2025: A Year in Review

Still sorting through my thoughts of 2025 and there are not many frontrunners in my mind. Here's what I got so far (subject to change in the coming weeks):

Best of 2025 (in no particular order):

Bugonia: Paranoia realized

Eddington: 2025 summed up in 2020

Eternity: How will you choose to spend it?

Friendship: Friendship is rare...

Hamnet: Shakespeare takes on the great tragedy

The Legend of Ochi: A throwback fantasy adventure

Love Me: AI takes on the concept of romance

Marty Supreme: Ping-pong for the big leagues

No Other Choice: When you've been dragged to your limit

One Battle After Another: And another, and another...

Presence: A POV ghost story

Rental Family: Loneliness, far from home

Song Sung Blue: Neil Diamond fans unite

Superman: Best superhero flick of the year

The Surfer: Suffer...Surfer...

The Life of Chuck: Currently my favorite film of the year

Honorable mentions (too many not to mention):

Americana: Coen meets Tarantino in a modern-day Western

Avatar: Fire and Ash: Yep, another one...

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey: Working through the traumas of the past

Cheech & Chong's Last Movie: Hope it's not the last we see of 'em...

Companion: Try not to spoil it for yourself

Die My Love: Romance, motherhood, mental illness; not in that order

Dracula: A Love Tale: An oft-told tale, done well

Dust Bunny: Always check underneath your bed

Frankenstein: Beauty on the outside, ironically

The Great Flood: Wash away our sins...

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You: Life is a kick in the nuts

It Was Just an Accident: Revenge is a dish...

The Long Walk: Get busy walkin' or get busy dyin'

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning: Or is it...?

The Rule of Jenny Pen: The inmates have taken over

Sentimental Value: Reconciliation through art

The Smashing Machine: Rock, smash... our hearts

Together: Make sure you're in it for the long haul

28 Years Later: They never left...

The Ugly Stepsister: Cinderella with a dark twist

Wake Up Dead Man: Murder in the ranks of the church

Weapons: Wicked good fun

Wicked: For Good: I know when I've been beat

The cream of the crap (mmm...nutty):

Back in Action: First POS of the year

Ebony & Ivory: So bad, it's brilliant?

Fear Street: Prom Queen: I don't even remember seeing this one

I Know What You Did Last Summer: Didn't we do this already?

Ick: Infects the brains of the viewer as well

In the Lost Lands: My poor memory is sometimes a blessing

Kinda Pregnant: Kinda mostly awful

A Merry Little Ex-Mas: Made my holidays much less bright

Now You See Me, Now You Don't: I wish I didn't

Primitive War: Jurassic Park, minus everything great about Jurassic Park

Sacramento: Insufferable pricks to the end

The Strangers: Chapter 2: We still got one more of this shit to go...

The Toxic Avenger: Just when you thought Troma couldn't sink any lower...

Troll 2: I liked the old one better

Tron: Ares: At least the neon lights are cool...

War of the Worlds: Worst film of the year and a personal affront to H. G. Wells

Note: I will be going dark for a little while, while I recharge my batteries....

-bud

(Disclosure: AI was used to generate the above banner, and that is the only time AI has ever been employed on this blog.)

When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

"Well, that's the good thing about depression; you get your rest."

You know how you can tell when a movie is a classic? When you haven't seen it in years, yet you still remember it as vividly as if you saw it the other day.

Directed by Rob Reiner* and scribed by Nora Ephron, this perfect marriage of romance and comedy explores 12 years of a platonic relationship through chance encounters, and the eternal question of whether men and women can just be friends. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan are effortlessly charming in the roles of two complete opposites, where the timing never seems to line up.

Along with Annie Hall, I consider it to be one of the best rom-coms of all time.

5 of what she's having out of 5

*The director of what I would consider to be five 5-star movies:

This is Spinal Tap (1984)

Stand by Me (1986)

The Princess Bride (1987)

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Misery (1990)

R.I.P. Rob Reiner and good riddance to this terrible year...

The Great Flood (2025)

AKA: 대홍수 (Daehongsu)

This one starts off immediately. Heavy rainfalls at a high-rise apartment building in Seoul forces its residents upwards, including a woman and her young child. That's only the first stage of this apocalyptic sci-fi disaster epic. The real bend of this film unfurls about 20 minutes into the film, but I won't reveal it here. The twisty and convoluted premise manages to sustain the suspense for most of its runtime, even when you're ahead of the narrative.

3½ swimming goggles out of 5

Train Dreams (2025)

Chronicles the life of one Robert Grainier, an ordinary man without much sense of direction or purpose, who searches for meaning in the absurdity and tragedy that follows him during the early twentieth century. Life is simple but hard, and similarly, I found this film meditative but dull, which is probably an accurate depiction of what life was like back then. The cinematography is beautiful and brings to mind the works of Terrence Malick, as we're treated to long stretches of quiet contemplation. It seems to be about how the world changes and leaves us behind, which is as profound as it is devastating.

3 boots nailed to a tree out of 5

The Thing with Feathers (2025)

A recently widowed father navigates through grief after the sudden passing of his wife, as he contends with a voice in his head and an ominous presence that appears to visit him through his illustrations. It goes without saying that it's depressing as fuck, without much reprieve. It couldn't help but remind me of Tuesday, but way more of a bummer. Benedict Cumberbatch carries the film on his shoulders, but the story is sparse and it never quite manages to take off.

