Welp I did it again. I wanted to write more in 2025, life happened, and now it is March 6th, 2026. To anyone who reads this, thank you. My desire to broadcast has not diminished, other things just get in the way.
2025 was a fundamental shift in the way I consume media and I honestly think 2026 will be a similar shift. Some things were lost, others gained. Here is a summary of my 2025:
2025
I opened my description of 2024 three more defined goals: To get healthier, to improve my interpersonal connections, and to write more.
I am in a place now where I am happy with the interpersonal connections I have and the amount of effort I put into them. I try to reach out to people often, and I used to put a lot of pressure and anxiety around individual messages and attempts, but I've learned to let a lot of go, accept things as they are, and simply try to do what I have the bandwidth for to be better.
On top of that, the major element of interpersonal connections that changed for me over the past year is that I began a romantic relationship one year and two weeks ago. I love her so much. She won't see this, and I am not going to get into a lot of specifics, because I don't think it's something I want to broadcast, but even though it's only been that long, I hope to marry her someday.
We have a period of big challenges coming our way. It will be a time of us against a lot of larger forces outside of out control including very long distances and government bureaucracies. I know we can do it. I know we can make it through, but I am also extremely anxious.
It's interesting, how much this relationship has clarified some of my views on both life and romantic love. There are some major life decisions that people advise on making only when your heart is 100% in it. But part of the beauty and also struggle in life is the branching tree of paths and decisions one is able to broadcast in front of them. Everyone has different circumstances, but there are often multiple right choices just as there are wrong ones, and that is a completely different axis than the difficulty of those choices. I am fortunate enough to be born and raised in an environment where I can look at my values and foresee many "right" choices of varying difficulties that lead to many different -- but for me equally rewarding -- lives.
This intersects with my view that every person is capable of falling in love with a near infinite amount of people provided that both parties are able to be open, give love, and work toward a relationship at the same time. I used to believe in a soul mate. Now I think there are many people in this world I could have fallen in love with, and now that I am totally in love with my girlfriend, I will do everything I can to preserve and cherish that. She is a choice I hope to make every day for the rest of my life. In fact in many ways, there are major decision affecting the rest of my life that I can see myself making around her. I can see a life for myself in another country that is equally rewarding and blessed as a life where I live now. I can see a life where I work at my current job that I am neutral about for decades and find my fulfillment in hobbies, a life where one of those hobbies is able to generate enough income to live on, a life where I change jobs because of the people I get to work with, and all of them feel equally great. I am incredibly grateful that I can see these lives ahead of me, and grateful for the agency I hope I'll still have in the future despite many larger forces trying to take a lot of it away.
I hope to crystallize some of these thoughts more as my relationships continue to grow. I am so hopeful in this area even though so much about the world at large seems bleak right now. I hope I never lose sight of the choices that lie before me that can achieve good outcomes and align with my principles.
Onto the lighter topic of hobbies, I have continued playing volleyball once a week via a regular indoor opportunity. My new relationship and heavy weekend traffic into and out of the city diminished my summer beach volleyball on the lakefront. It's possible I will return to it this summer, but I won't be sad if it doesn't happen. I think I have improved my consistency and abilities quite a bit in the last year, but I don't have much of an objective opinion. I should really be friendlier to the group I play with and ask what I can do to get better. That one's completely on me. I'm just too quite all the time and I know it's being perceived as standoffish.
I have continued to take Karate classes, even bumping it up to twice a week, but my relationship with the hobby is... complicated. I would like it to be an activity I only need to engage with casually, while occasionally trying to rank/test up once every 2-ish years (most blackbelts that are serious try to test every year). I am okay with progressing at a slower pace, but I would still like to progress. Unfortunately, my organization has some high standards and really applies pressure to compete in tournaments if you want to pass belt exams. All black belts between 18 and 34 are grouped together at the local tournaments, and my dojo is one of the largest in the country, meaning some of our competitors compete at the national and international levels. I think it's quite dangerous for me to spar against a 24-year-old international champion with a ruleset allowing generous contact and expect to be okay. It's not something I want to risk. Competing has been something I dread leading up to the event, it inevitably turns out okay with a minor chance of a concussion, and then I move on, but I think it's lead to a slightly unhealthy relationship with a hobby I would otherwise enjoy.
