The Movie Journal: September 2025

image host

Hello, friends. It has been a long time. Obviously, I haven’t been doing much writing in these pages of late. Before I disappeared, I talked a little bit about how my hit counter for this site was abysmal. People just don’t come here anymore.

There are probably lots of reasons for that, most of which are out of my control. The few things that I could do to get me more readers would feel more like work than fun and probably wouldn’t garner that many more visitors anyhow.

However, I find I still love this site. I still like writing about movies and music and whatever else I’ve got on my mind. I’ve been thinking about returning for a little while now, but the calendar rolling over to October has pushed me to just start writing again.

One of the first movie themes I created was 31 Days of Horror, and I just can’t not write about horror movies in October. I’m not sure how much I’ll do. I’d like to return to doing the Friday Night Horror Movie and my Picks of the Week. I’ll probably write at least a few horror movie reviews and maybe a few other things. I imagine I’ll post stuff I’ve written for Cinema Sentries here like I used to.

I’m sure I’ll stick around for Noirvember as well, but after that…well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

But I don’t know what the future holds. I may get fed up with this again and drop completely out. Or I may find some alternative place to post my words. Probably I’ll just keep writing things here whenever I feel like it.

I want to say that I’ll only post when I want to, that it will be a casual thing. That I don’t want to push myself to post things because then it becomes unfun. But the truth is I need a little bit of a push. If I don’t, then I get lazy and don’t do anything.

I’m also in the process of moving all the posts on the music site back to this one. It just seems silly to keep that music site if I’m not going to post any more music. But I’d hate to lose those old posts and the many comments you all left on them. I actually have some ideas about doing some music posts again (without download links), but I’ll save that discussion for another day.

Anyway, here I am, back for now. Since September just ended and I haven’t yet watched any horror movies, I thought I’d begin with my monthly wrap up. And here we go.

imgbox

I watched 32 movies in September. Twenty three of them were new to me. Eight of them were made before I was born. My theme for the month was The Seventies in September, and I watched ten movies from that decade.

I’ve now watched 337 movies this year. Twenty one of them are from 2025. 73 percent of them have been new to me.

imgbox

Willem Dafoe is tied with Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant for first place in my most watched actors category. The latter of which are due to me watching a full season’s worth of their Doctor Whos.

Johnnie To and David Lynch remain at the top of my director’s list with four films watched.

And that’s it. I do hope to keep writing, just for fun. Maybe I’ll get more readers, maybe I won’t. But if you enjoy my words, please do leave a comment, as that helps a great deal. And here’s the full list.

Ballerina (2025) ****
Dogtooth (2009) ****
Mystic Pizza (1988) ***
Rebel Ridge (2024) ****1/2
The Rapacious Jailbreaker (1974) ****
Mark Strikes Again (1976) **
Practical Magic (1998) **
The Raven (2012) ***/12
Peking Opera Blues (1986) ****
The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) ***1/2
The Great Gatsby (1974) **
The Thursday Murder Club (2025) ***
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009) ***1/2
Honey Don’t! (2025) ***1/2
Dracula (1958) ****
The Fog (1980) ****
When a Stranger Calls (1979) ***
The Craft (1996) ***1/2
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974 (2009) ***1/2
5 Fingers (1952) ***1/2
Alucarda (1977) ***1/2
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) ***1/2
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) ****
All the President’s Men (1976) ****1/2
Sisters (1972) ****
City of Ghosts (2002) **1/2
Blithe Spirit (2020) **1/2
The Devils (1971) ****
Winter Kills (1979) ***1/2
The Crow (1994) ****
Sorcerer (1977) ****1/2
The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion (2018) ***1/2
The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil (2019) ****

The Million Dollar Bashers Celebrate Bob Dylan Going Electric

image host

On July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan plugged in and performed live with an electric guitar and an amplified rock and roll band for the first time ever. It would be stretching things to say this moment forever changed history, but its impact on the folk music scene and its influence on popular music cannot be overstated.

For the 60th anniversary of this momentous occasion, the Bob Dylan Center sponsored a concert at the historic Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on July 26, 2025.. An all-star cast of musicians performed songs by Bob Dylan from that era.