2 sad dads out of 5

No Other Choice (2025)

AKA: 어쩔수가없다 (Eojjeolsugaeopda)

After 25 years at the job of a paper mill company, a well-to-do family man is left unemployed and in dire straits. Driven to desperate measures, he realizes he needs to eliminate the competition in order to get back in good standing.

Lee Byung-hun (Squid Game) is so damn good in the film and Park Chan-wook has great fun with the material, loaded with lots of stylistic choices and clever farcical humor. It's a dark satirical thriller that reminded me of Parasite in more ways than one, especially the idea of common folk taking on the class system. 

4 potted plants out of 5

It Was Just an Accident (2025)

AKA: Yek tasādof-e sāde

An Iranian torture victim captures who he believes to be his former captor but has his doubts and a crisis of conscience when the man claims to be innocent. This sends him on a journey with a group of other political prisoners to verify his identity and exact their vengeance. A tense revenge thriller with a streak of dark humor; this is a great film that'll stick in your mind long after it's over.

3½ squeaky legs out of 5

Sentimental Value (2025)

AKA: Affeksjonsverdi

A strained relationship between a famed director (Stellan Skarsgård) and his daughter (Renate Reinsve) comes a head when he casts a young Hollywood starlet (Elle Fanning) to portray her in his new film. Explores the relationship between artistic expression and intergenerational trauma. I found it a bit too clean cut for my liking, but the performances and the sentiment are top notch.

3½ slaps for good luck out of 5

Rental Family (2025)

AKA: レンタル・ファミリー

Brendan Fraser plays a struggling American actor working in Japan who signs up with a rental family agency, providing emotional surrogacy to a range of clients, including father to a little girl and companionship to an old man in the early stages of dementia. This is a profoundly, deeply lonely movie that hit me emotionally in all the right spots. I feel I'm doing a disservice to it in my nut.

4 lives before life out of 5

Song Sung Blue (2025)

Two dreamers find themselves late in life (lucky them!) and form a Neil Diamond tribute band known as Lightning & Thunder, while weathering the storm of love, life and tragedy along the way. It's hard to describe how this movie sinks its hooks in you, but it's a very moving account of a true to life couple who forged their bonds through the power of music. If you're a Neil Diamond fan, it's even better. It's heavily saccharine, but you know what? That's okay sometimes, especially when the performances are this strong.

4 "so good"s out of 5

Note: Based on the 2008 documentary of the same name, available here.

Marty Supreme (2025)

A young go-getter lies, steals and grifts his way through a trial by fire to achieve his dreams of becoming a championship league table tennis player. It's by Josh Safdie, so you know it's gonna be stressful as fuck with so much going on, although in some ways this feels like the antithesis to Uncut Gems.

Honestly, every instinct in my body tells me I should hate this one, but you have to admire the kind of determined grit it takes to triumph against all odds.

4 orange ping-pong balls out of 5

Christy (2025)

Sydney Sweeney dresses down, weights up, and goes through the "ugly actor process" (not unlike Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine) to portray real life figure Christy Salters, a tough as nails fighter who busts her ass to make her mark on women's boxing while suffering through sexism, homophobia and domestic abuse. As cynical as I am about these biopics, this is both a harrowing and inspiring story with standout performances by Sweeney and Ben Foster; although, if you've seen one sports underdog movie, you've seen 'em all.

3 pockets full of change out of 5

The Housemaid (2025)

A woman with a troubled past becomes the live-in maid for a wealthy household that seems to house a lot of secrets within. It's a twisty-turny psychological thriller with mysteries abound that keep unraveling. Lots of weirdness and inconsistencies throughout. It all falls apart towards the end, but it's an entertaining ride getting there. It also poses the question: Who would win in a fight? Amanda Seyfried or Sydney Sweeney's cleavage?

2½ deadbolts out of 5

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

Avatar has a new skin. While the first two films introduced us to the forest and the sea clans, we now have the ash clan. All that's missing is the air element...

James Cameron does it again. By creating a rich, fully inhabited world that you would rather live in, you forgive all the flaws in this epic sprawling picture, filled with warring clans and transparent allusions to racism. Visually, it's a 10/10 movie; like your desktop wallpaper come to life. Cameron has masterful command over the material and takes us to dazzling, staggering heights filled with beauty, wonder and imagination. Individual moments shine, but most of it feels like CGI on overdrive with things exploding in the background, which overshadows the drama and emotional stakes. The new villain Varang (Oona Chaplin) oozes with sensuality, while the most interesting character remains the teenage Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), but there are too many storylines and the whole thing loses focus quickly. The fundamental flaw of these movies is that they're way too fucking long. And it's starting to feel repetitive at this point. I enjoyed it, but I also breathed a sigh of relief when it was finally over.

3½ breathing devices out of 5

Note: Luckily, this film does feature a conclusive enough ending if Cameron chooses not to continue with his planned sequels. We'll see what happens.

Anaconda (2025)

Behind the scenes on an Anaconda movie turns into a real life anaconda movie in this meta reboot featuring a tight knit of childhood friends who team up to make their filmmaking dreams come true. It's funny to a degree, although the trailers do a good job of ruining all the surprises. It's very broad comedy, but preferable as an alternative to a soulless remake. Familiarity with the original film is not required, but recommended for maximum fan service enjoyment.

2½ shy whizzes out of 5