According to my Goodreads, I read 42 books in 2025. According to my notebook, I read 51. I've never been good at using Goodreads and it's kinda a garbage site anyway. So, I read paper books, kindle books, audio books from the library on Libby, and probably a shampoo bottle or two while in the shower. Here's the ones the love in my life said I would not shut up about.
According to my Letterboxd, I saw 210 movies in 2025. Of those movies, I rated a bunch pretty high, but when I started looking over the list I really only had a dozen or so I want to say something about (or as the love in my life says I would not shut up about). Add in some honorable mentions and here's that list
When I sit in a movie theater, my mind calms down. I may be excited or bored or any number of emotions, but something about the world feels more organized in a crowd of seats with a giant screen in front of me. The seats can be full or empty, but according to the heart monitor on my watch I'm so relaxed I might as well be asleep. Going to the movies is my favorite thing to do.
The majority of my childhood was consuming media. Reading books while the television was on kinda kid. Because of this and an aunt who got us free HBO, I had a steady stream of low budget movies going in one ear on a consistent basis. Not complete "unknown" movies, but those that either did not get a full release or have been lost under the dunes of memory sand ready to be uncovered.
Let's be honest, you're gonna go see this or already have if you are so inclined. Same if you are not. And that's fine. The crew behind Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the sequel to the 2023 film, made this film not to show you a deeper part of the human condition. It's a fun "baby's first horror" video game adaptation created for young kids on sleepovers to watch after the parents go to bed. Any critical eye on this movie misses that point and the enjoyment of seeing a silly, plotless mess done by people who seem to care.
You had me at "Edgar Wright is adapting Running Man." A kinetic and smart director paired with a wild little story that had already been an Arnold Schwarzenegger classic can't be bad, right? Right? It's not bad and you should see it if you have any interest, but I have thoughts.
I wanted to see the remake of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, but decided to rewatch the original 1992 instead to get some context. What have they updated, how are the performances different, all that shit. Oh hell, no, I'm sticking with the original for now. I do not need this beautiful madness tarnished in my brain.
For years I've been told to check out the Jason Aaron run of Marvel's Thor comic. "A sweeping epic that's metal as shit" a friend said. I would look at the volumes in comic stores, 3-inch thick tomes covering eight years of comics and think "I cannot afford this in time or money." But now that I have Marvel Now, I burned through all those issues and I can confirm it is epic and glorious and at times metal as shit.
I never watched Downton Abbey. Didn't know about the dead Turkish guy, didn't know about the other dead guys, didn't know about the hundreds of weddings and romances and other things going on upstairs or downstairs. I did watch a Youtube recap that was done with the actors, however, but I was not prepared for a season of television to be squashed into a two hour movie.
Y'all ever rewatch a movie and suddenly have an insight into what it means? Last night I'm watching Iron Man (2008) for maybe the twelfth time. Never watched it that closely. My surface level take is simple: a funny drunk rich dude realized war ain't good, so he makes a suit of armor to become a hero. I was wrong. Tony Stark is a sad rich dude who felt weak once so he takes it out on the world only becoming a hero when he dies.
My dad asked me one time, I was maybe ten or so, why I never ran away? Odd question that time and now I guess. I had no real answer for him. I was young and had nowhere to go.
I stood atop my house and wondered what other lands there were to conquer. My house was five levels, three above ground and two below. The top level was all glass made for observing the blocky terrain twenty plus blocks below. The next level was a bedroom and hangout pad. The bottom level was full of chests that held materials for crafting. The next two levels underground held my crafting bench, more chests, and weapons. Below that was a MINE and that was why I CRAFTED.
In 1995 when I was about fourteen years old, April Showers was found dead in the primary school playground.She had been stripped naked and shot execution style in the back of the head. Dennis Mitchell, a second grade student, went to sharpen his pencil and looked out the window and saw the nude dead woman. He's fine.
I'm not gonna say "immigrant" a lot here, but this is totally a movie about how immigrants are the lifeblood of the United States no matter what social media tells you. That's the text.
Sliding down to my seat a little late for the film, I forced a mother to move away from her husband to sit by her children. She was in my seat. I was not just breaking up parental date nights at a violent action movie for the fun of it just because. This time.
Successful Marvel properties (comics, movies, toilet paper, etc) center on the characters. The plot, humor, action, all of it in the best they offer is driven by the characters and their motivations. Since Endgame, Marvel has struggled to pull together compelling characters that propel good plots. Thunderbolts gets the studio back on track, yet much of the meta-story shows they have not learned that much.
The old Universal horror movies like Wolfman and Creature from the Black Lagoon get more love as trendsetting genre films rather than as quality pictures, but Night of the Hunter homages their stark black and white images with a more horrible creature than they ever could have conceived. A beautiful film that did not get its due back in the day, Night of the Hunter is fucking awesome.
I saw this movie in the theater when it was released and remembered two things: the chain and the nudity. The rest kinda floated away on a cloud of booze and hundreds of other movies released that year, and it was not a good year for movies. What I did not remember was the musical about trauma and healing that Black Snake Moan becomes.
Having seen that life close up for half my life as well as living in the bayou of Louisiana for a time, Southern Comfort is an accurate depiction of the effectiveness of the National Guard.
Spending time with people tends to bring out all those little eccentricities, but in the case of Reflecting Skin it brings out all the dark, weird shit swirling beneath.