Led by musical director Lee Renaldo of Sonic Youth, the house band featured Nels Cline (Wilco) on guitar, Ethan Miller (Howlin’ Rain) on bass, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) on drums, and Mikael Jorgenson (Wilco) on keyboards. Rotating through was a selection of guests, including John Doe (X), Robyn Hitchcock, Emma Swift, Sunny War, Dean & Brita (Luna), plus Joy Harjo, the current artist in residence at the Dylan Center, and Doug Keith, the musical director.

There were actually two shows performed this night, an early show that started at 6:30 and a late performance starting at 9:00. The wife and I opted for the early performance. It would be nice, we thought, to get home from a concert before midnight. And they had seats (a rarity for the Cain’s), and we are old. We’ve attended many concerts at this venue, and while it is one of my favorites, I have to admit its usual standing room only status leaves my back aching by the end of the night.

Things got started with “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine),” an odd choice since Dylan didn’t debut the song in concert until 1974, but a rollicking one. They played it like those electric songs at Newport – fiercely, like it could veer completely out of control at any minute.

Emma Swift then came out to sing a lovely version of “The Times They Are A-Changin'”.” I gotta admit, folks, I teared up at that one. There was something electric in the air (pun intended, I guess). Everyone seemed to know this was something special. To hear these amazing musicians playing these amazing songs, songs that everybody there knew and loved, was incredible.

There were a couple of more times when the band played the songs like Dylan and his Band back in the early days, but mostly they made them their own.

I didn’t keep notes, so I won’t go through the setlist one by one. I’m not likely to remember who sang what. But I’ll try to give a good overview.

Everyone was clearly excited to be there. These are all busy, working musicians with their own songs to sing, their own tour to play. But they took time out to come celebrate Bob Dylan. Renaldo especially seemed to be having the time of his life. You could see him lip synching along, off-mike, to many of the songs as someone else took the vocals.

I’m a very casual fan of Luna, so I wouldn’t have been able to pick Dean & Brita out of a lineup, but as soon as he started to sing, I realized immediately who they were. They did their songs like duets. Their version of “Just Like a Woman” was especially sweet and beautiful.

I’m not particularly well-versed in John Doe or X, but he exuded an old-school cool on his two songs, and he was one of the only ones who actually spoke to the audience.

I’m not familiar with Sunny War at all, but she laid it down for “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” the only one of the night to do any kind of Dylan impression. She seemed quite shy, slipping on and off the stage like she hoped nobody would notice her.

I’m sure Joy Harjo is a fine poet, but she’s not a great singer. She was way off key, loud, and honestly, just bad. She sang like a poet, using her own rhythms and phrasings. I’m not opposed to that, Dylan often messes with the phrasings of his songs, but she couldn’t seem to quite get all the words out of her mouth before the music had moved on. And in songs like “Mr. Tambourine Man” when there are a lot of words, that just came out awful.

All of the other guests came out on a rotating basis, but the legendary Robyn Hitchcock played his two songs one right after the other. He played a terrific version of “Highway 61 Revisited” and then absolutely nailed “Desolation Row” with just him and Nels Cline on the stage. He called it one of the greatest songs ever written and “also one of the longest.” But he got all the lyrics just exactly perfect, and I never saw him once look at the teleprompter. Again, this was a group of musicians who just love the songs of Bob Dylan.

MVP of the night was Nels Cline. I’ve seen him multiple times with Wilco (several times at this venue) and at least once in those shows I’ll turn to my wife and say “Nels Fucking Cline!” – usually just after a mind-melting solo. The man is an absolute beast on guitar. This night he was more subdued, and more nuanced. On the big rock songs he jammed with the best of him, but on the softer ballads, he added beautiful textures and on “Desolation Ro,w” his took an acoustic guitar and made perfect Spanish sounding melodies. He was the only musician to stay on state the entire night.

But really the entire band was first-rate – world-class musicians filled with joy, playing music they love. This was not necessarily the greatest concert I’ve ever attended but it was probably the most fun I’ve ever had.

