🍿 Finding Dory (2016) was a disappointment. For perspective, I have seen “Walle-E” and Ratatouille dozens of times beginning-to-end, but it took me 8 years to finish this over-plotted under-baked mess which managed to omit everything that made the original Finding Nemo so brilliant. Quo vadis, Pixar?

🍿 Casino Royale (2006) is one of the better Bond movies but has a little too much fun shooting on location and ultimately, at 144 minute run-time, overstays its welcome. Still, not having every scene be obviously green screened was refreshing. It’s strange to think that Daniel Craig may become our kids' idea of 007 but hey, it could be worse.

🍿 Paddington 2 (2017): even better than the first. It doesn’t look like Paddington 3 is in the cards, but what a fun set of movies this has been. Just compare it to what we had back in the day.

🍿 Paddington (2014) is the perfect family movie to which we were 10 years late, but it was worth waiting for every family member to be able to appreciate it. Too sappy and twee for adults? Perhaps. But did it make our kids laugh and cry? Also, yes, and you don’t often find the crying bit in movies like this any more.

🍿 Anatomy of a Fall (2023) is neck and neck with The Holdovers in being my favorite film of 2023. What a great year for movies.

I have no plans to watch Poor Things due to a severe Yorgos Lanthimos allergy, but if I do it will be only to see what kind of a performance Emma Stone could possibly have had to top the absolutely brilliant Sandra Hüller.

🍿 American Fiction (2023) was as good as biting satire gets: funny, poignant, and, ultimately, tripping on its own feet. It is better than The Triangle of Sadness and miles above Don’t Look Up but at heart it is still an insecure adolescent whose every seemingly earnest confession is followed by a “just kidding…” handwave.

🍿 The Holdovers (2023) shows that not making ‘em like we used to was a matter of choice not fate. Some people still have it in them to make beautifully shot, perfectly paced, subtly acted movies with a complex message. Here’s hoping it becomes a Christmas classic.

🍿 Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) will, I hope, be the worst film I will have seen this year. Words fail to describe how utterly bad everything in it is, from the soulless story through the already-dated CGI to the then-edgy (if you squinted) now-cringe humor. The creator’s name is plastered all over the promos for his follow-up franchise. It serves as an excellent deterrent.

🍿 If you want me to see a movie, write a review like this. It’s for Perfect Days by Wim Wenders, and it made a 2-hour movie about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo look absolutely marvelous.

🍿 Orion and the Dark (2024) is Charlie Kaufman’s go at writing for children, and he did a marvelous job. Early on it declares itself as a literal bedtime story, and thus follows the logic of every improvised bedtime story ever told, from Alice in Wonderland to whatever tall tale you told your own kids most recently. So it runs on feeling more than on plot, but then which Kaufman movie didn’t? A David Foster Wallace mention and a Werner Herzog cameo are cherries on top.