Checks out

More than halfway through the decade, what are your favorite films each year so far? 20: Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets 21: Memoria 22: Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam 23: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World 24: Caught by the Tides 25: Retro

For OLD NEW I wrote about my most anticipated films of 2026: oldnew.substack.com/p/new-year-n...

Happy Sabres New Year!

My favorite moviegoing moment of 2025: going to the brainrot program Alice and I curated for @lightindustry.bsky.social

I am obviously biased but the Oscar Micheaux Complete Collection did not receive nearly as much attention as it deserved, so very happy Will gives it some shine here.

I have broken my silence on the best Blu-Rays of 2025. willsloan.substack.com/p/the-year-i...

Mood Machine by Liz Pelly

Please excuse my self indulgence as I post a thread of some of my pieces from 2025. I'll leave off reviews of new movies everybody else also wrote about and focus on the more valuable scholarship like my look at DANCIN' - IT'S ON! (2015).

Kaantha (2025): A swooning melodrama on the set of a 1950s Tamil horror movie that segues into a locked room murder mystery. Life and art literally bleed together in this Rivettean tragedy.

My first movie at the new BAM KBH cinema. John Turturro sat in front of me.

Book haul

I cried at the end of Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)

Here's a thread of some of my favorite writing this year at The Chinese Cinema. Starting with this final trip to the venerable Grand Illusion Cinema for a 35mm martial arts triple feature www.thechinesecinema.com/a-martial-ar...

i don't know if i've ever posted about the 1959 project here but it's one of my biggest accomplishments to date i think the1959project.com

I vowed to write more in 2025, so I started a substack titled Old New. This is a thread of my favorite pieces I was able to publish there and elsewhere.

My favorite albums of 2025

I dared to write about my Top Ten movies of 2025 over at OLD NEW: oldnew.substack.com/p/season-of-...

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For the record my home video release of the year is the Warner Archive Blu-ray of 7 Women.

Best Hair of 2025: Simon Yam in Never A Thief

The Sixth Robber (2025, dir. Chris Huo)

I produced 100+ home video releases distributed by @kinolorber.com in 2025 - here are some of my favorites:

Thieves Highway (2025, dir. Jesse V. Johnson): a grimy Western noir about bumbling cattle rustlers and an underpaid agriculture dept. agent trying to do his job. There used to be hundreds of resourceful B-movies like this every year. Now it feels like a miracle.

The theater manager said Thieves Highway was supposed to show at 5pm but it is listed incorrectly everywhere at 10pm. But he is cool so I get a private screening of Thieves Highway (2025)

I contributed some movie lists to the award-winning @screenslate.bsky.social. Use with caution.

My 2025 movie list for the fine folks at @filmcomment.com.web.brid.gy

Not one of you MFers told me there was a Kelsey Grammer Olga Kurylenko HOT AIR BALLOON thriller. You have all failed me — all except @robert-emmet.bsky.social.

Jesse V. Johnson on shooting Thieves Highway (opening today) in 12 days: www.cowboysindians.com/2025/12/aaro...

I'm in here with a shocking selection

Spoke with the VFX team on SINNERS, Michael Ralla and James Alexander, about regurgitative AI, Georges Méliès head replacements, and their cardinal rule of CG: "not making shit up": oldnew.substack.com/p/stake-land...

Thieves Highway is receiving one 5pm screening a day at the Kent Theatre. Might have to skip decorating the Christmas tree with my family but I think it will be worth it.

Epic January 27th releases from Warner Archive. Richard Fleischer, Raoul Walsh, and Don Siegel heaters. Perhaps a good time to support this label.

At OLD NEW I spoke with SINNERS VFX Supervisor Michael Ralla and VFX Producer James Alexander about the ineffable qualities of film, the proper uses of AI, and how they try "not to make shit up": oldnew.substack.com/p/stake-land...

On 12/12 Thieves Highway will receive a theatrical release at the Lumiere Cinema in Beverly Hills and the Kent Theater in Brooklyn. If you have ever waxed poetic about the theatrical experience...see you there.

Talked to the Mad Men special effects foreman holding the puke hose about all the (usually) invisible creative work that goes into making grounded TV feel real

That's it I'm starting my own movie studio.

Amazed to see Joe Dante and Jon Davison's samizdat found footage epic The Movie Orgy (1968) available on home video! Highest rec!: vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/...

HBD JLG. Here are his thoughts on the television show House (2004-2012) [from an intervew in Les Inrocks translated by Craig Keller]

For OLD NEW I interviewed the effervescent comedy producer @patrickcotnoir.bsky.social about working with me on the @kinolorber.com Blu-ray of I'm "George Lucas": The Connor Ratliff Story. We get into the weeds a bit: oldnew.substack.com/p/feeling-bl...

Hold all end of year lists! Jesse V. Johnson's Thieves Highway is out 12/12.

This is because of my interview with Paul W.S. Anderson they posted back in March. You are welcome Screen Slate!

Found my Bacurau tote. RIP Udo.

Joe Pantoliano, Steve Schirripa, and Caroline Aaron share the screen with Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, and Scott Norwood (!) in Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story (2025). Sadly no Vincent Gallo cameo.

I produced a cornucopia of home video delights for Cohen Media Group, @kinolorber.com, and @milestonefilms.bsky.social this week. Something for every taste. Check one out, won't you?

THE GRACE ALLEN MURDER CASE (Alfred E. Green, 1939): Seriously delightful. The kind of rock-solid light entertainment they just churned out effortlessly in the studio era. Gracie Allen is so funny and should be as fondly remembered as Groucho. Buy this!!!! kinolorber.com/product/the-...

So it begins...I posted my 5 Favorite DTV Action movies of 2025 over at Old New: oldnew.substack.com/p/dtv-action...

Jesse V. Johnson's Thieves Highway was released on VOD in the UK on 11/7 but still no sign of a US release. I am bereft.

As I prepare to pick up Alice from 4th grade Lion King rehearsals, loved this advice Theo Bleckmann gave her in our Old New interview: oldnew.substack.com/p/love-and-a...