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Good morrow, weary traveler. It is I, the muse of procrastination, ready to give you yet another excuse as to why the author of this here blog hasn’t written anything in almost 2 months. Spoiler alert: there is no excuse; it’s the same one he’s been using for 3 years now! So let’s not harp on the details. Let’s get right into this blog and move on with our lives. Ready? Let’s go.

The books fell apart.

That’s how many times my sister and I read the Percy Jackson books when we were growing up. Not just Percy Jackson, but also D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths1, the GOAT of Greek Myth books. Covers had to be taped back on, spines were smashed to smithereens, and pages were threatening to become lost. We read those books over and over and over and over and over and over (you get the idea). The timeless nature of those Greek myths, and the frankly brilliant idea that these myths could be translated to modern times, worked so well on my adolescent brain that to this day, if I were forced to take a test on the stories of Ancient Greece, I know I’d pass with flying colors. However, if I were given a test on The Odyssey, I wouldn’t do as well. And for good reason:

Because I’ve never actually read it.

Now, I know that isn’t a huge deal or anything; most people probably haven’t read Homer’s 3000-year-old epic poem, but I’m not gonna lie to you, I was feeling kind of left out during the lead-up to the release of this film. I was worried that, while I knew all of the hits, I wouldn’t be as clued into the deeper cuts of the story. Like when you go to a concert for a band that you love,2 and they play 5 or 6 songs that you sorta mumble the lyrics to because you don’t want to admit that you’re not as big of a fan as you claim to be.

These thoughts and feelings flooded my brain as the release got closer and closer. Should I prepare more? Should I read a SparkNotes version of The Odyssey? Should I finally watch Troy to see Brad Pitt and Eric Bana reenact the Trojan War? I did none of those things. And guess what?

Percy Jackson was more than enough to get me through. Shoutout Rick Riordan.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but a lot of people have been seeing The Odyssey since it came out the other week. Not sure if you’ve heard this either, but tickets, especially those in IMAX and 70mm IMAX, are nearly impossible to find. On Monday, the week of its release, I didn’t have a ticket yet. Everything had been sold out for months, and cutting my losses, I decided to get a ticket for Saturday morning, 10:00 am, to see it in 70mm. Not ideal, but at least I’d be seeing it opening weekend in a premium format.

That clearly wasn’t good enough for some people.

See, I’m in this group chat3 back in college for movie people. I made this chat to organize groups to go to the theater, hence its name: Theater Kids. Theater Kids isn’t as active as it used to be4, but from time to time it picks back up, especially around a major release. Now, as the ‘movie guy’ of my friend group, it is expected of me to see every movie that has ever been released. Simple, right? So simple that when I let the group know that I hadn’t gotten a ticket for opening night of The Odyssey, they reacted as if I was the biggest loser to ever walk the face of the Earth:

I gotta say, this got me motivated, because for the rest of the week I was checking the AMC and Fandango apps religiously to see if I could sneak into a seat on Thursday night. Then, finally, on Wednesday at lunch, I found it: a seat in the middle of the theater, right in the bread basket, IMAX at 10:30 pm. Prime. I snatched it up immediately.

I can’t win.

Flash forward to Thursday night. I did something I never do at the theater: buy popcorn. And you know what I did? I sat back, drank a Celsius to make sure I didn’t start dozing off after my long day at work, ate my popcorn, and had myself a hell of a time.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard this yet, but The Odyssey? Pretty damn good movie.

And did I also see it again two days later on Saturday morning at 10:00 am? You bet your ass I did.

“A face... a fleet... a war... a man... a thought... a trick... a trick to break the walls of Troy... and burn it screaming to the ground!”

The Odyssey (2026)

AKA: Matt Damon coming home...a tradition unlike any other.

This movie is huge on every level.

The performances are huge. The spectacle is huge. The cast is huge. The Trojan Horse is huge. The battles are huge. The globetrotting adventure is huge. The screens they’re showing it on are huge. But I’d imagine that the hugest5 thing about this movie is the challenge Christopher Nolan had with making it in the first place. I mean, we’re talking about a story that everyone, even if you haven’t read it, knows in some respect. The cyclops, the siren song, the sea of monsters, the witch Circe, coming back home as a beggar, etc., etc. It is the story, and yet, there hadn’t been a proper adaptation of Homer’s tale up until this point.

Don’t get me wrong, O, Brother Where Art Thou? is one of my favorite movies, and that itself is an Odyssey adaptation of sorts, but it is one of hundreds that replicate the story in a different costume, just not all the way. This movie should have been the very definition of ‘the book did it better’, purely because it’s based on one of the first books! And to some, especially some who translated the poem, Nolan’s adaptation doesn’t cut it.

Sure, there are historical inaccuracies in armor, and there is some modern lingo that is used, and there are some serious omissions that some people may brush up against6, but need I remind you that this is a story that was written by a blind poet who lived more than 400 years AFTER all of this stuff supposedly happened? There are freaking gods and monsters in the story; how accurate do you have to be? I think all of the handwringing over those supposed problems is a whole lot of nonsense. As a whole, it’s a truly epic and thoroughly effective effort from the entire filmmaking team in all respects. It works, full stop.

And don’t worry, we’re not even gonna spend more than a single sentence on the racist and bigoted losers criticizing the film’s casting of certain characters. Fuck you guys, get a life.

Let’s talk about Matt Damon for a second. Hot take: I like Matt Damon. He’s just a delight to see on screen, even when he’s playing a weasily character that you should hate. A thing I’ve heard a lot surrounding this movie is that Matt Damon works so well as Odysseus because Odysseus is, well, kind of a motherfucker. He’s cocky, headstrong, and stubborn. He makes decisions that, as an audience member, you want to shake him for making. And yet, we’ve been so predisposed to liking Matt Damon over the last 30+ years that we’re on his side, rooting for him the entire time.

This is yet another very common joke that I’m gonna write 100 words on, but the trend of Matt Damon having to be brought home in so many of his movies is pretty comical at this point. Saving Private Ryan, The Martian, Interstellar, and now The Odyssey; the guy has been getting stuck places for almost 30 years and we’re still going out to the theater to make sure he gets back home. Cause dammit, we like Matt Damon. Simple as that.

All in all, Matt Damon’s characters have been gone from home for about 21,012 days, which comes out to 57 years and 207 days. The breakdown is as follows:

• Saving Private Ryan: Gone for 8 days

• The Martian: Gone for 564 days

• Interstellar: Gone for 36 years (13,140 days)

• The Odyssey: Gone for 20 years (7,300 days)

At a certain point, you gotta think he might be trying to tell us something here.

I mentioned different screens and formats earlier, but I’m gonna expand on that for a bit here. Not sure if any of you remember, but when I wrote about Sinners a while back, I included a section where I spoke about formats. To be more precise, I included a video of Ryan Coogler7 talking about the difference between formats, what formats he used for his films, and why some are better than others. He explained it way more eloquently than I ever could. So much so that I’m including that video again right here:

Great, now that you have a basic understanding of different film stocks, formats, and aspect ratios, we can continue.

The Odyssey was the first film to be shot entirely on IMAX cameras. That’s film history right there. And there’s a reason for this: IMAX cameras are a pain in the ass to film with. For one, they’re super loud8, which makes acting with them difficult. Secondly, they’re large, heavy, and cumbersome9, which makes filming action and non-static shots difficult. But they crafted some nifty technology for this film to make things easier. Noise-cancelling blimps surrounding the cameras cut down on camera sound, and double-mirror tricks that allowed the actors to act to another character even when the massive camera was in the way, for example. These tricks and more allowed for The Odyssey to be the first film to be shot entirely on IMAX, and they’ve made that abundantly clear in all of the marketing around the film. Hell, one of the novelty popcorn buckets is quite literally an IMAX camera!

The only issue with this is that there are exactly 24 theaters in America that have the capability to show the film as it’s intended. Here’s a map of all the 70mm IMAX screens in the world:

That’s it.

I love seeing movies as they’re intended to be seen as much as the next guy, but this scarcity has its downsides, for obvious reasons. For one, it deters people from seeing the film in any other format. I have friends at work who haven’t seen the film yet because they’re waiting to see it in 70mm IMAX. Cool. They weren’t able to get tickets until the middle of August because it’s sold out for the next month out here in LA.

Don’t believe me? Literally today they announced they’re extending its IMAX run until the middle of September because of the demand. That’s unheard of in today’s theater-going experience. Trust me, it’s not like this is causing the film to make less money or be seen by fewer people, and it adds to its mystique, but it acts as some sort of barrier of entry in some aspects.

For anyone not living in LA, Chicago, or NY, the chances of seeing this movie as intended are slim to none. For most, this likely doesn’t matter in the slightest, but for movie fans this can be a turn-off, I’m sure. This is a critique not on Christopher Nolan, or any filmmakers using IMAX cameras for that matter. It’s merely a comment on the fact that these IMAX theaters cost lots and lots of money to build, and 99% of movies are not The Odyssey, so they don’t justify being built in the eyes of the theater owners. The solution? Go to the theaters more! Not just for the biggest movies of the year, but the smaller ones too. More people in the theater means bigger and better experiences for everyone in the long run. Help keep movies alive!

Also, I personally don’t think it really matters what screen you see The Odyssey on. Whatever the biggest screen you can see it on, go see it there. Don’t box yourself in.

You won’t believe some of the stuff you’ll see while watching this movie, simple as that. And they did all of it! The film isn’t completely devoid of special effects and CGI, but you gotta admire Nolan’s drive to do as much as possible in camera and on location. It’s part of the reason this movie cost $250+ million to make, but it’s also the reason it looks so good and feels so much more real than other major blockbusters nowadays.

They built those boats, had those crowds of people on set, they actually sailed in those waters, they even built that horse! There are so many shortcuts that cut costs for films nowadays, and when it’s done well and done tastefully, it feels alright. But a lot of times it can be sloppy and is noticeable, bringing down the effectiveness of the film as a whole. Audiences want to be transported to other worlds when they watch movies. That’s part of the appeal. When filmmakers are able to accomplish this by using the natural world, it’s so much more effective than when they use a blue or green screen. And I think audiences are coming around to that fact more and more today.

Wow, so many things I’m not gonna get the chance to talk about here:

• All of the other performances! From Anne Hathaway to Jon Bernthal to Robert Pattinson to Tom Holland to Zendaya to John Leguizamo to the other 50 names in this.

• The score! Ludwig Gorranson was cooking with GAS here, and if you didn’t know it already, he is the new, young GOAT film composer.

• More Percy Jackson! I just really love those books.

• Greek history! There’s too much to discuss. Another time, maybe.

• Horses! What’s their deal? Our relationship with them is so fascinating.

• The Siren song! Personally, I’d plug the hell out of my ears. No way in hell I’m listening to that song.

• The Cyclops! If he had bad eyesight, would you call his eyewear glasses or a monocle?

• The Underworld! Fade that.

• Calypso! Charlize Theron. Wow.

• Pigs! Personally, I’d want to be turned into a dog or something like that.

• The Golden Rule! In all seriousness, just be a good person. Treat people how they’d want to be treated. There’s not enough of that going on nowadays.

• I could keep going, but we must move on.10

The sheer spectacle of The Odyssey has a lot of people wondering the same thing:

Where the hell does Nolan go from here?

This is the biggest thing he’s ever done, following up what had been the biggest thing he had done up until that point11. So what in the world is he gonna do next? Personally, I’d love to see him go smaller. Smaller in what sense and on what topic, I do not know, but I would love to see him do something completely different. To shake things up a little. Will he do that? Surely not. He’ll probably film an entire movie underwater, or in space, or in the Arctic next, because if nothing else, Christopher Nolan is the king of spectacle. You may not like everything he’s showing you, but you can’t deny that it’s pretty damn impressive and it looks great.

And on that note, let’s rank the man’s films.

Ranking Christopher Nolan’s Films

One of my tasks today is to do one of my least favorite things:

Rank movies.

I shouldn’t say it’s one of my least favorite things to do. More accurate would be to say that I’m just not very good at it. But today I’m going to stand on business and give you all my full Nolan rankings, for better or for worse.

Please keep in mind that I’ve only seen some of these movies once, and I’m ripe for a rewatch. These rankings are fluid and ever-changing. Give me a break.

Unranked: Following (1998), Insomnia (2002)

They're unranked because I haven’t seen either of them. Based on everything I’ve heard, they’re not bad or anything, but they are at the bottom of pretty much everyone’s list regardless. Ok, let’s move on.

11. Batman Begins (2005)

Ranking Nolan is tough because something has to be in the last spot, even though his worst is better than most. This pick boils down to me having seen and known about Batman’s origins countless times before and this movie going over it again in great detail. It’s a solid superhero flick, but gets overshadowed by its sequels. Great Scarecrow performance from Cillian Murphy though.

10. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

This very well could’ve, and maybe should’ve, been in the 11 spot, but for Tom Hardy’s Bane voice and the countless impressions I’ve made of it since seeing this movie, it earns the 10 spot. This is a surprisingly messy movie from Nolan, and it feels like he was trying to wrap up his time with Batman a bit too quickly.

9. Tenet (2021)

I watched this during my senior year of college in my room on a computer. Mistake. For ‘real’ Nolan-heads, this is in the top half of their rankings, which is why I think I’m due for a rewatch. I thought it was a pretty dope movie the first time around, but it’s so mind-bendy and confusing that I can’t put it any higher than 9 without feeling disingenuous.

8. Memento (2000)

I either watched this on a car ride during a vacation or as homework for one of my film classes in college. Either way, this movie feels akin to what Nolan has been doing for the last 26 years while also feeling so far away from the grand spectacle he is so well known for today. The gritty, down-to-earth style of this movie, as well as the noir aspect of it, are things I’d love to see him return to, but I know he probably never will. We’re officially into ‘all of these movies are so good, how can I rank them’ territory.

7. Inception (2010)

If people weren’t already mad for how low those Batman movies are in the ranking, I fear this is where you’re all going to start turning on me. I’ve only seen this movie once, I believe during Covid, with my Dad and sister. It’s a ton of fun, a really cool concept, and has a stacked cast (all similar to most Nolan movies), but the 6 movies ahead of it are much more affecting and work a bit better in my opinion.

6. Interstellar (2014)

Now you’re all really mad, I can tell.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Interstellar. Seeing it in IMAX for it’s 10 year re-release was positively electric. But as I alluded to before, we’re at the ‘killing your babies’ portion of the ranking where tough cuts and decisions need to be made. And can we be honest with each other for just a minute? This concept, like Inception, gets like 93% of the way to working. The overexplaining that has to be done to get the audience on board knocks it just a couple points down for me.

5. Oppenheimer (2023)

This should probably be higher, but I need to rewatch it in order to make that happen. I wish I had taken advantage of the opportunity when it first came out to see it again, but alas. I mean, how can you argue against anything lower than 5? This movie fully anointed Nolan as the guy from his generation of directors. Just an absolute monster of a movie.

4. Prestige (2006)

This movie is about 2 feuding magicians in the mid-1800s. It’s a bit ridiculous and a bit absurd, but I absolutely love it. It also has David Bowie playing Nikola Tesla, and that’s just awesome stuff right there. I can’t really explain it; there’s just something about this movie that hits.

3. The Odyssey (2026)

See above.

2. Dunkirk (2017)

I was worried that #2 was too high for Dunkirk, but after staring at this ranking for numerous hours, I think it’s in the right spot. Granted, it checks a lot of my boxes. I love history movies, war movies, ticking clock movies, and while it can be a bit confusing to piece together with the different timelines and everything at first, this movie is so damn effective in what it’s trying to do that it earns this spot.

1. The Dark Knight (2008)

   

This was tough to nail down. Does this really deserve the #1 spot? I can’t be certain. The margins between movies 1-8 are so minuscule that they're hard to see. But there had to be a #1, so here we go. I mean, all I’d have to say is “Heath Ledger,” and it would justify this pick. I wrote about this a while ago, but seeing this in IMAX a few years ago was like a religious experience. I love Batman, but this isn’t even a Batman movie at its core. It’s a crime movie, a mob movie, and an examination of morality wrapped up in a Batman costume. Plus it had Two-Face, and an awesome opening heist, an all-time interrogation scene, oh, and a legit 18-wheeler being flipped end over end. I rest my case.

Mount Rushmore of…

Greek Myth Characters

Groundrules

We’re keeping the guidelines simple today:

• 1 Hero

• 1 of the 12 Major Gods

• 1 Monster

• 1 Misc.

• Hero: Perseus

  • You may see my Mount Rushmore and think that it’s biased because of my Percy Jackson obsession as a youth. And you’d be somewhat correct in that assumption. However, I’m picking Perseus here instead of someone like Theseus12 or Odysseus because my guy killed Medusa. Killing Medusa led to the creation of Pegasus. My guy used Hades helm of darkness, Hermes’ winged sandals, and Artemis’ shield. And my guy had a happy ending as the king of Argos while also founding Mycenae. He’s the pick here.

• God: Poseidon

  • Again, you may think this is because of Percy Jackson. I’m sorry that Rick Riordan picked the dopest of the Olympians to be the father of Percy. Plus, water powers are awesome, full stop. I was between Master P, the Big H13, or the Big A14 here, but Poseidon has a trident, so he wins.

• Monster: Hydra

  • I had my pick of the litter here, and after many minutes of conflict in my head, I went with my gut here. Why the Hydra? Cause unless you happen to have a flamethrower on hand like Hercules did, you’re screwed. Plus, the Hydra is more than just a Greek myth at this point. The analogy of “cut off one head and two sprout out” is all over pop culture. And as I’m typing this, I just remembered Hydra, the villain organization, from Marvel comics. I knew I made the right pick here.

• Misc.: Pan

  • This pick could theoretically be as simple as: “I like nature and care about the Earth, so I’m picking the god of nature,” but Pan’s more than that. He’s a musician, a satyr, and is the impetus behind the word “Panic” because one of his Godly powers was a primal scream. Not too bad of a pick if you ask me.

Honorable Mentions

Heroes

• Theseus

• Odysseus

• Daedalus

Gods

• Hephaestus

• Athena

• Hermes

Monsters

• Minotaur

• Griffin

• Cerberus

Misc.

• Too many to count here

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: No, but that would’ve been sick.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 86%

No, But Really: What can I say about this movie that hasn’t been said already? It’s spectacular, massive, epic, and breathtaking. It’s a mastercraft in craft and in score; it has some top-notch performances across the board, and is the true definition of a blockbuster. Which is insane, because it’s a 3-hour “swords and sandals” movie based on one of the oldest stories of all time. And yet, it works on all fronts and is a testament to giving filmmakers the means to craft their visions. Shooting on location, as real as it can be, using special effects and CGI as sparingly as possible. People crave authenticity, and for a story that’s 3,000 years old, it’s fascinating how authentic this movie feels.

-Bring him home.

—We are so back.

—-I can’t wait to talk about Spider-Man now.

-—-Spider-Man is quite good.

-——-Be nice to each other.

-———-Don’t be a loser.

1

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Hello, hello, hello.

