Greg T
@gregt314.bsky.social
Gentleman, wordsmith, man-about-town, et cetera and so forth.
Film #124 for 2025 is Wake Up Dead Man (2025). Rian Johnson isn't interested in being subtle, and if red hats have made the mistake of wandering into this one he has his, pardon the expression, knives out. But Daniel Craig and Josh O'Connor are great and it's filled with humanity and I liked it.
November 27, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Film #124 for 2025 is Wake Up Dead Man (2025). Rian Johnson isn't interested in being subtle, and if red hats have made the mistake of wandering into this one he has his, pardon the expression, knives out. But Daniel Craig and Josh O'Connor are great and it's filled with humanity and I liked it.
Film #124 for 2025 is Predator: Badlands (2025). Director Dan Trachtenberg dares to ask the question "what if the Predator franchise were fun". I loved it intensely. Fans of Predator 1 and 2 will hate it, and that just made me love it more.
November 26, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Film #124 for 2025 is Predator: Badlands (2025). Director Dan Trachtenberg dares to ask the question "what if the Predator franchise were fun". I loved it intensely. Fans of Predator 1 and 2 will hate it, and that just made me love it more.
I saw this previously as a child, possibly many times, but I have no memory of Gopher's "After all, I'm not in the book" joke, which is a great bit and which took me completely by surprise.
November 25, 2025 at 10:52 AM
I saw this previously as a child, possibly many times, but I have no memory of Gopher's "After all, I'm not in the book" joke, which is a great bit and which took me completely by surprise.
Film #123 for 2025 is The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1977). It's not Disney's finest animation, and the episodic anthology format gives it pacing problems as a feature-length release, but it's possibly the most faithful book adaptation they ever made, and it's full of joy and delight.
November 25, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Film #123 for 2025 is The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1977). It's not Disney's finest animation, and the episodic anthology format gives it pacing problems as a feature-length release, but it's possibly the most faithful book adaptation they ever made, and it's full of joy and delight.
Film #122 for 2025 is Conan the Barbarian (1982). As a story, it doesn't work, and young Arnie is no actor. But it looks great, it sounds great, every scene looks like a Boris Vallejo painting and every line of dialogue is instantly quotable. I enjoyed it.
November 25, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Film #122 for 2025 is Conan the Barbarian (1982). As a story, it doesn't work, and young Arnie is no actor. But it looks great, it sounds great, every scene looks like a Boris Vallejo painting and every line of dialogue is instantly quotable. I enjoyed it.
With that said, this is still an extremely cursed sentence.
November 24, 2025 at 12:36 AM
With that said, this is still an extremely cursed sentence.
Film #121 for 2025 is Frankenstein (1931), a weird adaptation that drops most of the subtlety and subtext in favour of the creature being unambiguously monstrous (albeit a rather pathetic kind of monstrous). The sets are gorgeous, the creation scene is rightly iconic, but the back half struggles.
November 23, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Film #121 for 2025 is Frankenstein (1931), a weird adaptation that drops most of the subtlety and subtext in favour of the creature being unambiguously monstrous (albeit a rather pathetic kind of monstrous). The sets are gorgeous, the creation scene is rightly iconic, but the back half struggles.
I mean, yes, literally, but also I doubt that either Emerald Fennell or Margot Robbie were ever interested in doing a loyal adaptation of the source material anyway, and nor would I particularly want to watch such a thing.
November 23, 2025 at 6:32 AM
I mean, yes, literally, but also I doubt that either Emerald Fennell or Margot Robbie were ever interested in doing a loyal adaptation of the source material anyway, and nor would I particularly want to watch such a thing.
Film #120 for 2025 is Wicked: For Good (2025). It looks fabulous, and Ariana Grande shines, but it inherits serious pacing and plotting problems from its source material that are only magnified by padding it out to feature-length, and none of the songs here are remotely as good as Defying Gravity.
November 21, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Film #120 for 2025 is Wicked: For Good (2025). It looks fabulous, and Ariana Grande shines, but it inherits serious pacing and plotting problems from its source material that are only magnified by padding it out to feature-length, and none of the songs here are remotely as good as Defying Gravity.
Film #119 for 2025 is Bring It On (2000), which I have seen many times before, but it's still extraordinarily solid.
November 21, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Film #119 for 2025 is Bring It On (2000), which I have seen many times before, but it's still extraordinarily solid.
Street Racer (1994) has a 4-way split... but it's still not a vertical split. :-) Practically unplayable.
November 21, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Street Racer (1994) has a 4-way split... but it's still not a vertical split. :-) Practically unplayable.
Film #118 for 2025 is Rush Hour (1998). Come for the amazing Jackie Chan stuntwork, stick around for a broadly agreeable buddy-cop comedy.
November 20, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Film #118 for 2025 is Rush Hour (1998). Come for the amazing Jackie Chan stuntwork, stick around for a broadly agreeable buddy-cop comedy.
Film #117 for 2025 is Ballad of a Small Player (2025). Director Edward Berger tries his hand at a psychodrama-slash-ghost-story, with visually stunning results, an anxiety-inducingly-sweaty performance from Colin Farrell, and storytelling that will inevitably be divisive. I liked it.
November 20, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Film #117 for 2025 is Ballad of a Small Player (2025). Director Edward Berger tries his hand at a psychodrama-slash-ghost-story, with visually stunning results, an anxiety-inducingly-sweaty performance from Colin Farrell, and storytelling that will inevitably be divisive. I liked it.
