerd who puts a “T” on everything). Superman’25 might turn off folks who wanted a more focused, reverent take on the Man of Steel, but I didn’t mind. When it’s time to be serious or scary, Gunn clicks the safety off, and yet an acceptance that we’re here to have fun is ever-present. It was only a matter of time until we got a Superman younger than me, but I feel no less inspired for it—goodness is the power we need, now more than ever.
2) Sinners
God bless that sweet spot where a talented director returns with a fatter check to “one for me” after clocking out of the franchise factory. With a pair of Jordans in tow (the irresistibly named “Smokestack” twins), Ryan Coogler mixes Southern Gothic, gangster drama, erotica, and Hammer horror into a slick, exciting “one crazy night” flick about the perils of assimilation personified by (stay with me here) song ‘n dance vampires. On the surface, we’ve got From Dusk Til Dawn inverted—with a cadre of ‘30s outcasts whose rollicking evening at a new “juke” is upset by the arrival of entitled bloodsuckers—but composer Ludwig Göransson puts music front and center as a force of nature to be reckoned with. It’s been a minute since the blues sounded this powerful on-screen! The theme is exemplified nowhere better than a literally timeless midpoint party, where Coogler’s camera tracks tribal dancers and modern rappers cavorting amid period-appropriate revelers. Rest assured, too, the closet Klansmen who haunt the first act get their comeuppance…
1) One Battle After Another
After years of period pieces that I either sat out or more respected than championed, P.T. Anderson came around the bend and fired a late lock for Best of 2025 right at me. I didn’t know the guy had a contemporary thriller in him, but with Leo in the lead and an electrifying supporting cast—chiefly, Sean Penn as a white-power cop and rebel girl Chase Infiniti—the hours fly by alongside bullets and cars. Casting his camera upon generations of freedom fighters, Anderson presents action with a haste and energy that industry veterans could learn from, while still leaving room for nuanced character development and expansive cinematography, all set against Johnny Greenwood’s jittery score (plus some classic pop drops). There’s plenty of oddball touches and humor, but the burning core of the film is a sincere, timely, yet timeless paean to progress. True life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means a forever war against those who would subjugate us—but the fight can’t survive without friends and family looking out for each other. Even if one of them is a little too baked to remember the right code words.
Time to call “cut” on 2024! I could do without a sequel for this one, but as somebody once said, life’s like a schlocky movie–even if you wouldn’t watch it again, no sense walking out in the middle. And as far as films themselves go, I saw plenty this year that gave me a fine occasion to kick back, lock in, and enter a world more dramatic, ecstatic, or kick-ass than the daily grind (plus, can’t beat theater popcorn butter!). I didn’t manage to catch some folks’ favorite pictures, like Anora or A Different Man, but among those I did, these are…. my Top Ten Films of 2024.
#10) The Beekeeper
How long can one man look the same and play the same character? Every action star must confront the question, but for my ticket stub, Jason Statham is so far so good. Which brings us to The Beekeeper, written by Kurt “we have The Wachowskis at home” Wimmer and directed by David “Suicide Squad could’ve been great bro” Ayer, a thinly sketched yet enthralling honey of a B-movie. True, the lore of our titular badass isn’t confusing so much as unfinished, presupposing audience familiarity with “secret assassin underworld” franchises like John Wick in lieu of actually developing its premise. However, with his trademark sneer and pugilist’s build, Statham shoots, slices, and immolates his way through a cadre of Saturday morning cartoon-tier villains in fight scenes that left me buzzing with excitement. Phone scammers, crypto bros, PMCs—make up a guy to get mad at, and “Adam Clay” is here to put them down. The brawls are good, but the sets are no slouch either, from neon-drenched call centers to yellow and/or grid-like environs which slyly symbolize the societal “hive” our hero seeks to protect. There’s plenty of memorable nemeses too, both colorful (a colleague with a minigun; a merc with a prosthetic leg) and subdued (Josh Hutcherson as a twisted tech mogul; the Jeremy Irons). Wimmer’s script has a lot of glib “wait, what’d they just say?” dialogue, but it balances comedy and violence well, while still raising genuine awareness of elder abuse and cybercrime. Who knows if this’ll get a sequel, but if it does, I’ll bee there!
#9) Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
For a while there, it felt like Tim Burton forgot how to direct a clever, colorful horror-comedy, but he’s got the juice again. As legacyquels go, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice checks all the boxes: a prior protagonist’s descendant in a similar pickle, copious lampshading for absent major characters, and elevating its predecessor’s events to the realm of myth. Fortunately, all the players are game: Jenna Ortega is at her most adorkable, Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz remains a goth girl crush for the ages, with Catherine O’Hara as her mother still a blowhard artiste, and Willem Dafoe makes his long-overdue Burton debut as an undead cop. And at the risk of saying his name too frequently, Michael Keaton doesn’t disappoint: the actor may be over 70, but he disappears back into the title role with horny, gruesome, one-liner-addicted aplomb. The plot’s a bit hit-and-miss, if not in service of the anarchic mood then at least as an apparent result of overcooking this script for the last three decades. Monica Belluci, Franken-babe though she may be, gets little to do, while Oretega juggles subplots with both a charming boy and the loss of her father, neither of which resolve with much fanfare. Fortunately, there’s more great comedy—and music!—to pick up the slack, from a cover of “MacArthur Park” to a “Soul Train” which dives headlong into the obvious pun. Makeup and production design throughout are wonderful; I delighted especially in mixed-media flashbacks like a claymation plane crash and a black-and-white Italian interlude, as well as the darkly funny image of a house covered in a mourning shroud. Yeah, the logic of the afterlife makes no sense, but why should it? Being along for the ride was still a spooky good time.