Everybody came out at the end for “Like a Rolling Stone.” It was an obvious choice – Renaldo even said so, while Hitchcock quipped (at least its not “Forever Young”). It was a fine version with everyone getting a verse and with faces filled with joy.

You can see the full setlist here.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Get Away (2024)

get away

Horror often relies on putting characters in unfamiliar places. They might be somewhere remote and isolated, where help cannot be found. Or maybe they are in a different culture where they do not understand the language or customs. Putting our protagonists somewhere they do not feel safe gives us an immediate sense of dread.

Get Away falls in the tradition of films like The Wicker Man (1973) or Midsommar (2019) where are protagonists are both isolated from the outside world and surrounded by a strange and unfamiliar culture. It then plays with those conventions, subverting them in interesting and fun ways.

Richard (Nick Frost, who also wrote the script) and Susan (Aisling Bea), along with their two children, Sam (Sebastian Croft) and Jessie (Maisie Ayres), are taking a holiday on a tiny island off the coast of Sweden. They are looking forward to the island’s annual celebration of Karantan (where islanders nearly starved to death, resorting to cannibalism due to some forced quarantining).

Before they even arrive at the island, they are given the side-eye by the locals who warn them they won’t be welcomed there. They barely make the last ferry (which naturally won’t return for several days) and arrive on the island where they are greeted by scorn.

The one friendly face, Mats (Eero Milonoff), is the one who rented them the Airbnb, and he turns out to be a pervert, spying on Jessie and stealing her undergarments.

For the first hour, the film relies on the tropes of these sorts of films – miscommunications over cultural differences, an increasing sense of unease – and then it takes a big twist. I won’t spoil it, but unless you really aren’t paying attention, you’ll probably figure it out long before the film wants you to. It is a bit strange that it takes the film so long to get to that twist, because what comes after is where everybody seems to be having the most fun.

At that point, the unease turns into a straight-up gore fest with loads of well-done practical effects and very fun kills.

It is a film that isn’t nearly as clever as it needs to be, or funny, but it isn’t a bad cinematic experience. I like Nick Frost quite a lot, and it’s fun to see him just being weird and having a good time. I just wish I enjoyed myself as much as he seems to have.

Sci-Fi In July: Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2009)

image host

My daughter has gotten into Manga and Anime in a big way, so I try to watch some of that with her. We’d both heard of the Evangelion series, but neither of us really knew anything about it. It is a confusing franchise as there are numerous series and movies, with reboots and rebuilds thrown into the mix.

We more or less randomly decided to start with this film, which is essentially a retelling of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series. That series isn’t available on our streaming services, but this film is on Crunchyroll, and since it basically retells the original story, we figured it was as good a place as any to start with.

Having now seen the film, I’m not so sure that was true. I found much of the story quite confusing, and it very much feels like I’m missing a large part of the lore.

The film drops you right into the middle of it, without explanation. Best I can figure is that sometime in the past, these giant Kaiju creatures known as Angels came to Earth, nearly destroying it. Humans have now built Mech-Warrior-type robots, called Evangelions, to fight back.

For reasons that are never really explained, the head leader dude taps his estranged 14-year-old son to pilot one of the Evangelion robot thingies. Though he is very young and has had zero training, they pop him into it and ask him to fight an incoming Angel.

He fumbles at first, nearly destroying the machine and killing himself, but miraculously, he recovers and destroys the angel. After some unspecified amount of time, another Angel arrives, and basically the same thing happens. Shinji is placed back into the Evangelion; he has no idea what he’s doing, but after taking some losses, he somehow finds a way to destroy the angel. Rinse, repeat.

In between these battles, he talks with his guardian Misato and becomes friends with Rei, another Evangelion pilot who was previously injured. Shinji only pilots his machine reluctantly, being essentially forced to do it, but Rei willingly takes it on with a sense of duty and honor.

It ends with a cliffhanger and some weirdness.

I seriously don’t know what to make of this film. I understood the basic plotlines, but so much of it was left unexplained. It felt very much like I was supposed to have watched the original series, even though this seems like it was designed as a straight retelling of it with updated animation.