Remember me? No? I write this blog about the movies I’ve been watching recently? Doesn’t ring a bell? Well, I guess I can’t blame you since it has been (checks recent posts) 2 MONTHS since my last blog! And 2.5 months since my last proper blog. Madness. I mean, I do have some solid excuses this time; I’m not gonna lie. They very well might be my best yet. But I’m not here to make excuses; I’m here to talk about some movies.

But first, a life update.

First off, if you didn’t know already, it’s summer. It’s always summer-adjacent out here in Los Angeles, but there’s something about that sun being out later into the evening that makes you feel better in every aspect and makes you feel inherently happier. With summer comes fruit, and with fruit comes my favorite fruit:

Watermelon.

I am an absolute FIEND for watermelon. You put one in front of me with a big spoon, and I’ll eat the entire thing in one sitting. Now, because of my previous living situation2, there was no room for a watermelon. And every watermelon eater knows that if you’re saving your uncut watermelon for later, you need enough space in your fridge to store it upside down on a plate. Well, I didn’t use to have that, but now I do.

Huge for the program.

Because of this newfound space coinciding with the beginning of watermelon season, I’ve decided on a summer challenge for myself.

I will be eating a watermelon every week for the entire duration of the summer.

I’m already 1 week into the challenge, and it’s going swimmingly. Yes, there is a chance I get sick of watermelon and taint my love for it for the foreseeable future, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Ok, now to what most of you came here for.

We’ll keep this quick, since I promised a blog this week, but mostly because it’s currently 1:46 am and I have work tomorrow. Whoops.

So I haven’t written a blog since March 26. What have I been doing since then? A good number of things, actually.

1: I went to the Final Four in Indianapolis with a couple of my buddies.

You may remember our trip to the National Championship last year3. After we had such a good time that weekend, Frigs and Chaiken decided that was now a tradition. Who am I to argue? It was my first time in Indianapolis, and I gotta say: not too shabby. It felt like a ghost town, despite the National Championship and Final Four being there, but we also happened to go to the best bar of all time while we were there, so it’s a better city in my eyes solely because of that.

It’s called 16-Bit Bar+Arcade, and it’s actual heaven on Earth. They have about 75 classic 80s arcade cabinets with every game you can think of, and the best part is that all of them are FREE. I actually couldn’t believe my ears. Long story short: we pregamed there before the games and ended up closing the place down after the games. I also somehow ended up with a pint glass from the bar that I now have in my kitchen. It’s one of the 4 glasses I own and is in regular rotation. How I was able to walk out of the bar with a half-drunk glass of beer, I’ll never know. Why I walked out with it? That’s an easier question to answer.

2: I had a ticket overturned and paid back to me

This may have been the biggest win of my career, aka my life. I’ve detailed my legendary battles with the LADOT (LA Department of Transportation) before, but this was the most legendary battle of all. All the way back in August 2025, I was going to see Marathon Man in theaters at the New Beverly Cinema. I had just gotten off work and was looking for street parking by the theater and was coming up empty. After circling numerous blocks, I found a spot, or so I thought.

I pulled into this ‘spot’ and realized that it was a Bus Lane, and I wasn’t allowed to park. With no bus there, I spent a few minutes looking up parking options around me. Out of nowhere,4 a bus appeared, and I quickly moved out of the spot. A parking spot eventually opened up; I went to the movie5 and didn’t think anything of it. A month later, I got a ticket for $300 for parking in a bus lane.

The fight was on.

They had ‘photo evidence’ of my car in the spot, but my brake lights were on in the photo, and since I never got out of the car, I thought I had a case. So I appealed.

2 months passed.

Appeal denied.

I appealed again.

1 month passed.

Appeal denied.

I submitted a hearing request.

3 months passed.

Finally, my hearing was scheduled.

It was scheduled for before work one day, and I was up and ready to plead my case for the 6th time. I got a call to let me know that I’d be receiving a call in 30 minutes for my hearing. “Perfect,” I thought, “This gives me time to shower and get ready for work beforehand.” So I went to get ready to shower, and as I’m quite literally about to step in, I got the call. So did I conduct my parking ticket hearing in my bathroom in my birthday suit right before getting in the shower? I can neither confirm nor deny this.

What I can confirm is that I won the battle and got my $300 back.

This is why we fight.

3: Had some plugs inserted into my tear ducts6

This one seems pretty self-explanatory, no?

Yeah, so I have dry eyes; I’ve had them for a while now, and I finally went to the eye doctor to get them checked. They did a whole bunch of tests7 and came to the conclusion that, yes, I do have dry eyes, and there were a number of things I could do to counteract this. The one we landed on? Plugs in my tear ducts to help get more liquid into my eyes. Apparently this is a very common procedure, but this was news to me (and my Mom).

The doctor told it would take 30 seconds for each eye. I was already late to work at this point, so I was ready to get this thing over with. And let me tell you: thank god I’m chill with eye stuff and things touching my eyes, because holy shit did this guy go to TOWN on my eyes. He was holding the plugs in some tweezers with one hand, holding my eye open with the other, and proceeded to SHOVE this tiny plug into my eye.

It hurt quite a bit.

And then he did it 3 more times. It felt like I had had knives in my eyes for the rest of the morning.

But I think they’re working? I’m not entirely sure. I’m getting new ones in 2 weeks.

Splendid.

4: Went to my first ‘friend wedding.’

Chris and Mary-Katherine got married in Richmond8, VA, and it was the best time ever.

Having a friend get married is a crazy experience, even when it’s someone you’ve known is going to marry the girl since the day you met him. Everything feels and looks the same until you see that ring on his finger and your brain explodes. The weekend was pretty perfect, and it felt like we were all back at college at a party, just like old times9.

The best touch? The Amish food truck. Annihilating 3 pretzel hot dogs on a stick at 1:00 a.m. after drinking a few small beers is an unbelievable feeling, let me tell you. The highlight of the evening though? The DJ being shut down, everyone thinking they had to go home, and the DJ coming back out for another hour after getting paid off by one of the uncles. Unreal.

Congratulations to the Washburns, looking forward to all the amazing things you guys do, and you’re welcome for the air mattress.

5: I passed a year at my job

This one really is self-explanatory. Crazy that I’ve been at my job for 14 months now, but that’s the truth. It was much easier to get these blogs done when I didn’t have a job, but, unfortunately, I need a way to make money, and a job is a way to do that.

Darn.

6: I went to Puerto Rico with my family over Memorial Day

Talk about an awesome trip.

First off, logging off and not checking your email for an entire week, when your entire job is checking and responding to emails, is a euphoric experience that I highly, highly recommend. Were the 1,000 emails I came back to10 fun to deal with? No, but it was worth it.

We went to a rain forest, did some surfing lessons, did some bioluminescent kayaking, ate some amazing food, had some quality family time, and a great time was had by all11. I also took more naps than I think I ever have before during the trip. Every time we weren’t doing an activity, or when we were in transit to our next activity, I was zonked out. If you can’t tell, we’re more of a ‘do all the stuff’ family rather than a ‘let’s spend this vacation relaxing’ family, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Shoutout to my Mom and my Aunt Joey for planning everything. Nailed it.

7: I moved

Guys, I finally did it. I moved.

For more than a year I’ve wanted to move, and I finally pulled the trigger last month. I’m now in my own place, and I couldn’t be happier. Apartment hunting is a pain in the ass, but you know what’s more of a pain? Trying to find furniture to put in said apartment on a budget. For weeks I searched for a bed, and finally, after countless hours scavenging Facebook Marketplace, I found one. I was luckily able to bundle it with a matching dresser and two side tables that were also being sold, so I came out a huge winner last Saturday.

The other big purchase? The couch.

Again, after my eyes burned out of their sockets after searching on Facebook Marketplace for so long, I found one. Just two days ago now, with the Knicks down 25 at half, I went to go pick up said couch, and realized just a bit too late that I should’ve done a few more measurements. Not of my apartment; I knew the couch was gonna fit in there. No, I should’ve measured my trunk.

The couch didn’t fit.

Well, I should say that the entire couch didn’t fit. I was able to get half of it over to my apartment the other day, and I’ve been using that since then. As we were moving it in, my phone started blowing up about the Knicks coming back. We listened to the end of the game on the radio broadcast. Still electric.

The other half of the couch? Still sitting in the guy’s house. Thankfully, he’s going to drop it off at my place on Sunday with his truck. Why didn’t he offer this in the first place? That’s a great question, dear reader. Why didn’t he offer this after we spent a half hour attempting to jam the couch in my car? Yet another fantastic question. To that, we’ll never know the answer.

I’ll tell you though, it’s way more comfortable to watch a movie from a couch rather than in a folding chair sitting at one of those white folding tables you play beer pong on.

And those are the major highlights for the most part. This, that, etcetera, and other things. There are obviously a few highlights I simply don’t have time or space to write about tonight, but we’ll get to those in the next blog, don’t worry. I’ll have plenty more to talk about after next weekend.

Alrighty, I think it’s time we move on to the rest of this show.

I make sandwiches now.

I’ve been slacking on this too, but now that I’m settled in my new place, get ready to watch me make more sandwiches and talk about more movies soon.

The newest videos (not that new, but new since my last blog) are linked in the footnotes if you want to give them a watch.

Link to the account

• Hoppers12

• Project Hail Mary13

• The Drama14

Ranking of Big 4 US Sports Logos

Last blog, more than 2 months ago now, I put up a poll to see what my next rankings should be. I thought there’d be max 2 votes, but there were a whopping 6! And the selection that won the poll was what you just read: Big 4 US Sports Logos. That means I have 124 logos to rank…

Which means it’s probably going to take me 3 years to do it.

And it also means that I’ll be starting next week (because I decided this last night and haven’t had time to start my rankings yet).15

THE VAULT

NOW UPDATED WITH 2025!

After almost 6 months, I’ve updated my archive of everything I’ve watched since 2018. To the one person excited to hear this news16, go check it out!

Check out The Vault if you’re struggling to pick a movie for your next movie night. It’s got everything I’ve watched since 2018 on it. You can sort by genre, sub-genre, release year, rewatchable status, etc. Give it a try (and let me know how I can improve it).

Check it out here!

Alright, on to the blog.

Movies count for the year: 80

Doc count for the year: 4

Total movie count on the blog: 378

Total movie count with sandwiches: 13

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (2026)

AKA: You won’t believe it.

I have an interesting relationship to Canada.

Back when I was 7 or so, I was asked by my family where my dream vacation would be. Without a moment of hesitation, I blurted out “Canada!” I said it with such conviction that everyone started laughing their heads off17. Years passed. I got a Canadian Mountie statue from my Grandma. Drake became the biggest rapper in the world. The Toronto Raptors won the NBA Championship. Canada was having a moment.

And then I finally went to Canada, and everything came tumbling down.

It was January of 2020, just a couple of months out of the Pandemic. For Christmas, my parents had surprised my sister and me with a trip to Toronto to see our favorite stand-up comedian, John Mulaney. The weekend could not have started better. Can you beat seeing Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch in the Toronto airport?

I didn’t think so.

I spotted him in the customs line and quietly started freaking out. We were in Canada, so I guess not that many people recognized him, but there were a couple of other guys in line who were doing double takes. My Mom urged me to go say hi, but she was not as familiar with Beast Mode’s style as I was. I knew that the guy of “I’m just here so I don’t get fined” fame wanted nothing to do with me, so I respected his space as we went through customs and rode the train out of the terminal together.

We18 spent the rest of the day exploring Toronto. Went to Tim Horton’s (obviously), went to the Hockey Hall of Fame19, and grabbed some fire cheeseburgers for dinner. We were all excited for the show, but we also couldn’t ignore the snow that had started to fall early in the afternoon. By dinner time, it was coming down hard, and things were looking dire. Finally, at the eleventh hour, the inevitable happened, and the show was cancelled. Unfortunate, yes, but we made the most of it and watched one of Mulaney’s specials in our hotel room that night as a solution. Toronto is a fun city. Would go back.

The kicker? The date the show was rescheduled for ended up being in the heart of the pandemic20. The double kicker? The second rescheduled date ended up being on a date Mulaney hosted SNL. Tough beat.

At least he was aware.

Anyways, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is one of the best movies of 2026. You should all watch it immediately.

Ranking of Canadian Things (off the top of my head):

1. Mounties

2. Tim Horton’s

3. Politeness

4. Hockey

5. Dudley Do-Right

6. Wayne Gretzky

7. Ryan Gosling/Ryan Reynolds

8. Robin Scherbatsky

9. Maple Leafs (the leaf and the hockey team)

10. The Looney and the Twoney

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): The CN Tower in Toronto is 1,815 feet tall, making it the tallest free-standing structure in the Western World. It’s also got the world’s highest observation deck.

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: No, are you insane?

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 0%

No, But Really: This is, and will almost certainly be, the funniest movie of 2026. I can’t believe that this movie exists, and I want about 10 more of them immediately. I haven’t seen any of the previous Nirvanna the Band content, and I was unfamiliar with Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s fake band in general, but man, am I glad I went to see this movie in theaters. It could not be more creative while also being a total ripoff of one of the best movies of all time (Back to the Future). You have to see this movie to believe it, and I can pretty much guarantee you’re gonna like it. Matt Johnson has the freaking juice as a director. I’ve got season tickets. This is one of the best movies of 2026, full stop.

Movies at Home

Inching ever closer to having no life. But, like, actually this time.

Empire of the Sun (1987)

AKA: So Christian Bale has always been like this?

The next step on our journey through the movies of Steven Spielberg that I’m seeing for the first time in 2026. So far, we’ve covered The Sugarland Express and 1941, and today, we’ve got yet another World War II movie that is smack dab in the middle of the spectrum for Steve. On one end, you have 1941, which is an almost entirely incoherent mess of a movie that attempts to make WWII a farce. On the other hand, you have Schindler’s List, which could not be more of a polar opposite take on the war. Then you have Empire of Sun, which is unique in two senses:

• It details a part of the world during the war that you don’t see much of on screen: China, specifically Shanghai.

• It’s war through a child’s eyes, specifically Christian Bale’s entitled rich boy eyes.

If you’ve been reading these blogs for a while now, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of history, and when it comes to historical movies, I always love to see stories that I haven’t seen told before. China/Shanghai during the Japanese invasion is a story I’ve heard and learned about before in history classes, but when it comes to WWII movies, they’re usually centered on the European theater or the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific. There are so many stories and historical events that so many people are unaware of, either because they get glossed over in history classes, or because they don’t have ‘cultural cache’ like some others do. All I’m trying to say is that there is so much untapped potential for stories from history that deserve to be more widely known. After you watch a fully reconstructed Shanghai get invaded and ransacked by the Japanese army, like what happens in this movie, it’s hard to forget about that event in history going forward. That’s called effective filmmaking right there.

Which brings me to my 2nd point from earlier. I think it’s hilarious that Christian Bale has been doing this same thing for 40 years now. He was 12-13 when they made this, and watching it with so many of his adult performances in my mind, it’s really cool to see how he has:

A. Always been a good actor, and

B. That he’s been a fan of losing himself and transforming for a role ever since the beginning.

It’s also funny to me whenever Bale is British in a movie, because while I’m aware that he’s British in real life21, he so rarely uses his natural accent that I always forget that he is.

Bale is also one of the few child stars that had a solid career after being tapped by Spielberg to be a lead in one of his films. It’s an interesting track record.

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): Over 5,000 extras were used for the Invasion of Shanghai sequence, which was shot on location in Shanghai. Many of the extras were old enough to remember the actual invasion. More context for this film that adds to it, in my opinion.

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: No, sir.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 84%

No, But Really: This movie is pretty solid, but I think it tops out around the middle of Spielberg’s filmmography for me. There are some tonal issues and imbalances here that he truly nails down in Schindler’s and Saving Private Ryan later on. Per usual, it looks great, the score is fantastic, and the performances across the board are solid to really great (big fan of John Malkovich here), but the bar is simply too high for Spielberg. I’d still be down to revisit it though.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

AKA: The preacher was a serial killer.

As you all may know, I’m not much of a horror guy. Call me crazy, but I’m not the biggest fan of booting up a movie on a movie night by myself, getting scared shitless, and then trying to go to sleep. But when it comes to the classics, my film scholar side outweighs my horror-averse side, and I bend the knee. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Will, this movie looks old and not scary. Just look at that poster!”

And to that, I’d say, valid point.

But don’t judge a book by its cover, literally.

Because this movie is awesome. It’s not scary in a Conjuring or Paranormal Activity kind of way22, but that doesn’t matter. They couldn’t do that back then with the Hays Code and all23. This movie is scary because of how possible it is. There are no supernatural elements in this movie; there is no magic, no monsters, aliens, etc. It’s just pure, human evil on screen, and sometimes, that’s the scariest thing there is.

There’s this movie called Do the Right Thing24, and in this little movie, there’s a character named Radio Raheem, played by Bill Nunn. Radio Raheem is called Radio Raheem because, well, he carries a radio everywhere he goes. And the song he plays out of his boombox is Public Enemy’s Fight the Power. PE actually wrote the song for the movie, and it’s up there with the best songs written for movies of all time. Anyway, when Radio Raheem is introduced, he spends some time showing off his new bling25, which comes in the form of brass knuckles, one in the shape of the word LOVE and one in the shape of the word HATE. I implore you to watch this scene from the movie.

Goddamn, this movie is good. You should watch it.

Yeah, so, anyway, Spike Lee got that speech from The Night of the Hunter.

Movies are always talking to each other! Isn’t that so cool?

Ranking of…

Full transparency, I was gonna do a ranking of fictional serial killers, but realized that I already did that in the Zodiac blog (you can read it on that link to the left).

I’m running out of ideas.

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: Nope.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 0%

No, But Really: This is my type of horror movie right here. I was amazed at how creepy and effective this movie was on that front more than 70 years later. On top of that, it’s a stunning movie when it comes to its use of shadows and lighting. It really helps double down on the good vs evil themes at the heart of the story. I really hope I get the chance to see this on the big screen. Robert Mitchum is unbelievably great in this as well. He’s terrifying, and his performance is utterly captivating. He’s in some awesome noir movies from the 40s and 50s too that are all worth watching. Don’t be scared away by the black and white; give this one a chance. It’s pretty universally beloved.

Train Dreams (2025)

AKA: Sometimes, life can be really simple.

*Editor’s Note: The author kind of got lost in the sauce on this one, so if it doesn’t make any sense, there’s your answer why*

You know what I love about history? Is that there is always something else you haven’t learned before. You could be an expert in late 19th-century American history, and the discovery of a journal, or a newspaper, or another artifact can expose you to something about that area of expertise that you never knew before. History is vast, and books have limits. That’s why it’s important to learn about the little things, not just the big kahunas that everyone knows. How does one thing affect another? How did this lead to that? How are we still recovering from those things that happened? etc. Do any of you know anything about the loggers in the Pacific Northwest around the turn of the 20th century? I certainly didn’t before watching this movie. But what they did helped shape this country and affected the world in ways that they will never know.

American history is fascinating. As a country, we’re celebrating our 250th birthday this year, which is many, many lifetimes, but in the grand scheme of things, is nothing. America has been around for around ~5% the amount of time that the Great Pyramid of Giza has been around26. Hell, there were people living in this country that we now call the United States for thousands of years before the European explorers ever got here. Thinking about history is akin to thinking about the universe. Dwell on something for too long, and your brain explodes. We can’t comprehend a billion years, let alone a thousand.