#8) Monkey Man
Action flicks were in fine form indeed this year, but unlike The Beekeeper, it didn’t take a veteran heavy to carry ‘em all. Case in point: Monkey Man, a brutal yet pensive, politically charged thriller starring former Slumdog Millionaire/Chappie sidekick Dev Patel. In presenting a downtrodden man who shoots, stabs, and car-chases his way through the criminals that’ve wronged him, the clearest point of comparison for Patel’s directorial debut is again John Wick—yet in all the best ways, this vengeful simian couldn’t be further from Keanu’s iconic hitter. Our hero doesn’t have street cred, gold coins, or even more than one gun—he’s an orphan from the slums, living a dual life as a bare-knuckle brawler and a waiter at an “elite” club. He’s a man on a mission, yet in making that mission not just vengeance but also justice for groups marginalized by right-wingers, Monkey Man steps out of its bloodbath with a moral resonance greater than its contemporaries. Most fights feel a little cramped, but there’s still enough head-spinning camerawork and choreography to make each appropriately frantic. It all builds to a climax among 2024’s best, where Patel literally lights up goons with fireworks before going to town with a dinner knife. An exciting score and soundtrack top it all off, from bumpin’ rap beats to a humble drummer who sets the pace during a training montage. It’s not perfect—tragic-backstory flashbacks get a touch samey, for one—but Patel still made a picture which both honors and confronts Indian culture while leaving room for red-blooded martial arts mayhem. Whether he doubles down on his badass potential or sticks with dramas, I can’t wait to see what Dev-elopments are next.
#7) Bad Boys: Ride or Die
Between COVID burning their threequel’s box office and Will Smith’s post-Slap spiral, I was worried we might never see Miami’s finest again. Much to my delight, however, this year brought us Bad Boys: Ride or Die, an irresponsible, silly, yet relentlessly thrilling buddy-action flick! Mononymous duo Adil & Bilall return for another commendable homage to Aughts Michael Bay: fast cars, neon colors, beautiful women, and absurd beatdowns, just the way I like it. High-contrast Florida remains a dazzling stage, which the directors pepper with kinetic flourishes like drone shots, POV shootouts, and—surprisingly—a couple fantasy sequences. From its tropical sets to stars old enough to be my dad kicking extrajudicial ass in the name of family, and even a BBQ outro, one could write this off as Fast & Furious Lite—but Vin Diesel wishes he had half the charm Smith’s still rocking, while an R rating lets shootouts and dialogue get that much more audacious. Some of the junior “AMMO” squad is still here, but no matter, for I rejoiced at moments like a prison transport crash evocative of Uncharted and the stepson ascending from meek punchline to stone-cold killer when his home is set upon by goons. The only major flaw is, unfortunately, a load-bearing one carried over from its predecessor: the dude playing Mike’s son is a vacuous walking plot device. Look past that, the tired callbacks, and the enthusiastic copaganda, though, and you’ve still got an energetic, hilarious, and skillful return to form for the Bad Boys!
#6) Dune: Part Two
2021’s Dune ensnared the senses with director Denis Villeneuve’s new take on the oft-maladapted sci-fi novel, the first of a quiet duology. With such a strong introduction, then, perhaps it was inevitable for the follow-up to feel like a downgrade. Aside from a few cutaways to greener environs and a monochrome gladiatorial match—the standout sequence—this film is brought to you by the colors brown and gray, and I found myself intermittently confused about who was where, why, how, and for how long. Meanwhile, Hans Zimmer’s score is more often loud than memorable, while dialogue oscillates between portentous muttering and melodramatic hollering. That said, I came to Dune: Part II for that which made its predecessor, and on which it delivered in spades: spectacle. Costume and set design continue to run circles around every other major franchise, the CGI is believable and engrossing, action sequences are captivating, and we’ve got another batch of sexy weirdos with all kinds of drama: Léa Seydoux as a Bene Gesserit talent scout, Florence Pugh as a fretful royal, and Austin Butler as the baldest lunatic yet. Meanwhile, I don’t think it’s even a question that Christopher Walken got cast because of the “Weapon of Choice” video, but dang is it good to see the man back in a blockbuster as… well, the Emperor of the Universe! Yeah, when Timothée Chalamet starts putting the moves on Zendaya and yelling about ruling the planet, it doesn’t do anti-colonial critiques of the story any favors—especially with yet another cliffhanger ending. But whether it’s freedom fighters blowing up Harkonnen tech, Paul riding a sandworm for the first time, or just eye contact with Rebecca Ferguson in general, I lost track of how many times I had to fight back the urge to pump my fist in the air like a concertgoer. It’s kinda repetitive, it’s confusing, it’s three hours long, and one of the characters is a psychic fetus… but hey, when I go to see a picture shot in IMAX, it’s not for the safe and simple.