There is a lot of mythology built into it that I simply don’t understand. I kind of hated it, but I also want to watch more. There is something about it that is truly interesting and I’d like to dig into that, but I’m not sure whether to watch the next movie or go back to the original series.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Sci-Fi In July Edition: Resident Evil (2002)

image host

I stopped playing video games after things advanced past the Super Nintendo System. Partially, this was because I’d gone to college and found more interesting things to take up my time. Partially, this was because I was now college-aged and expected to purchase things like gaming systems myself, and I had other things to spend my money on. But also, my friend had a Nintendo 64, and when I’d play games on it like GoldenEye, I found I got nauseated.

My brother had a PlayStation, and I believe he owned the first Resident Evil game. I remember playing it a time or two, but it never hooked me in. So when the movie came out, I was none too interested.

I thought I had watched it sometime previously to tonight, but I’ve not logged it in Letterboxd nor rated it on IMDB. Watching it, I found that I had no real memory of it. The opening scene did seem a little familiar, and I definitely knew about a scene where a laser beam cuts some soldiers into pieces. But maybe I saw that in a trailer, or some other clip. Or maybe I started the movie, got halfway through, and decided it was too stupid to finish. I dunno. As I get older, my memory of what I’ve seen and haven’t seen diminishes, and I’m left scratching my head over certain films.

Obviously, none of this matters to anyone, but this is my blog, and I can ramble if I want to.

But on to the actual film. Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up naked and alone in a shower. She seems to have fallen, pulling the shower curtain down with her (to strategically cover up her naked parts, yet reveal enough to get the horny boys most likely to see this movie all excited). She seems to have lost all memory of who she is and what she’s doing there. She sees a picture of herself with a man. They are dressed as if it is their wedding day. She notices a wedding ring on her finger.

Suddenly, a strange man tackles her just as a group of commandos busts into the mansion. The commandos have no time to explain, but take Alice and the man with them to an underground train. There, they find Spence (James Purefoy), the man in that wedding photo, who also says he has amnesia.

Riding the train deeper underground, the commando boss, James Shade (Colin Salmon), explains that they are entering The Hive, a top-secret genetic research facility owned by The Umbrella Corporation. Earlier that day, The Hive’s supercomputer, also known as The Red Queen, mysteriously killed all the people inside The Hive. The Commandos are there to find out why. Alice and Spence are employees of The Umbrella Corporation, tasked to guard the entrance of The Hive, and were only pretending to be married as some sort of cover.

For the first half of the film, our heroes do battle with The Red Queen. It is still on guard and has set deadly traps for anyone trying to get in. That’s where those laser beams come in, plus various other murderous traps.

Once they turn the computer off, they realize the reason it went haywire is that the T-Virus was unleashed, and The Hive had to be shut down lest it contaminate the outside world. The T-Virus turns humans into zombies.

Also, the crazy scientists in The Hive were experimenting with the T-Virus on various creatures, creating super monsters. The rest of our film finds our heroes battling them.

Paul W.S. Anderson directs (I seem to be having an Anderson weekend). Like all of his films that I’ve seen, he does a good enough job directing that I don’t hate what I’m watching, but a poor enough job to make me wonder why I kept with it. He’s competent enough to keep things interesting, but not enough of an artist to ever make me seek him out. Someone should tell him to lay off the CGI, though. It looks bad in all his films, but here especially, since most of the monsters are CGI and they are laughably bad.

He’s helped here by a script that kept the action coming at a steady pace. Jovovich is quite good as the lead; she’s starred in all of the Resident Evil films, and I imagine this is what she will be remembered for. She’s got quite a presence. As does Michelle Rodriguez as one of the commandos. This was just her fourth film, but she completely owns it. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag, ranging from pretty good to fairly terrible.

This is a film where, if I have actually seen it before, I can totally understand how I’d forgotten it. It isn’t all that bad, but neither is it particularly memorable. It is, however, just good enough to make me want to watch the sequel. Or maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment.

Sci-Fi In July: Alien vs Predator: Requiem (2007)

alien vs predator requieum

I suppose every kid at one point or another has created their own crossover event. You got a big box of toys from a variety of different toy lines, so you mix and match. GI Joe Teams up with Thundercats. Superman and Wolverine battle Megatron and Darth Vader. Etc. Sometimes you wonder who would win in a fight: Spider-Man or a Mutant Turtle, Cobra Commander or Skeletor. Etc., again.