What we can comprehend is a human life. There have been billions of people before us, and there will be billions after us27. And sorry to break it to you, but chances are, you won’t be included in a history book. But you know what? 99.999999% of the people who lived before you weren’t either, and that doesn’t make their lives any less meaningful or important than yours. They mattered in their own ways, to the other people in their life and in the underappreciated ways they affected the world around them. I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but what I guess I’m trying to say is that you’re important, and everyone should strive to live a meaningful life.

Reading that back, I don’t know if it made a lick of sense, but I’ll let you all decipher what I’m trying to say.

Ranking of Trains:

Not to brag or anything, but I did this entire ranking and explanations off memory. No research required.28

1. Edward

   

   1. The best all-around train. No drama, couldn’t be nicer, dependable, fiercely loyal, a workhorse, and a great friend. Edward isn’t going to be on any billboards or movie posters, but he’s the guy just off to the side that’s putting in amazing work.

2. Henry

   

   1. Yes, Henry can be known to be a bit of a drama king. There was that one time he refused to move out of a tunnel because it was raining and ended up getting walled in. But godammit did he not learn a lot from that experience and become one of the best trains there is. That character growth is huge, and his change from a blue to green coat was a great call.

3. Toby

   

   1. The nicest train you’ll meet. He stays out of the drama, doesn’t cause any problems, and is one of the most trustworthy of the bunch. Glue guy energy to the max.

4. Percy

   

   1. The little GOAT. For what Percy lacks in size, he makes up in heart and loyalty. Not sure if there is another train I’d want in my foxhole.

5. Mavis

   

   1. Girl GOAT. Another lesser-known one here, but she’s the sweetest of the group and is a great mediator when someone inevitably causes some shit to blow up. And she’s a quarry train, which everyone knows is one of the hardest professions in the train game. Do you hear her complaining? Hell no.

6. Annie and Clarabel

   

   1. 2 more glue guys (or girls in this case). They’re not trains, and they’re just Thomas’ carriages, but they’re essential in curbing Thomas’ ego. Two voices of reason who put in great work and would be a great addition to any group.

7. Thomas

   

   1. Sure, he’s a legend, the most well-known, and the namesake of this fine establishment we call Thomas and Friends, but he’s also kind of a whiner. I love my guy Thomas, but sometimes you just want him to keep his head down and not cause any more drama than he already does.

8. Gordon

   

   1. A tad stuck up? Sure. But he also has the right to be sometimes, with how much of an alpha he is among Thomas and his Friends. He may be the biggest, but he can be a bit of a douche, which keeps him out of the top half of this list.

9. The Flying Scotsman

   

   1. Truly a legend of the train world as the first engine to run over 100 miles per hour. He may not be as well known as some on this list, but goddamn does he deserve a spot here.

10. George

    

    1. He’s not a train, and he’s kind of a grump, but I simply had to include him here for the inside joke with my family.

…

438. Diesel 1029

     

     1. All my homies HATE Diesel 10.

        1. Really cool toy though with the working grabber claw and everything, though. I’m not gonna lie.

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): The first US Transcontinental Railroad took 6 years to build from 1863-1869. That’s just a fun fact in and of itself, but it’s even wilder to think about how they were doing this while the country was in the midst of the Civil War! Wild stuff.

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: No, and I don’t care this time.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 100% (The most I’ve cried after a movie in my entire life)

No, But Really: This movie absolutely floored me. It is far and away one of my favorite movies I’ve seen in 2026, and the best movies that came out in 2025. I didn’t have insane expectations going into it, but it was nominated for Best Picture for a reason. It could not be a simpler or more human story, and I think that’s what made it so effective. There’s just something about watching someone live their life, a normal person like you or me from a time and place in American history that isn’t taught in history class, that stirred some serious emotion inside of me. Very few times have I cried as hard as I did after this movie. Not because it’s a sad movie, per se, but because it’s a perfect encapsulation of life. I’ve never been a logger around the turn of the century, and I’m only 24 years old, but watching this movie and comparing it to how life is nowadays made me nostalgic for a time I, and no one alive today, never knew. I couldn’t recommend this movie more. It’s stunning, it makes you want to go outside and hug a tree, and it makes you want to live a wholesome life.

The Long Goodbye (1973)

AKA: Cigarettes, cats, and a whole lot of mystery.

What a wild, and strange, and cool, and funny, and unbelievably good movie this is. Has anyone in the audience seen this movie? Raise your hand if you have.

…

I’m hearing crickets and seeing little to no hands. No matter. I never know whether to spend the time in this blog writing about older movies that are fantastic but not as widely known in 2026. I think it’s totally worth it, because if I can get just one single person to check out a movie they haven’t seen before, then my job is complete, and this is a success, which is why I’m talking about this movie today.

If you’re unfamiliar with Robert Altman, say hello. Now, I have, admittedly, only seen 2 of Altman’s movies, but he’s one of those directors who we talked about in every single film class I took in college. His style is very unique, very realistic, and very alive. Altman movies sometimes don’t feel like movies at all, but rather snapshots of real life. The way he uses dialogue and sound is so freaking cool. Most movies use your typical:

• One line

  • Break

• One line

  • Break

• One line

  • Break

Etc.

They do this so that you can understand all of the words being said, things make sense, etc. It works in movies, but it doesn’t always feel or sound like how we actually talk to each other.

Altman, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about that, and I think that’s awesome. You really have to pay attention to his movies, because everyone is speaking over each other constantly, just like in real life. In The Long Goodbye, especially, Elliot Gould’s Philip Marlowe rarely speaks above a mumble and is constantly talking to himself and making side comments to no one. It’s hilarious, but if you don’t listen closely, you’ll miss it.

Most people reading this blog probably know Elliot Gould as one of two things: the guy who funds Danny Ocean’s heists in the Ocean’s movies or Monica and Ross’ dad in Friends.

Which is fair, and exactly what I thought of him, too, before I started watching older movies with him in them. Gould is unbelievably good in this movie. For those of you who are unaware, this movie is a noir/mystery, and Gould plays a private investigator trying to solve the case.

A little film history for you guys. This movie is part of the Philip Marlowe extended universe. He’s basically the Sherlock Holmes of noir movies, with 10+ films centered around the fictional private eye, with a different actor portraying him every time. I’m very much looking forward to seeing more of them.

Last two things about this movie before I move on. First, Elliot Gould, and I am not exaggerating when I say this, smokes more than any other character I have ever seen smoke in my entire movie-watching career in this movie. I don’t know if there is a longer-than-minute stretch when he doesn’t have a cigarette in his mouth. His cigarette-in-mouth acting is truly spectacular to watch. Secondly, this movie opens with a 15-20 minute sequence of Elliot Gould feeding his cat. It is one of the best and most exhilarating sequences of any movie I’ve ever seen. Nothing happens at all, and I could not have been more locked in.

That’s it, you should go watch this movie.

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): I just found the best website ever.

https://howmanycigarettes.com/the-long-goodbye/

According to this magical website, 39 cigarettes are smoked over the course of the movie, which maths out to right around 1 every 2.87 minutes, or .348 CPM30

The Mount Rushmore of…

Movie Smokers

The rules:

• At least 1 woman

• At least 1 animated character

• At least 1 weed smoker

That’s it.

• Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Goodfellas)

  • De Niro is a Hall of Fame movie smoker, and Goodfellas is his piece de resistance.

I mean, are you fucking kidding me? You can’t tell me he doesn’t look like the coolest person of all time right here.

• Raymond Stantz PhD. (Ghostbusters)

  • A proficient smoker in his own right, Ray is one of the first, if not the first, people I think of when I think of movie smokers. I don’t know how he learned to do that hanging cig thing, but it’s iconic in my book, and I do it with my pen about 25 times a day at work.

• Smokey (Friday)

  • At its core, this Mount Rushmore is for cigarette smokers. I might’ve made it 4 weed smokers if that wasn’t the case, so cutting it down to 1 to fit my self-made criteria was a tough choice. I thought about Spicoli, but since he was already included in a Mount Rushmore (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), I decided to go with another easy choice: a guy who is such a prolific smoker that his name is literally Smokey.

• Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmatians)

  • I bet you were worried I wouldn’t meet my criteria, but Cruella is a perfect pick for an animated smoker and a female smoker. I don’t know if there’s a more iconic female smoker than her. I love the pick31

Honorable Mentions

Every single one of these movies is great, just by the way. You should watch all of them.

• John McClane (Die Hard)32

• Philip Marlowe (The Long Goodbye)33

• Jake Gittes (Chinatown)34

• The Man in Black (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)35

• Floyd (True Romance)36

• Slater (Dazed and Confused)37

• James Bond (James Bond)38

• That one Gremlin (Gremlins)39

• Margo Channing (All About Eve)40

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: No, but the theme song to this movie is a banger and says it a bunch. Also, fun fact: written by THE John Williams!

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 3%

No, But Really: I had a blast with this movie, and I’m very much looking forward to rewatching it. I’m a sucker for a noir movie, as well as a 70s Los Angeles movie, and this movie combines those things. It’s also pretty funny, which you might not expect going in. The dichotomy of Gould’s character seemingly being transported in from the 1940s into 1970s LA is a great touch as well. I couldn’t recommend this movie more. Give it a watch.

Franchise Mode (Director Edition)

The guy just won his first Oscar. Now’s a perfect time to read this section.

PTA is a Little Freak 3.0

Catch up on the ongoing series here:

• Hard Eight

• Boogie Nights

• Magnolia

• Punch-Drunk Love

I started this thing, and I’m gonna see it through. I don’t care how many of you skip this section.

Technically, today would be a discussion on There Will Be Blood, one of the best, if not the best, movies PTA has made. However, I wrote about that movie almost 2 years ago at this point, so here’s that one:

There Will Be Blood

Next time, which, who knows, could be in 4 months, we’ll continue with The Master.

-Happy Friday!

—I love da movies

—-If this couch doesn’t fit in my door I’ll riot

——Movies are so back.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: YOU WILL FIND NO REAL SPOILERS HERE. YOU CAN READ THIS EVEN IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE YET. THAT’S THE POINT.

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It’s FREE, and I really appreciate the support; it means a lot.

I first arrived in Los Angeles on September 5, 2024. I had been on the road, driving across the country, for nearly a month at that point, and while I was sad that my journey appeared to be at an end, I was happy to start the next chapter of my life. “So, what was the first thing I did when I arrived in Los Angeles?” you may be asking. Well, dear reader:

I rolled down my windows, opened my sunroof, cranked up The Neutron Dance by The Pointer Sisters1, and drove through Beverly Hills, just like Axel Foley.

I drove down Rodeo Drive, past the Beverly Hills sign, past the Beverly Hills Police Station, and down the streets lined with palm trees. And even though the movie is now over 40 years old, I felt like I was living in it for just a second.

You’re right, past me, I do love Beverly Hills Cop.

I don’t remember the first time I saw this movie, but I almost definitely saw it younger than I was supposed to. And to that, I say thank you, Mom and Dad! I mean, there’s a reason that almost all of the Seen One movies in this series are ‘80s classics. They’re the ones my parents showed my sister and me from a young age, and they really kick-started my love for movies. I doubt my parents thought I’d take that love this far, but hey, here we are.

I know I say this a lot in these blogs, but this is pretty much a perfect movie. Now, when I say that, I hope you realize that I’m not saying this is the best movie of all time just because it’s perfect. No. I mean that, for what this movie is and what it is trying to be, it is a perfect diamond of a movie. Eddie Murphy? Perfectly cast. Script? Tight as can be. Action? Check. Laughs? Check. Good soundtrack? Double check. Movies like this are rare, and it’s important that we treat them well.

Let’s talk about 1984, the year this movie came out. It also became the highest-grossing movie of that year. According to my Letterboxd,2 I’ve only seen 18 movies from that year. I know there are plenty of great films that I have yet to check out, but for now, let’s focus on what I have seen. Let’s take a look:

Let’s analyze this, because this is a very interesting snapshot of how movies have changed3 in a little over 40 years.

• More than 1/3 of the movies on here are the first of what turned out to be huge franchises (some of which are still kicking today)4:

  • Terminator — 6 movies in the franchise, most recent in 2019

  • Nightmare on Elm Street — 9 movies in the franchise, most recent in 2010

  • Ghostbusters — 5 movies in the franchise, most recent 2024

  • Gremlins — 2 movies in the franchise, 3rd is in development right now

  • The Karate Kid — 6 movies in the franchise, most recent in 2025

  • Beverly Hills Cop — 4 movies in the franchise, most recent in 2024

  • Police Academy — 7 movies in the franchise, most recent in 1994

• Five movies that spawned a sequel or were remade:

  • This Is Spinal Tap — sequel came out in 2025

  • Romancing the Stone — sequel came out in 1985

  • Revenge of the Nerds — sequel came out in 1987

  • Footloose — remake came out in 2011

  • Red Dawn — remake came out in 2012

• A sequel in a long-running franchise

  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom — most recent came out in 2023

• A concert film

  • Stop Making Sense

• Which leaves us with 4(!) movies that currently have5 no sequel or are part of a franchise:

  • Sixteen Candles

  • Splash6

  • The Natural

  • Purple Rain

This wasn’t exactly the very beginning of the end, but it’s close. I love a number of the movies from this list, but this year is a perfect representation of how Hollywood will try to squeeze every single last drop of profit they can glean from a movie/franchise/IP before they let it go. People didn’t know it back in 1984, but if you told them they could see a sequel to The Karate Kid, Spinal Tap, and Beverly Hills Cop in the year 2025, I don’t know if they’d be able to comprehend that. Would they be sad? Disappointed? Happy? I guess we’ll never know.

Alright, let’s get into this thing. I’m excited to talk about this movie.

“Look, man, I ain't fallin' for no banana in my tailpipe.”

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

AKA: Eddie Murphy is lights out.

Did you know who was originally supposed to play Axel Foley?

Guess.

You’re gonna laugh when you hear it.

Sly Stallone.

Yup, Rocky Balboa himself was set to play Axel Foley, but left the movie because he wanted to change the entire plot. He even rewrote the script and renamed his character Axel Cobretti.

It’s safe to say that they made the right choice.

Did you know that Eddie Murphy was 23 years old when he filmed Beverly Hills Cop?

Let that sink in.

Eddie Murphy was 23 YEARS OLD when he filmed Beverly Hills Cop! He was younger than me. That’s ludicrous. I’ve almost certainly talked about this before, but Eddie Murphy’s initial 3-movie run was unbelievable:

48 Hrs (1982)7 | Trading Places (1983)8 | Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

No-Hitter | Perfect Game | Perfect Game

I mean, he is blowing people out of the water in this movie. He’s playing a different sport, in a different league, and on a different planet than most of the people in this movie. He is so effortlessly, and sneakily, the funniest as well as the smartest guy in every room he steps into over the entire course of this film. You know how hard that is to do while also being the most likeable guy in every room at the same time? Ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous.

You know what’s also ludicrous? You know Serge? The guy who works at Axel Foley’s friend’s art gallery? This guy:

In case you weren’t aware, he’s played by a guy named Bronson Pinchot. Pinchot was born in New York, raised just north of Los Angeles, and went to Yale. None of that matters, but I tell you all this to say that his normal speaking voice is a very standard American accent. And yet, his character in Beverly Hills Cop, an art dealer with a vaguely European accent, essentially got him his next gig, Perfect Strangers. I’ve personally never seen it, but it ran for 8 seasons and was extremely popular. What character did he play on the show? A guy with a vaguely European accent. That’s wild! A bit part in the biggest movie of 1984 got him a lead role in a long-running sitcom that I’m sure no one under the age of 40 has even heard of. I’m sure that’s just how Pinchot drew it up.

There’s another side character in this movie that you may recognize from a show that everyone under the age of 40 knows about:

Recognize this guy?

What about now? (He’s the guy on the right)

I watched Breaking Bad for the first time last year, and despite Mike being one of the best characters in the show, I’ll still always think of Jonathan Banks as the guy from Beverly Hills Cop who [SPOILER REDACTED]. Funny how your brain sticks to things like that. Jonathan Banks is also one of those guys who has looked old his entire life. I love guys like that. He was 36(!) when he filmed Beverly Hills Cop.

You know what never age, or if they do, they age like fine wine? Buddy cop movies. They’re not a sure thing by any means, but a good buddy cop movie will always play in my book. Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys, The Nice Guys, 48 Hrs., The Other Guys, Rush Hour, Hot Fuzz, 21 Jump Street, Point Break, Midnight Run, the list goes on. As I type this, I’ve just now realized and have formed my next great hypothesis.

Buddy Cop movies are the male version of rom-coms.

And this is coming from one of the biggest rom-com fans in the world. Just go with me here.

The romantic comedy genre is generally geared toward a female audience. They all follow a pretty similar playbook: Two people meet. Maybe they like each other, maybe they hate each other. Regardless, they spend a lot of time together and always inevitably split for some reason, usually due to friction in their relationship. But by the end of the movie, they’ve usually reconciled, and everyone usually lives happily ever after.

I also just described the plot of almost every buddy cop movie ever.

Cop movies are generally geared to a male audience. Little does that audience know that a bromance comedy has been Trojan-horsed into every buddy cop movie they’ve ever seen. Two guys meet, they become partners, they like each other as partners, they start on a case together, they hate each other as partners, they split up and go their separate ways, they keep investigating the case, one gets captured, the other saves him, they beat the bad guys, they get back together, they all usually live happily ever after. And who said men couldn’t be romantic?

A newfound fun part of watching this movie, since living here, is how it depicts Los Angeles. I wasn’t alive or living in Los Angeles in 1984, but I gotta say, Beverly Hills doesn’t seem to have changed all too much since then, based on my experience. There are still lavish stores lining the streets, people are still dressed in outrageous outfits that are supposedly ‘high-fashion’, and there are nice cars parked at every corner. There are certain parts of LA that don’t seem real when you step foot in them, like you’re entering a different city or different world, and Beverly Hills is certainly one of those places. I get imposter syndrome on the rare occasion I’m there myself, and I live here! Thankfully, I haven’t been thrown out of a window and arrested for disturbing the peace yet, but I’ve still got time.

Speaking of that, an underdiscussed, including in this blog, aspect of this movie is the topic of race. This movie is a lot of things: a comedy, an action movie, a mystery, and a buddy cop movie, but on top of all of that, it’s a fish-out-of-water movie. Eddie Murphy was one of the very few black stars of his era, and in this movie, once he leaves Detroit for Los Angeles, I think there’s maybe one or two other black characters who show up for a scene or two. So Axel is an outsider in every sense of the word. Axel’s race/racism isn’t necessarily brought up or discussed outright in the film, but there are numerous instances where it’s clear that race is a determining factor in how Axel is treated by certain people, especially when they first meet him. And every time, those characters are treated like buffoons and are given their comeuppance. It’s just another example of his slick and smart this movie is. It communicates those things to the audience without hitting them over the head with it.

