ONE OF THEM DAYS (2024)
For months, I’ve watched all of the clips of these two promoted this film, so finally seeing the movie felt like watching a follow-up, in a bizarre, borderline uncanny the-movie-is-a-sequel-to-all-the-promotion, which-was-the-original-feature-presentation kind of way.
Anyway, my biggest takeaway from the above comment is that a script can never be as funny as Keke Palmer is in person, but this script did enough to let her shine here and there. My second biggest takeaway is that the chemistry between her and SZA was a pleasure to watch in the promotion and the movie — also, SZA did her thing in this, holding her own beside Keke all the way.
KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989)
In 1989, Hayao Miyazaki made a movie about how technically, mentally, and emotionally difficult it is to be a working artist in 2025. I especially love how Kiki had to do side-gigs to get by, and how she had to use her talents to build a business tangentially related to what she actually loves to do because her talents aren’t viewed as inherently valuable by society — not to mention she got discouraged, lost inspiration, and suffered from the witch’s equivalent of writer’s block in the third act.
THE WIND RISES (2013)
Before this, the closest I’d seen a Miyazaki film get to being completely grounded in reality was 1992’s Porco Rosso, which had an animal protagonist. This film, the last before his first retirement, is completely grounded in reality, but for some dream sequences. This is also the most straight-forward narrative I’ve seen from the legendary writer-director.
Miyazaki’s adoration for all things aviation and flying is on full display here, as the story revolves around a young man who is incapable of piloting planes due to his poor vision, and therefore dreams of engineering the planes that take to the sky instead. Much like Kiki’s Delivery Service, the talents of our passionate protagonist are used to fulfill the wishes of others, usually those with more power and financial means. Much like a brilliant American physicist in the World War II era, Jiro Horikoshi’s mind is used to create a weapon that would lead to the deaths of thousands of people in an act of war committed by his motherland.
Allow me to drag another two Ghibli movies into this review: It is known that Grave of the Fireflies and Totoro were released as a double-feature back in the late-80s, but I think the most logical Ghibli double-feature at this point would be this film followed by Grave. It wouldn’t be the most effervescent of experiences, but the narratives fit so well it’s hard not to think of the 1988 masterpiece while watching this one.
CASTLE IN THE SKY (1986)
This is the first Miyazaki film I’ve seen (his third feature) that I felt was legitimately weighed down by its plot — so much chasing (on foot and in the sky), guns are blazing, things are blowing up, way more action-based conflict than I’ve grown used to, and a mustache-twirling villain who declares victory with multiple evil cackles minutes before being defeated by the power of friendship. The magic of the world and the depth of the characters fell flat for me due to all of the above.
Maybe a future rewatch will unearth the admirable qualities that are undoubtedly present here, but for now, this is the first of nine Miyazaki films (ten Ghibli films) that I’ve seen which didn’t do it for me.
TALK TO ME (2022)
The horror elements were occasionally frightening, but soon linger in our presence for long enough to numb us. It’s when we’re numb to the horror that we find ourselves waist deep in the terrifying reality of how easily we can lose ourselves to grief if we let it in and allow it to take over.
SINNERS (2025)
This movie is more or less split in half, between the vampire stuff and the pre-vampire stuff. I’m sure there’s a healthy chunk of audiences who wish the vampire stuff was more prevalent in a movie marketing itself as a horror flick. But I’m in the polar opposite camp; I wish I got more of the pre-vampire stuff. I wish I had two more hours of it — shit, I’ll take ten more hours of it.
This story is bursting at the seams with rich histories for the people, places, and things that inhabit it. The first half of the film follows Smoke and Stack as they go from place to place, beautifully shot, portrayed as an organic part of the world our characters move through, places that exist after the camera moves away from them. The twins meet with fascinating people doing interesting things, talking about lives they lived before the movie started, picking up on relationships that go back years, chock-full of experiences we’ll never be privy to. It’s so rare for a movie to present a world that feels like it’s filled with thousands of stories that’ll never be told, hundreds of hours with these characters that will never be mined, so much space in these places that will never be explored.