My other workout regimens mostly fell by the wayside due to the other major change in my life. Essentially my job forced me to go from working from my apartment with high quality internet to commuting 45 minutes each way to an office where I sit in a cubicle in the basement with other remote workers communicating exclusively with colleagues on the other side of the country doing work I do not share with anyone else at my facility under worse internet and overall conditions. It has been quite demoralizing and I cannot find the time to regularly do the exercises I used to do in my apartment anymore. It's been quite disheartening, and I can only hope these circumstances change soon. In the meantime I did by a walkpad which I use at least once a week for over an hour and try to use more than that. It's not as much as I'd like to be doing right now, but it's something. I was about 3 pounds away from my first goal weight having lost 20 pounds and now I've gained 12 of them back... I've made some positive dietary changes, I feel like 2 karate classes a week + 1 volleyball session a week + intense walking once a week is quite the effort to stay in shape, and meeting with a nutritionist has taught me that my diet is pretty solid with a couple of adjustments, but it hasn't been enough. Maybe it's the more irregular sleep schedule caused by the commute. Maybe I am drinking less water. I hope I can remedy this soon.
Writing I simply did not do. It didn't become natural. It didn't happen at all. Nowhere to go but up I suppose.
On photography/photo editing: I went to the botanic gardens and the aquarium a lot with my girlfriend this year. I took a lot of photos, but mostly ended up editing those with her/us in them. I am worse at editing photos of people than anything else, but I hope I improved a little. I want to edit more this year. I think I'll get there. Tips are always welcome.
I attended Gen Con again with a friend in 2025. It was one of the experiences I cherished the most that year. It happened after the fracturing of that friend group and I think it was a trip that helped me reform a connection with someone I don't see very often. This year we are going as a larger group, and while I am excited, part of me will miss only attending with him. I did not become a certified Puffing Billy. All of the train games were cast aside for the wider world of other games, most notably Vantage, a card-based RPG with virtually infinite possibilities and repeatability. I didn't have very many more game nights but I did have some.
I still haven't really processed that near-death experience. I am sure it's fine.
I attended the Chicago Film Festival again this year. More of the spotlighted movies were sort of paywalled behind a premium screening after my friend and I split a 20-film pass, but we saw some great international films and still had a great time. I don't think we'll be buying a bulk pass again this year.
Now to transition to some of my favorite media of 2025, still mostly the reason I am here.
FILM
I watched 95 films this year, and 69 of those films count as 2025 movies. Nice. Stay current or bust has started to allow more exemptions and the like, but is still my primary mentality. This is quite a significant reduction from the 133 movies of 2024, but personal and professional upheavals will do that to you. Additionally, I am even further from "completing" the year, and that means more films for the endlessly growing "other" list. I haven't seen Marty Supreme or The Shrouds or Sentimental Value or The Accident or many more. Fewer movies this year moved me immensely than last year. Even my number one movie of 2025 is my number on movie because it was essentially a "four emotional quadrant' movie. It made me feel strong emotions across many areas of the emotional spectrum, but it still wasn't this masterpiece, gut punch of a film for me. It wasn't an After Sun or a Return to Seoul. I bet the true best movie of 2025 in my heart may still be out there. As always this list is incomplete and will change. For example, since last year alone I'm Still Here broke my top ten and Nickel Boys supplanted The Brutalist as my number 1 movie of the year. That happened like 2 days after I published that post. What are you gonna do? I'll probably write less about the films this year. I am still honing my voice for criticism and have likely become rusty when it comes to criticism in general, and since my opinion aligns much more closely with consensus this year, I am less excited to write about films that have already been covered into oblivion. Like last year, I want to praise the works of Jeffrey Zhang and Siddhant Adlakha, two critics whose work I highly admire and who have changed how I approach and think about the film medium.
Honorable Mentions: These are some films I would immediately recommend to people who I think would like them, but will not be expounding my thoughts on them unless prompted to further. This year there are 7 of them.
A Poet/Un Poeta
Train Dreams
Wake Up Dead Man
Cocoon: From the Girls of Summer
The Phoenician Scheme
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
Weapons
Alright, onto the top 10 films of the year. General spoilers to follow:
10. Resurrection
This film led to a lot of discussions about whether or not one can be moved by that which they do not understand. I believe the answer to that question is a resounding yes. This film has a lot say about its own medium, about why we make art, and about the natures of dreaming and consciousness. Some of Resurrection's thoughts on film as a medium definitely go over my head. There are plenty of structural elements related to the film's formal 5-act structure, it's use of the 5 senses as motifs, its deliberate inclusion of long stop-motion heavy sequence without any dialogue, etc. that are extremely difficult to parse, and yet there are other elements like a 30 minute single-take sequence that make you understand why Bi Gan is a genius.