It makes sense that actual comic lines would take up this idea, and television and movies. The Avengers made it into a billion-dollar event.

I suppose, then, that an Alien vs Predator mashup was inevitable. I still think you could make a good movie out of that concept. In my mind, you have the Predators on some isolated, desolate planet, or maybe a big ship without much crew. They’ve got a bunch of Alien eggs on board, and then something goes wrong. The Aliens hatch and start picking off the Predators before they know what’s happening. Basically, you make a really good Alien movie but with Predators instead of humans.

There are bits of that idea inside of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, but they frak it up pretty quickly. The film starts immediately after the event of Alien vs. Predator, so spoilers for that film ahead.

The Predators win, because, of course, they do. The Xenomorphs are much cooler creatures, but they have no personality beyond kill, kill, kill. The last Predator actually dies at the end of the movie, and we see some other Predators fly down in their spaceship and pick his corpse up for a memorial. But just before the credits roll, we see a Chestburster bust out of the dead Predator.

So, the Aliens have a life cycle, part of which has them being hosted by another creature. In the films, that creature is usually a human. Apparently, it partially merges with its host’s DNA, picking up some of its characteristics. When its host is a Predator, what comes out is something called. Predalien (something I just now learned by reading the Wikipedia article).

The Predalien smashes up the Alien ship, causing it to crash back on Earth. It releases a bunch of Facehuggers, and quickly, Earth is being infested with Xenomorphs. Only one Predator survives, and it needs to kill all the Xenomorphs before they kill all the humans. I’m not sure why it cares other than it just really likes killing Aliens.

I’m down with all of that. I can totally get behind a lone Predator facing off against a bunch of Xenomorphs and a Predalien. Unfortunately, this is a Hollywood film, so it has to throw a bunch of dumb humans into the mix.

They are very dumb, completely unmemorable, and an utter waste of time. I watched the film last night and I couldn’t tell you a single human’s name and barely remember what any of them look like. There really isn’t a point in discussing them because, for the most part, they only exist to be killed by the Predalien or a Xenomorph.

Every now and again, the Predator will wipe out a Xenomorph, and once or twice that’s actually kind of cool. But mostly it is dumb humans getting massacred in completely boring ways. If you are waiting for an awesome showdown between the Predator and the Predalien, don’t hold your breath. They do have a fight, but it is not very interesting, and ultimately – spoiler for the ending – the humans drop an Atom bomb on the town, killing everybody but a few of our sort-of heroes.

I’ve now seen every film in both the Alien and Predator franchises. They are both a pretty mixed bag, with both very good and very stupid films existing in both. But I can see myself revisiting all of the films in the franchises except these. I never want to think about these two crossover films ever again.

Sci-Fi In July: Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

alien v predator poster

Alien (1979) is one of the greatest science fiction/horror movies ever made. Predator (1987) is, well, it isn’t the greatest anything, but it is a ridiculous bit of 1980s sci-fi action elevated by some fine direction by John McTiernan and some charismatic performances by its stacked cast (including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, and Bill Duke).

Dark Horse Comics obtained the rights to both franchises and began releasing separate stories from them. In 1989, some genius decided to combine them and created the first Alien Versus Predator mashup. There are a lot of comics, and I’ve not read any of them, so I can’t comment intelligently. My understanding is that the Predators, at some point, found some Alien eggs and have been breeding them ever since. With the intent of periodically releasing them so that they can be hunted.

A quick primer if you’ve never seen any of the films. A Predator is a technologically advanced alien species that flies to various planets and hunts the native species for sport. The Aliens are Xenomorphs, incredibly dangerous, but not particularly advanced, creatures with acid for blood.

There are numerous films in both franchises, and two crossover movies. The crossovers got terrible reviews and are generally considered some of the worst films in either franchise, which is why I’ve avoided watching them for so long. I found a cool DVD boxed set at Goodwill the other day that contains the first four Alien films, two Predator movies, and both of the crossovers. And here we are.