This feels like a phenomenal adaptation of a 600-page novel. I want to go buy that book so damn bad right now. I’m sick to my stomach that it doesn’t exist.
THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989)
My toddler nephew said he wanted to watch a Disney movie but he couldn’t make up his mind on which one he wanted me to put on, so I made the executive decision to introduce him to the best of the Disney classics.
He sat still for maybe ten minutes of it in total, so we might have to attempt round two in a couple days. I don’t mind — I could watch this movie on a loop.
Previously Reviewed on March 29, 2020
THUNDERBOLTS (2025)
Even the good superhero movies aren’t doing anything for me these days. I guess the fatigue is permanent for some.
Nevertheless, like I said, this is one of the good ones. Not because the superhero elements were fantastic — they were nothing to write home about. It’s the themes in the script and the heart in the moments between characters that makes this a good one. I really appreciated how the central themes were explored en route to ultimately resolving the story’s climactic conflict. The most powerful antagonist in this could only be defeated by mining the story’s themes for a resolution.
It should also go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Florence Pugh carried so hard.
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD (2025)
I recently heard a Booktuber pose a counter-argument to those who criticize books in the Romance genre for having the same storylines, the same tropes, the same arcs, etc. She didn’t say any of the above was false — instead, she said that fans of the Romance genre don’t see any of the above as a negative, but rather, factors that they actively seek out. The readers want something they know they will enjoy, something they can comfortably devour. They don’t want to be pushed and pulled in unpleasant or unexpected directions. They don’t want sad endings. They want the shell of the story to be something they’re comfortable with — that leaves room for the inside of the shell to add little twists and quirks to the familiar story.
Listening to that Booktuber, I suddenly understood how fanatics of Horror movies are capable of devouring the heaps of derivative slop plaguing the genre. What I find tedious, repetitive, cringey, and boring about the vast majority of Horror movies out there is exactly what the core fans seek out. This movie is no different. I’ve seen these characters a million times before. I’ve heard every line of dialogue in this before. I’ve seen the first and second act of this film before. The third act adds those twists and quirks I mentioned above, but the shell is very much identical to so many other Horror movies.
I’m sure Horror devotees will eat this up, just as Romance fans will eat up Emily Henry’s newest release. I just don’t happen to be in either of those target audiences.
UPDATE: This earned $3.8 million over its first weekend, on a budget of about one million — the biggest opening weekend to date for IFC. So yes, the Horror devotees ate this up.
THE BIG SHORT (2015)
I’ve basically been rewatching this movie every two years since it’s release in theaters. I pretty much love everything about it. The performances are top-notch. I love these despicable characters. I love the atrocious words coming out of their mouths. I love the tone and how it conflicts with the subject matter. The pacing is break-neck in the best ways possible — it’s over two hours long, but it doesn’t feel a minute over an hour and a half. Some people describe movies as being an easy watch; well, this movie is as easy a watch as there is for me.
Yes, I’m talking about the movie about a global economic meltdown that caused the disappearance of 5-trillion dollars in pension money, real estate value, caused 8-million people to lose heir jobs, and led to 6-million people losing their homes.
Previously Reviewed in 2021 & 2023
DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)
I didn’t notice until after I was getting ready to write my review for this that I hadn’t revisited this movie for something like seven years. It wasn’t until I struggled to figure out what to write about it that I realized it had been seven years for a reason, I suppose.
I don’t love this movie. I appreciate its existence. I enjoyed watching Waltz, DiCaprio, and Jackson work. The cinematography was beautiful. The dialogue was engaging. The story, however, feels flimsy far too often. The pacing drags in places. I’m happy to revisit this once every handful of years, but it’s a middling Tarantino movie for me; maybe even a bottom-third Tarantino movie for me — I’d have to rewatch them all and really think about it to make a concrete declaration like that.
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018)
This movie belongs in the Hall of Fame for films to watch on a flight. It chugs along at the kind of pace you need to keep your mind off of the fact that you can’t move and you’re in the sky. It’s long enough take a big chunk out of the travel time in one fell swoop. It’s not overly emotionally investing, so it’s okay if you’re getting distracted by the baby crying six rows up or the teenager pressing her knees into the back of your chair. Also, it helps that the movie is actually good and actually fun to watch.