The film is a technical marvel, it weaves together a number of different genres across its 5 smaller entries, it leaves you with a lot to think about, but it is so obtuse that it drove my friends away from engaging with it, which is a shame.
It can be really hard to resist the broader societal trend to stop consuming things that are difficult. There are so many movies coming out, even those of equal merit and capability to move me emotionally, that I can choose to watch, but doing so would be a disservice. On top of that, there is a lot of weight and importance that comes with asking questions about the value of the artistic medium you love. These are questions I want to engage with and thing about more. I intend to continue re-watching this one.
9. Left-Handed Girl
We retreat from our futures and cast aside the flowers that bloom from our actions. The tale of fighting against the future laid upon you by others, where others can mean so many people and factors outside of your control, is a classic one. On top of that, there are so many other expectations and judgements that even those we hold close place upon us. Parts of ourselves we cannot control are looked down upon and punished while any struggle for expressions can be stifled by experiences and circumstances. These are heave themes and some of them are woven so subtly into the fabric of this film's characters that you may not notice until the third act.
Left-Handed girl shows a family struggling to get by in Taipei, resulting in relationships that are fraught because intention is often ignored for the final result. Nina Ye gives an amazing performance from a child actress in a year filled with them, and the rest of the performances are great as well. I think that it really shines a light on how those around you could be quietly asking for help and the damage that's done by ignoring them.
It's especially interesting how much some of the characters' stories are placed in the foreground while others' are subtlety woven as mere moments in between until you realize that the life between the dramatic decisions is the one you should've paid attention to the most.
I've realized this can hold true in my own life, and it has left me wondering about how this realization could effect how I act in my own relationships as well. What can I do to better recognize calls for help in others? What can I do to subtly let those I care about know that I see them? I see you. I am always thinking of you.
8. 28 Years Later
How many of us can say we truly pay reverence to the dead? There is a quiet mourning that persists through 28 years later in between imagery of survival and visceral horror. There's a lot of death in film, but so much of it is disrespectful or ignorant that it tends to have a desensitizing effect. In 28 years later, Spike grows up in a world surrounded by death, with the existence of undead, and where no care is given to humans after they die, but he's exposed to grief through the slower, more agonizing passing of his mother due to dementia, and he learns to respect and pay gratitude for the dead through the ritualistic practices of Dr. Kelson.
None of these quieter moments and teachers would work, of course, without their juxtaposition next to hyper-violent sequences of being chased by and fighting zombies. The gratitude and respect are effective because of the visceral brutality and not in spite of it. Perhaps, as it turns out, a life only running away from death does not turn out to be a life worth living at all. 28 Years Later is a film that appreciates the beauty of life right after a human head gets ripped off its body with its spinal column still attached.
7. Eephus
I wouldn't say I've ever been an extreme, die-hard sports fan. I've never watched every single game in a season or even most of them. Even at my most dedicated, a merely followed the numbers, tracked the statistics of my favorite players on my favorite baseball and basketball teams, and generally followed the narrative of the season.
Still, I am saddened by how little time I have to follow sports at all these days. If I had 12 more hours in a day, several of them would be spent to creating and tinkering with various bayesian predictors and cybermetrics to try and predict outcomes in baseball. But there's also a quiet, more spiritual side to the sport that I've also lost -- one that takes center-stage in Eephus.
Eephus is also film about saying goodbye. This is the last baseball game they'll play at this park before it's paved over to build a school. It's the only one in the county, and for some, the next closest one won't be worth the trek. It's funny, I suppose this film is also about paying respect to the dying, but with respect to a place instead of a person. A place can die, can't it?
I played baseball for 10 years as a kid in our town house league and was absolute shit. My dad was the head coach 7 out of 10 years and I never made it out of the bottom third of the line up, only pitched 1-2 innings a season, and mostly stuck to RF, LF, 3B and 2B. One time though we were facin a team of mostly club players and it was my one time per year I was pitching and I struck three of the best batters in the league out on what I now know to be the Eephus pitch. If only I knew you shouldn't throw three in a row because they basically hit 3 straight homeruns the next inning.