Axel Foley is kind of a bastard in this movie, though. Well, more of an imp or a scamp than a bastard. But as I said before, regardless of how ridiculous he’s being, especially if you take a step back and think about what he’s doing, he is impossible to dislike. For example, Axel Foley is a prankster. Which is where I raise a very important question:

Does the banana in the tailpipe trick actually work?

If I were a betting man, I’d bet that Mythbusters did an episode on this. This sounds right up their alley.

*Author’s Note: Upon doing some research, I’ve discovered that there is not, in fact, a Mythbusters episode on the topic. This is why I’m not a betting man. Cold as ice.*

We may never know if Mythbusters did an episode on it9, but I will say that I think about the banana in the tailpipe trick I’d say a couple of times a month. Los Angeles is a car-heavy city, and when you get stuck behind a horrible or super slow driver as often as I do, you can bet your ass that I think about pulling a banana in the tailpipe once in a while. I don’t even care if it works. It’s the thought that counts.

Also, fun fact, the hotel worker who gives Axel the bananas is a super young Damon Wayans! The more you know.

Two more things to talk about here before I force myself to stop.

1. The music in this movie is perfect. The Neutron Dance. The Heat is On. Stir It Up. And of course, everyone’s favorite, Axel F. Crazy how most people nowadays know that song from this stupid frog rather than Beverly Hills Cop:

Fun Fact: Back in the day10, there was this TV commercial advertising ringtones that you could purchase, truly an artifact of the late 2000s/early 2010s, and I was dead set on having The Gummy Bear Song as my ringtone when I eventually got a phone.

Spoiler Alert: By the time I got a phone, ringtones were obsolete, and thankfully, I haven’t heard The Gummy Bear Song in years.

The year count has reset to 0.

Ok, last thing.

There are a lot of great aspects of this movie, and I’ve already discussed most of them ad nauseam, but there’s one thing I haven’t talked about yet. I love action movies. A major component of action movies is guns, specifically guns firing bullets. Now, I’m not a big gun guy or anything, but a major pet peeve of mine is when movies don’t respect gun logic.

Beverly Hills Cop respects gun logic.

Outside of the John Wick franchise, which does this the best, Beverly Hills Cop is the movie I point to that respects the art of the reload. GUNS RUN OUT OF BULLETS. Action movies tend to forget that. Max Ammo isn’t a thing in real life. Guns need to be reloaded. And the creators behind Beverly Hills Cop respect that, and I like this movie all the more for it.

Ok, that’s it. Let’s wrap this thing up. It’s late, and I’m already at 3,600 words.

Mount Rushmore of…

Unlikely Friendships

Ground Rules (that I actually followed this time)

• 1 animated movie minimum

• 1 has to be cop/cop-adjacent

  • There are by far the most of these

• 1 has to be between characters who tried to kill each other

• 1 misc.

• No romantic relationships

  • This gets rid of essentially every rom-com

• Keeping this to movies only

• Axel Foley, Billy Rosewood, and John Taggart (Beverly Hills Cop)

  • Once you go through shootouts, car chases, murder investigations, strip club holdups, and more together, it’s hard to go back. How could these three not be friends after all of that?

• Reggie Hammond and Jack Cates (48 Hrs.)

  • Are these guys friends? Hard to say. There are some aspects that are a bit questionable11, but, again, if they’re not friends after going through shootouts and murder investigations together, then they’re trauma-bonded at the very least.

• Billy Ray Valentine and Louise Winthrope III (Trading Places)

  • Essentially forced to be enemies, yet ended up as friends. That’s the power of friendship right there. Well, that, a couple of rich asshole old guys, and a hell of a lot of money in the stock market. Looking good, Billy Ray!12

• Shrek and Donkey (Shrek)

  • Quite possibly the most iconic animated friendship of the 21st century, especially to people my age. Every friendship has someone with a little more Shrek energy than the other and someone with a little more Donkey energy than the other. And just like the actual Shrek and Donkey, those friendships are usually ride or die.

I can’t believe you guys fell for that.

Ok, let’s make the actual Mount Rushmore now, before I start to buy into my own joke Mount Rushmore.

However, Eddie’s got a really solid Mount Rushmore right there. He might be our GOAT “unlikely friendships” actor.

The Actual Mount Rushmore of Unlikely Friendships

• Axel Foley, Billy Rosewood, & John Taggart (Beverly Hills Cop)

  • What I wrote above wasn’t bullshit. These guys are bros for life. A perfect trio.

• Buzz & Woody (Toy Story)

  • What I wrote above about Shrek and Donkey wasn’t bullshit either. Well, none of it except that part about it being the most iconic animated friendship of the 21st century. That’s a lie, because that title belongs to Buzz and Woody. Sorry bout it.

• Rick Blaine & Louis Renault (Casablanca)

  • “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

    • That is all.

    • Go watch Casablanca if you haven’t already.

• Westley, Inigo Montoya, & Fezzik (The Princess Bride)

  • A core component of the trio friendships in this sub-sub-genre is the existence of a preexisting duo within the newly formed trio who were friends beforehand. In this case, Inigo Montoya13 and Fezzik also had the rare opportunity to be a part of a different trio with a much worse third guy. They’re veterans in the trio game, and Westley was an easy choice to be their third. Have they all tried to kill each other? Sure, but sometimes those turn out to be the best friendships.

Honorable Mentions

Ground Rule-by-Ground Rule

Animated

• Rudolph, Hermey, and Yukon Cornelius (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)

• Marlin and Dory (Finding Nemo)

• Mike and Sully (Monsters University)

• Shrek and Donkey (Shrek)

• Lightning McQueen and Mater (Cars)

• Roger Rabbit and Eddie Valiant (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)

Cop/Cop-Adjacent

• Jack Walsh & Jonathan Mardukas (Midnight Run)

• Riggs & Murtaugh (Lethal Weapon)

• John McClane & Zeus (Die Hard 3)

• Lee & Carter (Rush Hour)

• Dom Toretto & Brian O’Connor (Fast and Furious)

• Holland March & Jackson Healy (The Nice Guys)

• Allen Gamble & Terry Holtz (The Other Guys)

They Tried To Kill Each Other

• Megamind & Metro Man (Megamind)

• Captain Jack Sparrow & Will Turner (Pirates of the Caribbean)

• T-800 & John Connor (Terminator)

• Rocky Balboa & Apollo Creed (Rocky)

Misc.

• Tommy & Richard (Tommy Boy)

• Jerry Maguire & Rod Tidwell (Jerry Maguire)

• Alan Grant & Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)

• Bruno & Shmuel (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas)

• Billy Ray Valentine & Louis Winthrope III (Trading Places)

• Brody & Hooper (Jaws)

• Han Solo & Luke Skywalker (Star Wars)

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: They say all three words, but never in succession. The closest we get is “Beverly Hills Police,” but that’s not quite as good a title.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 3%

No, But Really: I absolutely love this movie and could not recommend it more to people of any age. Eddie Murphy is at the top of his game here and gives an all-time performance as Axel Foley. Watching him cook is one of the most entertaining movie-watching experiences you can have. This movie is the perfect balance of comedy, action, mystery, thrills, with some social commentary slipped in there under your nose as well. It’s so ‘80s, yet timely as ever. It’s an R-rated movie, and there is certainly some stuff that isn’t for young kids, but I’m telling you, this is perfect for a family movie night or for any age. Trust me and thank me later.

-It’s so late.

—Why do I do this to myself?

—-Worth it.

-—-I hope you all enjoy.

-——-Beverly Hills Cop II is really solid as well.

-———-Now stop scrolling. There’s nothing past this point.

A Hint For Next Time

For any new readers, check out the footnote for the intro and breakdown of the blog. If you’re on a computer or on the Substack app, they work way better.1

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, you can subscribe and share with your friends.

It’s FREE, and I really appreciate the support; it means a lot.

I start every one of these damn things with an apology. An apology to all of you, the readers, for slacking on my writing duties. An apology and a promise, albeit a baseless one, that I’m “getting back to writing more” or “will get out more blogs soon”.

No more.

No more will I feed you all empty excuses or false promises. All I’ll say is that I’ll try my best. The only people I’ll apologize to are the people who placed bets on the Oscars and used my picks:

Because, more than any other reason, that’s why there was no blog last week. I was licking my wounds, embarrassed to show my face to the world for missing 2 of the major Oscar picks from the ceremony. But no matter. That was then, and this is now. We move forward. Congratulations to all of the winners2, and even though ratings were down dramatically this year, and it seems like the general public doesn’t care much about watching the Oscars anymore, I thought it was a pretty solid ceremony overall. It wasn’t perfect, and there were some negatives (let people give their speeches, you cowards), but my one plea to the Academy in my prediction blog was to “not get it wrong”, and I think they did that when it came to the awards.

To Recap

• PTA finally got his well-deserved Oscar (and 2 more to boot)

• Ryan Coogler got his first, and certainly not his last, statue

• Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first female cinematographer to EVER win for Best Cinematography3

• Amy Madigan finally got hers too, 40 years after her first nomination (the longest time between nominations EVER)

• Sean Penn won his 3rd acting Oscar, making him the newest addition to the exclusive 3-Timers club alongside Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Walter Brennan4. He didn’t campaign, didn’t even show up to the awards5, and won anyway. That’s some baller shit right there.

• Jessie Buckley, predictably, won Best Actress and did a great job of pretending to be surprised.

• Ludwig Goransson won his THIRD Oscar for Best Score, further cementing himself as one of THE GUYS when it comes to film scores. I’m not saying he might be the next John Williams, but I’m not not saying that.

• And of course, Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor and celebrated by doing what every California kid would do: going to In-N-Out. A win that didn’t seem like it was in the cards became a reality as soon as he won Best Actor at the SAG Awards. The Academy truly couldn’t go wrong in what was the most stacked Best Actor race, maybe ever.

• The In Memorium segment was really good as well. We lost some absolute legends this year, and it was great to see how they honored them.

• I’m obviously missing some highlights, but the show was almost 4 hours, give me a break.

And now we start prepping for the 99th in 2027.

It’s been more than 2 FULL MONTHS since my last proper blog here on the site. Sure, I’ve published a few Seen Ones,6 and I started an Instagram page,7 but I feel like I’m losing the true lifeblood of this entire enterprise. I truly do not know how I used to write one of these every week. Hell, there were a few times I wrote 2 blogs in one week. I can’t even wrap my head around that now. These things take at least 6-78 hours to write, usually more. It’s not like I have that much better of a social life now compared to when I first moved to LA.

I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s not an issue today, because today there is a blog out, and that means it’s a good day (and that I probably didn’t get any sleep last night)9. And with the first blog in 2 months, that means there’s a whole lotta stuff to get you all caught up on. Cause let’s be honest, we all know most of you aren’t reading this for the movie talk. A lot of you, mainly my family and my friends’ moms,10 are reading these as my proof of life from the other side of the country. So here we go. Proof of life incoming.

*Author Note: You know how, in older sitcoms that had 22-24 episode seasons, they’d do a clip show episode every season because they ran out of ideas and needed to fill an episode slot? The issue with these “once every 2 months” blogs is that they just become a clip show of my life.*

No matter. We press on.

February was pretty solid to say the least. As you read in my When Harry Met Sally blog, I spent Valentine’s Day weekend doing what I do best: watching movies alone. I watched 6 movies that weekend11, all of varying levels of quality, and all by my lonesome. Most of these movies were watched from Saturday-Monday, though, AKA the time I spent recovering from my Friday night. What? It was a late night.

One of my buddies from home, Liam, was in town with his girlfriend, Veronica, visiting LA for the weekend, so we went out on Friday night. Since I live here, they were naturally asking me if I had any recommendations on where to go out that night. The only problem with that question is that I don’t go out enough to have any real ‘go-to spots’, so I took it upon myself to try out a bar that I had been wanting to go to for some time now, but had no one to drag there.

Well, I did some Jedi mind tricks, and guess where we ended up?

Welcome to Scum and Villainy Cantina in Hollywood. Yup, that’s right, it’s a Star Wars-themed bar right off the Walk of Fame. In other words, it’s my dream bar. This place was decked out to look just like Mos Eisley Cantina from the planet Tatooine. If you don’t recognize that planet name, it’s featured in the hit 1977 feature film, Star Wars: A New Hope.12 If you don’t recognize the name of the cantina, it’s the place where Han Solo shoots Greedo13. If you still don’t recognize it, it’s the place where Obi-Wan chopped off Walrus Man’s arm:

His official name is Ponda Baba, but he’ll always be Walrus Man to me.

Still don’t recognize it? It’s the place that thrust Jizz music into the public consciousness. No, that is not a typo. Yes, that is the real genre of music played by the Cantina band from Star Wars.

The more you know.

So, yeah, we went to the nerd bar, where Liam and I promptly nerded out. Thankfully, Veronica didn’t kill us.

After the Star Wars bar, we went to a different bar, and then went back to Liam and Veronica’s hotel room.

Which brings me to the rest of the weekend.

Imagine if you went out one night and ended up back at your apartment without your shoes. How would you go about the rest of your weekend if that happened to you? If that happened to me, I would spend most of the rest of that weekend sitting in a dark room, whether it was a theater or in my room, watching movies. Because sometimes, that’s the only cure, hypothetically, of course.

Editor’s Note: Don’t worry, in this hypothetical, The Author got his shoes back. In this hypothetical, he left them in Liam’s hotel room on Friday after they tried and failed to play Mario Kart on his Nintendo Switch after the bars. Why would he hypothetically leave without his shoes? This is a hypothetical; I don’t have the answer to that question.

The next weekend, I had some college buddies in town. Safe to say that it was the best time I’ve had in a while. They got the whole LA experience.

Wednesday night, after arriving after midnight, the first stop was In-N-Out, because of course it was. Thursday morning, it was pouring rain, which is rare in LA, but when it rains, it does pour14. Because of said rain, we decided to see a movie at the Chinese Theater, which was a first for me as well, and I live here. The thing about LA is that it’s so nice here all the time that there is almost nothing to do here when it rains. The only options seem to be going to see a movie or going to the Academy Award Museum. Every single recommendation site says the same exact thing. Thankfully, upon exiting the movie, the sun was back out, and it didn’t go away the rest of the weekend.

Fast forward to Friday, when the whole group did a hike up to the Hollywood sign. Well, most of us anyway.15 It was also a great reminder that I need to get some shorter friends, because I’ve never looked shorter in a photo in my life. Granted, they set me up for failure, but goddamn.

After that hike, we did the hike up to Griffith Observatory for two main reasons:

1. It’s an iconic LA landmark

2. It’s featured in La La Land, and was one of Slott’s non-negotiables for the weekend

Let’s skip the rest of Friday, too. TL: DR is that we stayed up far too late, spent probably way more money than we intended to at the bar, and fell asleep at an unreasonable hour. Or something like that.

Saturday morning, I woke up to Slott asking, into the void, “Aren’t we doing a studio tour today?” We did, in fact, have tickets for the Warner Bros. Studio Tour at 10:00 am. It was 9:15. The Warner Bros. Lot is at its shortest, 30 minutes away from West Hollywood (where we were staying). We didn’t end up leaving till 9:45, because, and I found this out over the weekend, some of my friends need at least 3 cups of coffee a day, or they’ll malfunction. We were 20 minutes late for a tour that we had spent a good deal of money on.

Our only option was to grovel. I went up to the woman running the door and didn’t even try to convince her otherwise. Call me the worst salesman of all time, because the first words out of my mouth were: “Hi, we have tickets for the 10:00 tour, which we obviously missed because we’re so late.” My lack of finesse didn’t even matter, though, because while we had been freaking out about missing the tour, she responded to my admittedly mediocre sales pitch with “Oh, a new tour leaves every 10 minutes. Take all the time you need.” Crisis averted.

After a second coffee for the group in the span of 30 minutes, we got on the tour and spent the next 2 hours learning about the magic of moviemaking and sitcom television. The best part of it for me was seeing my friends have their minds blown about how movies are made. It’s always fun when that happens.

That afternoon, after grabbing sandwiches16, we headed to Venice and hung out on the beach, where we watched the sun set for about 2.5 hours. There’s nothing better than watching a sunset—easily a Top 5 universal human activity. And I swear, we were seeing some colors that had never been seen before, or, at least, I was anyway.

After basking in the beauty that is nature, we did our duty as holiday-celebrating people and went to a Mexican restaurant to partake in National Margarita Day. A huge shoutout to my Mom and sister for bringing this holiday to my attention in the family group chat.

Those were the major highlights, or at least the highlights I feel like sharing.17 All in all, I’d say it was a very successful weekend. Los Angeles gets a bad wrap, but I think I converted at least a few people. Don’t believe everything you hear, folks. LA isn’t all bad. Sure, it’s expensive, and gas is $7.00 a gallon at some places right now,18 and there are homeless19 people around, but that sounds a lot like a lot of other big cities to me.

The only real thing of note between that weekend and the last couple of weekends is that the show that I did background acting on more than a year and a half ago finally came out, and you can see me in a couple of shots.

I have approximately 6 seconds of screen time, but from the way my friends and family back home texted me about when I told them/showed them, you’d think I had just been nominated for an Emmy. It’s really cool to have been a part of something, though, and even though all I did was look like a pissed-off bully, it was a great reminder as to why I wanted to work in this industry.

Not to be an actor on screen or anything like that, but to play a part in making something. I contributed next to nothing to this show, but for what little I did, it was still a rewarding experience. The goal for the future is to play a bigger part in making things. Will the billionaires treating Hollywood like it’s their playpen filled with toys let that happen? That remains to be seen, especially with all of the other shit going on in the world today, but you gotta keep the faith and hope for the best.

I don’t know, though, from what I’ve heard about Project: Hail Mary, we might be all the way back.

The fact that my first experience in the film industry is me yelling, “Kill the masterbator” over and over, is something else.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Alright, we’re up to 7,000 words already20. Sorry about that.

I’ll close with this:

A wise person reminded me just the other day21 that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re working on, whatever you’re striving for; keep pushing, keep grinding, and keep on keeping on. Don’t let anyone or anything tell you otherwise. Keep chasing your goals.

It’s good to be back, and let’s get on with the blog.

I make sandwiches now.

As I mentioned earlier, I started an Instagram series where I make my lunch for the next day and talk about a movie I watched recently. After a couple of weeks off, I’m getting back into that, too. If you truly want to hear about everything I’m watching, you won’t be left behind. Just click on the videos linked in the footnotes!

The Truman Show22

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple23

Hamnet24

Bugonia25

Sentimental Value26

Send Help27

_____ Rankings

Still trying to figure out my next ongoing ranking list. To my Uncle Adam, if you’re reading this, thank you for the recommendation to do license plates a little while back. The only issue with that is, as you may know from reading the blog before:

There are simply too many designs. I’m toying with any of the following; let me know what you think. I’ll probably get like 2 total votes on this poll, so may the best option win:

WILL BE UPDATED WITH 2025 SOON!

Check out The Vault if you’re struggling to pick a movie for your next movie night. It’s got everything I’ve watched since 2018 on it. You can sort by genre, sub-genre, release year, rewatchable status, etc. Give it a try (and let me know how I can improve it).

Check it out here!

Alright, on to the blog.

