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Song of the Day #6,449: ‘Mud Bug’ – Fuasi Abdul-Khaliq Sextet

Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2025
#9. The Phoenician Scheme

Wes Anderson is often criticized for making the “same movie” again and again. It’s a lazy attack that ignores how decidedly different the plots and settings of his movies are from each other. If you synopsize his films, you’ll find he has written about a wide range of topics with milieus that include a private school, a research ship, a 1930s hotel, a New Yorker-like magazine, a Japanese canine encampment, a New England island, and a train through rural India.

What those critics mean is that Anderson’s style doesn’t change, and for the most part that’s true. His early films were a bit looser than the diorama-like productions he has staged since 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. But even those efforts had the same fastidious composition, deadpan delivery, and ingenious production design of his later work.

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Song of the Day #6,448: ‘Sleigh Ride’ – The Ronettes

Over the next two weeks, I’ll offer up my top ten movies of 2025.

If you’ve been reading my posts from the last few weeks you probably have an idea of which films will show up here. But in these entries, I’ll spend a little more space explaining why.

Best Films of 2025
#10. Roofman

This movie stubbornly held on to the #10 spot on my year-end list even as more obvious options came and went. Sometimes you just want to see charismatic actors doing nuanced work in the service of a great yarn, and that is sadly in short supply these days.

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Song of the Day #6,447: ‘Kyrie’ – Mr. Mister

The week of March 1, 1986, found the pop rock band Mr. Mister atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Kyrie.’ It was their second #1 hit, following ‘Broken Wings’ a little more than a year earlier.

Those were the first two singles from the band’s sophomore album, Welcome to the Real World. The following single, ‘Is It Love,’ peaked at #8 in July of 1986, giving this album a presence on the chart for a few months short of two years.

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Song of the Day #6,446: “Love Machine Pt. 1′ – The Miracles

Throwing back to the week of February 28, 1976, we find the ‘Theme from S.W.A.T.’ by Rhythm Heritage atop the Billboard Hot 100. I wrote about that song during a week about instrumental tracks that reached #1. Paul Simon drops to #2 with his ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.’

In the third spot, a week before its sole week at #1, was The Miracles’ ‘Love Machine Pt. 1.’ The full seven minute album track was split into two parts with ‘Part 2’ serving as the B-side (it’s basically an extended coda).

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Song of the Day #6,445: ‘Train Dreams’ – Nick Cave

Counting down the movies from #15-11 on my 2025 year-end list, before getting to the top ten next week…

#15. Marty Supreme
A kinetic, confident rush of pure adrenaline that brings vivid life to 1950s New York and offers up a charismatic little shit for the ages in Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Mauser.

#14. Train Dreams
A beautiful, meditative film that depicts a man’s entire life through poetic and often heartbreaking images, but manages to end on a note of breathtaking uplift.

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