Those who love this movie probably have stories like mine. It barely has anything to do with one's ability to play the game and has more to do with an appreciation for the memories and art surrounding the game, and nothing is as central or important as the place where those are made.
Eephus is a really special movie. I hope Carson, Nate, and Michael make more, and I am excited to see what they do next. Man, I love baseball.
6. Eddington
I am fascinated by films that endeavor to capture a specific moment. I've mentioned before that a film's methods or craft or unique process is only valuable to me in it's power to move me, therefore, if even if a film succeeds in capturing a moment that doesn't move me, what hope does the film have? As it turns out, a lot. There is criticism out there that can break down the political lens or decision-making of this film and provide insight into what works or doesn't; what is effective or isn't. Personally, I thought this film expertly managed nuance and comprehensiveness to achieve its effect.
Perhaps I am ignorant. I may not know enough about the political realities of COVID and 2020, and while I thought that Eddington captured the atmosphere and and attitude shifts of the American population, perhaps the key absences of political figures were too detrimental to the message. Was the choice to not limit the film's cultural criticism to conservative actions and choices and to also focus on liberal ones ultimately harmful to the film's reception? Probably, but there's a world where Eddington is a much simpler movie that sticks firmly to a 'side' and we're all a little worse off for it. I don't care as much about the political leanings of Ari Aster because I think Eddington has enough to appreciate, and criticize, because it asks its audience to think.
Both Eddington and Bugonia try to capture the mindsets of the moment, but I feel as though Bugonia takes a more visually didactic approach that sets the conflict as a relatively straightforward one between two diametrically opposed parties. Meanwhile Eddington is more didactic in its writing but never fails to utilize some of the more gonzo visual elements that Bugonia saves for its finale. Eddington also astutely realizes that the rising tensions of 2020 can't be easily boiled down into even a handful of factors, but still endeavors for the scope to capture as many factors and pressure points as it can.
Eddington is a small town relatively isolated from everything until it suddenly isn't and all of the suffocating factors of American politics converge on a once-peaceful slice of the small town United States now ready to erupt. Radical conspiracy theories, AI data centers, rising healthcare costs, pandemic skepticism, racial tensions, and abuse from law enforcement all converge on a population mostly looking to afford to survive with some looking to escape or earn 15 minutes of fame.
It certainly sparked conversation that burned bright and faded quickly and sparked controversy because it dared to criticize multiple angles. Sure it does jab at the left as well, but if you judge the intensity of those jabs to be equal to the gut punches and jugular strikes it has for the fascist conservative movement, I think you're part of the reason a few jabs every now and again might be warranted. I haven't seen a lot of Aster films, but this one left quite an impression on me, and I am excited to see more.
5. 100 Meters
Whether towards or away, the pain burns all the same. Fired from a cannon, witness my reason for being traveling 10 m/s.
I may have uncovered the mask of my existence, but do not think you know anything about me
Why I am is not Why I over came is not Why I continue
To overcome, after all, assumes a past and a future branching from who I am in this very moment.
I hope I can escape my reality someday.
A beautiful film illustrating why and how didacticism can work on full display.
4. No Other Choice
No Other Choice is a film that constantly left me flabbergasted that someone could construct a sequence of images at flowed together so beautifully, and it did so multiple times. At its core, it is a poignant farce describing panicked individuals in endangered industries doing everything they can, including murder, to avoid extinction at the hands of the dying craft/profession that once filled them with pride.
There were so many films in 2025 employing satire as a weapon against the moment and atmosphere of today: Bugonia, Eddington, the Phoenician Scheme, but none of them hold a candle to the juxtapositions and scenes constructed by Park Chan-wook. Lee Byung-hun gives, in my opinion, the second best performance by a lead actor of the year. No Other Choice instantly becomes a go-to movie to unleash frustrations surrounding the endless human churn and abandonment under capitalism. It's as succinct as that, an instant classic in my eyes.
3. Sirat
The movie that stuck with me the most this year before quickly becoming a profound disappointment in the past couple of months. I try to give filmmakers the benefit of the doubt. I find a lot of directors have a hard time remaining eloquent in the face of amateur audience Q&As, and sometimes it's hard to easily express the indescribable feelings that caused you to make the film in the first place to a relatively basic question asked by an audience member for the 7th time that doesn't really get at the heart of what you're trying to say.