Movies count for the year: 46 (the quest to 200 is off to an okay start)

Doc count for the year: 1 (off to a great start)

Total movie count on the blog: 372

Total movie count with sandwiches: 10

Movies at Home

Inching ever closer to having no life. But, like, actually this time.

1941 (1979)

AKA: World War II was a joke.

I have no idea what the hell this is, and I can’t tell if there is anything I like about it. These are things I’ve never really said to myself after watching a Steven Spielberg movie, and while that’s a combination of me avoiding his ‘bad’ movies and Spielberg being one of the best directors of all time, it’s still a strange thing to think about after watching one of his films, especially the one that came in the middle of one of the best runs in film history:

• Jaws

• Close Encounters of the Third Kind

• _______

• Raiders of the Lost Ark

• E.T.

4/5 of those films can be found on numerous ‘Best Films of All Time’ lists, and the 5th is 1941.

Outside of this film being made at all, the backstory and the people involved absolutely boggle my mind. Firstly, this is a World War II spoof film. If that last sentence sounded strange to you, it’s because if I rack my brain, I, myself, cannot think of a single other WWII spoof film. And that’s not just because I haven’t seen any; it’s because people know to stay away from WWII. Well, everyone other than Taika Waititi, that is. Jojo Rabbit is the only other WWII spoof film I can think of right now.

Anyway,

This is a WWII spoof film, directed by Steven Spielberg28, written by Bob Zemeckis29 and Bob Gale30, and with a story credit to John Milius31. It stars Jon Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, Christopher Lee, and John Candy, among others, in a huge ensemble cast. The music is by freaking John Williams. This should have worked, yet it does not in any way, shape, or fashion. And it’s wild, because it’s got all of the Spielberg flourishes and touches that you’d be used to if you’ve seen his films32. However, it’s a comedy that isn’t that funny, drags like it’s trying to pull an aircraft carrier down the highway, and makes World War II seem like a trifling blip in history. Kind of? I honestly don’t know; it’s quite unclear.

I could talk for a while about this strange, strange movie. I’m glad I watched it.

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): The failure of 1941 is the primary reason behind Steven Spielberg making Indiana Jones. 1941 went over budget and over its production schedule, so Spielberg agreed to make Indiana Jones and vowed to stay under budget and on time, which he did. So thank you, 1941!

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: Yeah, probably. Almost definitely.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 0%

No, But Really: Look, I’m not saying you can’t joke about history, especially tragic history, but if you’re going to make a comedy about WWII, you’ve at least got to make it funny. This, despite having so much going for it, is not that, which is the main reason why it doesn’t work overall as a film. The funny people in it are not used nearly enough, and when they are used, it’s confusing at best. Spielberg just isn’t cut out to make a straight-on comedy, though it’s cool to see his attempt at it, no matter how poor of a movie it ended up being. There’s not a lot of positives to glean from it, so unless you’re interested in Spielberg’s career, John Belushi’s career, or are watching through Spielberg’s filmmography, I can’t say I’d recommend it.

Begin Again (2013)

AKA: A time machine back to 2013.

Usually, movies strive to be timeless. It’s timelessness that allows movies to be shared across generations with very few to no translations necessary. But there are some movies out there that are the complete opposite. Movies that are trapped in amber, in the exact year or era they came out in. If they came out in any other time or era, they wouldn’t work. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be shared across generations, of course, but it does mean that future generations may have more questions or comments on the world the movie is set in.

Begin Again came out less than 15 years ago, and it’s in that second category.

And that’s not a bad thing!

Nostalgia is a son of a bitch. Everyone is nostalgic in one way or another, but it’s always wild to become aware of when you’re nostalgic for something you had never given much thought to before. That’s what happened when I watched this movie. Specifically, this movie made me nostalgic for how the internet used to be in the first half of the 2010s. I wasn’t even truly on the internet in 2013 when this movie came out33, but people my age got the tail end of that time when things seemed somewhat innocent. Vine was popping off, Instagram and Twitter were in their infant stages, and overall, I’d say things didn’t feel so apocalyptic online. There were more humans than bots, no AI to worry about when it came to deciphering whether things were real or not, and things just seemed friendlier overall. Maybe I’m looking back on it all with rose-tinted glasses, but that’s how these things go, isn’t it?

I miss it.

Another movie that Begin Again made me think of? Chef. I love Chef, but there’s never been a more 2012-2014 movie ever made.

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): The original working title for this film was “Can a Song Save Your Life?” and I like that title a lot.

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: Nope, not even in song form.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 92%

No, But Really: I was charmed out of my socks by this movie. Similar to Once, also directed by John Carney, the music of this movie is its soul, and reminds me of a simpler time in my life and in the world in general. Mark Ruffalo has never been shlubbier or more lovable, I’ve always been a fan of Keira Knightley, and their chemistry is pretty solid here. Sure, there are some unbelievably corny/cheesy moments in this movie, and there are times where you cringe at how specifically early-2010s this movie is, but all of those aspects only make the movie better in my estimation. If you’re a fan of romance movies, rom-coms, or movies centered around music, you’ll like this one.

The Muppet Movie (1979)

AKA: Muppets rock.

My experience with The Muppets is admittedly sparse. Sure, I watched Sesame Street as a kid, and I saw The Muppets with Jason Segel when it came out in 201134, but up until this Christmas season, I had never seen any of the OG Muppet movies. Well, I said it in my blog about The Muppet Christmas Carol, and I’ll say it again:

Muppets make everything better.

It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the concept of muppets are or how silly the plot of this movie is, because there is something so wholesome about puppets interacting with humans that works on every level. And yet, despite it being so wholesome, I was genuinely surprised at how funny this movie was in a mature comedic sense. I also mentioned it in my The Muppet Christmas Carol blog, but I watched the truly great documentary on Jim Henson that came out last year, and in that doc, they explained that, while Sesame Street was wildly successful and popular with children, the Muppets were Jim Henson’s more ‘adult’ attempt at a puppet show that appealed to older audiences. Let me tell you, I can see the appeal, and growing up watching the Muppets must have been an awesome time.

Last thing. These movies work so well because the Muppets are treated completely normally and in no way as if they are out of place. If they were treated as if they were Muppets, this movie wouldn’t work, and the people interacting with the Muppets in this movie kept blowing me out of the water. Mel Brooks for 5 minutes! Steve Martin for 3 minutes! Richard Pryor for 2 minutes! Elliott Gould for 1 minute! Fucking Orson Welles for 30 seconds! I couldn’t believe it, and those were just the people that I recognized. I don’t have a point or argument to go along with this observation; I just think it’s cool that some of the biggest personalities in comedy at the time (among others) respected the Muppets like that.

Ranking of Pigs:

We’re only counting pigs of the farm variety here today. No warthogs or wild boars of any kind. This means guys like Pumbaa35 and Bebop36 are excluded from this ranking.

1. 3 Little Pigs (The 3 Little Pigs)

   

   1. Pig #1 and Pig #2 are getting a huge boost from #3 here, but when you’re a part of a story that literally every person in the Western world knows,37 it’s hard for me not to give you the top spot.

2. Porky Pig (Looney Tunes)

   

   1. This ranking might get me some flak, but I’ve had more in-game experience with Porky Pig than I have with Miss Piggy, who probably deserves the 2nd spot here. You also gotta respect the progress his work has made for the stutter community. That goes a long way.

3. Miss Piggy (The Muppets)

   

   1. As I said, she probably deserves the #2 spot here, but I couldn’t put her there in good conscience. Miss Piggy is as iconic as iconic gets, and if you don’t believe me, just ask Emma Stone and Jennifer Lawrence, who are working on a Miss Piggy movie right now. Talk about 3 iconic actresses of their era.

4. Wilbur (Charlotte’s Web)

   

   1. One of my favorite books as a youngster38, and one hell of a pig. Or, as Charlotte might say, he’s “some pig”. Does he do anything to deserve Charlotte saving his life? Not at all, but she does, and that’s simply fantastic.

5. Spider-Pig (The Simpsons Movie)

   1. This is really important to people of a certain age:

6. Piglet (Winnie the Pooh)

   

   1. I’ll have to ask my Mom, but if I remember correctly, I was always more of a Winnie the Pooh and Tigger guy when it came to the animals in the Hundred Acre Wood. That being said, Piglet is one of the first pig characters you think of, and that cultural cache cannot go unnoticed. He’s earned this spot here in the middle of the rankings and could easily be higher.

7. Waddles (Gravity Falls)

   

   1. The cutest pig on our list.

8. Babe (Babe)

   

   1. 2 fun facts about Babe:

      1. Babe was nominated for Best Picture

      2. Babe was directed by the same guy who directed Mad Max: Fury Road

   2. Life can be really beautiful sometimes.

9. Spider-Ham (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)

   

   1. Any time you can give me an animated superhero pig voiced by John Mulaney, it’s a win in my book.

10. Napoleon, Snowball, etc. (Animal Farm)

    

    1. Napoleon was a real motherfucker, wasn’t he? Poor Leon Trotsky pig. Poor Boxer.

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): This movie was the first time the Muppets’ legs, like Kermit and Fozzy, were shown on screen. Groundbreaking stuff.

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: You bet your ass they do.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 84%

No, But Really: These movies are pure magic. They’re the perfect balance between charm, humor, and artistry, all while being completely ridiculous and starring puppets as the main characters. It’s truly mindboggling that this movie works at all, let alone works as well as it does. Also, I don’t know how they did half of the shit in this movie, and I think that’s pretty awesome. The plot of this movie doesn’t really matter, but as a hangout movie, it’s awesome. Also, it’s a surprisingly great movie about movies/the film industry. This movie is perfect for literally any age. If this movie doesn’t make you smile at 5, 25, 45, 65, and 85, I’d be shocked.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

AKA: Find the good.

There are a lot of aspects of this movie that stick out to me, but there is one scene in particular that felt like it was lifted from my life that I need to talk about here. We’ll get to the mental health stuff later.

I love to read. I do it much less than I used to, with all of the movie watching, writing, etc. that I do, but I still read every night before I go to sleep, even if it’s just a few pages or a chapter. Back in the day? I’d read entire books before going to bed, like it was my job. Granted, it’s not like I was reading A Tale of Two Cities when I was in elementary school39, but a book is a book. Well, with all of this reading came an almost nightly tradition. Every time I finished a book, I’d run upstairs to my parents’ room, wake them up, and proceed to tell them about the book I just finished, in excruciating, almost page-by-page detail.

I’m sure they loved it.

There is a scene in Silver Linings Playbook40, where Bradley Cooper’s character does this exact thing to his parents after finishing “A Farewell To Arms” by Ernest Hemingway, that made me hit the Leo meme in real time:

I can’t say I’ve ever read “A Farewell To Arms”, nor have I thrown a book out of a window like Bradley Cooper does, but seeing that scene brought me right back to elementary school. The best midnight summary session I gave my parents? When I read this book about Shaq:

**Author’s Note: Full disclosure, it took me at least 20 minutes for me to find this book online. I’m only 75% positive it’s the one I read (I was in 1st grade for context), but I’m gonna say it’s the same one I read because that’s funnier.**

I was like 6, maybe 7 years old.41 I think I had heard of Shaq at this point in my life, but it was definitely before I had watched him play basketball. Regardless, I was aware of him enough to check out this book from the library and read it. But that didn’t stop me from pronouncing Shaq’s name, with full confidence, as Sha-qweel-ay O’Neal, when I gave my summary to my parents that night.

My Mom still brings it up.

I need to at least touch on the mental health aspect of this movie. Back in May, when I was giving my weekend recs, I was trying to find movies about mental health to recommend for Mental Health Awareness month, and Silver Linings was near or at the top of just about every list I saw. After watching it, I can understand why. There are not many movies that I can think of that deal with mental health as rawly and as bluntly as this one.

There are supporters and detractors to the depiction of mental health in this movie, and I land on the side of the former. It’s not perfect, and it may be a tad outdated at times, even after a little over a decade, but it’s still better than 95% of movies that depict mental health. I don’t deal with the same mental illnesses that are depicted in this movie42, especially not to the degree that the characters in the movie suffer from them, but I know people who do, and the honesty with which this movie depicts them is real and very effective for the most part.

Reminder to check in on your people to make sure they’re doing okay.

Ranking the NFL Franchises I hate the most:

There is no nuance with this ranking. This is purely a hater ranking. You will find no cleverness here. Reminder, this is all coming from one of the biggest losers you’ll find in professional football. Please god let Jayden Daniels stay healthy this year.

1. Dallas Cowboys

   1. They’ll always be number one, purely because I’m a Washington fan. Fuck the Cowboys.

2. Philadelphia Eagles

   1. In all honesty, they could be bumped up to #1 if things keep trending the way they’ve been going, but not yet. Unfortunately, I have multiple friends who are Eagles fans. I hate Eagles fans.

3. Baltimore Ravens

   1. Every year, I hear about how this is the year that the Ravens are going to win it all, and every year, I laugh at how the season ends up. I’d say about 95% of my friends back home are Ravens fans. I hate Ravens fans.

4. Kansas City Chiefs

   1. A new addition purely because they’ve been so good. Which is interesting, because I never hated the Patriots when they were good.

5. New York Giants

   1. A pity pick. I have to include them because they’re in the same division. I hate them, but not nearly as much as I used to when Eli Manning was still playing.

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): This movie takes place during the 2008 NFL season, when the Philadelphia Eagles went 9-6. Since 2008, the Eagles have gone 161-115 and have won 2 Super Bowls. The Washington Redskins/Football Team/Commanders have gone 109-166-2 and have won 2 playoff games.

I hate everything.

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: Unfortunately, no. But they get so damn close.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 94%

No, But Really: I absolutely loved this movie, and I’m annoyed that it took me this long to watch it. To be completely honest, it took so long because I hate the Philadelphia Eagles, but that aspect of the movie only adds to its effectiveness and comedy. In other words, I’m a petty Washington fan who was missing out on a fantastic movie longer than I should have. I was shocked at how funny and charming this movie was. I was expecting a more somber approach based on the subject matter, but it’s kind of a rom-com being Trojan horsed as a movie about mental health. Or, really, it’s the other way around, depending on how you look at it. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence (who was only 21 in this movie!) are really great together, and have awesome chemistry, which really makes this movie hit as well as it does. Movies that embody the place they’re set in are also that much better than movies that feel like they could be anywhere. There is nowhere else this movie could be set than in Pennsylvania/Philadelphia. There also aren’t very many movies about mental health that are this funny, this popular, and as critically acclaimed as this one, so I couldn’t recommend it more.

Franchise Mode (Director Edition)

The guy just won his first Oscar43. Now’s a perfect time to read this section.

PTA is a Little Freak 3.0

Catch up on the ongoing series here:

• Hard Eight

• Boogie Nights

• Magnolia

Punch Drunk Love (2002)

AKA: Adam Sandler plays a immature man-child…except dramatically this time.

Out of all of the PTA movies that I watched last year44, I have the least to say about this one, and I’d say 10% of that has to do with the movie. The other 90%?My literal viewing experience. See, I watched this movie on a site that may or may not be technically, figuratively, literally, or metaphorically illegal. I’ve dealt with my fair share of buffer issues, pop-up ad issues, and technical difficulties with sites such as this, but 99% of the time, I figure it out. Plus, at this point in my movie-watching career, I’m not exactly a rookie; I’ve got a few go-tos.

So, when it came time to watch Punch Drunk Love, I went to one of my usual places, pressed play, closed the pop-up ad, pressed play again, and sat back to enjoy. Right off the bat, my spidey senses started going off that something was wonky. The wonkiness in question? It sounded as if the movie was being broadcast from a walkie-talkie that also happened to be at the bottom of the ocean where the Titanic sank. But wonky doesn’t necessarily mean bad. Legitimately, my first thought was: “Of course! Wow, PTA is such an inventive filmmaker. He’s using this distorted audio to help the audience understand how Adam Sandler perceives the world!” After a few minutes, I figured it would go away, but it didn’t, so I consulted the internet. I came up empty-handed, and yet, for some reason, I still thought it must have been an intentional choice45.

Long story short46, I watched the entire movie with that shitty ass audio quality, and I’m not gonna lie to you guys, it wasn’t very enjoyable. In fact, it was distorting, annoying, and made things difficult to understand. If it isn’t clear how lost in the sauce I was while watching through these PTA movies, a part of me still believes he intended the audio to be that way, and I just didn’t understand it.

I don’t have the time to go into great detail on what I should be talking about here, but I need to at least give a shoutout to the boy, Adam Sandler. I love Adam Sandler. He’s made me laugh countless times, and you can bet your ass I’ll be in the theater47 for Grown Ups 3 when it comes out. Will it be good? Almost certainly not, but who cares? He’s one of the funniest guys we’ve ever had, which makes it so cool when he does dramatic roles and knocks them out of the park. I talked about it in my video about The Truman Show, but when comedic actors make the switch to drama and nail it, it is so satisfying and electric. That is all. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Mount Rushmore of…

Adam Sandler Characters I’d Trust to Represent Me In Court to Get Me Out of My Parking Ticket

No criteria for this one, just who is going to do the best job getting me out of paying this bullshit parking ticket I’ve been dealing with since August.

The Sandman has 60 film credits according to Letterboxd. I’ve seen 22 of them. I’m only allowed to use characters from the films I’ve seen. That’s quite literallt the only rule.

• Sunny Koufax (Big Daddy)

Good rule of thumb: If there’s an Adam Sandler character who has actually graduated law school, they should be on this Mount Rushmore. And despite looking like Scuba Steve up there, Sunny Koufax, if you don’t remember, graduated from law school. Knowing this, he was my auto #1 pick here. Sure, he hasn’t taken the bar yet, but I still like his chances more than Sandler’s other man-child characters.

• Lenny Feder (Grown Ups)

In case you all don’t remember, my guy Lenny is a talent agent. If you want someone who can litigate, negotiate, and talk someone into giving you an innocent ruling, I can’t think of many characters more suited for it than Mr. Feder here. He’s also loaded, which has to help me somehow.

• Howard Ratner (Uncut Gems)

Howard is a slimeball, a swindler, a thief, and an all-around pretty bad guy. I’d want no one else trying to get me out of a parking ticket. This guy can talk himself out of any situation he ends up in, and as long as he actually shows up to court and doesn’t just run off with my money that I’m paying him48, I love my chances of getting off scot-free.

• Dracula (Hotel Transylvania)

“Out of all of the Sandler characters to choose from?” is what you’re asking right now, but let’s look at this thing logically49 for a second. If Dracula is representing you in court, he can just hypnotize everyone to make sure you’re innocent. If that doesn’t work, he can just turn everyone into vampires or something, I don’t know. He was an easy pick once I remembered he was voiced by the Sandman.

Honorable Mentions

I don’t think I have a single one.

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): After Magnolia clocked in at a brisk 184 minutes (3 hours 4 minutes), PTA overcorrected, which resulted in a tight 95 minutes (1 hour 35 minutes) runtime for Punch Drunk Love. Without doing any research whatsoever, I’m declaring this as the biggest swing in duration in back-to-back movies ever.