For the first thirty minutes, Alien vs Predator creates a promising setup. Wealthy industrialist Charles Weyland (Lance Henriksen) (the Weyland-Yutani corporation features heavily in the Alien franchise) discovers a massive pyramid structure buried some 2,000 feet below the surface of a tiny island off the coast of Antarctica.

Weyland gathers a bunch of smart people, and they investigate. I love a good story where a group of specialists investigates something mysterious and discovers monsters, or ghosts, or aliens. I can completely get behind that in a film.

The difficulty of an Alien/Predator mashup is that they are both aliens. Big, scary monsters. The Xenomorphs are basically killer animals that can’t communicate in any real way. The Predators canonically speak a non-human language that is never translated (at least not in the films). Making an interesting story with just these two creatures would be difficult. One likes to be able to relate to at least one character in a story.

I really wish they’d make that film, though. They always add humans into the mix, and humans just muck up your Alien/Predator mash-up. They don’t get developed well, and for the most part, they just become cannon fodder for the monsters. I think you could make a really good AVP film without any humans at all.

Here’s where things get stupid. Our heroes (such as they are) come to the Antarctic island only to discover someone or something has already drilled a hole down to the pyramid. Naturally, it is the Predators who drilled the hole. Apparently, the pyramid is theirs. They keep a bunch of frozen Xenomorphs down there, and every hundred years, they come to Earth, unfreeze them, let them feed on humans to grow big and strong, then hunt them for fun.

We spend a little time watching the humans muck about in the pyramid. Then they unwittingly unleash some Facehuggers, and quick as you like, they burst out of their chests and become full-fledged Xenomorphs.

A few Predators, who have apparently been hanging out in Earth’s orbit waiting for this to happen, fly down for some (finally) Predator on Alien action. Most of the humans are dispatched pretty quickly, though a couple last a while, and there is at least one survivor (because, of course, there is).

It was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who helmed films like Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon, and several of the Resident Evil films. And like those films, his direction isn’t terrible, he’s not incompetent, but neither is it particularly memorable. He’s just good enough to keep you watching, but bad enough you wish you hadn’t.

That pretty much sums up my feelings on this film. It is better than I expected to be, but my expectations were incredibly low. I still think you can make a good Alien Vs. Predator movie, but this is definitely not it.

What Is It Good For? War Movies In June: Army of Shadows (1969)

image host

I did an absolutely terrible job of watching and reviewing war movies for this theme. I rewatched the great Army of Shadows this past month, and while I didn’t get around to writing anything about it this time, I did jot down some thoughts on my Letterboxd the first time I watched it a few years ago. So, I thought I’d reproduce those here:

There is a scene early in Army of Shadows in which three French Resistance fighters capture a traitor. They take him to an abandoned house to execute him. When they arrive, they find a family has moved in next door. The gun they hoped to use is of no use. It is too loud. The family would hear. 

They search the house for a knife. No luck. The basement connects to the neighbors’. No good. They stand together, these three men, alongside the man they plan to kill, discussing what to do. 

They could take him somewhere else. No time. They could call a friend and have him do it. No, it is their job. They could strangle him with a towel tied around a stick that would slowly tighten around his neck. Yes, that would work.

The trouble is, none of these men are trained killers or soldiers. They were regular people before the war, but now they’ve joined a make-shift army. They’ve found a cause. They cannot let this man live, or they jeopardize everything. 

They were prepared to shoot the traitor, which is impersonal and quick. They are not trained to watch the life drain out of him as they slowly tighten the towel. They do the deed and leave not as great heroes, but men who’ve lost some part of themselves, deflated, almost defeated.

Jean-Pierre Melville was a member of the French Resistance, and Army of Shadows is his film about the deep wounds, physical, psychological, and spiritual such a thing leaves inside a person. It isn’t a film with a lot of thrilling action sequences or where great heroes emerge. Like the scene I’ve just described, it is a movie about men and women who fight for a cause they believe in, who are willing to do things that destroy them inside for the greater good. 

This was my sixth Melville film in the last couple of weeks. I’ve loved nearly all of them, but this is his masterpiece.

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) *