“Josh Safdie may have gone solo, but he hasn’t gone acoustic; he remains committed to pulverizing viewers with volume and intensity, resulting in an experience that straddles the line between exhilarating and exhausting.” #MartySupreme moviemanifesto.com/2026/01/mart...

Happy New Year! I wrote about MARTY SUPREME, a movie that’s half-exhilarating, half-exhausting. Not everything about it works, but it develops a sweeping momentum, and Timothée Chalamet really is terrific. Review here: #MartySupreme moviemanifesto.com/2026/01/mart...

I wrote a lot in 2025. I did it for no money, and hardly anybody read my criticism, so maybe I’m just typing into the void. Regardless, here’s a brief thread of 5 pieces I’m proud of. First, I tackled the pleasures and perils of the FINAL DESTINATION franchise. moviemanifesto.com/2025/05/i-wa...

Year-end AMC Stubs A-List report. I watched 106 movies at an AMC in 2025, including 37 in PLF formats (Dolby, fake IMAX). For the year, my Stubs subscription cost me $296.68, which shakes out to $2.80 per ticket. At the risk of shilling for a brand, I think that seems like a pretty good deal!

#NW End of the year, need to catch up with some best-of contenders. Anticipating some real MISBEHAVIOUR here.

MARTY SUPREME and BLUE MOON both involve characters breathlessly reacting to freshly published reviews, recalling a bygone era when people still gave a shit about arts criticism.

Everyone will surely remember Isiah Whitlock Jr. for his immortal delivery of “Shiiiiit” in THE WIRE, but let’s remember he deployed that singular line reading a year before the show aired—during this mesmerizing scene in 25TH HOUR. “Maybe it’s the padding.” RIP. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpVS...

LEFT-HANDED GIRL (Tsou, B+): Southpaw Patrol letterboxd.com/moviemanifes...

[Brad Pitt in SEVEN voice] Have you ever seen anything like this?? #StrangerThings

Just when I’m ready to dismiss #StrangerThings as hyper-mythologized mediocrity, it drops a killer episode like “Escape from Camezotz” and gets me pumping my fist in the air.

“It is a hugely impressive movie: vibrant and gorgeous, with engaging characters and provocative ideas. But it is also something of a recycling, repurposing its predecessors’ brilliant technique without equaling their sense of true discovery.” #AvatarFireAndAsh moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/avat...

Me watching the #Pluribus finale:

New piece: I wrote about AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH. It’s a hugely impressive movie with deceptively thorny ideas. It’s also a clear step down from its predecessors—a triumph and a bummer at once. Review here: #Avatar #AvatarFireAndAsh moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/avat...

Sometimes AMC sneaks in a trailer *after* its Kidman bumper (when I’ve already turned off my headphones). At my AVATAR screening, they did this for AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY, meaning the *6-minute* ODYSSEY preview ran during the standard package—when my headphones were still on. Best Hanukkah gift of 2025.

Great episode, though I apologize to Marisa for the 15-minute segment in which three film bros raved about HEAT while she sat in stony silence. Pretty sure she was texting Ralph at one point.

This weekend in “I contain cinematic multitudes”:

I hate criticism like this. For one, I haven’t seen a single bad word written about BLACK BAG, so the idea that it’s horribly underrated is bizarre. That aside, it’s OK to just really like a movie without lamenting the world’s collective failure to appreciate great cinema.

Putting #TheHousemaid on my top 10 list for no other reason than its soundtrack featuring both Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift.

“If KNIVES OUT was playful and GLASS ONION was scornful, WAKE UP DEAD MAN is strangely hopeful, positing that anger and greed can be combated with reflection and compassion.” #KnivesOut #WakeUpDeadMan moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/wake...

Happy AVATAR day! Seeing FIRE AND ASH in a few hours, but in the meantime here’s your reminder that THE WAY OF WATER totally rules. #Avatar moviemanifesto.com/2022/12/avat...

New piece: I wrote about Rian Johnson’s WAKE UP DEAD MAN, a breezily entertaining whodunit that’s also surprisingly poignant in how it makes the case for human compassion. #KnivesOut #WakeUpDeadMan moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/wake...

I generally agree that “On the Nature of Daylight” has become overused, but I’m willing to make an exception for HAMNET given that Max Richter scored the fucking movie.

