🍿 Your Name (2016) was unexpectedly good for a movie we chose at random after kids wanted to see “an anime” and we had already seen everything from Miyazaki more than once. But then I am a sucker for — spoiler alert — time travel plots.

🍿 Sinners (2025) was as good as it gets, particularly if you are into horror-lite, From Dusk Till Dawn-type action movies that carry an added poignant message or three. What was it about 2025 that the movies I liked the most were all about monsters?

🍿 The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) was a waste of good actors, fantastic (hah!) set design and Michael Giacchino’s era-appropriate score. There are concepts that work in comic books which are just too big for movies, and Galactus is one of them.

🍿 Urchin (2025) was a decent anti-drug movie, but why the overblown praise for Harris Dickinson as a first-time director? Kudos for steadying the camera and not going too close into people’s faces, I guess.

🍿 Any Given Sunday (1999) is a pro sports movie that doesn’t mention the Internet and barely recognizes gambling. What a difference 27 years make.

🍿 Tokyo Godfathers (2003) was the perfect Christmas movie that rewards careful viewing, with character design and comedic timing that make all the difference. Unlike other Satoshi Kon fare, it had (mostly) kid-friendly content, no complex cuts, and many laugh-out-loud moments.

🍿 Perfect Blue (1997) is a (gory, adult) masterpiece of storytelling and editing which inspired many more works of art. The blurrying of fantasy and reality lands particularly hard in this era of AI slop, and I suspect Satoshi Kon’s Paprika (2006) will have aged even better.

🍿 Spellbound (2002) was as delightful as I had remembered it. This is the third or fourth time I have seen it, and as with any good work of art the experience becomes richer each time. What made this viewing the best was that we had our spelling bee-bound kids with us who had never seen it before, providing some hilarious commentary.

Somewhat less delightful was seeing how some of the kids did in the 20-some years since, but even those stories — except for one — were more hopeful than I would have imagined.

🍿 Grizzly Man (2005) is peak Werner Herzog. What other filmmaker would voice over images of bears frolicking in a national park with:

“I believe the common character of the universe is not harmony, but hostility, chaos and murder.”

Roger Ebert had a very good review to which I have nothing to add.

🍿 The Family Plan 2 (2025) was, much like its predecessor, a tame mid-budget family action comedy of the kind they don’t show in theaters any more (and for good reason): perfect for post-prandial viewing in this holiday week.