#5) Love Lies Bleeding
Love Lies Bleeding is a dark, delirious, and outrageously sapphic crime thriller. In pivoting from slow-burn scares to turn-of-the-90s New Mexico, Rose Glass branches out from her prior effort Saint Maud, and yet the director’s style remains omnipresent, from bursts of gnarly gore to a climax which glides on the razor’s edge between magical realism and dream sequence. The cast, while small, looms large—literally, in the case of Katy O’Brian as “Jackie,” a bisexual bodybuilder with few qualms about either ‘roids or premeditated murder. Meanwhile, Kristen Stewart plays another horny little dweeb to perfection, Dave Franco is gone not a moment too soon as an abusive husband, and Ed Harris delivers another great villain performance as a mob boss with a thing for big bugs. The score is my choice mix of period-appropriate licensed tracks and an unsettling score (the talented Clint Mansell), while sound design is replete with all manner of pops and squelches for physical acts both brutal and intimate. Sets are varied and immersive, with a borderline bottomless pit in the desert being the standout, all the more so when rendered in blood-red flashbacks. Like many films under the A24 shingle, Love Lies Bleeding is a heady mix of horror, eroticism, abrupt violence, and odd fantasy—admittedly, it sometimes feels like Glass is working backwards towards those bullet points at the expense of coherence or pacing. However familiar its broad strokes may be, though, this is the kind of sleek, provocative, adults-only mid-budget picture that I’m elated to see regain prominence in theaters!
#4) The Substance
From Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to Freaky Friday, there’s a long tradition of tales where an aspirational body-swap goes bad. The latest to take a crack at it is writer-director Coralie Fargeat with The Substance, a grisly yet glitzy Hollywood horror story and the rare feminist fable that delights in buckets of gross-out practical effects! Dreams and dreamlike imagery sew long shots of Kubrickian corridors to hyperactive edits across a radiant L.A. which highlight the growing divide between our dual protagonists: Demi Moore as faded starlet “Elisabeth Sparkle” and a rarely clothed Margaret Qualley as the sensuous “Sue” birthed from her spine. When the rules of the titular injection are established early on, it’s easy to predict the tragedy to come, but one can’t be prepared for just how absurdly and grotesquely it plays out. I’m torn on the script, to that end; a lot of names are generic enough to feel like placeholders (a talk show called “The Show”), supporting performances are downright cartoonish (Dennis Quaid as a studio head/avatar of toxic masculinity), and Fargeat situates viewers in a world that’d seem to be present day yet a sexy fitness TV show is somehow a ticket to the A-List. Dated in spots or not, though, The Substance is overwhelmingly fresh: energetic, vicious, and righteously angry. It’s the progressive mashup of Resident Evil and The Nutty Professor that I never knew I needed!
#3) Dìdi
If I don’t have as much to say about writer-director-producer Sean Wang’s Dìdi despite its height on this list, maybe it’s just because I feel like I already lived it myself—the highs, the lows, and everything in-between. Late-Aughts coming-of-age pieces are finally here, and so am I for it! I may not have grown up in California or an Asian-American household, but while those elements are certainly core to the story of Dìdi, so too are the idiosyncrasies of being a teenage boy in 2008: causal homophobia among friends, skater culture, a whole Warped Tour’s worth of needle drops, and finding out the girl you’ve been DM’ing with isn’t all you hoped. The drama is grounded—conventional, even, but no less impactful for it—and like Everything Everywhere All at Once, deals in themes of intergenerational strife, regret, and the occasional comically surreal interlude, while still ending on a note of wistful hope. Props for Motion City Soundtrack dusting themselves off for that new single, too!
#2) Civil War
Alex Garland’s work has always compelled me, even if I don’t necessary “get” it:Men was more like Meh, but scenes in the eldritch Annihilation haunt me to date, while Devs is a crazy-underrated series in conversation with his Ex Machina about how far is too far when it comes to technological leaps. Civil War is the director’s masterstroke: a harrowing dystopian vision that’s not quite fantasy, not technically alternate history, and not even really a war picture, yet packed with all of the rich worldbuilding, biting commentary, and indelible imagery that make great speculative fiction. Following a troupe of photojournalists in near-future America as they journey from NYC to DC to interview a dictatorial President, the writer-director keeps one foot firmly in his horror roots with scenes that are, to put it bluntly, really fucked up: a man torturing an old classmate in a carwash; bodies hanging from an overpass next to “GO STEELERS” graffiti; snipers firing at someone they can’t see or hear until no one’s firing back. It’s all as subtle as a bullet to the head, but the film isn’t about Left versus Right, as it’s never made concrete why this war started and who’s even fighting for what. One could call it playing coy to not alienate audiences, but it’s all in keeping with the premise: our protagonists don’t care—can’t care, lest they lose their jobs and their minds—so neither shall the audience. Whether it’s a rifle or a camera, Kirsten Dunst as a weathered photographer or Jesse Plemons as a bone-chillingly inquisitive white nationalist, all anyone can do is point and shoot. Another film might focus on a civilian or soldier, drop a voiceover about the titular conflict, but Garland goes instead for a road trip of haunting vignettes set across a bombed-out East Coast. The cinematography, editing, and command of tension are stellar, presenting both chaotic shootouts and abandoned outdoor spaces complemented by sound design which careens between dead silence, ear-splitting gunfire, and atonal pop songs. Only time (or at least the next four years) will tell how well Civil War ages, but here in 2024, its portrait of a divided nation rang out like a gunshot.
