Category Archives: Lists

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Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Best Movies of 2025

I usually start these year-end lists with some perfunctory and entirely unnecessary recap of my feelings of the previous year. Not this year. Let’s move on. Our tomorrow must be better than our yesterday.

(The movies were OK).

Honorable Mentions: Sorry, Baby; The Secret Agent; Black Bag; Souleymane’s Story; The Ugly Stepsister; Marty Supreme; On Becoming a Guinea Fowl; Wake Up Dead Man; Eephus; The Mastermind; Hamnet; Caught by the Tides; Weapons; The Naked Gun; Left-Handed Girl

10. KPop Demon Hunters

I arrived very late to Kpop Demon Hunters, the surprise cultural sensation of 2025. And the film lives up to its reputation. Watching it, I couldn’t help but Continue reading The Best Movies of 2025 →

Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Worst Movies of 2025

2025 certainly was not a bad year in cinema, but I also found many films did not move the needle. Some films were major disappointments. And then, as always, there were the dregs. These five films were, save for one exceptional case, the least enjoyment I got out of film-watching this year.

The Electric State

Many hands have already been wrung over the supposed price tag of this little ditty from the brothers Russo. It is an exacerbating factor in the film’s already negative reception (How could it be this bad and this expensive?) It is a blemish that is difficult to Continue reading The Worst Movies of 2025 →

Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Fantasia Festival 2025 Lineup Preview

2025. Another year, another Fantasia International Film Festival experience. Fantasia is a massive festival centering on international genre cinema. I love covering this Montreal fest. It’s selections are always diverse and offbeat, turning me on to pockets of the genre film space that I was not privy to. So let’s just get down to it. Five films in this year’s program (probably) worth adding to the watchlist. Let’s go.

This year’s Fantasia Festival runs from July 16 to August 3.

Every Heavy Thing (Mickey Reece)

I have seen three Mickey Reece films courtesy of Fantasia Fest, and they were all intriguing formal experiments. His work feels like the natural progression of the mumblecore/mumblegore genre (i.e., it’s lo-fi and low-key, but moves past the self-seriousness and intentional lack of effort that caused mumblecore to taper off in the first place). His films aren’t Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2025 Lineup Preview →

Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The 10 Best Movies of 2024

Out goes one year; in comes the next. A steady temporal turnstile incessantly reminding us that while we may slow down, the astronomical structures dictating our cultural conception of time are rigid enough as to appear as a constant. In other words, my eyes need a rest.

In other other words, it is best-of-the-year time for all matters cultural discourse. There really is little value to it, this arbitrary comparison between pieces of media based on a calendar release date (usually region-specific, to make it all the less comprehensive). The numbers mean virtually nothing. The voices speaking are minuscule, as they beat the drum for individual and subjective tastes but under the guise of a universal acceptance that these here cultural objects are worth categorizing and hierarchizing into list-like structures for other people’s amusement (and, often, a confirmation of those other people’s own individual and subjective tastes).

In short, I am one iota of cultural detritus contributing to this “online discourse” problem, fueling factional groupthink under some self-prescribed claim to expertise. Or I just feel like Continue reading The 10 Best Movies of 2024 →

Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The 10 Worst Movies of 2024

Every year, I waffle in my decision to publish a worst-of year end list or to abstain. In most instances, it is an empty exercise to contribute to the ongoing discussion over the churn and lack of creativity in the media industries, and in Hollywood in particular.

On the other hand, negativity is not only the Internet’s main reason for being; it can also be productive. With each passing year in which franchises continue to circle the box office drain, celebrities fluff themselves up in vanity projects, and cheap cash grabs slip under the cultural radar, it feels more useful to mock than to ignore. In short, standards are necessary. And the bar doesn’t have to be high, either. Something always slips under like a world class limbo competitor.

These are 10 of those films which didn’t make the grade in 2024.

10. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Despite minor improvements over the previous installment, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire proves that nostalgia-driven intellectual property maintenance has a ceiling so low that Continue reading The 10 Worst Movies of 2024 →

Horror, Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

2024 Fantastic Fest Program Preview

Austin, TX’s Fantastic Fest returns this September for its 19th edition, with eight days filled to the brim with genre films big and small. We will be covering a variety of films as they premiere at the fest. In the interim, here are some individual titles which may be worth adding to your watchlist.