Previously Reviewed on December 14, 2020
FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN (2025)
The Fear Street trilogy was one of the biggest surprises of the year for me all the way back in 2021. The quality of the films fluctuated between entries, but I enjoyed them all nonetheless.
Four years later and I’m preparing the downloads I need to get me through an eleven-hour flight. I see a new Fear Street movie recommended to me on Netflix. With great haste, I downloaded it and watched it on the plane. This fourth entry does not hold a candle to the previous three, unfortunately. This felt like the Dollar Store version of those films.
SINNERS (2025)
A second viewing allowed me sink my teeth into the subtext of it all, to pay attention to the metaphors at play, the deeper themes. I love how cool this film is, how rich with story and character it is. I love that it’s not afraid to make the vampires actually vampires. I love that it’s a story very much revolving around Black people set in Jim Crow-era Mississippi that explores themes more complex than “racism is bad.” I knew this was a great film on first viewing. A second viewing showed me it’s even better than that.
THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME (2025)
Wes Anderson is on a several film run (a decade’s worth?) where I’m having a nearly impossible time connecting with the story being told, while at the same time, thoroughly enjoying the way the stories are being told. I’m enjoying the ride, because Wes is a singular filmmaker with a vision as unique as they come. That said, I’m not as emotionally invested as I would like to be, given the talents of the auteur director.
MATERIALISTS (2025)
Celine Song’s follow-up to the weighty Past Lives is a film that feels like a romantic-comedy, except it doesn’t really act like one. It feels like a story that wants to parody what it’s like to date in New York City in this day and age, but it doesn’t really do that either — it gets earnest on us. This often gets so close to making fun of itself, only to stop right before that line to try and make you think deeply and feel feelings.
I’m not sure all of the above worked as well as Song may have hoped, but it was a fresh story, navigated by three actors I’m happy to watch for a couple hours.
THE LIFE OF CHUCK (2025)
Fans of Mike Flanagan’s productions looked like the Rick Dalton meme for two hours, pointing at the screen every time a familiar face showed up. Fans of Mike Flanagan’s productions will also be pleased to find the familiar heart and soul present in this film, along with his abundant thoughtful monologues, and his unique way of using genre stories to say something profound about the human experience.
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001)
I haven’t watched these movies in nearly a decade, so my eyes were nearly as fresh as humanly possible when I decided to watch the entire trilogy in one day. I started around noon, and didn’t reach the closing credits until a little before midnight.
What struck me on my rewatch of this first chapter is how elegantly it’s paced. The story takes its sweet time, but it’s engaging all the way through. This is the first part of an epic trilogy of blockbuster movies, but it isn’t structured like one. As an example, we don’t see Aragorn until an hour in — I can’t help but feel that a modern blockbuster would have made it to that point in the story after fifteen to twenty minutes.
“It’s called the Fellowship of the Ring,” croaks the crabby Executive, “why are we waiting so long to meet the Fellowship?”
THE TWO TOWERS (2002)
This, to me, very much suffered from middle-movie-of-a-trilogy syndrome. That’s not a damning designation by any means, as it is, in fact, the movie between a phenomenal first entry and a sensational third entry.
It gives us an opportunity to cover more ground in this fantastical world, further develop characters we already know and love, continue to build the roster of personalities and factions that will play a role in the events to come.
While the structure of the first film impressed me, the structure of this one frustrated me. It wasn’t so much the symptoms of the middle-movie-of-a-trilogy syndrome that got to me, but rather the things that Peter Jackson decided to spend his time on. Now, I don’t exactly have my fingers on the pulse of the Lord of the Rings discourse on the internet, but I would be utterly flabbergasted if I’m the only one who was incredibly frustrated with how much time was spent chugging along in the forest on the back of those giant trees alongside Merry and Pippin.