#1) I Saw the TV Glow
I don’t think anybody is what they want to be. Dissatisfaction is human, consciousness cursing us with the phantom pain of what could be or have been—and from it, a drive to either keep fighting or, if we’ve no one in our corner, collapse in agony. For some, however, that sense of being trapped is more literal. It’s in this limbo that I Saw the TV Glow sets its stage, and in so doing, writer-director Jane Schoenbrun presents the rare film which is horrifying and hopeful at the same time. It’s a story about stories, but not in a metafictional or self-satisfied way like many scripts; rather, it’s about the power of media to allow oneself to embrace their true identity. The queer subtext is unmistakable, but Schoenbrun speaks to anyone of their generation—Millennials and the otherwise VHS-adjacent—who’s ever wanted to be somewhere else, whether that’s another body or just another town. Scenes alternate between solemn dialogue and hypnogogic terror, while the soundtrack runs a flawless gamut of alt-rock and eerie ambiance, plus a heart-rending title theme. From fourth-wall breaks to interludes in a totally 90s supernatural TV show, The Pink Opaque, Justice Smith captivates as a teen struggling with a dysfunctional family (including Fred Durst, presaging his appearance in the far weaker Y2K) and social anxiety who stumbles into a tumultuous friendship with Brigette Lundy-Paine (whose climatic monologue should, in a just world, net an Oscar). It’s tempting to wonder if The Pink Opaque conspiracies which Lundy-Paine’s troubled fangirl spins are real, but as a bubble-bursting final act concedes, the feelings such media can stir matter more than any lore-ready singular “truth.” If things don’t make sense, if there’s no satisfying ending, if you go to bed full of regret and fear… just get up in the morning and keep searching. It’s okay. There’s still time.
Just in time for Oscar season (so, late), it’s my takes of my top favorite films of 2023! This time, for want of a red carpet or recent, decent occasion for cosplay, I decided to engage in some entry-specific costumery… tune in and see! What were your favorite films of the year?
Happy New Year, all! It’s time for my annual media lists, now in video form! Sticking with films and games this year – simple rundowns below, but check out my channel for more in-depth analyses, and be sure to like and subscribe if you want to see more!
Time may be an illusion, but when it comes to the end of December, listicles are a cold, hard fact. In keeping with my annual diet of movies, music, videogames, and– a tad shamefully–not that many books or TV shows, here’s my Top Stuff in each medium that (typically) released within the last 365 days. I always say “Top Stuff” because I’m sure there’s even better ones I haven’t seen/played/whatever, and I’d never dare presume that my personal interests represent some objective, or even subjective, metric by which you should judge your own preferences. This is just some art I thought was cool as I kept on truckin’ in 2021–and if you did too, then that’s cool too!
FILMS
5. Nobody
When pop culture historians look back on the late 2010s, John Wick will stand as a lodestar for cinema. Vengeful popcorn flicks had existed before, of course, but the tip of the still-flourishing Keanussance brought a vibrancy—a commitment to coherent and well-choreographed, not just violent, action—that the genre largely lacked post-Matrix. The stage set, Wick’s director David Leitch then teamed up with the brains behind the hyperactive first-person shooter movie Hardcore Henry for a film with a similar story, yet founded on a critically different question: what if the guy kinda looked like a weenie? That’s no disrespect on Bob Odenkirk’s name, though, for while the actor is old enough to be my father, he plays both sides of the coin with aplomb: a meek pencil-pusher one moment, and a long-dormant hitter putting the heads of Russian thugs through walls the next. Owing, I suspect, to it being a common cramped location, there’s a lot of scuffles on public transportation in action movies—even 2021 gave us another in Shang-Chi—but the bus brawl here ranks among the best, most deliciously brutal fight scenes in recent history. And the R-rated Home Alone climax, complete with Doc Brown packing heat? An all-timer. Fingers crossed that Odenkirk’s health scare earlier this year doesn’t keep him from safely stepping back in for a sequel—I pity the next crook who absconds with that kitty-cat bracelet!
4. Dune
2021’s Dune excels because of what it is, but also what it isn’t—the shadow of David Lynch’s Dune (1984) looms large over any subsequent adaptations, if not on its merits then as a reminder of the perils of trying to cram all of Frank Herbert’s bizarre, politically charged novel into one film. Thankfully, then, director Denis Villeneuve didn’t try; as coy as the marketing may have played things, this is “Part One,” and the third act unquestionably sags because of it. By that same token, though, the sights and sounds of this world are given room to stretch out—and what a blessing, because both are utterly captivating. The sets, costumes, and effects work are detailed and convincing, and Hans Zimmer’s score—while as blaring and dialogue-unfriendly as ever—aptly channels the formidable scope of these alien planets and their rulers’ ambitions. Inevitably, there’s exposition dumps, but the dialogue scarcely feels forced, and I rarely got lost in the world-building or globetrotting. And, of course, dat cast: from Timothée Chalamet to Jason Momoa to Rebecca Ferguson, there’s smokeshows here for every age and gender! Zendaya stans were understandably irked by her borderline cameo, but given that 2une got greenlit in the middle of opening weekend, I’m confident Villeneuve and company will do the continuing story of the Fremen justice. After all, the Spice must flow!
3. F9: The Fast Saga
Fast & Furious is a superhero franchise. Once I became aware of that, consciously or not, I stopped seeing the movies as meathead-meets-gearhead Michael Bay runoff and started… well, seeing them, period. Part soap opera, part Mission: Impossible, and part Talladega Nights, the Fast series has morphed over my lifetime into a ridiculous yet unironically entertaining staple of the megaplex, and nowhere more so than this, its ninth mainline installment. The absurdities pile higher than ever: Vin Diesel and John Cena play blood brothers, a character we saw die in a fiery crash inexplicably teleports to a building across the street, and falling upwards of three stories is apparently fine so long as you land on something with a steering wheel. But in turn, we get cars swinging on ropes, cars getting flipped by supermagnets, cars going to mf’ing outer space—just utter nonsense I would’ve come up with while racing Hot Wheels around my bedroom floor as a child, but starring Helen Mirren and costing more than the GDP of some nations to produce. What it all comes down to, though, is really straightforward: family. And you know what? I’ll be there with my own for Fast 10 on opening night.