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: They totally could’ve. Missed opportunity for sure.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 4%

No, But Really: Your ranking of PTA’s movies is up to you, but this one is typically closer to the bottom than it is to the top, and I have to agree. Granted, my viewing experience was horrible and certainly tainted the movie for me (the audio was muffled and staticky the entire time), but it also didn’t hit me the same way some of his other work has. However, I will say, while Adam Sandler is doing a lot of the same stuff he was doing in Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore (playing a guy in Arrested Development with anger management issues), he also shows flashes of his dramatic side that have since materialized into some fantastic performances in recent years. I need to rewatch this one to give a fuller/better review.

-It was long, but it’s good to be back

—If you made it this far, I applaud you

—-March Madness is awesome

——Apartment hunting is a pain in the ass

Today we’re doing something different. I swear I have a throwback, full blog coming next week, but today we’re doing some Oscars talk.

Also, please subscribe and share with your friends. It’s FREE, and I really appreciate the support; it means a lot.

Hello, and happy belated Oscars Season to everyone who celebrates! The award show of the year, outside of Trophy Night for all of my Sherwoodians1, is right around the corner, which means it’s time for my Oscars Blog.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences2 has been around for 99 years and is celebrating the 98th Academy Awards this year. For 98 years, they’ve been giving out statues of little golden men to actors, actresses, movies, directors, musicians, cinematographers, etc., etc., and for 98 years, they’ve been getting things wrong.

**Editor’s Note: The Author is currently reading a book about the history of the Oscars. It’s called Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears, and he’d highly recommend it.**

I, among many others, bitch and moan all the time about the ‘snubs’ and ‘robberies’ that the Academy exhibits almost every year, and every year, when March rolls around, we all think there’s a chance they’ll get it ‘right’ this time.

What’s the definition of insanity again?

I put ‘right’ in quotations just now, because that’s what happens when you award art. There is no ‘right’, that’s not the point of art in the first place. Really, all we’re looking for, as movie fans, is for the Academy to:

Not. Get. It. Wrong.

That’s all. There is rarely a unanimously agreed-upon pick for Best Actor or Best Actress, or Best Picture. There are wrong picks, though. The best part about the Academy, the thing that kills me every year, is how they make incorrect picks throughout the entirety of their process. First, it’s in the Oscar short list in December. Then it’s in the nominations a month later, in January. Finally, it’s at the actual ceremony in March.

So, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences3, you already missed movies that should’ve been on the short lists back in December.4 Then, you fucked up again and didn’t nominate some movie that you should’ve nominated.5 Let’s try our best and avoid the fuck ups on Sunday night, what do you say?

Spoiler Alert: Someone is going to be mad on Sunday night, no matter how the ceremony turns out.6

It’s hard to pick these things. There’s a reason that art is subjective. Objective? Subjective. What’s not subjective is that I’ve been pretty good at predicting the winners of these little statues in the last couple of years.

I did an official one of these prediction blogs last year, which you can read here if you’d like:

And, just like the year before, I did pretty well in my predictions:

2025 Predictions

Best Picture: Anora (correct)

Best Director: Sean Baker (correct)7

Best Animated Feature: Flow (correct)

Best Actor: Adrien Brody (correct)

Best Actress: Mikey Madison (I want to give myself credit, but morally can’t)

Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin (correct)

Best Supporting Actress: Zoe Saldaña (correct)

All in all, if we count the 2024 Oscars as well, I’m batting 92.3%8 in the prediction game, and it’d be 100% if I stuck with my gut last year on the Best Actress front:

Tough.

Look, I’m not here to brag. But since these predictions mean quite literally nothing, and since I don’t put money on them, all I get are bragging rights, so I’m using them up now.

Ok, I’m done.

I also can’t pat myself on the back too hard, because if you keep up with this stuff as much as I do, a lot of these races are all but wrapped up by the time the Oscars roll around. There are so many award shows nowadays that lead up to the Academy Awards that things have been a bit more predictable in recent years. But I don’t think this year got the message, cause things are a bit more chaotic.

And I love it.

It’s fun when there are actual races! Believe me, this year isn’t without its locks, but there is way more uncertainty overall than there has been in YEARS, which makes things way more exciting.

Let’s get into it.

Oh, but before I start, I need to say this:

I’m all for putting some friendly wagers on the Oscars, and it’s fun to bet on who is going to win the awards, but the award bodies and broadcasters of these awards integrating gambling sites like Kalshi, etc., to show the live, constantly shifting odds of the award races is gross. Being able to gamble on literally everything is unnatural, and when it comes to gambling on art, it takes so much away from it. It makes these award shows feel somewhat lifeless, especially when you can basically see what’s going to win before they even announce it.

I know I’m saying that right before I go into who I think is going to win, and I show the current odds in these races as well, but I think you understand where I’m coming from.

Alright, now that I’m off my soapbox, let’s get to it.

Just like last year, this will be me if I get any of these picks wrong. I’ll be just like Warren Beatty and shirk all the blame.

Enjoy.

Best Supporting Actor

And the nominees are:

• Benicio Del Toro (One Battle after Another)

• Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)

• Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

• Sean Penn (One Battle after Another)

• Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)

The Odds at the Time of this Writing:

(From this Site)9

We’re starting with a tough one right off the bat. I’ve seen the 4 movies these men are nominated for, and I’m not being facetious when I say that any of these guys could win it and I wouldn’t be surprised or angry in any way. But we have to make tough decisions today, which means we need to pick one.

Unfortunately for you, we’re gonna get a bit in the weeds today on the precursors, trends, etc., because the Oscars are about politics and storylines just as much as they’re about the movies being awarded. If we’re basing our pick purely on the metric of precursor awards won, this Oscar is going to 1 of 3 guys:

Stellan Skarsgård, Benicio Del Toro, or Sean Penn

All three have been cleaning up this awards season, and that’s not to say that Elordi hasn’t won his fair share of awards, but Skarsgard, Del Toro, and Penn seem to have the most juice as we head into Sunday. Lindo, on the other hand, hasn’t won anything of note, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, we can’t only focus on the awards; we also have to focus on the storylines.

• Del Toro: 1 Oscar win (3 nominations, including this year)

• Sean Penn: 2 Oscar wins (6 nominations, including this year)

• Stellan Skarsgard: 0 Oscar wins (1 nomination, including this year)

Notice anything that stands out?

Skarsgard has been putting in great performances for decades now, especially in European films, and it’s high time he got some credit here in America. I think the combination of Del Toro and Penn potentially splitting votes, along with Skarsgard being an older veteran without a win, gives him the edge here. I know the odds say otherwise, and I know that Sean Penn is every actor’s favorite actor, but my gut is telling me Skarsgard.

Note: Only 2 guys, EVER, have won more than 2 Best Actor Awards: Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis. Penn would be joining Oscars royalty with a win on Sunday. Another storyline to watch out for.

All that being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the same logic I just used for Skarsgard is applied to Delroy Lindo, and he gets an underdog/out of nowhere win here.

Who I think is going to win:

Stellan Skarsgard

Who I want to win:

Benicio Del Toro

All props to Stellan Skarsgard, and his presence looms large over Sentimental Value in a number of ways, but the performance that has stuck with me the most this year is Benicio Del Toro’s, Sensei. He hijacks the movie halfway through, and I’ve quoted/sent these gifs more times than I can count:

Sensei forever.

Best Supporting Actress

And the nominees are:

• Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value)

• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value)

• Amy Madigan (Weapons)

• Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

• Teyana Taylor (One Battle after Another)

The Odds at the Time of this Writing:

Yet again, a really tough race here. And while we’re here, a trend you’ll notice in this blog is that I have absolutely no idea how many Academy Awards Sinners is going to win.10

For those of you who are unaware, Sinners broke the record for most Oscar nominations in a single year with 16. Of course, this doesn’t always translate to Oscar’s success (great article linked here about that if you want to check it out). Still, with that many nominations, that means you can’t count any of them out, including Wunmi Mosaku, who is nominated here.

However, Mosaku was a bit of a surprise nomination. Again, I enjoyed all 5 performances nominated here, but for all the pussyfooting I’m doing right now, there are only 2 people who can win this award:

Teyana Taylor or Amy Madigan

As I said, Mosaku would be a huge shock. As for Fanning and Lilleaas, they are going to split votes, which leaves us with Madigan and Taylor. For a while there, this looked like Madigan’s to lose, and might very well still be the case. Her performance in Weapons is one of the most memorable of 2025, and this awards season has been a great reminder to the world of who Amy Madigan is, as well as a reminder of her talent as an actor. And of course, there’s the storyline of it being 40 years since her first (and only) Oscar win in 1986 for Twice in a Lifetime.

BUT

Teyana Taylor has been hitting the campaign trail HARD, and I believe she’s closed the gap. A huge indicator of the gap being closed was Taylor’s Golden Globe win. Madigan has been steamrolling throughout awards season, but I think that Globe win changed a lot of people’s minds on how this race is going to pan out.

But then again, none of that may matter in the end.

Who I think is going to win:

Amy Madigan

Who I want to win:

Amy Madigan

Horror so rarely gets nominated, and this would be a pretty cool win.11

Best Director

And the nominees are:

• Chloé Zhao (Hamnet)

• Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)

• Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

• Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)

• Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

The Odds at the Time of this Writing:

If you couldn’t tell where I was going with this one, this could be, yet again, a two-horse race. It’s one of these two guys:

Paul Thomas Anderson or Ryan Coogler

Again, I’m running into the Sinners problem. Because there is a world, albeit not a likely world, where Sinners legitimately wins like 10 Oscars and dominates the entire show. For most of the season, it felt like OBAA would be in that spot, and it still is very likely to be, but people seem to be really rallying around Sinners and giving it a push here at the finish line.

HOWEVER

This has PTA’s name written all over it. For one, he’s won at pretty much every precursor. But on the storyline front, this is straight out of the Scorsese/Spielberg/Insert “acclaimed director who wins his Oscar later in his career than he should have” here playbook:

1. Produce an output of truly great films for a number of years.

2. Get nominated for a few Academy Awards here and there.

3. ‘Pay your dues.’12

4. And finally, on your 5th to 10th go around, you reach the mountaintop.

It happened to Scorsese with The Departed in 2006,13 and it happened for Spielberg with Schindler’s List in 199314; now it’s time for PTA.

Author’s Note: Another recent addition to the playbook is Spike Lee, even though he didn’t win Best Director when he finally won his Oscar. He won Best Adapted Screenplay in 201815, 29 years after he was first nominated for an Oscar in 198916. A similar thing happened with Christopher Nolan, but we’ll get to that later.

PTA was first nominated for an Oscar in 199817. He’s been nominated 13 times since then (including this year) and has yet to win one. He is, in no uncertain terms:

Due.

I love Ryan Coogler, and he will win his Oscar one day, that’s a guarantee, but not this year.

Who I think is going to win:

Paul Thomas Anderson

Who I want to win:

Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Animated Feature

Seen:

The nominated films I’ve seen and the links to the blogs/sandwich videos I made about them.

Elio

Zootopia 218

KPop Demon Hunters

Haven’t Seen:

Arco

Why didn’t I see it?: I didn’t even know about this movie until about a month ago, like, a week before the nominations.

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain

Why didn’t I see it?: I hadn’t heard of this movie until it got nominated. What’re you gonna do?

The Odds at the Time of this Writing:

This one is really easy.

I wish it weren’t so easy, but, barring a complete and utter upset, KPop Demon Hunters has locked this one up. Of the other nominees that I have seen19, I thought Elio was fine, and I thought Zootopia 2 was excellent. Hell, I even thought it had a great chance to win for Best Animated Feature when it came out, just like Zootopia did a decade prior.

Silly me. I underestimated the power of HUNTR/X.

KPop Demon Hunters came out on June 20, 2025, and unless you’ve been living under a rock since then, it became one of the biggest movies of the year. Despite this, to be completely truthful with you all, I actively avoided it for a while. I’ve done the same things with the Avatar films, among others. I don’t know why, but there are movies like this where I miss the boat initially and then decide to be stubborn and implement a self-boycott of some kind. Why do I do this? It has to be because I am a child and immature. I can’t think of any other reason.

Again, silly me.

Because I finally watched KPop Demon Hunters just the other day, and I see what all the hype is about.

Note to self: maybe stop avoiding movies that are universally beloved, just because you want to have the opportunity to zag and say you actually haven’t seen it20.

This movie looks great, and the music is fire21. The overall message of the film doesn’t reinvent the wheel or anything, but it’s awesome that a movie this big has 3 female leads at the center of it. Huge movies like this, with 3 female leads, are rare enough, and that’s without the stipulation that this is a movie about K-pop stars.

The fact that this movie is as big as it is, especially in America, where K-pop isn’t nearly as big as it is around the world, is really cool. I know nothing about K-pop, and I don’t even know if this movie is a great depiction of it22, but if all of K-pop music is as catchy and danceable as the music in this movie, I can see the appeal.

So yeah, this turned into a mini blog about KPop Demon Hunters, but for good reason. It’s winning this Academy Award, no doubt about it.

What I think is going to win:

KPop Demon Hunters

What I want to win:

This is lame, but I’m down for either KPop or Zootopia 2.

Nah, fuck it, give me KPop. I loved Zootopia 2, but let’s get an original movie in here.23

Best Actor

• Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme)

• Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle after Another)

• Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)

• Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

• Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

The Odds at the Time of this Writing:

God, do I really have to write about this one? I don’t know about you guys, but my entire feed for the last week and a half has been people going in on Timothee Chalamet for what he said about opera and ballet in that interview he did with Matthew McConaughey the other day. Let me just say this loud and clear for the people in the back:

Why the fuck do you care what Timothee Chalamet says about opera and ballet?

Look, I get it, if you’re in the opera and ballet sphere, you can disagree with his comment, but let’s take a look at what he said, in context:

(Skip to 48:05)

I’m not gonna lie, I agree with him completely.

Opera and ballet used to be the biggest and most popular forms of entertainment in the world. No one is denying that. That is no longer the case, and it’s been a while since it was the case. No one is denying that either. Sure, people still love ballet and opera, but you’re kidding yourself if you think they’re super popular. So, when I hear Chalamet say, “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera, or things where it’s like ‘hey, keep this thing alive’”, I hear the same thing I preach in these blogs and in my daily life. The movie industry has been in a tough spot for a few years now, and theaters have been dealing with the worst of it.

Essentially, I’m equating ballet and opera of the 1700s and 1800s to the movie theaters of the 1900s and 2000s. We’ve seen what happens when newer forms of entertainment come along: they draw audiences away from older, more ‘outdated’ forms of entertainment. Chalamet, me, and everyone else in this industry don’t want that to happen to movies. Sure, he could’ve phrased it better, but for all of the people on my Instagram feed, vilifying Chalamet for this comment, can you tell me the last time you went to an opera or ballet show?

Sorry, I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to talk about this, because it’s been infuriating me to my core. I mean, the fact that he’s being torn down based on a throwaway comment about opera and ballet is ridiculous on so many fronts. We’ve got people in much higher positions than him, saying and doing worse stuff on a daily basis, and nothing happens to them.

Look, I get it, people don’t like Chalamet because he’s everywhere and because he's a very confident, bordering on cocky, guy. But I said it last year after his SAG speech, and I’ll say it again:

What a press run he’s had these last couple of months! He seems like the coolest guy ever.

Which brings me back to this race, which, in keeping with the theme of this blog, seems to be a race of two horses. It seemed like Timmy pretty much had this in the bag until the internet turned on him the other week. This happens every year at the Oscars in various ways (see the PR masterclass administered against Emilia Perez last year that turned it from a Best Picture favorite to missing out on almost every nomination). The person benefiting from all of this?

Michael B. Jordan.

This is, as a whole, one of, if not the best, collection of Best Actor nominees of the last 25 years, and every guy here is worthy of the win, or at least so I’ve heard24, but I’m sensing this is going to come down to Timmy of MBJ. As I said, this was Timmy’s to lose. That is, until MBJ threw a wrench into that plan by winning Best Actor at the SAG Awards the other day. MAJOR wrench. Yes, Timmy won at the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globes, but could that SAG win be a sign of a shift in the tides? The oddsmakers sure think so.

But I’m sticking with my gut. Timmy could certainly end up being my generation’s Leonardo DiCaprio, and not win his Oscar till later in his career for a lesser movie/performance25, but I think he’s still got a good chance here.

Who I think is going to win:

Timothee Chalamet

(But it could totally be MBJ, and if it is, that means Sinners is winning Best Picture)

(Also, there’s a world where Leo sneaks in there at the last minute to win, you never know.)

Who I want to win:

Timothee Chalamet

Call me biased, call me a fan boy, call me whatever. His performance was my favorite from the nominees this year.

Best Actress

And the nominees are:

• Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

• Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You)

• Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue)

• Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

• Emma Stone (Bugonia)

The Odds at the Time of this Writing:

A lot of people were pissed, or confused, at how Kate Hudson got a nomination here over Chase Infiniti from OBAA. Guess what? It doesn’t matter. Why? Because this is the easiest pick of the night by far.

If Jessie Buckley doesn’t win this award, it would be an unprecedented upset that we have never seen before. It would be like if all four 16-seeds in March Madness made it to the Final Four, and then, somehow, a secret 1-seed who got a bye to the Final Four emerged to challenge them for the title. And it’d be like, if, in this new Final Five setup, the 16-seeds all had to play in a round robin against the 1-seed to determine the champion, but in this metaphorical situation26, the 1-seed only needed to win a single game against any of the 16-seeds to win the championship. And it’d be like if the 1-seed then lost every game in the round robin.

It’d be like that.

In other words27, it would be a major shock if Buckley doesn’t win here.

Buckley has won EVERY award this season and will continue to do so on Sunday.

Author Note: Apologies to Rose Byrne. The only movie from these nominees that I haven’t seen is yours, and I’m sorry. I’ve heard that you’re fantastic in it, and I know that you’re in 2nd place to Buckley.

Author’s Note #2: This is not to say that I think the other women nominated here are 16-seeds. It was just a metaphor. Chill out.

Who I think is going to win:

Jessie Buckley

Who I want to win:

Renate Reinsve

If anyone saw my sandwich video about Sentimental Value, you know about my newfound discovery, appreciation, and admiration for Renate Reinsve. I’m buying all of the stock. I need to go watch her other work.

Best Picture

Links to the blogs (or videos) I made about these movies.

Seen:

• F1

• Marty Supreme

• One Battle after Another

• Sinners

• Bugonia28

• Sentimental Value29

• Hamnet30

• Frankenstein (sorry, I watched it 6 days ago)

• Train Dreams (sorry, I watched it 5 days ago)

Haven’t Seen:

• The Secret Agent

Why didn’t I see it?: For the second year in a row, I have to apologize to the nation of Brazil. I didn’t get around to seeing I’m Still Here last year, and I didn’t get around to seeing The Secret Agent this year. I’ve heard great things. This one is on me. I promise I don’t hate the country of Brazil.

The Odds at the Time of this Writing:

Editor’s Note: The author probably should’ve picked a better odds site, because this is missing The Secret Agent for some reason. I believe it’s that second-to-last one labeled as ‘ F1.’

Again, as I’ve been saying in a number of sections of this blog, this is pretty much a two-horse race. And yet again, it may just feel like a two-horse race when it’s really OBAA’s to lose. However, something that happened last year can also happen this year.

