by

Song of the Day #6,444: ‘Blue Moon’ – Frank Sinatra

Today and tomorrow I’ll list the movies at #11-20 on my 2025 year-end list, before getting to the top ten next week.

#20. Nouvelle Vague
Richard Linklater continues to cement his legacy as one of the most versatile and fascinating film directors. This loving recreation of the French New Wave movement is one of his most audaciously creative works yet.

#19. Rental Family
I just watched this film so it might benefit from recency bias, but nevertheless I found it incredibly sweet and heartwarming. Director Hikari does a beautiful job portraying modern Tokyo in ways both expected and unexpected.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #6,443: ‘Lose My Mind’ – Dan Toliver feat. Doja Cat

Over the next two weeks I’ll count down my ten favorite movies of 2025, and tomorrow and Friday will be a quick recap of the films sitting at the 11-20 spots. So I figured I’d spend today listing some of the titles that surprisingly fell outside of my top 20.

I don’t dislike any of these films — I like some of them quite a bit — but for one reason or another they didn’t resonate with me as much as I expected based on their pedigree.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #6,442: ‘Punkrocker’ – Teddybear

Only three of the 20 highest-grossing domestic releases of 2025 weren’t based on some sort of existing franchise, whether it was a previous film, a comic book, or (in the case of F1: The Movie) a popular motorsport league. That’s up from two in 2024, so I guess an optimist would call that progress.

The three outliers holding the torch for original cinema are Sinners, Weapons, and The Housemaid (which was based on a book, to be fair, but it’s not exactly The Fantastic Four). Let’s celebrate the horror genre for putting butts in seats for new material.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #6,441: ‘Ain’t That a Kick in the Head’ – Dean Martin

This week I’ll continue my coverage of 2025 at the movies, rounding up some of the titles that didn’t make my top ten. But first, I wanted to post about an interesting trend I noticed in last year’s films: actors playing multiple roles in the same movie.

At first it was just a few high-profile examples, but the more movies I saw the more this emerged as a real pattern. Eventually, I identified at least 16 actors doing double (or even triple) duty. I’ve broken them out by category below.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #6,440: ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin” – Nancy Sinatra

Nancy Sinatra owned the #1 spot the week of February 22, 1966, with her anthemic ode to getting the hell out of there, ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.’

The song was written by Lee Hazelwood, who intended to record it himself, but Nancy convinced him it would sound better coming from a woman. The song’s title was inspired by a line spoken by Nancy’s father, Frank, in the 1963 film 4 for Texas.

Continue reading →