2. Malignant
When questioned on my seemingly inconsistent taste in media, whether by myself or others, I’ve come to answer with a blunt philosophy: I like stupid shit, so long as it’s also awesome. Few men in Hollywood have their finger on that pulse like James Wan, who—after more or less inventing an entire subgenre with Saw and proving his action chops in Furious 7 and Aquaman—returned home in 2021 for the world’s first neo-giallo body horror martial arts slasher. That description, in itself, is arguably a spoiler, but believe me when I say that nothing can still prepare you for what goes down in the final minutes of this thing. Suffice it to say that, after an hour or two of getting immersed in the moody lighting, cheesy dialogue, visceral kills, and a wicked Pixies cover, I went from clutching my armrest to internally hooting and hollering like a WrestleMania spectator. When everyone loves or loathes a movie, it’s unifying but stultifying—because what’s even left to discuss? But when, as with Malignant, reviews were split between “that was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen” and “GOAT,” I know now—as I did the moment I left my screening— that it’s a picture I’ll be talking and thinking about for years to come… always there, in the back of my mind.
The Green Knight
What makes a myth, a story that can endure for generations? For my money, on the silver screen, it’s spectacle: the clang of swords, the spark of a flame, the sight of someone or something massive looming in the distance, and a hero in the foreground who’s willing and able to brave it all to accomplish their quest. Modern blockbusters deliver such thrills in spades, but lest we forget: in a sense, Arthurian legends walked so that everyone from Tarzan to Iron Man could run, swing, and fly. Drawing from an epic poem older than my own country by centuries, The Green Knight may take some liberties to entertain a contemporary audience, yet at its core is a haunting, slow-boil tragedy far from any of the family-friendly Disney adventures that clog theaters. Our protagonist’s fate is sealed in the first act, and for all intents and purposes, his is a pilgrimage to doom. En route, the cavalcade of characters he encounters keep the proceedings varied, as does director David Lowery’s arresting eye for color and creeping dread, from the yellow of Sir Gawain’s cloak to the orange fog which suffuses the air as a vulpine companion suddenly reveals it can speak. There’s magic, bloodshed, sex, ghosts, and giants. It’s sad, frightening, monumental, and it has not one but two Alicia Vikanders. Dev Patel has a beard. What more can you ask for in an epic tale?
VIDEOGAMES
5. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
Would they learn their lesson?This was the question looming over Marvel videogames—at least, those published by Square-Enix—after the glitchy, glorified gacha machine that was Marvel’s Avengers proved the second-biggest gaming letdown of 2020 (Cyberpunk 2077 takes the heavy crown, of course). I was pleased to learn, however, that they had, and the once-omnipresent curse of The Superhero Videogame returned to its slumber once more. I haven’t beaten it yet, so it’s low on the list as a matter of principle, but Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy earns top marks across the board: the graphics look great and the design of its alien worlds is wildly creative; the combat is satisfyingly chaotic yet intuitive (though my PS4, in its autumn years, sometimes struggles to keep up); and the soundtrack is chock full of 80s bangers—God only knows what these licensing rights cost, but it was worth every flarkin’ penny. The titular ensemble is wonderfully written and acted, too—the MCU casting leaves big shoes to fill, but the amount of funny, context-specific dialogue is remarkable. There’s some jank, sure (I’ve had to reload a save more than once after one of the score of audiovisual cues overlapping at any given moment got stuck on-screen), the Telltale-ish dialogue choice system feels half-baked, and Rocket is way more of an asshole than even Bradley Cooper played him for no good reason. Also, does the rest of the squad really have to get on my case every time I gently veer off a sub-Uncharted linear level route for a moderate cache of upgrade points? Still, it’s a minor miracle for a AAA single-player game with minimal microtransactions to release in the ‘20s—here’s hoping future cape games take note!
4. Unpacking
I like a good loud, violent shooter, but I’m not above a humble point ‘n’ click narrative jaunt when the mood strikes me. Case in point: This year’s Unpacking, a “zen puzzle game” which simulates a common yet comforting ritual: taking stuff out of boxes and putting it on shelves when you move into a new place. In so doing, across a handful of locations spanning a decade, you slowly piece together… not a story, per se, but rather a young life. Photos of a friend once held high on the wall go into a drawer; an iPod weathers with age before being relegated to the ubiquitous box ‘o cables; videogames advance with the generations, from a chunky little Game Boy to an Xbox 360. Along the way, the cozy, colorful isometric graphics and pleasant soundtrack make even the humblest bathroom look like somewhere you’d just want to curl up and relax. That art style in particular does so much with so little—who knew I could recognize, say, a DVD of Ghost World or Up from a chunk of pixels smaller than my thumbnail? It’s not long, it’s not particularly challenging, and it implicitly casts you in the role of a character way outside my usual range (a Jewish lesbian illustrator, I think?). Now more than ever, though, the serenity of new beginnings is something we could all enjoy—just cut the tape with your Stanley knife (so that’s what those are called) and get to Unpacking.
3. WarioWare: Get it Together!
After years of glorified tech demos and greatest-hits collections, WarioWare returned in earnest! This time, instead of capitalizing on a control gimmick (see, e.g., Touched, Twisted, Smooth Moves), the greedy garlic-chomper’s latest meta-game outing went back to the drawing board for a radical tweak: playing not as “yourself,” but rather as Wario’s many beleaguered friends and employees, sucked into their own work product by some malicious malware. This seemingly basic change opens up all kinds of possibilities, for the split-second solution which each microgame inherently demands becomes that much more daunting when you’re switching between not only settings but also entire control schemes! The lack of the bonus “toys” which have been a tradition in the series is a shame, but in their place, we get a bevvy of diverse multiplayer outings, as well as a challenge system and shamefully addictive postgame “Prezzies” to level up characters and unlock bonus content. Among the quick, on-the-go games which flourish on Nintendo Switch, Get it Together! is well worth your time.
