Steven Soderbergh’s BLACK BAG (2025) is a slick, smart spy thriller featuring a cool, calculating, almost kinky Nick-and-Nora dynamic between stars Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. It’s full of misdirects and reversals, but plays fair all the way through. Just a solid, entertaining film.

ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959) is a noir gem. It has a ruthlessly efficient script that pulls no punches. It has great acting from Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte. It has atmospheric direction that makes you feel the cold of upstate New York. And it has a gloriously on-the-nose explosive ending.

The last few years have seen the largest wave of immigration in American history. All those images we carry in our heads about people arriving at Ellis Island — we just surpassed that. Crime went down. Real wages went up. This is a fake problem. Enough is enough.

Nuremberg trials for ICE is the moderate position

MICKEY 17 (2025) is beautifully filmed, funny, and thoughtful. I liked the gross dark humor. I liked that many of the characters had more heart than expected. I really liked the way Bong Joon Ho raised the stakes with a philosophical question. And I loved the running joke of the printer glitches.

ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL (2024) tells the story of a young woman who comes upon the corpse of her uncle, and is dragges back into a family that claims unity, but seems more preoccupied with status, money, and keeping secrets. Nyoni’s camera takes in everything with sociological detail. Compelling.

In Jia Zhangke’s China, money and violence are inextricably linked. A TOUCH OF SIN (2013) tells four stories, joined in brief transitions, of those links. Zhangke places desperation and violence against a backdrop of unrestrained growth and inequality. I’m surprised he got away with making it.

MIAMI VICE (2006) is Michael Mann’s remake of his revolutionary TV pilot. It lacks the neon colors and nostalgia of the 1980s TV version, but manages to hit every story beat of the series as Rico and Sonny (NOT Crocket and Tubbs) bring down the head of a large drug network.

THE NIGHTINGALE (2018) is a revenge thriller set in colonial Tasmania. Director Jennifer Kent is unflinching in showing what colonization did to Tasmania, its indigenous people, and the convicts who settled there. It’s a captivating film that I’m not sure I can stomach watching again.

In THE GLEANERS AND I, director Agnes Varda puts together a documentary on the art of gleaning, finding value in others’ trash, be it crops (the original meaning) or actual trash sites. It’s meditative, incisive, and ends with a story that could have been a documentary all its own.

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME (2025)follows an arms dealer and his daughter, who is choosing between the family business and the convent. It’s by Wes Anderson, so it’s brightly-colored, whimsical, exquisitely shot, and well-acted. I always think I’m over Anderson, but he does what he does really well.

THUNDERBOLTS* (2025) was my daughter’s favorite film last year. I can see why. It’s got good action, sharp characters, a great metaphor for mental health struggles, and a third act that stresses being willing to ask for help instead of fighting. Plus, Florence Pugh.

DHS invading Minnesota in winter

This is another reason why robust prosecutions of lawbreakers in the Trump administration will be important: to signal to allies and partners (and domestic audiences) that MAGA isn't going to return every 4 to 8 years. You do that by putting a bunch of people in prison forever.

Stuntman/action director Sammy Hung’s late career movie THE BODYGUARD (2016) is the story of an aging tough guy battling dementia who tries to save a young girl from a local crime lord. It’s surprisingly affecting, but has great action sequences and a funny script. (“He was like Kung Fu Panda …”)

THEY LIVE (1988) is an angry, urgent social message film dressed up with 80s action tropes and 50s sci fi details, energized by an insistent, atmospheric score, laced with deadpan humor, and elevated by great performances from Roddy Piper and Keith David. John Carpenter did good.

WAKE UP, DEAD MAN (2025) is Rian Johnston’s latest Benoit Blanc whodunnit. It’s funny and twisty, but also surprisingly thoughtful about the Catholic Church in the 2020s. Craig and co-stars are, of course, great.

Spike Lee remakes Akira Kurosawa in HIGHEST 2 LOWEST (2025). He takes the premise--criminals go to kidnap a CEO's son, get his poorer friend instead, but still demand the CEO pay the ransom--but keeps the focus on the CEO instead of following the detectives. Good thing the CEO is Denzel Washington.

KILLER OF SHEEP (1978) is a subtle character study of an overworked Black man raising a family and trying to stay out of trouble in LA. Burnett frames shots to create small mysteries, and leavens all the dialogue and interaction with a deep understanding of these specific people, so it’s never dull.

LOS ANGELES: ICE is prowling Silverlake & the hills

LAKE MUNGO (2008) is a faux documentary about a missing girl in Australia that might be haunting her family. It weaves a story of grief, trauma, and unreliable narrators. Like the best ghost stories, it sets up a situation where learning there’s actually a ghost would be a relief.

The animating principle of representational democracy is to protect the rest of us from the whims of deranged rich people, be they kings or oligarchs. Everything else is wainscoting.

SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE (2025) is a note-perfect dad film. It's got a simple premise, a lone hero, terrible bad guys, increasingly ludicrous situations and kills (bulletproof motorcyclists! fighter planes! a train full of soldiers!), and a dollop of "dudes rock" at the very end, as a treat.

Look for the helpers. Faced with evil, watch for the decent people standing against it.

I am impeaching Secretary Kristi Noem, who is an incompetent leader and a disgrace to our democracy. She wreaked havoc in the Chicagoland area and has brought her reign of terror to Minneapolis. One of her rogue ICE agents shot and killed an innocent woman today. It must come to an end.

I'm biased, because I know some of the people involved, but ZOOTOPIA 2 (2025) was one of my favorite first watches last year. It's CHINATOWN, but for kids! The story is surprising, the voice acting is great. The only way to improve it would be to add more Frantic Pig.

Johnnie To's THROW DOWN (2004) was a delight: a sweet, funny movie about a washed-out judo champ. It showed a deep understanding of the lows of addiction and the highs of being the best, and it had compassion for every one of its characters. I spent the last act with a big, stupid grin on my face.

PARIS, TEXAS (1984) is a heartbreaker of a film. There's much to praise—the acting, the direction, the cinematography, the score, the writing—but it comes down to the feeling it left me with at the end: sad, but hopeful for the five main characters, who went through so much and weren’t done yet.

James Gunn's SUPERMAN (2025) gets the character like few films do. It knows that what makes him interesting is not his powers, but his need to save everyone. It also gets Lois Lane, who is supportive, but smart and skeptical. And it gets the audience, which knows how comic book movies work.

THE ASCENT (1977) follows two Soviet partisans who are captured while foraging for their comrades. Larisa Shepitko directs the hell out of it, from the opening shot of partisans camouflaged by the snow to the harrowing last five minutes. Equal parts great pulp and high art.

In EXILED (2006), two groups of hit men converge on a gang member who's returned to Hong Kong; then the five of them team up to save him from the boss who wants him dead. Lots of gorgeously-filmed violence ensues. But so does a fierce, fun camaraderie. Dudes rock.

SINNERS (2025) was my favorite film of 2025. Ryan Coogler managed to touch on racism, the 1930s, cultural appropriation, and the need to be creative in a single, coherent story. And then, because he's that good, he made it a vampire showdown with some of the coolest, showiest visuals of the year.

I actually had multiple people over the holiday break ask me to keep doing my little “movies I liked” capsule reviews. So I’m going to inflict them on you all until I forget. For January, my favorite “first watches” of 2025. (I saw it for the first time; I really liked it.)

Shit.

reminding you that you’re a movie lover whether you logged 1 film ten times or 500+ films this year. it doesn’t matter the genre or the length of the film. or whether you watched them in a theater, at home or on a plane. you’re a movie lover and we love you 🧡 💚 💙

Speaking of typos, someone should direct Ms. Dhillon to U.S. v. Murphy, 406 F.3d 857, 859 n.1 (7th Cir. 2005), aka the greatest footnote in appellate court history. scholar.google.com/scholar_case...

This is really good …

Every time you're about to use the word "woke," take a second to ask yourself if you're using it: 1) How Black civil rights leaders would use it Or 2) How racist people that make fun of Black civil rights leaders, and want to roll back civil rights, use it Try not to do "2."

This happens in law, too. Our appellate group struggles with it on certain issues where overruled or bad points keep getting brought forward by citations that don’t trace points back to their source. I’ve heard it called “zombie precedent” and “well-settled error.”

Amen. No notes.

As founding president of the American Society for Addition by Subtraction, I declare a moratorium on these overused and lame terms: / “walk and chew gum at the same time” / “An abundance of caution” / “authentic” / “epic” / “seismic” / “game changer” / “GOAT” / “leafy suburb” / “warfighter” 1/🧵

To make this concrete: I lived in England for five years under the NHS. My taxes were higher, to pay for the NHS. My take-home pay was higher, because health insurance was not deducted from my check. And I spent less, because ALL medical services were free, and every prescription was £7.80.

the right attitude

Remember, Mr. Rogers' original comment was intended for CHILDREN. Children need comfort, and their power is obviously very limited. We're adults. We do need comfort, but we also need to take action. And what you'll find is the more you do, the better you'll feel. Look for the helpers and join them.

The fact that we have super wealthy and extremely stupid people trying to set themselves up as new nobles has made historical nobility, which I only know from books, far more real to me. These people were not smart, they did not rule well, and rigid hierarchies of domination are very bad.

Yes. No great victim advocacy has ever been written in iambic pentameter. m.youtube.com/watch?v=txLp...

So, so dark. So, so funny.

Historian here OTD a day that will live in infamy we need to point out that the reconstruction of Japan and Germany proved to be successful after WWII but the Reconstruction of the misbegotten Confederacy was brutally overthrown. We still live with the legacy of that history in the United States.

Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel, Disney Animated or Pixar.