If you could summarize the core themes or processes behind your film so easily, I suppose there may not have been a need for the film in the first place. All that's to day that I try to forgive lackluster answers and not let that effect my perception of the film.
And yet...
Oliver Laxe has been so combative at multiple, taped Q&As in response to actually thoughtful questions that I cannot help but lose the desire to talk about this film, The experience I had will remain with me. Sirat portrays this breathtaking combination of rave culture, a desperate search for a missing part of yourself in the middle of a barren wasteland but also an oasis of raw humanity, and these feelings of sorrow and drowning amongst others that coalesce and explode in ways that can't help but leave you rattled. I think the soundscapes and shock value, while crude, achieve the intended effect. They are crude but not tasteless; a blunt instrument but an effective one.
But that's all I want to say about Sirat, because the more I hear what those behind it have to say, the more a bad taste is left in my mouth, and I don't want to give it any further attention.
2. Sinners
There are so many critics who can talk about Sinners better than I can and almost nothing hasn't been said. Still, Sinners was probably my favorite theatrical experience of the year. It contains what I am sure will be one of the best individual scenes of the decade.
It's a film that beautifully blends horror, music, and the nature of the human soul, particularly the souls of the oppressed Black community and Black artists in a way that left me utterly captivated. I was left awestruck by the cinematography, and the silence left by that awe provided ample time to think.
1. One Battle After Another
I know no other way but decades have passed since I heard the call for battle Why must I fight?
The revolution no longer becomes me In fact I try to push it away But what it that remains?
My paranoia was not in vain they are coming and I was powerless to stop them. What do I do now?
One Battle After Another is a story about a father so afraid of a world out to get him that he's forgotten he was once the predator. Living on the defensive for 15 years when the previous decade saw him living in defiance all with a daughter who only saw the decline. Will I live long enough to see my conviction turn into fear?
It is sad and funny and endearing and frustrating to watch a film centered around a father doing everything he can to claw back the man he once was so he can save the person he loves most only to realize that he has nothing to do with her fate. DiCaprio steals every scene not also occupied by Benicio del Toro while having zero control or composure of the events happening around him.
It's del Toro who embodies the true aging revolution and recognized the value that lies in preparedness and keeping calm, delivering those revelations with a great deal of humor as he serves a community who doesn't have the luxury of abandoning a revolution once they've found something more important to them, immigrants and marginalize communities are on the front lines whether they like it or not; a convenient excuse. Anderson doesn't let us forget that those on the other side of that oppression may have aims that shift in focus, but while Bob and Willa lie in the crosshairs of one very powerful man, it is these communities that must remain steadfast against the "ocean waves" of the institutions before them.
Every action Bob takes can be boiled, at least in part, down to the very lesson he could not remember from the handbook: Time does not exist and yet it controls us anyway. How could the man who once volunteer to be a distraction, bait for those liberating a detention facility now be afraid to leave his own house?
Chase Infiniti's Willa Ferguson see's her dads paranoia and reluctance and simply gives it the finger. Do not mistake her lack of respect for lack of love; her desire to participate in the modern world for ignorance to her mentor's teachings. She may have enjoyed all of the first 15 years of her life preparing for a day no one thought would come, but that doesn't mean she isn't ready.
After all, Bob's not really the target hear is he? He might as well die in the process, but there's only one man on an unyielding mission to eradicate these two: Sean Penn's Colonel Lockjaw. A performance that embodies the pathetic, twisted, evil, sad nature of those who espouse fascism, from his hypocrisy to his lack of self-awareness to the vitriol he worships. Gosh we've all seen that walk from the worst people haven't we? He's so desperate to join an elite social club of like-minded violent racists who feebly congregate in lavish underground bunkers and only survive off the arms of power they're able to leverage.
It's a film that shows how the guard, the actors, the focus, the weapons, the terrain -- all of those may change over the course of time on both sides, but the fight remains, just one battle after another.
Those were my top ten films of 2025! There are still so many more to see, but alas I hope to maintain the same consistency in 2026. I will say it is March and I have seen two (2) films, so I am not off to a great start. I will also say before moving on that I am not particularly proud of how I wrote about these films. There are some lines I consider gems, but I do not think I made a lot of improvement in writing about film this year, and am largely left disappointed reading my own reviews. I almost abandoned my 2025 wrap-up entirely because of this. Still, I recognize how important it is to finish things, and I think I'd feel worse if I didn't broadcast, so here we are. Stay tuned for part 2.