2. Psychonauts 2
If, like me, you do yourself a favor and don’t read Tim Schafer’s Twitter, you’ve probably been looking forward to Psychonauts 2 since the first one debuted sixteen years ago. But unlike many gaming sequels long-damned to development hell, Double Fine didn’t miss a beat: the graphics are cleaner, and the combat takes a cue from modern action-RPGs, but the delightful Burton-adjacent art style and creepy, clever levels stuffed with collectibles are all back just as you remember them. Too often, latter-day platformers dine on ‘member berries instead of advancing the subgenre (looking at you, Yooka-Laylee), but Psychonauts 2 adds a plethora of diverse new characters and psychic abilities, as well as a surprisingly robust open world full of side missions. After this long between entries (plus or minus the canonical but slight VR trip In the Rhombus of Ruin), it may be too much to ask for a threequel already, but there’s precious few franchises willing to get this zany and unapologetically fun!
Resident Evil: Village
In 2017, licking its wounds after the bloated mess that was Resident Evil 6, Capcom had a lot to prove to survival horror fans. Inspired by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hideo Kojima’s ill-fated P.T. in equal measure, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard met those expectations and then some, literally bringing a new perspective to the series and remembering to actually include some fear alongside all the gross monsters and explosions. A follow-up was inevitable, and while I felt vindicated to learn that leaks about the eighth entry being called “Village” were accurate, nothing could’ve prepared me for how frightening, crazy, and exciting this game would be. Werewolves, living dolls, a giant fish-man, cyborg zombies which may or may not violate intellectual property rights… and, yes, a certifiably scarousing vampiress with a least a foot on most of the NBA all torment you at one point or another. But unlike most other modern horror, where your only options are to run, hide, and/or read a journal about how this is all a metaphor for repressed trauma, you’ve got shotguns, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, and a morbidly obese nobleman who’ll sell you ammo for all of them. Throughout it all, the RE Engine coats this grotesque Gothic world in a photorealistic patina that makes the prior generation of consoles sing (or shriek, as the case may be). If “badass camp” is the tone Resident Evil wants to strike going forward, consider me a happy camper indeed, and ready for whatever the shocking conclusion here promises for RE9!
Honorable Mention: The Pathless
So The Pathless actually came out in 2020, but I first played it this year and, to my knowledge, it was marketed predominantly as a PS5 game—and really, who even has one of those? I can see how the game would take advantage of the next gen’s daunting processing power: the entire world is one big, loading screen-free map, gated only by passages which are out of reach ’til you beat a given boss. However, it runs just fine on PS4 as well, and what a joy that it does, because The Pathless provides a setting that I relish wherever it arises: a vast, quiet, mysterious world to just run through and make sense of. From crumbling temples adorned with carvings of giant beasts to scattered puzzles which reward a little block-pushing or clever jumping with a power-up, the game is unapologetically inspired by Breath of the Wild and, in turn, Shadow of the Colossus. Yet moment-to-moment play actually evokes—of all things—Marvel’s Spider-Man: Your protagonist, a veiled warrior with an eagle by her side, gains bursts of speed from firing arrows at omnipresent, floating glyphs, and so most traversal is accomplished by taking auto-aim at the nearest doodad to sprint across fields and valleys in search of your next friend or foe. It’s beautiful, strange, and invigorating all in one—just what I seek out all art for.
ALBUMS
5. Sinner Get Ready, Lingua Ignota
When women want to make a name for themselves in music, it can feel like the industry presents them with two doors: innocent naif or objectified doll. Lingua Ignota, aka Kristin Hayter, elected for Door Number Three: apocalyptic medieval priestess. Or at least, that’s the vibe one gets from a scroll through her discography, replete with track titles like “If the Poison Won’t Take You My Dogs Will” or “God Gave Me No Name (No Thing Can Hide from My Flame).” On this, her second LP, Hayter screams, mourns, and calls for bloodshed over an ominous organ, dire strings, and guitars which crash with the force of an angry demon, along with a whole orchestra of other unnerving instrumentation. More than any heavy metal, this is music to perform human sacrifice to—and yet it’s undeniably technically impressive and, in its own noisy, cataclysmic way, self-affirming! If you want girl-power rock that’s less tsundere and more sundering, Mistress Ignota demands your supplication.
4.The Atlas Underground Fire, Tom Morello
That Rage Against the Machine largely tapped out post-9/11 is arguably one of the biggest missed opportunities in music history, but guitarist Tom Morello never rested on his laurels: following the rise and fall of Audioslave, the man’s been cranking out consistent solo albums and side projects for almost two decades. In 2018, taking a page from Slash and other virtuoso contemporaries, Morello released The Atlas Underground, a collection of collabs that applied his gnarly, propulsive sound to artists ranging from Knife Party to Vic Mensa. 2021 saw the release of two spiritual successors, The Atlas Underground Fire and The Atlas Underground Flood, each with their own collage of diverse features (and unintentionally funny, Pokémon-esque album art). It’s the former of these LPs that won me over the most, though: the cover of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” with Bruce Springsteen fits both men’s styles like a studded leather glove, “Let’s Get This Party Started” gets Bring Me the Horizon on this list for the third year in a row, and “Naraka,” with its almost hymnal verses and Mike Posner (of all people) talking about killing cops, fascinates me more every time I hear it. The Machine may still need plenty of raging against, but Tom’s got it covered!
