Author: Mat Brewster

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The Movie Journal: June 2025

vampyr

I watched 47 movies in June. 34 of them were new to me. 13 of them were made before I was born. The theme was War Movies in June, and I did a pretty bad job of it. I only watched four films that fit that category (technically I watched Flying Leathernecks in May so that would bring the total up to five).

Like last year, the theme for July will be Sci-Fi in July. I did pretty well with that last year, so hopefully I’ll watch lots of science fiction films this month.

We just finished the sixth month of 2025, which is the halfway point, so I like to spend a little time talking about my movie watching so far.

I’ve definitely slowed my movie watching down a little bit this year. I’ve only watched 209 movies so far (for comparison, I had watched 238 by this point last year). I’ve been catching up on a lot more television, which has been rewarding in its own right. That still comes out to an average of 29.9 movies per month or 8 per week.

Thrillers are my most-watched genre, coming in at 77 films watched. This is followed by Drama (72), Action (56), Horror (52), and Comedy (50). Naturally, I’ve watched the most films from the United States (138), with the UK coming in a distant second (37). After that, we have Japan (19), France (19), Italy (12), and Hong Kong (8).

I’ve watched 10 movies from 2025. 153 of the movies I’ve watched have been new to me. 73.2% of the films I’ve watched have been new to me which is just below where I like to be (I try to keep my ratio at 75%).

Favorite new to me movies I’ve watched in 2025 are Vampyr (1932), Smooth Talk (1985), Mad Detective (2007), and Midnight (2021).

My most watched actors list has changed quite a bit, mostly do to death and Doctor Who. Gene Hackman’s recent passing had me watching several films with him in them. I continue to watch films by David Lynch (and Twin Peaks, which counts as a film according to Letterboxd), and he was a big fan of using the same actors over and over, so Grace Zabriskie and Harry Dean Stanton have entered the charts. Then I watched an entire season of Colin Baker’s version of Doctor Who, which put him and his companion Nicola Bryant on the chart. I just really like Willem Dafoe so he’s made it to the lead without any extra help.

The Criterion Channel is showing a bunch of films from Hong Kong director Johnnie To. I’d never seen any of his films so I gave one of them a shot, and then another and then…well, now he’s tied with David Lynch on the most watched Directors List with four films.

Predator 2 (1990) **1/2
Smooth Talk (1985) ****1/2
Jaws (1975) *****
The Sky Crawlers (2008) ***1/2
Nosferatu (2024) ***
The Phantom of 42nd Street (1945) **1/2
House of Wax (2005) **
Look Back (2024) ****
Dante’s Peak (1997) ***
28 Years Later (2025) ****
Big Bad Mama II (1987) **1/2
Big Bad Mama (1974) **
Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) ***1/2
Mad Detective (2007) ****
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks (1985) ***1/2
Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965) ***1/2
The Big Night (1951) ***1/2
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) ****1/2
Doctor Who: Timelash (1985) ***
Vampyr (1932) *****
The Loveless (1981) ***1/2
Another Simple Favor (2025) ***
Doctor Who: The Two Doctors (1985) ***
28 Weeks Later (2007) ***1/2
28 Days Later (2002) ***1/2
Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani (1985) ***
Doctor Who: Attack of the Cybermen (1985) ***
The Breaking Point (1950) ****
Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) *****
Wild at Heart (1990) ****
Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos (1985) ***1/2
Army of Shadows (1969) *****
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) ****1/2
Port of Shadows (1938) ****
Friday Foster (1975) ****
Baron Blood (1972) ***1/2
The Ghoul (1975) **
The Heroic Trio (1993) ***
Drug War (2012) ****
Breaking News (2004) ***1/2
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) *****
The Thin Red Line (1998) ****
No Way Out (1987) ****
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) ****
Dracula (1979) ****
Blacula (1972) ***1/2
The Wild Geese (1978) *

Five Cool Things and Weapons

twin peaks

I forgot to post last week’s Five Cool Things. This one includes the terrific first season of the very Columbo-esque Poker Face starring Natasha Lyonne, the terrific first season of Andor (still haven’t watched Season Two), the brilliant French film Army of Shadows, the final chapter in the Twin Peaks Saga, an episode of Moonlighting where they do Shakespeare and a new trailer for a very interesting movie. You can read all about it here.

Crime Scene Cleaner

crime scene cleaner

My wife and I have recently been enjoying a British series called Crime Scene Cleaner. It stars and is written by Greg Davies (who we also enjoy in Taskmaster). It is based on this German show of the same name. Honestly, I barely remember the German show other than I liked it a lot, but reading my review, I see that the first season of the British show took a lot of the plot points directly from the original.

I definitely recommend both shows if you can find them.

Serangoon Road

serangoon road

Are you like me? When you watch a TV show or a movie and there is an actor that catches your fancy, do you immediately look up what else they’ve been in? Do you get excited when you see them in something else? I do. I find myself rooting for certain actors that I like, especially when they aren’t already big stars.

So it was with Don Hany. I first caught him in an Australian series called East West 101. He was quite good in that, so I was excited to see him in this series for HBO Asia (and now I’m excited to see that Joan Chen – whom I just enjoyed in Twin Peaks – also starred in this series). To be honest, I’ve not seen Hany in anything else, and had kind of forgotten about him until now. But I just looked him up and was happy to see he’s still steadily working.

You can read my full review of this series here.

Lilies

lilies tv

One of the reasons I’m a physical media collector is that I always have access to the DVDs/Blu-rays that I own. I’m not subject to the whims of streaming services deciding which movies/TV series I can watch.

Lilies is a good example of this. It ran for but a single season (just eight episodes) on the BBC. As far as I can tell, it is not available to stream anywhere. Yet I can watch it anytime I want because I own it on DVD.

Not that I want to very often, but I could if I wanted to right now. Anyway, you can read my review of the series here.

Into the Woods (2014)

into the woods

After reading my rather raving review of this Rob Marshall-directed adaptation of the Steven Sondheim musical, I was surprised to look at Letterboxd and see that so many of the people I follow hate this film.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that the film severely changes a big chunk of the second act, making it much more Disney-friendly than the stage version. I’ve never seen it live, so I guess I wasn’t bothered by any changes.

While I did seem to have enjoyed it, it is worth noting I’ve never bothered to watch it again. Take that for what you will.

Nicolas Le Floch, Vol. 2

nicolas le floch dvd

There was a period of time, back around 2015, when I was reviewing a lot of International Mysteries. These were mostly put on DVD by a company called MHZ. They weren’t all good, but it was fun seeing how other countries handled their murder mysteries. Then I got busy, and the well ran dry.

I’ve recently subscribed to a streaming station run by MHZ and am once again enjoying my international mysteries.

I don’t really remember this French series, but you can read my review here.

International Settlement (1938)

international settlement dvd

One of the things I love about going through my old reviews is that I find films that I had forgotten I’d ever even watched. I don’t remember this film at all. I certainly don’t remember writing a review of it. Yet here we are and here it is.

The funniest thing about this review of this B-movie thriller is that I apparently didn’t know who George Sanders was ten years ago. He’s become one of my favorite actors, yet apparently I didn’t recognize him. How crazy that is to me now.