I equate the experience of watching a movie with being told a story so naturally that I often forget that that isn’t essentially what a film has to do. Jacques Tati’s PlayTime is a monumental reminder that cinema can be a game each member of the audience plays by themself. That’s a challenging initial experience, but one I immediately wish to revisit.
When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other.
Has there ever been a more damning indictment of romantic French cinema than Michel’s line here in Breathless? When I think about pretentious French movies, it’s exactly that: a man and a woman in black and white, both monologuing into the void about whatever the fuck instead of having anything that could possibly resemble human connection. So I guess it took a film critic making his first movie to put that shit on blast. It’s stuff like that that makes Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless still an exciting movie to watch 66 years after its release.
From Terence Malick’s Badlands to Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, one of the most beloved sub-genres cinema’s great auteurs inevitably explore is stories about young lovers on the run. Ingmar Bergman went there when he was 35, a bit before all the big titles in his filmography, but nonetheless Summer with Monika did achieve its own unique sort of infamy: two years after its Swedish release, a Time magazine article about “Sin & Sweden” inspired an edited-down version of the movie to be released in the US, where it was a poster child Swedish exploitation films. Hard to believe that was ever a thing! Against all odds did Ingmar Bergman of all people make an early erotic masterpiece? And can a movie from 73 years ago still titillate audiences in 2026?
65th Academy Awards (1993)
Nominations: 4
Wins: 1
“What kind of a show are you guys putting on here today?” This clip, from Pacino’s big “courtroom” scene at the end of Scent of a Woman opened up every episode of the podcast Filmspotting, or at least did for as long as I listened to it until Matty Ballgame left. So to me, it’s just about as iconic a Pacino quote as there can be. And the Nineties were a very quotable period for Big Al, giving us hits like “she’s got a great ass and you’ve got your head all the way up it” and “just when I think I’m out they pull me back in.” So since I was in the area already, I figured I should probably finally watch this damn thing. Hoo-ah!
63rd Academy Awards (1991)
Nominations: 7
Wins: 0
This year we waited until there was less than half a fortnight until the Oscars to start our annual review series, so welcome to Oscars WEAK: a week of reviews of best picture winners and nominees. For my part, I’ll be starting with 1990’s The Godfather Part III, or, more specifically, the recut version director Francis Ford Coppola put out in 2020 for its 30th anniversary: The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. It’s the end of a journey that started late last year when YouTube started randomly(?) showing me clips from 2022 miniseries The Offer, the Miles Teller-led streaming prestige project about the production of the first Godfather (and how ultimately it was just as important as The Longest Yard). Intrigued by the amusing voices the entire cast seemed to be doing, I eventually caved and watched the whole thing, and, naturally, after those 10 episodes I had to rewatch The Godfather and then Part II. And you know what, they’re still pretty good.
The Oscars are only six weeks away which means we’re finally, really ready to say goodbye to 2025… until somehow a bunch of last year’s albums get nominated for Grammys in like 2027. So, before we close the book on a year that was pretty hard to be enthusiastic about, one chapter I felt like I needed to write was about games. Because hot damn, there were a lot of great games released between last January and today. So many that there’s a bunch I still would really like to play that I’m either just getting started in or haven’t touched at all, like Metroid Prime 4 (sorry for the misleading featured image), Blue Prince, Rhythm Doctor, and Slots & Daggers. So if you’re curious what I’ve been up to, let me tell you about it.
My ranking of all the movies I saw in 2025 is here on Letterboxd. I find myself rather apathetic about writing up most of that list here, since John already covered a lot of my top 10 and Colin’s list is basically my remaining watchlist from the last year. So, in honor of the Mildly Pleased Awards which are probably not happening this year, here’s a write-up of my favorite movies from last year that aren’t those eighteen.