3.What it Means to Fall Apart, Mayday Parade
After 15-odd years in the saddle, one couldn’t be blamed for questioning whether the Florida quintet can still wax emo with the best of ‘em. To be sure, Mayday Parade largely leans away from their more complex, bombastic inclinations on this latest full-length, but their wistful lyrics and singalong hooks are as strong as ever. “Kids of Summer” kicks things off with a rousing ode to reckless youth, while “One for the Rocks and One for the Scary” is prime MP, starting off plaintive and sparse before erupting into an all-cylinders ode to fragile love (“we can do everything, we’ll start right here in this room… just don’t take off too soon”). Things admittedly peter out in the latter half: “Bad at Love” is so boilerplate that I thought it was a OneRepublic cover at first, and filler track “Heaven” feels named after the exact opposite afterlife, running a tired pun into the ground over a triphop beat for two-and-a-half minutes. On balance, though, the boys continue to age more gracefully than many of their peers, and still have me catching feelings as much as when I first heard “Jamie All Over” post-high school. The real oversight, though? No song named after a Calvin & Hobbes quote!
2. Kingdom II, Arcade High
The 80’s homage is a crowded subgenre these days; it’s all too easy to paste some rudimentary electronic riffs over kick drums, slap a neon palm tree on the cover, and call it a day. But Arcade High continues to outrun the competition with a mix of vocal and instrumental tunes targeted like a light gun at Millennial-era videogame vibes. The duo hearken back to fuzzy chiptunes (“Glow”), deliver a nod to Dark Souls (“DGYK,” feat. Jei-Laya), and even remix the title opener of 2016’s original Kingdom for some nostalgia of their own (“Welcome Back”). Not every track’s a hit—“Slay” is a perfect example of a song that’s catchy but not memorable, a repetitive and off-brand slab of dance-rock that had me wishing it’d perform as advertised by the first minute. But on the whole, making a trilogy of this “series” would be fine by me!
1. The Rearview Mirror EP, The Midnight & The Magik*Magik Orchestra
I turned 30 this year. I didn’t accomplish everything I once said that I would, by now—some of that’s on me, some isn’t. But when I inevitably reflected on my past with greater frequency in 2021, this was how the tranquil “now,” the wistful “then,” and the aching “maybe somebody” sounded in my soul. Veering away from 80’s throwbacks, L.A. duo The Midnight reimagine five of their top tunes with a wholly unprecedented vibe: out with the saxophones and synthwave, in with violins and piano. The transplant, however, breathes beautiful new life into their songwriting: As cool as tracks like “Endless Summer” and “Memories” felt before, they nearly bring a tear to the eye now—and when I saw the group live in downtown Tacoma in November, to celebrate my birthday, the latter’s lines never felt truer: “Summer days are growing colder… we’ll know better when we’re older.”
Honorable Mention: Heartwork (Deluxe), The Used
Heartwork made my last Top Stuff list, so I won’t dive into its primary tracklist much here, except to reiterate that it’s marvelous to see a group I’d written off as screamo has-beens turn around and drop one of my favorite albums of 2020. As is the style of late, however, they re-released it a year later with another entire record’s worth of cuts! But these are no mere B-sides—each tune could’ve readily been on Heartwork 1.0, continuing its themes of both literary references (“The Brothers Karamazov,” “Blood Meridian”) and love gone very, very bad, all while killing it with their chorus game (belting out “nobody hates me like you do / you’ve got that perfect misery” has no right to feel as good as “Mi Medicina, Mi Heroína” makes it). Wherever the band goes next, I’m now confident that time Used won’t be wasted!
SINGLES
5. “Fruit Roll Ups,” Waterparks
Waterparks is (are?) a lot of things: artists, self-aware industry critics, a boy band that also makes songs with names like “I Miss Having Sex But at Least I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore.” In that spirit, this year’s coyly titled Greatest Hits was—like 2019’s FANDOM—a bit too scattershot and longwinded to crack my top five. However, this track in particular really did a number on me; let’s just say that a ballad by a shut-in who likes junk food and horror movies, and “bought some really sick lights, if you want to come over,” hit close to home. The modern wave of electronica and hip-hop-tinged emo wasn’t around when I was a teen, but had it been, you can bet I’d have been sharing memes of lines like “If you want to see me acting so desperately, all you gotta do is stop texting me” left and right on my socials!
4. “I MISS 2003,” As It Is
TheLegend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The Iraq War. Kill Bill, Vol. I. The Challenger explosion. 2003 was like any year, full of ups in downs. But as of January 1, 2022, there’ll be no children who were alive for it, and one thing those 365 days irrefutably had in abundance was a certain, special kind of youthful music: capital-P Pop Punk. Nearly twenty years hence, As It Is has struggled to find its place in what remains of that community, settling of late on an MCR-lite doom ‘n’ gloom aesthetic that I must confess doesn’t do it for me. However, on “I Miss 2003,” the quartet funnel this dreariness into a longing for the early Aughts that’s achingly potent to me and my fellow Millennials. Like a Hot Topic T.S. Eliot, the band stuffs the lyrics here with references to a dozen different emo mainstays, from Paramore to Good Charlotte, turning mashed-up lines like “tell me that you’re alright, cuz I’m not okay” into a veritable sonic time machine. As It Is are British, so call them phonies if you want for reminiscing about Americana, but I myself have always felt like an outsider to the scene—heck, I didn’t even really start listening to anything beyond my parents’ CD collection until about 2009. Since then, though, there’s always been a place in my heart for the rebellious, lovesick energy of this subgenre. “Now life is boring, let’s write a story where we never grow up…”
3. “Meant for Misery,” Settle Your Scores
While As It Is wallowed, for better or worse, in the salad days of pop punk, Ohio outfit Settle Your Scores charged forth like it hasn’t aged a day. To be sure, the band’s not opposed to hindsight—they themselves have a song called “1999”—but they blew the doors open on this year’s Retrofit with this snotty earworm about a universal sentiment: feeling like the world sucks and you just can’t catch a break. Really, hasn’t 2021 all made us feel like we’re “in the eye of the shitstorm”?