The first awards of the night are Best Supporting Actor and Actress. In the unlikely event that Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku win both of those awards (or even if one of them wins), then I think Michael B. Jordan will also win Best Actor, and Sinners will win Best Picture. This happened with Anora vs The Brutalist last year, and this is what I said last year about the Best Director race:

Sure, this award is important, and I think both men made great films. But what I think will be an effect of this award is that whoever wins will also win Best Picture.

If Brady Corbet wins, I think The Brutalist is a sure thing for Best Picture.

If Sean Baker wins, I think Anora is a sure thing for Best Picture.

I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.

Who I think is going to win:

Sean Baker (fuck it, we ball)

Spoiler Alert: Sean Baker won Best Director, and Anora won Best Picture.31

This year and last year are not perfect comparisons, but I think you can understand my logic here. Sinners is the most nominated film of all time, and if a few of those nominations win early, there could be an avalanche that ensues.

However, that being said, I have a feeling we’re gonna get an Oppenheimer/Nolan situation here. I briefly mentioned Nolan earlier in the Best Director section, but I’ll explain myself fully here. And I’m aware that the same thing happened with Scorsese and Spielberg in the situation I explained earlier, but I digress.

Nolan, probably the biggest director of his era, was first nominated for an Oscar in 200232. And then, despite directing some of the most popular and biggest films of the 2000s and 2010s, he was only nominated again in 2011 and 201833. After 22 years, however, he was finally crowned with wins in Best Director and Best Picture for Oppenheimer in 2024.

I think the same thing is gonna happen with PTA this year. Sinners has a great chance, and I wouldn’t be shocked at all if it’s able to pull it off, but I feel like the stars are aligning for OBAA here.

What I think is going to win:

One Battle After Another

What I want to win:

F134

Joking, joking.

In all honesty, I’d be down with pretty much any of these movies winning here. There are no Wicked or Emelia Perez-type nominees like last year. Sure, a lot of people are pissed about F1, but it’s just like Top Gun: Maverick or Avatar: The Way of Water getting nominated. A huge, crowd-pleasing, blockbuster movie with cutting-edge special effects that appeals to the general public rather than the film snobs. We need movies like that to be nominated to keep this stuff alive.

Anyway, my pick here is boring, but I’ll go with OBAA. PTA’s narrative is too good, and it’s time one of his films is honored with Best Picture, further cementing him as one of the best.

I’d be fine with really anything but Frankenstein here, though. It was alright, but I was not the biggest fan.

On the other side of the spectrum, I watched Train Dreams this past weekend, and it’s one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year and all of last year. I couldn’t recommend it more, and I’m psyched it got a nom here.

And that’s it for the major awards. I’d say it was a pretty good movie year overall.

Final 2026 Predictions

Best Picture: One Battle After Another

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Animated Feature: KPop Demon Hunters

Best Actor: Timothee Chalamet

Best Actress: Jessie Buckley

Best Supporting Actor: Stellan Skarsgard

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan

Thank you for coming to my fake award show. Enjoy seeing the updates about the real show on your phone on Sunday night (I know none of you are actually going to watch), and most importantly…

Please bet responsibly.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

-I really enjoy the Oscars.

—I still need to fill out my ballot for my office challenge.

——Thank you for reading.

——-I love da movies.

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Hey, hey, hey, everyone. Welcome back!

Full disclosure, this blog was supposed to come out on Valentine’s Day, but life got in the way1. Turns out it’s hard to balance a full-time job, writing blogs, editing said blogs, recording sandwich videos, editing said sandwich videos, and watching movies/TV shows, all while dealing with all of the other stuff going on in my life. But I can’t complain, because I brought this upon myself. At least I have a job. Still working on the whole ‘relationship’ part of my life, though. Maybe less writing/making sandwiches would help in that department. Who’s to say?

But I digress.

While I haven’t written a ‘full blog’ in quite a while, today I’m taking the time to write about another one of all my all-time favorite movies, a movie that I’ve made the tradition of watching every Valentine’s Day, even though it isn’t a Valentine’s Day movie by any definition:

When Harry Met Sally

This is a perfect movie.

Even the ‘bad’ parts of this movie, like Sally’s hair2, can be justified and therefore be deemed good. In this case, Sally’s hairstyles are perfect encapsulations of the era and, therefore, they are good. Granted, this is coming from a guy who was -12 years old when this movie came out, but, again, I digress.

Just like last year and the year before, I watched When Harry Met Sally on Valentine’s Day. And just like last year and the year before, I watched it alone in my room while eating Chipotle.

Don’t you dare feel pity for me for this tradition of mine. Trust me, Valentine’s Day can be a hell of a lot worse than getting to watch one of my favorite movies while eating food from one of my favorite fast-food places. That being said, this year was leaps and bounds better than last year’s watch. But not because I was any closer to not being single or anything. No, this year was better than last year, because when it’s raining in LA, and your roof is leaking while it’s happening, the only way to go is up.

It doesn’t rain much in Los Angeles. But some say that while it never rains in Southern California, when it does rain, it pours3. Well, last year it did pour, so much so that a leak opened up in my ceiling directly above my bed. This led to me having to rearrange my room, which led to 5 days of me learning what it must feel like to live in a studio apartment.

I actually wrote about it here:

So yeah, this year’s viewing was better, even if that same leak reopened just 2 days before the 1-year anniversary. Thankfully, this time the maintenance guys were able to come by before the weekend and save me from a repeat of last year.

Can we talk about When Harry Met Sally now?

Yes?

Ok.

I’m gonna be honest, I don’t remember the first time I watched this movie. I have to imagine it was with my parents, but now that I’m looking back at The Vault, it appears that I may have first watched it in 2021, and I don’t remember watching it when I was in high school. And yet, despite only being familiar with this movie for the last 5 years, it has found its way into becoming something I watch every year, a movie I think about all the time, and a perfect encapsulation of the romantic comedy as a whole.

For anyone who knows me or has been reading this blog for a while, I’ve always been a big rom-com guy. I love all types of movies4, well, pretty much all types of movies, but rom-coms have always been one of my favorite subgenres. I’m not sure if I can pin down exactly what it is about these movies that put them over the top for me, but if I were to pick one thing, it’d have to be the feelings these movies evoke. There’s just something about people falling in love that gets me. These damn rom-coms can make you laugh, make you cry, make you angry, and make you feel all three feelings at once. I’ve seen my fair share of shitty romantic comedies in my life, but the number of those shitty movies that have also managed to make me at least smile or tug at my heartstrings is higher than I’d care to admit.

Sure, romantic comedies all have similar plots or plot points, similar character prototypes, and similar story structures5. And sure, they’ve almost certainly distorted my view of reality, because I definitely expect my life to be like a rom-com at some points6, but there’s a particular reason they’ve been around pretty much since movies have been around:

People like watching them.

Simple as that.

People like watching them because whether you wear it on your sleeve or if it’s deep down inside, and trust me, it could be really deep down, I believe that everyone has a romantic inside of them. It could be buried under heaps and mounds of darkness and humbuggery, but I compare it to the Grinch. You just need to find that thing that awakens it. The Grinch found the joy of giving and Christmas cheer; you just need to find your thing. It doesn’t have to be movies, of course, but for the sake of this argument, I’m gonna steer it in that direction.

There’s something about watching people find each other and fall in love that film audiences have been enjoying for more than 100 years at this point. These movies romanticize the act of falling in love with someone, which is something that the vast majority of people can understand. Sure, rom-coms aren’t for everyone, and they are typically thought of as a more female-leaning genre made up of “chick flicks”, but I think that’s a disservice, because:

1. Guys, if you are one of those ‘I don’t like ‘chick flicks’ because they’re lame as hell, they’re for girls, and I hate them’ people, first off, grow up. Second, let’s be honest with ourselves for a second. It’s just like back in the day when I used to tell my sister I hated it when she listened to Taylor Swift out loud. This is a safe space; you can admit that you secretly like those movies you call chick flicks.

2. While there are wastelands of crappy rom-com and Hallmark movies7, there are loads of great films that also happen to be romantic comedies, including the one we’re talking about today, if I ever actually bring myself to do it, that is.

I could go on about the art of the rom-com all day, but we gotta get this show on the road. Let’s get on with the movie.

“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

AKA: The Blueprint.

Let’s talk about the people behind this movie for a second. Starting with the director and writer.

• Rob Reiner (Director): I’ve mentioned Reiner more times in the last 6 months than I’ve mentioned most things on this blog, and for good reason. This movie came in the middle of one of the all-time runs of directing, and the coolest thing about it is that his own life had a huge impact on the film. Like, for example, he had just gone through a divorce before making this movie, so [SPOILER]8, but while making this movie, he met his next wife and changed his mind.9 Also, he and Billy Crystal were best friends in real life, so aspects of the Harry and Sally friendship in the movie were lifted straight from their relationship. Apparently, Billy and Rob used to call each other while they were watching the same movie and would talk about what they were watching, just like Harry and Sally do while watching Casablanca in this movie. Chef’s kiss.

  I love shit like that.

Next up, let’s talk a second about the writer.

• Nora Ephron (Writer): Yes, she wrote a number of films in her career10, but when you write When Harry Met Sally, write/direct Sleepless in Seattle, and write/direct You’ve Got Mail, all in less than a decade I might add, you’re all-time certified as the GOAT of rom-com writers, no matter what else you make in your career. And that’s not even including the movies I haven’t seen. The script for this movie is lights out, and regardless of what Billy Crystal improvised on set, without Ephron’s dialogue, this movie doesn’t work nearly as well as it does.

  Chef’s kiss.

Which brings me to the two leads.

• Billy Crystal (Harry): Growing up, I knew Billy Crystal for 1 thing: playing Mike Wazowski in Monsters, Inc. I didn’t know about Soap, I didn’t know about him hosting the Oscars, I didn’t know about the Comic Relief specials, and I sure as hell didn’t know about him as one of the bigger stars in Hollywood for a stretch there in the late 80s to early 90s. I mentioned it when I wrote about City Slickers ages ago, but the fact that Crystal was a truly bankable movie star is unlike anything we’ve got in the year 2026. He is so damn good in this movie, and I can’t imagine anyone else as Harry.

  Chef’s kiss.

• Meg Ryan (Sally): Meg Ryan is perfect. There’s a reason that she anchored some of the best rom-coms of the 90s11, which all happened to be Nora Ephron joints as well. Meg Ryan is so good that, despite Sally being picky, a little crazy, and very, very particular, it’s impossible not to fall in love with her. She’s also gorgeous, despite the brutal hairstyles, and wayyyyyyyy out of Harry’s league. I love her.

Chef’s kiss.

Now that I’ve covered the core 4, what else is there to talk about? Well, a lot, but considering I’ve already written 2,402 words, I’ll try to wrap this one up sooner rather than later.

• Carrie Fisher is in this movie.

  • Scratch that.

    • Carrie Fisher is in this movie, and she might be the funniest character. Every time she talks about one of her relationships with a married man, it kills me.

• There’s a scene in this movie where Harry attempts to set Sally up with his best friend, and Sally attempts to set Harry up with her best friend. That sounds like the worst double date idea of all time.

• The fashion in this movie is off the fucking charts. I’m not a fashion guy by any stretch of the definition/imagination, but I hit this pose multiple times during this viewing when I saw some of the fits they were pulling off:

  

  It may have been the whitest thing I’ve ever done.

• Speaking of white, this movie is really fucking white. I’m not sure if there is a single speaking role played by someone who isn’t white. Not a judgement or criticism by any means. Merely an observation.

• There’s something about this movie that feels so real and lived in. First off, they shot in New York on location, which always helps. Second, there’s just something about shooting in crowded streets and in public places that gives a film a more ‘realistic’ style that I enjoy. We don’t get that type of feel anymore with the amount of green/blue screens that movies get shot on, and a lot of times crowds are filled in with CGI anyway, which is a damn shame.

• Speaking of New York, there’s something about New York in the fall that is breathtaking. Autumn in New York has quite literally never looked better than it does in this movie. So much so that whenever I watch this movie, it makes me want to move there.

  

• I mean, are you kidding me?

• Harry Connick Jr. provided the soundtrack for this movie, and I can’t imagine either without the other. Banger after banger after banger.

  • I think I’m the first person to describe the soundtrack of this movie as a collection of bangers.

• I’ve got way more, but we’re almost at 3,000 words, so I’ll cut myself off here.

• That was a lie.

• The construction of this movie is expert-level stuff:

  • Meet in 1977 driving to New York from college

  • Meet again randomly in 1982 at the airport

  • Meet randomly again in 1989 and become friends

• Watching it this time, I realized that something like this will never happen again. With phones and social media, it’s never been easier to stay connected with people you haven’t seen in years. Nowadays, Harry and Sally would follow each other on Instagram, exchange numbers on their drive, and would never meet randomly later in life. They’d know what’s going on in each other's lives because they could text or look at each other’s social media pages.12 It’s kind of sad that that’ll never happen again, but also it’s great that we can now stay in touch like that.

• I love this movie.

• I love love.

Mount Rushmore of…

Rom-Coms by Era

Criteria

I promise that I made these ground rules before I made my selections, and it was way more difficult and more fun to make my picks because of it. Let me know what your Mount Rushmore of Rom-Coms is! Don’t worry, I won’t make you follow the criteria.

• 1 from pre-197713

• 1 from between 1977 and 198914

• 1 from between 1990 and 200315

• 1 from after 2003

They may be chalky picks, but I’ll speak my truth till the day I die. There’s a reason no 16 seeds have won March Madness.

Pre-1977

• The Philadelphia Story (1940)

  • When you get 3 of the best actors of all time16 and throw them in a romantic comedy together, it’s hard to mess it up. This is another perfect movie, and along with the honorable mentions for this era, provides the blueprint for just about every rom-com and love triangle movie that came after it.

1977-1989

• When Harry Met Sally (1989)

  • See the 2,000+ words you just read.

1990-2003

• Pretty Woman (1990)

  • I got lucky here with the era cutoffs17, but this was by far the hardest era to pick from. The ‘90s were such a great era for romantic comedies, and I’ve seen most of the best ones. And while it was a struggle, I had to take Pretty Woman here. Richard Gere is great and all, but Julia Roberts in this movie is lights out, and one of the best breakout performances of all time.

2003-Now

• Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

  • 2000s-era rom-coms have never been my bag, and I’ve seen way less of them than from the ‘90s. That being said, I absolutely love Forgetting Sarah Marshall and think it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. It’s so weird, and funny, and filled with the funniest people of the era that it had to be on here.

Honorable Mentions

Pre-1977

• It Happened One Night (1934)

• Bringing Up Baby (1938)

1977-1989

• Grease (1978)

• Broadcast News (1987)

• Working Girl (1988)

1990-2003

• Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

• The Wedding Singer (1998)

• There’s Something About Mary (1998)

• You’ve Got Mail (1998)

• 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

• My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2000)

2003-Present

• Crazy Stupid Love (2011)

• The Big Sick (2017)

• Palm Springs (2020)

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: That would take some serious script maneuvering.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 100%

No, But Really: I rewatch this every year on Valentine’s Day, and every year it gets better. It helps that this is a perfect movie in almost every way, from the score to the characterization to the costuming to the New Yorkness of it to the dialogue to the…you get my point. There are few rom-com duos better than Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in this movie as well. They are absolute dynamite, and I can’t imagine anyone else in the roles. This is a movie that is guaranteed to make you feel good. I couldn’t recommend it enough, and if you like rom-coms in any way, shape, or form, you should see the one that has influenced every rom-com of the last 30+ years.

-Give me a rom-com recommendation.

—I’m genuinely not sure if I talked about the movie enough.

—-Do something you love today.

-—-Valentine’s Day is overrated.

-——-Spread the love.

A Hint For Next Time

IMPORTANT NOTE: YOU WILL FIND NO REAL SPOILERS HERE. YOU CAN READ THIS EVEN IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE YET. THAT’S THE POINT.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, you can subscribe and share with your friends.

It’s FREE, and I really appreciate the support; it means a lot.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a ‘Seen One’ blog. I wrote about Marty Supreme about a month ago (go read about it below)

But my last ‘Seen One’ blog about one of my all-time favorite movies was all the back in December, when I wrote about Raiders of the Lost Ark.

And in that blog, I rewarded my valiant readers with a hint of what the next ‘Seen One’ blog would be.

Which brings us to where we are today. Because today, we’re covering:

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Ladies and gentlemen…

It’s good to be back.

The first question that I’m sure all of you have on your minds right now is;

“Wait, so he’s just gonna skip over Temple of Doom?”

My answer is simple: I’ve only seen Temple of Doom once, and it didn’t have the same effect as Raiders and The Last Crusade have for me. Do I owe it another chance? Of course I do! I watched it like 10 years ago. But that’s not an issue I can fix right now. We all know that Temple of Doom, while having some iconic parts,1 is the weakest of the trilogy2, so while it may have its day in the sun one day here on the blog…

Today is not that day.

The last time I watched this movie was at a movie theater out here in Los Angeles. I mentioned it in the Raiders blog, but for some reason, theaters LOVE showing TLC3. So, for that reason, I’ve seen TLC on a theater screen and have yet to do so with Raiders. We’ll cross that bridge someday. Truly a goal for 2026.

Seeing this movie on a theater screen, in 70mm no less4, reaffirmed a couple of things for me.

1. I’m going to see all of my favorite movies on a theater screen at some point in my life

   1. Why? Because there’s something so magical and exciting about sitting in a dark room and watching your favorite movies on a giant screen

   2. I know I sound like Nicole Kidman in the AMC ads, but it’s the truth

2. This movie rips

   1. There is no point 2a.

I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really know how to start this blog. Last time, I talked about how Raiders helped kick-start my love for Steven Spielberg and helped me start really getting into movies. With The Last Crusade, there’s nothing as formative as that for me. At the end of the day, it’s simply a fantastic, entertaining film that I’ve seen at least a dozen times, and it never gets old.

But it’s also much more than that.

Just like with Raiders, this was another movie that I watched with my buddy Sander back in school. We’re both huge fans of the Indy films and decided to watch through the trilogy during our junior year. And just like with these blogs, we went straight from Raiders to TLC. We owe our love for these movies in large part to our dads, and I don’t know about Sander, but watching TLC as an ‘adult’ is much different than it was as a kid. Because now, especially on this most recent rewatch, the father/son dynamic of the movie hit on a different wavelength than it had before. Sure, it’s always been a great father/son movie, one of the best there is, in fact, but the way I’ve watched the movie has changed so much over the years.

I could spend the next 5,000 talking about this, but I’ll just leave it at that for now. All fathers and all sons should watch this movie.

Love you Dad.

Alright, let’s get on with this thing.

More Sandwich Videos

Just like in the last blog, I’m gonna link all of my most recent Instagram sandwich videos in the footnotes. You should watch them. Or don’t. It doesn’t really matter to me.

The Truman Show5

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple6

“He Chose…Poorly”

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

AKA: ‘Indiana Jones has Massive Daddy Issues’

Spielberg is back on his Nazi shit.7

After taking a detour to India with Temple of Doom, he returned to his bread and butter and, yet again, lampooned the Nazis to high heaven. I’ve discussed Spielberg’s potent use of the National Socialist German Workers' Party8 in his films here on the blog before, but this portrayal of the Nazis is unique in the fact that it’s the last time Spielberg portrayed them in a somewhat comedic way.

