My Top 20 Films of 2025! (Top 18 actually 😉) A fantastic year of films with several major works from major directors, breakthroughs from emerging voices & intelligent rollouts from imaginative, risk-taking distributors. (Read blurbs for my Top 10 at the link below 👇)

The degree to which Canada & Canadians have internalized American hegemony should be studied. Go to a cafe or restaurant. Listen to conversations around you. They only talk about American news. American culture. American politics. American elections. Its all America all the time.

In Canada the pharmacist will give you a sermon before they hand over the medication. The cashier will ask for a donation to charity before reminding you plastic bags are banned.

MYSTERIES OF LISBON / MISTÉRIOS DE LISBOA, Raúl Ruiz's culminating, career-capping masterpiece and one of the greatest films of the century.

After YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING, Elizabeth Holmes is being treated as exactly other cultural "monsters". She's somehow simultaneously machiavellian & naive, 4-D chess player & dumb, controlling & controlled, scheming & misled, opaque & transparent, she knew & she didn't know.

The epidemic of terrible writing is a large scale catastrophe that the entire film industry should be striving hard to fix, especially Hollywood. What passes for an acceptable script for 100 million dollar+ productions is unconscionable.

The cultural import of YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING is undeniable. More than any other film, period, in the last 2 yrs, this is the one normies have most brought up. I did not care for it, but it has absolutely broken containment & entered into the mainstream zeitgeist bloodstream.

I am a prophet.

The reason FJORD is one-sided for American liberals but "both-sides" for Europeans is because adversarial, individualistic jurisprudence is deeply ingrained even in the American left. Put simply:The court case in FJORD would be summarily dismissed with prejudice in any US court.

What a defeatist take. Jamie Dornan through cowardice has inured himself against any criticism for his performance as Aragorn. Tell him he was trash in the role & you preferred Viggo Mortensen & he'd be the first person to agree with you.

I had someone tell me in 2012, that SKYFALL was a Christopher Nolan movie in that it was a remake of THE DARK KNIGHT & that if SKYFALL got nominated for Best Director at any awards show, Nolan should recieve that nomination rather than Sam Mendes.

Between art that humiliates you & "art" that flatters you, always pick the former. It is infinitely more valuable.

It is increasingly striking, that maybe through clairvoyance or coincidence, DIGGER lampoons the exact audience for YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING. The two movies aren't so much in conversation as confrontation. I wonder if anyone loves both unequivocally.

The first line (in Armond's review), godalmighty. Made me wince.

Co-sign. I just couldn't get into POSSIBLE LOVE.

STARBUCKS' Black Cat Frappuchino is kinda awesome. It's absolutely a treat, quite sweet, a dessert & quite expensive at 430 calories but very flavorful.

The NYT quote-dispute in YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING is a she said/she said. Elizabeth Holmes & Amy Chozick did have the conversation where “They’re not playing me, they’re playing a character XXXX created" was said. Holmes says XXXX is "they", Chozick says XXXX is "I".

1 generational masterpiece from one of the most important directors working today. 1 extremely mediocre film by a lauded (not by me) director.

I find it absurd that people collect themed popcorn buckets. Seems ... unsanitary. Then again, I live in a studio & have zero free space.