The 2024 edition of Fantastic Fest will run September 19 to September 26.

Cloud (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the prolific genre filmmaker, is pushing 70. Yet, he has three separate projects circulating film festivals in the past year. One of them, Cloud, is officially Continue reading 2024 Fantastic Fest Program Preview →

Horror, Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

2024 Fantasia Film Festival Program Preview

It’s time again for the Fantasia International Film Festival. I really enjoy writing about the Montreal-based festival, whose films span multiple genres and celebrate the diversity that the term “genre film” has to offer. As per usual, I want to outline a few titles of interest being featured at this year’s festival.

Fantasia will hold its 28th edition from July 18 to August 4.

Frankie Freako (dir. Steven Kostanski)

Steven Kostanski’s Psycho Goreman was a clever play on a children’s fantasy film (not a children’s film, to be clear). The genre riffs Kostanski has been involved in have Continue reading 2024 Fantasia Film Festival Program Preview →

Box Office Predictions, Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Summer 2024 Box Office Predictions

Update (4/27/24): Following publication of this article, Sony announced it would be pushing the release of Kraven the Hunter to December 2024, moving it out of the summer box office conversation. Turns out I, in fact, did mention this film more times than I needed to.

We are about to enter a bleak summer for theatrical cinema. For several reasons – chief among them the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of last year causing delays – 2024 has less to offer than previous years when it comes to big budget blockbuster tentpoles. Even with first quarter offerings like Dune: Part Two, Ghostbuster: Frozen Empire, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (between the three, Hollywood may be tipping a tad too imperial), the box office is lagging behind 20% compared to the numbers from this time last year. Deadline reports a projected $1 billion drop in box office by year’s end.

The summer will likely be where this deficit is felt the hardest. Whereas most May months of recent years (pandemic year 2020 notwithstanding) have begun with Continue reading Summer 2024 Box Office Predictions →

Lists, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The 10 Best Movies of 2023

Another year over, another long year of movies ahead of us in 2024. 2023 was an odd year in movies for me. It took roughly 10 months before I saw more than one film that really blew me away. Since that point, though, I’ve seen a number of great ones. I was happy to see a diversity in the types of films in my top 50: a nice mix of genres, a balance between major studios and independents, a good assortment of non-U.S. films that I was glad to be exposed to, a few thought-provoking docs, a number of beautiful animated films, I could go on. After resigning myself to a sub-par year in movies, I end the year pleasantly surprised by a number of titles I will happily return to in the future.

These are the best movies I saw in 2023, along with 15 honorable mentions. Happy New Year.

Honorable Mentions:

  • All of Us Strangers
  • Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
  • BlackBerry
  • Earth Mama
  • Fallen Leaves
  • Four Daughters
  • Godzilla Minus One
  • Kokomo City
  • May December
  • Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
  • Nimona
  • The Promised Land
  • Skinamarink
  • Talk to Me
  • A Thousand and One

10. Rye Lane

Sometimes, a film can be wholly satisfying without any of the bells and whistles, by just relying on Continue reading The 10 Best Movies of 2023 →

Lists

Fantasia International Film Festival 2023 Lineup Preview

As an amateur critic (who conjures a perception of credibility by the skin of his teeth like a snake oil salesman trucking across the unpaved west), I like to break down the calendar year by what it offers in terms of film. Summer comes with blockbuster season (more emphasis on the “busts” this year), but it also comes with genre fest season. In truth, there is very little reason to codify July through (roughly) October as the time for genre film festivals. Genre festivals run all over the world all throughout the year. But some of the most prominent fests fall in that stretch between Cannes and the lead-in to awards season. FrightFest, Fantastic Fest, Beyond Fest.

And the festival that kicks off this arbitrarily defined season is the Fantasia International Film Festival. Taking place in Montreal from July 20 to August 9, this year’s 27th edition of the fest features new, cutting edge genre films from across the globe, as well as a quality selection of older films. Here are, in no particular order, seven films from the program worth keeping an eye on.

Suitable Flesh

Joe Lynch’s Suitable Flesh, a Lovecraft adaptation starring Heather Graham and Barbara Crampton, appears satisfyingly Continue reading Fantasia International Film Festival 2023 Lineup Preview →