Film #116 for 2025 is About A Boy (2002), featuring a tiny Nicholas Hoult, and I absolutely loved it. Elegant screenplay, knockout performances from the leads. It sounds dodgy to say it's effectively a romcom beween a man and a child, but it is, and it's deeply wholesome and heartwarming.
November 20, 2025 at 3:26 AM
Film #116 for 2025 is About A Boy (2002), featuring a tiny Nicholas Hoult, and I absolutely loved it. Elegant screenplay, knockout performances from the leads. It sounds dodgy to say it's effectively a romcom beween a man and a child, but it is, and it's deeply wholesome and heartwarming.
Film #115 for 2025 is Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995) aka Die Hard 3. I was surprised to find I enjoyed this much more than Die Hard 2. It starts with an explosion, and it keeps exploding until the credits roll. Samuel L Jackson is a very welcome addition to the cast.
November 19, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Film #115 for 2025 is Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995) aka Die Hard 3. I was surprised to find I enjoyed this much more than Die Hard 2. It starts with an explosion, and it keeps exploding until the credits roll. Samuel L Jackson is a very welcome addition to the cast.
Film #113 for 2025 is Final Destination Bloodlines (2025) aka Final Destination 6. By any measure - professionalism, characterisation, pacing, script, or pure fun - this is the best film in the franchise, by a wide margin.
November 18, 2025 at 6:46 AM
Film #113 for 2025 is Final Destination Bloodlines (2025) aka Final Destination 6. By any measure - professionalism, characterisation, pacing, script, or pure fun - this is the best film in the franchise, by a wide margin.
Film #112 for 2025 is (500) Days of Summer (2009). On the one hand, it's frequently charming, visually inventive, and un-cliched. On the other, I'm not sure the film understands exactly how much Tom is a toxic asshat who can't respect boundaries - even though it fairly explicitly tells us so.
November 18, 2025 at 1:21 AM
Film #112 for 2025 is (500) Days of Summer (2009). On the one hand, it's frequently charming, visually inventive, and un-cliched. On the other, I'm not sure the film understands exactly how much Tom is a toxic asshat who can't respect boundaries - even though it fairly explicitly tells us so.
Film #111 for 2025 is One Battle After Another (2025), and it lives up to the hype. Pointed, relentless, and timely. Sean Penn's performance as the villain is a lock for Best Supporting Actor.
November 16, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Film #111 for 2025 is One Battle After Another (2025), and it lives up to the hype. Pointed, relentless, and timely. Sean Penn's performance as the villain is a lock for Best Supporting Actor.
Film #110 for 2025 is Heathers (1989). Probably the fourth, fifth or sixth time I've watched this, but it still holds up. Ryder and Slater make the film's claustrophobic hallucinatory petty psychodrama work.
November 14, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Film #110 for 2025 is Heathers (1989). Probably the fourth, fifth or sixth time I've watched this, but it still holds up. Ryder and Slater make the film's claustrophobic hallucinatory petty psychodrama work.
Film #109 for 2025 is Frankenstein (2025). Guillermo del Toro does for Frankenstein what Francis Ford Coppola did for Dracula - a visually sumptuous gothic melodrama absolutely drenched in blood and desire. It steals fire from cinematic gods and refuses to give it back.
November 9, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Film #109 for 2025 is Frankenstein (2025). Guillermo del Toro does for Frankenstein what Francis Ford Coppola did for Dracula - a visually sumptuous gothic melodrama absolutely drenched in blood and desire. It steals fire from cinematic gods and refuses to give it back.
Film #108 for 2025 is King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017). I am convinced a truly great film is hiding somewhere in the footage that Guy Ritchie shot for his balls-to-the-wall fantasy epic, and sometimes that film shines through, but the final version falls far short of what it could have been.
November 8, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Film #108 for 2025 is King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017). I am convinced a truly great film is hiding somewhere in the footage that Guy Ritchie shot for his balls-to-the-wall fantasy epic, and sometimes that film shines through, but the final version falls far short of what it could have been.
Film #107 for 2025 is Joe Versus The Volcano (1990). Tom Hanks and three flavours of Meg Ryan in an ode to the importance of quality luggage, filled with bold choices that sometimes even work. It's a sporadically great film but not really a good one, that I'm going to quote from but never recommend.
November 7, 2025 at 8:29 AM
Film #107 for 2025 is Joe Versus The Volcano (1990). Tom Hanks and three flavours of Meg Ryan in an ode to the importance of quality luggage, filled with bold choices that sometimes even work. It's a sporadically great film but not really a good one, that I'm going to quote from but never recommend.
Happy New Florence + the Machine album day, for those who celebrate. Title track "Everybody Scream" is very solid.
November 1, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Happy New Florence + the Machine album day, for those who celebrate. Title track "Everybody Scream" is very solid.
Film #106 for 2025 is Ghost (1990), as a Halloween watch. Director Jerry Zucker (Airplane!) is far more comfortable with the comedy elements, which are wonderful, than with the romance, which fumbles. Whoopi Goldberg steals the show. Patrick Swayze is terrible. Demi Moore is there too, I guess.
October 31, 2025 at 8:47 AM
Film #106 for 2025 is Ghost (1990), as a Halloween watch. Director Jerry Zucker (Airplane!) is far more comfortable with the comedy elements, which are wonderful, than with the romance, which fumbles. Whoopi Goldberg steals the show. Patrick Swayze is terrible. Demi Moore is there too, I guess.