2. “Rise, Nianasha (Cut the Cord),” Coheed & Cambria
Coheed & Cambria has continued to surprise me, going from a group I respected more than enjoyed (can’t knock that sci-fi prog-rock hustle) to one whose every single enters heavy rotation on release day. 2021 brought two of them, the first being “Shoulders,” which nearly made this list with its rip-roaring riffs and classic tale of a damaged relationship (“maybe we weren’t made for each other, and I’m just the one you can keep around”). However, this second one edged it out, not just because it’s catchier by a hair but because it explores a dynamic that’s novel to me in pop, at least outside Cat Stevens or “Cat’s in the Cradle”: father-to-son love. “Call me, and I’ll be there when you need your great destroyer,” the speaker assures his boy—a Dad of the Year line if I’ve ever heard one! Given the maddening ambiguity of this space rock-opera to date, I’m fully prepared for Vaxis II (the presumptive next LP) to never satisfyingly piece this paternal saga together, but I’ll be singing along either way.
“The Last Picture Show (Lost Outrider Remix),” Arcade High
It’s a 2021 remix of a 2019 song, that was in the style of a 1980s song, named after a 1970s movie set in the 1950s. If there’s a more potent Matryoshka doll of nostalgia on the market right now, I haven’t seen it. Maybe it’s just having changed both my job and my city earlier this year, but something about the reflective lyrics—of Anytown melancholy and the promise of a better tomorrow—cut deep to my core, no matter how many times I hit “repeat.” Whether it’s escaping a bad day or rushing towards the promise of a good one, that same hope is still there when I hit the road, whether by foot or by car, and miles to go before I sleep: “They can’t catch me… I’m already gone.”
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Now go have a Happy New Year! Masks aside, I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling ’22. If nothing else, Elden Ring isn’t going to play itself!
So I’ve done some writing this year (new sci-fi short story hopefully to debut soon!), but if it wasn’t evident, I’ve been having a good deal more fun lately practicing video production and longish-form media critique with YouTube movie reviews! I like to hit a balance between “classic” riff review and more modern, thoughtful analysis; if that sounds like your thing, please consider tossing a like ‘n’ subscribe my way! Here’s what’s come out this year from my theatrical visits:
Wonder Woman 1984 — It looks great, but that’s about it!
Chaos Walking — Kinda just a lot of noise!
Nobody — A heck of a lot of violent action fun!
Godzilla vs. Kong — A familiar but fun return of two classic kaiju!
A Quiet Place Part II — Pretty good, now we just need to see the third act!
F9: The Fast Saga — It’s dumb, it’s loud, I love it.
To celebrate the holiday season, I took advantage of 2020’s charitable VOD selection and saw the new Mel Gibson-as-Santa movie “Fatman”! Is it worth rockin’ around the Christmas tree about, or does this action flick deserve a lump of coal in its stocking? Tune in and find out!
So, it’s been a time since I’ve been on here! Not sure who still follows, but thank you for sticking around if you do, and a fine hello if this is your first time checking in. Long story short, COVID and some associated professional change-ups haven’t made me the creative powerhouse behind the pen that I thought I’d be this year, hence the lack of writerly updates since May.
However, in the meantime, I’ve doubled down on learning how to do video editing and production instead–and I’m really enjoying the more tangible results. In particular, I’ve put out some more film reviews, as well as semiregular uploads of horror game streams from my Twitch! I also did a short film with my brother as intro for the latter, which I’m rather proud of.
Here’s some highlights — please Like, Share, and Subscribe if you can! It’s just a hobby for now, but I really enjoy having more folks see my stuff:
My comedic-meets-analytical review of this summer’s polarizing blockbuster “TENET”!
A minute-longish film merging the creepy and the geeky to introduce my stream vids!
A short highlight vid of one such stream, of a truly weird underwater horror game!
And there’s plenty more on my channel after you click through! I’m always working on getting that much better each time with the technical aspects of content creation, and I hope to put out some all-new videos soon doing full reviews/riffs on old films with an insightful spin. As always, in the meantime, be sure to check me out on Twitter and Twitch as well–streams are 7pm PST on Sundays!
Put on my full-body bandages and fake nose for a Saturday at the cinema with the new Leigh Whannell Blumhouse/Universal movie monster horror film “The Invisible Man”!
tl;dw: It starts off a bit predictable and ends with some plot holes, but overall it’s a fantastically shot, scored, and acted sci-fi thriller that ironically deserves to be seen.
All non-me media from Google Image Search or Adobe Premiere Elements. I know I fell off the wagon with movie reviews, but I’m hoping to get back on in time for the season of renewal that is Spring!
Also, an invisible man walking sim would be incredibly easy to program, now that I think about it.
Decided to *double down* on a Thursday night and see Gemini Man in all its 3D, high-frame-rate, uh… glory? tl;dw: If you can find somewhere to watch it like a normal movie, it’s a generic but fun scifi-action romp.
All non-me media from Google Image Search or Adobe Premiere Elements/Movavi Video Editor. Trying something a little different this time to find my “voice” for content creating. I tend to overthink a purely written script, but I also tend to ramble when it comes to ad-libbing. Hopefully this can be a step towards striking a unique balance!
Notes&Sketches 