A truly beautiful film.
You can take the man out of Videoville, but you can’t entirely take Videoville out of the man.
Come the Christmas holidays of 2026, it’ll be 20 years since I left the best job I ever had, putting a cap on 12+ years of being paid to eat Reese’s Pieces and annoy customers with my burning belief they should be watching more weird-ass foreign films.
While video stores aren’t a thing anymore, and good luck finding anyone under 30 who evens remembers them at this point, my lifelong obsession with watching films continues to burn.
Some years I document everything I’ve seen from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 — in 2023, for example, I hit 600, counting feature-length films and shorts — and others I don’t.
The year which recently wrapped up was one of those in which I didn’t keep a nice, handy list for myself on Lettrboxed, which I now regret as I make a late U-turn to ramble on about my favorite films from the year.
So, this won’t be a complete breakdown, though, as always, I continued to search out down ‘n dirty ’70s movies I have yet to see.
Shoutout to Tubi, the best free-if-you’re-fine-with-some-ads streaming site, as it recreates the experience of an old-school video store full of dust-covered VHS boxes with lurid artwork beckoning you to come closer.
I finally marked off “King of Marvin Gardens” with repressed radio talk show host Jack Nicholson uneasily coexisting with his back-slapping con man brother, Bruce Dern, then followed that up by accidentally discovering the drenched-in-sleaze “Hollywood 90028.”
You might need some antibiotics after viewing this tale of a cameraman as he embraces the serial killer within, complete with a sense-shattering WTF finale which punches you in the face, but I’ll take that over “Avatar 17: Electric Boogaloo FernGully” any day.
Anyways, since I don’t have a complete list of my year in film — but will next year! — this list will focus on films released in 2025, which I also saw in 2025.
While there were a lot of mediocre films released, and some absolute stinkers like “Megan 2.0,” “Love Hurts,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025),” “Osiris,” and “Him,” the worst movie of the year was “Fixed,” a laugh-free “adult” animated film which should have been taken out back behind the barn and put out of its misery.
Burn the negative.
But on to stuff I enjoyed!
20 (tie) — “The Home,” “Final Destination Bloodlines,” “Heart Eyes,” “Clown in a Cornfield,” and “Weapons”
Yes, we’re cheating right from the start, with a wild mishmash of gore-soaked flicks.
“Final Destination” reinvigorated the franchise, while “Heart” and “Clown” paid campy tribute to my beloved ’80s slasher flicks.
“Weapons” got all the box office and awards buzz, and the finale is appropriately bonkers, but where was the love for “The Home,” a something-is-seriously-wrong-at-the-rest-home schlock-fest which ends with an even-more WTF finale?
I’m not saying it’s a great movie, but if you’re not entertained by Pete Davidson opening a can of whup-ass on senior citizen cult members, can you even still feel anything?
19 — “The Day the Earth Blew Up”
Porky Pig and Daffy Duck vs. aliens. Pure bliss.
Legendary.
18 — “Friendship”
Deeply uncomfortable “comedy” about a dude who cannot read the room, ever, but is obsessed with being friends with his neighbor, a local TV weather guy. Psyche-scarring shenanigans ensue.
17 — “Eddington”
The pandemic fractures an already messed-up town in New Mexico, and that’s before Joaquin Phoenix totally loses his mind. A dark comedy painted pitch black.
16 — “Dangerous Animals”
A boat captain with some serious issues feeds his clients to the local sharks, until one tougher-than-she-looks surfer fights back, tooth and nail. Let the bodies hit the (ocean) floor.
15 — “Sew Torn”
A small-town seamstress who’s not as meek as she seems. A dangerous drug lord. A missing briefcase. Nice lil’ Coen brothers-style crime flick with more than a few surprises awaiting us.
14 — “Companion”
Don’t piss off the robot. Seriously. Just don’t do it.
13 — “The Damned”
A doomed village in Iceland. A boat crashed on the rocks, with the survivors left to perish in the cold waters by the people trying to scrape a living out of the cold soil. Guilt will drive you mad, in a cold, cold movie best watched from under a pile of blankies.
12 — “Freaky Tales”
Welcome to Oakland, 1987. Things are about to get frickin’ weird. Bizarre anthology flick mixes kung fu, Nazi’s, basketball urban legend Sleepy Floyd, Tom Hanks(!), and rap music into a brain-exploding flick.
11 — “Magazine Dreams”
Imagine if “Taxi Driver” was about a Black bodybuilder, with the main character’s anger issues made more problematic by the real-life troubles of actor Jonathan Majors.
10 — “One Battle After Another”
The Oscar frontrunner (with great work by Sean Penn), and I’m fine with that, even if it’s not my personal favorite film by director Paul Thomas Anderson.
Honoring the dude who made “Boogie Nights,” “There Will Be Blood,” and “Hard Eight?” I’m down with that.
9 — “Sinners”
On the one hand, it’s just “From Dusk Till Dawn” for a new generation. On the other hand, the musical number with the vampires dancing outside the barn is a knock-out, and Ryan Coogler goes surprisingly deep with his fangs vs. racism story.
8 — “Saint Clare”
A teenage girl with voices in her head operates as a serial killer (with a code of ethics), before turning out to be her town’s best hope against some real degenerates. Stylish, low-key, and utterly disturbing. So, just my kind of thing.
7 — “Neighborhood Watch”
A mentally ill man (Jack Quaid) and his neighbor, a seriously grumpy former security guard (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), get in deep after the former witnesses (maybe) an abduction in broad daylight. The duo stay prickly until the end, with no fakey friendship developing, which is a nice touch.
6 — “Frankenstein”
It’s alive! Gorgeous, old school monster flick is a true treat for the eyeballs.
“You talkin’ to me?”
5 — “The Surfer”
Nicolas Cage makes a lot of movies, and by gum, the man never half-asses it, fully committing to each project. This tale of a man trying to reclaim the glory of his youth in Australia, while being driven literally crazy in the heat, is a great throwback to late ’60s/early ’70s cinema about deeply lost men.
4 — “Mickey 17”
Robert Pattinson dies (and dies some more) as an “expendable” in this darkly funny sci-fi satire.
3 — “Bugonia”
Bonkers tale of a deeply damaged man (Jesse Plemons) kidnapping the CEO of a major corporation (Emma Stone) in a bid to expose her secret life as a space alien bent on world domination. It’s a remake of the 2003 South Korean film “Save the Green Planet,” which I loved back in the Videoville days, but not a carbon copy.
2 — “Train Dreams”
The most beautiful movie of the year, a haunting tale of a logger carving out a life among the trees of the Pacific Northwest while dealing with deep trauma.
1 — “Two People Exchanging Saliva”
It’s French. It’s shot in piercing black-and-white. It’s a 36-minute tale of a dystopian future where kissing is outlawed, you pay for things by getting slapped, and intimacy will get you put in a box and thrown off a cliff.
Literally.
It’s on the shortlist to be nominated for Best Live Action Short at this year’s Oscars, and we riot if it doesn’t make the cut.
Way back in 1993, when I was still writing movie columns for The Coupeville Examiner, I picked the Wallace and Gromit short, “The Wrong Trousers”, as the best film of its year.
“Two People” is similar in that it demonstrates a perfect film can be perfect at any length.
Sometimes you need three hours. Sometimes you don’t.
Coupeville Sports 