After TLC, the only depictions of Nazis in Steven Spielberg’s filmography9 are Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, two of the most harrowing depictions of World War II ever put to screen. It’s really interesting to compare the different eras of Spielberg’s Nazi characterizations because you can see a guy growing up and realizing the effect he has on culture as you go through them. He was the guy when it came to cinematic culture, and if he portrayed the Nazis as bumbling idiots,10 people might forget or misremember just how evil they actually were.

Speaking of growing up and maturing,11 let’s talk about Sean Connery.

There have been 27 James Bond movies. I’ve only seen 7 of them.12 My two favorites are Skyfall and Goldfinger, but most days I lean towards the latter. I know this may seem like a horrible take to some people, especially those remotely close to my age, but I’ll stand by it. While I love Daniel Craig’s James Bond, there’s just something about Sean Connery’s Bond that is perfect. And I think it boils down to the man on the street test13:

If someone off the street asked me to think of James Bond in my head, the image I’d come up with is Sean Connery, and I think that’ll always be the case.

Trust me, this is going somewhere.

Sean Connery first portrayed Bond in 1962 in Dr. No. He was 32.

TLC came out in 1989. Sean Connery was 59.

Fun fact: Sean Connery wore a hairpiece for every James Bond movie he ever appeared in.

Believe me, this will not be a blog that disparages male pattern baldness. All I’m really trying to point out here is that Sean Connery was only 12 years older than Harrison Ford in TLC.

AND YET

It still makes total sense that they’re father and son. Hell, it doesn’t even matter that Connery is speaking in his full Scottish accent for the entire film. His and Ford’s chemistry is so good together that it works perfectly.

Another fun fact: Sean Connery, noted wearer of wigs, hated wearing them.

You know why I love these movies so much? I’ve talked about it before in previous Indiana Jones blogs as well as my National Treasure blog, but the melding of the historical with the fantastical works on me 100% of the time. If we’re combining history14, especially the history of lost treasures, with the action/adventure genre? I’ve got season tickets.

In case you weren’t aware, this movie, similar to Raiders, centers around a religious artifact.

The Holy Grail.

Ever heard of it?

Now, there’s a whole separate blog I could write about the religious aspect of the Indiana Jones franchise and how Indiana Jones’ belief in religion is very similar to Han Solo’s belief in the Force, but that’s not what I’m focused on today.

Today, I’m focused on the Crusades. Take your seats, everyone. It’s time for a brief history lesson with Professor Klepper.

The Crusades

I’m not an expert, hell, I wouldn’t even call myself a novice, but I’m gonna do my best here to give you the Sparknotes on the Crusades. We learned about the Crusades a bit back in high school, and I’m gonna tell you all what I remember.

Shoutout to Mr. Koontz’s AP Euro class.15

What I remember from that class is that, in 1095, Pope Urban II was able to get people so riled up that he was able to convince them to help pay for (and for some to take part in) crusades to the Holy Land16, to conquer it in the name of the Catholic Church. This included holy spots like Jesus’ supposed crucifixion spot, etc. The Crusades had a number of iterations and took place over the course of almost 200 years. While some were successful at first, at the end of the day, they were pretty much disastrous failures across the board that were poorly justified imperialist crusades.

Or at least that’s what I remember from my 10th-grade history class.

Hold for a moment while I do some research.

…

…

Damn, yeah, I nailed it.

While the Crusades are looked back at pretty negatively, I’m not gonna lie, they did create some pretty awesome legends, with the Holy Grail being one of them. That, along with the Knights Templar, will keep you occupied for a long time if you ever want to go on a deep dive.

I don’t have time to do that right now, though, unfortunately.

Have I talked about Harrison Ford enough in this blog? I don’t think I have.

I’ve talked about Harrison Ford a lot over the years on the blog as a whole, and every time I see a movie of his, I just have to give him a shout-out. He’s one of the best we’ve got and one of the best we’ve ever had in movies. The guy has been leading movies for 6 decades and is unquestionably on the Mount Rushmore of Actors from the last 50 years. Is he the ‘best’ actor of the last 50 years? No, and I don’t think anyone would argue differently. But when it comes to actors who have entertained the most people and who are universally liked? There’s no one better or more prolific. He’s also a really good-looking dude17, which certainly helps too.

Let’s close with some bullet points.

• While Marion Ravenwood is the best female lead in the Indiana Jones movies, Elsa Schneider, played by Alison Doody18) is second. But the gap between the two is about the size of the Titanic multiplied by 100.

• I can’t believe it took me this long to mention, but the opening sequence from this movie is a 15-minute mini-movie that is up there with some of the best stuff from any Indiana Jones movie, and Harrison Ford isn’t even in it! River Phoenix is so damn good as Young Indy, and it’s such a shame that his life was cut short the way it was, because he would’ve had a really great career.

• Here is the entire opening sequence. A 2-parter video was the best I could find on YouTube. Thank me later.

• Fuck, now I really want to rewatch this movie again.

• They filmed the opening scene at Arches National Park. If you ever get a chance to go, I’d highly recommend it. It’s truly spectacular.

• Getting the whole crew back together in this movie (Indy, Brody, Sallah, and, of course, Henry Jones) was such a good move.

• There are, admittedly, some special effects in this movie that don’t hold up perfectly in the year 2026. Such is life. I still like the Zeppelin/plane scene.

• I’m a sucker for a hero having to go through ‘trials’ to reach a goal. Especially when it’s 3 trials.

• Sean Connery being in this movie is such a fun Easter Egg when you think about it. Steven Spielberg wanted to make a James Bond movie his whole life, but was denied by the Broccoli family over and over. So, he paired up with his pal George Lucas to make their version of James Bond in the form of Indiana Jones, and Spielberg cast the OG Bond in his version to great success. Baller move.

• I haven’t included the most iconic and lasting shot from this movie that has lived on, and will continue to live on, forever in the form of memes:

• This is far and away my Dad’s favorite meme, and I’ve seen him use it and have heard him quote it in just about every situation you can possibly imagine.

• And I don’t blame him one bit, because I do it too.

• The second thing I think of when I see that knight is How I Met Your Mother.

• 

• I love this movie.

I could keep going, but I’m up to 3,000 words now, and I think that’s a solid place to stop.

Mount Rushmore of…

Movie Dads

Criteria

To be fully transparent, I was going to come up with some criteria I had to meet for this Rushmore, but I kinda-sorta made my choices before I had a chance to do so. To continue to be fully transparent, I almost came up with criteria after the fact that would coincidentally fit the choices I made, but I decided to be fully transparent instead and stick with no criteria.

Don’t ever say I wasn’t fully transparent with you guys.

• Arthur Weasley (Harry Potter)

  • Kids: Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, Ginny

    • The only justification I need to give comes in the form of these 2 posts:

      

      

      Legend status.

• Master Splinter (TMNT)

  • Kids: Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michaelangelo

    • Talk about a single father who stepped up. My man19 Splinter found 4 baby turtles chilling in some toxic ooze and decided to raise them to be crime-fighting ninjas. A safe parenting choice? Probably not, but those turtles learned from the best.

• Furious Styles (Boyz n the Hood)

  • Kids: Tre Styles

    • First off, he wins the Best Name Award by a mile. Second, Cuba Gooding Jr.20 turns out to be far and away the best kid from Boyz N the Hood21, and it’s all thanks to Furious motherfucking Styles. If you ever need anyone to drop some knowledge on your head, Furious is one of the first calls I make.

• Marlin (Finding Nemo)

  • Kids: Nemo

    • Marlin was one of the first names I wrote down while brainstorming ideas for this Mount Rushmore, and for good reason. According to the internet22, Marlin traveled approx. 1,275 miles to find his son, with an address he got from a pair of goggles as the only lead to go off of. Marlin is a fish who lives in water. The address is on land. The fact that he was able to find his son is a miracle in and of itself, and the journey he took to get there solidified his case as a Mount Rushmore Dad.

Honorable Mentions

*Footnotes with pictures included*

• Gepetto (Pinocchio)23

• George Bailey (It’s A Wonderful Life)24

• Vito Corleone

• Chief Brody (Jaws)25

• Jor-El (Superman)26 —sometimes

• Jack Butler (Mr. Mom)27

• George Banks (Father of the Bride)28

• Lorenzo Anello (A Bronx Tale)29

• Mufasa (The Lion King)30

• Mel Horowitz (Clueless)31

• Harry S. Stamper (Armageddon)32

• Bill Yoast and Herman Boone (Remember the Titans)33

• Jack Byrnes (Meet the Parents)34

• Jimmy Markum (Mystic River)35

• Papa Elf (Elf)36

• Mr. Ping (Kung Fu Panda)37

• Sam, Harry, and Bill (Mamma Mia)38

• Caesar (Planet of the Apes)39

• Terry (The Big Sick)40

• Richard Williams (King Richard)41

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: Nope. There’s a lot of Crusade talk, but never any ‘Last Crusade’ talk.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 93%

No, But Really: While Raiders is and always will be my favorite of the Indiana Jones films, The Last Crusade is a close second. It’s just as adventure-filled as Raiders, and the addition of Sean Connery as Henry Jones Sr. is perfect. This also happens to be the most joke-filled Indiana Jones movie, and it’s filled with slapstick comedy throughout that works for the most part. As much as I love the Indiana Jones franchise, I wish this were the last film they made, because it’s such a great finale. There’s a lot more that I could say to get you to want to watch this, but I’ll just tell you to watch it outright, and let me know what you think later.

-Happy Friday, everyone!

—Indiana Jones is the coolest

—-Might watch it this weekend

-—-Maybe I should be an archaeologist

-——-No, probably not

-———-Peace out

A Hint For Next Time

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For any new readers, check out the footnote for the intro and breakdown of the blog. If you’re on a computer or on the Substack app, they work way better.1

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, you can subscribe and share with your friends.

It’s FREE, and I really appreciate the support; it means a lot.

Alrighty, then.

Happy Friday and happy January, everyone! To all of my people in, well, pretty much everywhere other than Southern California, I hope you’re staying warm, and if you haven’t already gotten snow yet, I hope you’ve made the proper preparations. Pantries and fridges stocked, fireplace ready to go, and a list of movies/tv shows to watch when you’re snowed in (check out my recommendations on my Instagram). That’s really all you need in my book anyway.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a proper blog. I feel like I say that in every blog I write nowadays, but it feels like so much longer than it has been in the past. The holiday break was long, we’re in a whole new year now, and, as I’ve said before on the blog, LA is a time-warp. But guess what? I’m back and ready to hit the ground running in the last 11 months of the year on the writing front.2

One of the reasons I’ve been writing fewer blogs is that I’ve started this video series on my Instagram page, where I make sandwiches and talk about movies. It’s pretty much this blog, just in shorter form and with worse audio/lighting. Check it out and give it a follow.

Editor’s Note: The author writing this as if he isn’t aware that his entire reading audience is the same 100-some odd people who are already following the Instagram page is hilarious. What a fool.

My editor is probably gonna clown me or something, I can feel it. But seriously, go check out the new page on an Instagram app near you.

Update:

Here are the first few in the series. I’ll link new ones in the blog as I continue to post them and write, so if you truly want to hear about everything I’m watching, you won’t be left behind. Just click on the videos linked in the footnotes!

Zootopia 2 (2025)3

Eternity (2025)4

Is This Thing On? (2025)5

Liar Liar (1997)6

Ok, now that we’ve covered that, we can talk about the elephant in the room:

Where is “Searching For Fall Pt. 3”?

Welp, that was a failure, now wasn’t it? I had planned on getting that third part in the trilogy out before the holidays, but life got in the way, and I never got a chance to.

While this isn’t the first blog of 2026, go check out my Marty Supreme blog if you haven’t already:

It is the first proper blog of 2026, and I’m gonna use it to catch up on things I missed writing about in 2025 so that we can start the year with a clean slate. Strap in. Here we go, week/weekend by weekend:

End of October

• The ‘Searching For Fall Pt. 3’ blog was going to detail my weekend trip over Halloween weekend to Manhattan, Kansas, aka The Little Apple, to visit my Grandpa and to go to a Kansas State game.

  • Some highlights:

    • For those of you who have never been or who hate on Kansas, the new slogan7 is officially: “Kansas…It’s Not That Bad”

      • I personally love Kansas.

    • The Wildcats got smoked.8

    • The World Series games were awesome.

    • I had chili (twice)9 and went to my first tailgate since college (it was glorious, and I had chili there too)10

    • I carved a pumpkin.11

    • I saw this tree. Well, my Mom saw the tree, but I thought it looked pretty and fall-like, so I’m claiming partial ownership.12

  • All in all? Great weekend.

November

• I catsat a couple of times13

• Made, bought, and ate some bomb ass sandwiches14

• Did Friendsgiving15

• Made this watermelon16

• Built a Time Machine17

• Went to a Tame Impala concert (I levitated)18

  • To be clear: I’m not a phone guy at concerts. I think it’s ridiculous and defeats the whole point of the concert, but you gotta take a few photos to document at least.

• Took a trip with my buddies to go watch Wake Forest play basketball in the Bahamas (among other things).

  • My week before Thanksgiving could’ve been a whole blog unto itself, but I’ll just leave you with these two photos19

• Worked out of the New York office the week of Thanksgiving20

  • Got locked out of my friend CHRIS OUIDA’s apartment because CHRIS OUIDA forgot to put me on his guest list, and his doorman wouldn’t let me in. It was a Monday night. I texted Chris about 50 times, tried calling him on the phone, Facetiming him, Snapchat calling, Microsoft Teams calling, WhatsApp calling, you name it. I even tried his Mom, Dad, and girlfriend. No luck.21

    • After more than 2 hours of waiting and my phone at 1%, I finally had to book a hotel across the street at 2:00 am.

      • I’m now on the guest list for his apartment for the rest of eternity. Seriously, go ask his Mom. Thanks, Heather.

  • Went to the Soup Nazi’s restaurant (from Seinfeld)22

• Went home for Thanksgiving

  • Hung out with Oliver (GOAT)23

• Catsat again back in LA24

December

• Did some Christmas things in LA25

• Came back home for Christmas

• Hung out with some more dogs (these were all in one night by the way)26

• Hung out with Oliver again (GOAT)27

• Did some puzzles and played some games

• Got a rice cooker28

January

• Came back to LA

• Went to Las Vegas with my Grandma, Mom, and Aunt to go see The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere29

• Had a long MLK Day weekend30

So much more happened than what is listed, but you get the gist. And now here we are. All caught up. I feel like I just relived the last 3 months; that was fun.

All jokes aside, I’m the luckiest guy in the world. To be able to do all of that, with my friends and family no less, is something I certainly don’t take for granted. A huge thank you to all the people I did cool shit with in 2025. Love you all, love all of you who are reading, and cheers to a great 2026.

Apologies for the short intro today. I’m working on my That’s A Wrap!™ for 2025, so that’ll be coming soon, as well as an update to The Vault (linked below).

Bear with me, I’m getting back into the swing of this whole ‘writing’ thing.

Let’s get to the movies.

Flag Rankings

In case you missed it, the Flag Rankings came to an end in my Christmas Blog after nearly 6 months. You can check the final ranking on the link below:

FINAL 100% Accurate Official Flag Rankings

It was a lot of fun, but now I’m itching to rank something else. If anyone has any ideas for a new ranking series, please let me know.

WILL BE UPDATED WITH 2025 SOON!

Check out The Vault if you’re struggling to pick a movie for your next movie night. It’s got everything I’ve watched since 2018 on it. You can sort by genre, sub-genre, release year, rewatchable status, etc. Give it a try (and let me know how I can improve it).

Check it out here!

Alright, on to the blog.

Movies count for the year: 15

Doc count for the year: 0 (off to a great start)

Total movie count on the blog: 365

Keeping Movie Theaters Alive

Go see these (if they’re still out).

Song Sung Blue (2025)

AKA: Neil Diamond = more than just Sweet Caroline

Neil Diamond will always make me think of a certain talent show performance and of a severe case of stage fright31. See, at my middle school, we had school-wide meetings every Tuesday and Thursday32. And for some godforsaken reason, going into my 8th grade year, the teachers banded together to make every one of us give a speech to the entire middle school at some point during that school year. They had never done this before, and in my opinion, it was a prime example of cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t remember the prompt or anything, but what I do remember is that our speech had to be 3-5 minutes long.

Trust me, I’m getting to the Neil Diamond part of this.

Somehow, I ended up with the idea to talk about how music brings people together33. To help illustrate this, I decided I’d include a section of my neighborhood talent show performance from the summer before.34 It had been the centennial of my neighborhood that summer, so for the talent show, I chose to play a song that everyone knew by heart: Sweet Caroline. Because, as you all know, white people really like Sweet Caroline. Just speaking from experience.

The song went over really well. So well, in fact, that I didn’t even have to sing after I got to the first chorus. It was electric, and one of my favorite memories is playing guitar up on that stage while my whole neighborhood sang Sweet Caroline with me. Which brings me back to my speech. Remember how the speech needed to be 3-5 minutes? Well, for someone with a fear of public speaking, a 3-5 minute speech is the equivalent of about 3-5 hours. So, I found a loophole: playing a section of my talent show would cut into my time, which meant I got to speak for less. I think I ended up clocking in my speech at around 90 seconds and letting my music play for at least 90 seconds as well, just getting over the required 180 seconds my speech had to be.

When the day came, I was shitting bricks.

You know what doesn’t go over as well as a performance of Sweet Caroline to a room full of people?

A recording of a performance of Sweet Caroline to a room full of people.

The recording, if my memory serves35, played to complete and utter awkward silence. I was mortified36. Thankfully, I was able to finish my speech and get my grade. If my memory serves37, I don’t think it was an A+.

So yeah, I’ve got two memories that my brain immediately goes to when I think of Neil Diamond. One of euphoria and one of pure and utter mortification.

Such is life.

Trivia Corner! (Or: The Useless Facts That Fill My Brain): Neil Diamond has sold more than 130 million records worldwide and was ranked the 25th greatest artist of all time by Billboard. He’s got some bangers outside of Sweet Caroline.

Also, Sweet Caroline has been played at every Red Sox game at Fenway Park since 2002. At least 1,863 times (not including playoff games).

Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: Yessir. In song form, numerous times.

Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 99%

No, But Really: There was a lot to like about this movie, and I’m glad I saw it. Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson are very talented singers, and their performances are pretty great throughout the entire movie. I will say, I was not expecting this movie to be as sad as it was. It’s honestly quite devastating, which caught me entirely by surprise. What struck me the most about this movie is that it’s about normal people. There simply aren’t that many movies about normal people that are also based on a true story. Usually, it’s celebrities whose stories we already know, but it’s refreshing to see an incredible story happen to ordinary people. Overall, I’d say that this movie is worth a watch. It didn’t blow me away by any means, and you can probably wait to watch it at home, but it’s a very sweet movie with a huge heart. It’s also a great reminder to keep going and to never give up on your dreams or aspirations, no matter the circumstances. And it’s got a bunch of Neil Diamond songs in it, which are fun.

Movies at Home