I wrote this one closer to the beginning of the year, but I spent a long time procrastinating on dealing with issues with my blog. So here it is in August lmao.

Mickey 17 (2025)

Bong Joon Ho’s followup to Parasite hits a lot of the same themes, but definitely its own sense of style. For one, the idea of an “Expendable”–a person who gets 3D-printed back into existence every time they die–is just a frankly genius way to use sci-fi to give a lens into the exploitation of capitalism. Robert Pattinson also does a great job as several versions of our erstwhile protagonist. The whole cast is great, but especially Mark Ruffalo–as a Trump-like cult leader–and Toni Collette–playing his exotic flavor chasing wife. All the typical Bong flourishes are here–environmentalism, critique of capitalism, lots of snow–but it stands apart from his filmography, especially given how straight up funny it is. And I’m just a sucker for whenever he does sci-fi.

Twilight (2008)

I skipped these when they came out when I was 17, being exactly the wrong mindset. As a teenage boy, there’s about zero percent chance I’d have enjoyed these at all. But now as a 34-year-old man, I was riveted. It’s clear to me Pattinson and Stewart both understand what the script says and they decided it needed way more scenery chewing. It’s wild to me that the received wisdom about Kristen Stewart’s performance in this movie is that she’s a bad actress, when it’s obvious she’s doing so much more than is called for. Frankly, it’s wild to me they even let her do this kind of self-parody of the self-insert fanfic protagonist that Bella is. The plot itself is both insane and stupid and I can’t look away for a second. I’m actually blown away by the choice to have them get together so early on in the story–which ultimately is a great setup for the sequel–because then we have to add more conflict to what I assumed would be a fairly standard romance plot. But hey I guess that means we get to have some vampire action! And uhhh… baseball??? Honestly I’m here for it. This film is a camp masterpiece.

Sinners (2025)

Ryan Coogler finally does his first wholly original film! And damn what a job he does. I ended up seeing this twice in theaters, which definitely led to a deeper understanding of it. The first half really feels like a character piece and then it dives into that sweet sweet vampire action. There’s a great oner for the ages in a backlot set that is only used for that one scene. There’s also that One Scene With the Song which is somehow both awesome to watch, advances the plot, and deepens the themes. In typical Coogler fashion it tackles themes like racism, colonialism, passing, and family. It also has a personal achievement of getting my wife to put an Irish folk song–a banger version of Rocky Road to Dublin–on their gym playlist.

Megalopolis (2024)

Francis Ford Coppola’s decades in the making magnum opus is certainly a movie of all time. Adam Driver stars, playing put upon genius filmma-I mean architect Cesar Catalina whose work is incredible but not appreciated by many. His goal is to create a utopian public works project called Megalopolis that will prove his critics wrong–stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Driver slouches into his role perfectly fine, but we also get Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, and Jon Voight rounding out the cast in their most scenery chewing roles to date. This trio represents the best of the melodrama of the movie, constantly getting involved in lurid sex and political affairs. We have a bunch of other actors who certainly are there, like Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Jason Schwartzmann, and Dustin Hoffman. It’s a movie with deep deep flaws, not the least of which is being a tribute to its own (extremely questionable) greatness. The protagonist being a thinly veiled metaphor for Coppola himself would be extremely sad if it weren’t so funny. Despite all that, this film absolutely drips with camp that I can’t help but have a rollicking good time.

BlackBerry (2023)

This movie was sold to me as a kind of send-up of business biopics like Jobs or The Founder, but I think it’s actually a different animal. It has jokes for sure, but they aren’t poking fun at other films of that type. But in reality it plays as a much more straightforward type of this movie but including just enough levity to keep the tone fairly light. A scene I loved as a software engineer has Jay Baruchel as RIM co-founder Mike Lizardis explaining to a Verizon VP–played by one of my favorite character actors Saul Rubinek–how their software architecture solves their technical problems in getting a smartphone to work. Seldom do you get into this kind of technical nitty gritty–the real genius imo–in these kinds of films. Glenn Howerton–aka the hot one in Always Sunny–completely transforms as co-CEO of RIM Jim Balsillie complete with full male-pattern hair loss chrome dome. SungWon “ProZD” Cho is in this too, which is always fun! Michael Ironside is here too, with plenty of opportunities to ham it up. The movie does have issues landing as a full story, but it’s a fun and interesting ride for nearly the whole time.

Superman (2025)

I used to love superhero movies. Batman, Blade, X-men, Spider-man (the Raimi/MacGuire ones), and the early MCU all riveted me. But then the meteoric success of the MCU led to Shared Cinematic Universes being the name of the game. Superman is extremely refreshing for being a movie with no continuity to track, no cliffhanger, just a compelling story. It’s even downright comic-booky, which is refreshing from the ultra-gritty Batman depictions we’ve had for the last 2 decades. It helps that it has really well drawn characters, which is a Gunn specialty. A standout is Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific, taking a D-tier DC hero and injecting with tons of personality. Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor also adds a notch to his “little weirdo” belt, which is always a treat. Oh and the plot is basically… Free Palestine.

Black Bag (2025)

No one does it like Soderbergh. Basically we get a series of scenes where we peel back these characters until only the ugly truth is left. Fassbender and Blanchett in particular are at the top of their games in giving us exactly the kind of performances that this understated spy thriller deserves. The thing as a whole is a powder keg to rival some of the best of Tarantino. And it’ll only set you back a measly 94 minutes, so it’s a damn bargain.

The Long Walk (2025)

I’m a little embarrassed to put this on my list, since it has numerous flaws. Although we get some internality to our characters, they still remain woefully shallow even by the end. Many of them only receive meaningful depth in the vicinity of their deaths. Despite all this… I thought about this movie for weeks after. Part of it is that the premise–keep a pace of 3MPH at all times or you’ll “get your ticket punched”–is just inherently dramatic. Even roughly drawn characters garner empathy when killed in such a clearly arbitrary way. The worldbuilding is equally crude, with allusions to economic downturn and a vague totalitarian government. Regardless, I find it very charming. Mark Hamill in one of his rare non-Star Wars live action roles definitely livens up what could have been a very rote character of the somewhat incoherent Colonel–the proctor of the Long Walk and also implied dictator of the dystopian America–with impeccable screen presence. It’s seldom I’m willing to forgive fairly deep deficiencies which could be remedied, but this one has enough charm to make it worthwhile.

Frankenstein (2025)

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus blew me away when I first read it. The pop culture osmosis of Frankenstein’s monster was extremely different from what I found on the page. There is no shortage of adaptations of Frankenstein and yet few seem that interested in the nuances of the story of the book. And then I saw this. It delivered on what the book had to say and then some. It’s also undeniably del Toro. Sexy monster? Check. Fucked up white dudes are the real monsters? Check. Gothic horror? Check. The whole cast is doing a great job here, but a big standout is Mia Goth as Victor’s sister-in-law-to-be. She’s the emotional core of the film, using a kind of matter-of-factness to direct your empathy. And she’s also impeccably costumed, always drawing the eye in any scene she’s in. As with any del Toro, this is a visually perfected film as well. There’s touches of the more “pop culture” version of Frankenstein, especially in Victor’s lab with massive galvanic batteries. All in all, this really feels like the definitive adaptation of the book.