You guys hear about this HEAT movie? Pretty good! letterboxd.com/moviemanifes...

#NW #Holiday95Rewatch I’m talking to an empty telephone.

Seeing a lot of posts about how Rob Reiner had an amazing 7-film run to start his career, and I get why people are using that cutoff because his 8th movie was NORTH, but his *9th* was THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT and it totally rules. letterboxd.com/moviemanifes...

This weekend in “I contain cinematic multitudes” (WAKE UP DEAD MAN not pictured because fuck Netflix for not letting me see it in a movie theater):

Night bump: I wrote about JAY KELLY and 100 NIGHTS OF HERO. Good movies. #JayKelly #100NightsOfHero moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/in-j...

“Much like JAY KELLY, 100 NIGHTS OF HERO regards storytelling as a sacred art—a mode of personal expression that has the capacity to change lives and even inspire revolution.” #100NightsOfHero moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/in-j...

“In framing Jay as a kind of shadow image of George, Baumbach and Clooney are actively inviting viewers to draw on their preconceptions of the actor, and to examine the validity of their assumptions.” #JayKelly moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/in-j...

New piece: I wrote about JAY KELLY and 100 NIGHTS OF HERO, two new movies which take storytelling as their subject, and which turn viewers’ familiarity with their material (and their actors) into an asset. #JayKelly #100NightsOfHero moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/in-j...

#NW #Holiday95Rewatch You sit on it, but you don’t take it with you.

#NW #Holiday95Rewatch You can’t change the past, you can only podcast about it.

These days, anti-Semitism on Twitter exists in many forms.

Gonna be a rude awakening for HUNGER GAMES fans when this ends up being a sequel to DIE MY LOVE.

Sure you knew this movie was a remake of a Billy Wilder picture, but did you know that it was later remade itself?

#NW #Holiday95Rewatch Can’t wait for Kiernan Shipka to show up.

#NW #Holiday95Rewatch His name’s Bob Rumson and he’s running for President.

This is indeed historic. No other actor has earned a Golden Globe nomination for playing Elphaba even once.

#NW #Holiday95Rewatch [weeping] La-hoo zuh-her

Just saw these back-to-back and I’ll write about one or maybe both but I have to say I really love watching movies.

I thankfully missed the TRAIN DREAMS discourse, so I’ll just say I think it’s a good movie and I wish I’d been able to see it in a theater. #TrainDreams moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/than...

I think Guillermo del Toro’s FRANKENSTEIN is a beautifully made movie, and I wished it moved me more. (Or maybe I’m just annoyed that I had to watch it on Netflix.) #Frankenstein moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/than...

My thoughts on Netflix acquiring Warner Bros. are that you should watch SENTIMENTAL VALUE. moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/than...

New piece: I wrote about some movies. ZOOTOPIA 2: Not bad! FRANKENSTEIN: Beautiful, little stiff! TRAIN DREAMS: Lovely! RENTAL FAMILY: Could be worse! SENTIMENTAL VALUE: Glorious! Reviews here: #Zootopia2 #Frankenstein #TrainDreams #RentalFamily #SentimentalValue moviemanifesto.com/2025/12/than...

Can’t imagine this plays as well at home as it did on the big screen, but regardless, good movie. moviemanifesto.com/2025/05/miss...

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious movies to solve them. letterboxd.com/moviemanifes...

#NW #Holiday95Rewatch Sydney, Congress doesn’t take this long.

I don’t envy Trump because he’s a petty and miserable man with no friends, but I do wonder what it’s like to be able to *lie* like this—to just fabricate entire conversations without shame. “Someone came up to me and said, ‘Jeremy, you have the best film criticism site on the web.’” Feels weird!

“There is nothing truly new on screen—just a careful rendering of a beloved piece of intellectual property. The movie never finds its courage, instead dutifully following a Yellow Brick Road that winds up being a dead end.” #Wicked #WickedForGood moviemanifesto.com/2025/11/wick...

New piece: As someone who quite liked the first WICKED, I had high hopes for the sequel. But WICKED: FOR GOOD is a debacle, with flat choreography, a dull story, and no spark of life. Review here: #Wicked #WickedForGood moviemanifesto.com/2025/11/wick...