I understand the trees had to be established. I understand the Hobbits’ willingness to join the fight had to be established. All of that could have been done in three scenes (four, maximum) — we really, truly did not need to keep cutting away from the actions of more important characters and storylines to see what they were up to. By the time we reached this movie’s famous final battle, I was so irritable from the frequent cuts back to Merry and Pippin that I was prepared to pull my hair out when I realized that Jackson was not going to cease hitting us with frequent meanwhile-back-in-the-forest transitions while IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BATTLE OF HELM’S DEEP. This awe-inspiring cinematic achievement in direction, cinematography, music, and special effects was being interrupted with a couple of Hobbits and their banter from the backs of a group of lumbering trees — frankly, it’s incomprehensible.
Anyway, that’s my rant. There’s nothing I can add to the analytical conversation surrounding these movies except for my gut reactions to watching them after so many years. So, that’s what this is.
Samwise Gamgee saved this movie for me with his iconic speech in the third act. In that monologue, he reoriented the entire story before we move on from this middle chapter. He reminded us what was at stake after all the chaos of the last three hours. He shifted the spotlight back to Frodo, and brought to focus for the audience just how in over their head the Hobbits are on this journey. At this moment, the destination, the goal, it feels unachievable. We couldn’t ask for a better place to be heading into the trilogy’s final entry.
THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003)
Almost one complete trip around the clock’s face later, I am wholeheartedly convinced that watching this entire trilogy in one sitting is the absolute correct way to experience this epic story. It’s structured as one long journey, so it should probably be consumed as one long journey. That said, I’m eternally envious of lifelong fans of Tolkien’s stories who only had to wait ONE YEAR between installments back in the early 2000s, after principal photography for the trilogy was conducted concurrently for 438 days from October 1999 through December 2000. And that’s not to mention the good fortune the fans were blessed with to have that adaptation of their beloved story end up being one of the greatest cinematic achievements of all time.
This final chapter does everything you’d want it to do. It satisfyingly concludes this journey we’ve been on. It does justice by the characters — most importantly confirming that Samwise Gamgee is the real hero of this story. It has three too many endings (one of which I still don’t understand), but we won’t hold that against it. There’s not much more to say at this point, two-plus decades later. It’s epic. It’s monumental. It’s Cinema.
28 DAYS LATER (2002)
“All the death, all the shit — it doesn’t really mean anything to Frank and Hannah because she’s got her dad and he’s got his daughter. So, I was wrong when I said that staying alive is as good as it gets.”
Now, ain’t that what it’s all about?
28 YEARS LATER (2025)
I’ve been consuming a lot of zombie stories recently, and the more I consume, the more I understand how The Walking Dead went on for so long, but the less I understand how the quality of The Walking Dead fell off a cliff. That is to say it’s amazing how deep this well is for stories about humanity, about death, about family, about society, about chaos and order, the list goes on. We told zombie stories until everyone was sick of them, then we continued to tell zombie stories with continued success. There’s something to this sub-genre. It just can’t stay dead.
This movie takes several turns that didn’t necessarily feel obvious or inevitable or even mandatory for the story to work. But that’s the beauty of the post-apocalyptic zombie story: They could go anywhere, do anything, and as long as the writing is on point, the story will work. The film starts in one place, then a dozen viable forks in the roads appear, then it takes one of the routes, only to be presented with a dozen more, on and on. The places where this film ultimately goes worked out splendidly, but in the hands of Alex Garland, the places don’t stop here — they can go on ad infinitum. Maybe that’s why he already has the sequel to this one written, set to be released in January of next year. We’ll see if the lure of this sub-genre keeps him coming back for more after that.
ELIO (2025)
Elio (11 y/o): “How’s your back?”
Neighbor: “Eh, you know…”
Elio (11 y/o): “I hear you!”
In a movie about the quirks of one’s personality isolating them from a society that doesn’t see the world the same as they do, it’s this string of dialogue that I related to most.
BOOKSMART (2019)
From start to finish (literally, first frame to last), the tone is just plain fun. The quality of the jokes remained consistent throughout. The main characters are so easy to empathize with — the flamboyant side characters and cliche high school villains get some depth too.
I remember the mandatory end of Act Two argument between Amy and Molly being aggravating when I first saw this years ago, but it didn’t bother me at all this time around — I thought it fit, given what we know about these characters and the place they are physically and mentally heading into Act Three.
I think this is one of the better high school comedies to come out in the past decade.
