Unassigned: Barbarella[Blu-ray set], The Bat[Blu-ray], The Betrayal [Blu-ray], Blood Money: $10,000 Blood Money, Find a Place to Die, Vengeance Is Mine, and Matalo![four Blu-ray set], Borsalino[Blu-ray], Fighting Back[Blu-ray], Flaming Brothers[Blu-ray], I Start Counting [Blu-ray], The Iron-Fisted Monk [Blu-ray], Last House on the Left[Blu-ray/UHD set],Legend of the Eight Samurai[Blu-ray],Los Golfos,New First of Fury [Blu-ray], The Prodigal Son[Blu-ray], Savage Guns: Four Classic Westerns, Vol 3: El Puro, Four of the Apocalypse, I Want Him Dead, and Wrath of the Wind [four Blu-ray set], and That Most Important Thing: Love [Blu-ray].
Other than the review of a Kim Deal concert, I didn't do any music writing this year for the first time in a good long while, so it was harder than usual to keep up with new releases, even though I'm still on several mailing lists--and I didn't keep up with any reissues or collections at all.
To that end, respect to RVNG Intl. and 12XU for releasing some of my favorite albums this year, and a fond adieu to Trouble in Mind. Every year, I used to look forward to their new releases. It's a Herculean task to keep an independent act or label going in the post-millennial era, especially once the pandemic hit, so here's to all those who have.
Respect also to John Whitson, the founder of Holy Mountain Records, and a social media associate with whom I shared many friends. I regret that I never got to meet him in person. This year we also lost music writers Kaleb Horton and Charles Cross, completely unexpected passings of gentlemen with a lot left to say--in Cross's case, he was just getting started on a memoir. We'll not see the likes of any of these three again; each their own, unmistakable, much-missed individual.
Top 10
1. Lucrecia Dalt - A Danger to Ourselves (RVNG Intl.)
2. Nightmares On Wax - Echo45 Sound System (Warp)
3. Go Kurosawa - soft shakes (Guruguru Brain)
4. Marie Davidson - City of Clowns (DEEWEE/Because Music)
5. Little Simz - Lotus (AWAL Recordings)
6. Anika - Abyss (Sacred Bones)
7. Cate Le Bon - Michelangelo Dying (Mexican Summer)
8. Ty Segall - Possession (Drag City)
9. Melody's Echo Chamber - Unclouded (Domino)
10. Decius - Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience) (The Leaf Label)
Runners-up
11. The Hard Quartet - The Hard Quartet (Matador)
12. Wet Leg - Moisturizer (Domino)
13. Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film
(Duophonic UHF Disks/Warp)
14. Lily Allen - West End Girl (BMG)
15. Horse Lords & Arnold Dreyblatt FRKWYS Vol. 18:
Extended Field (RVNG Intl.)
16. Horsegirl - Phonetics On and On (Matador)
17. Taba - Satomimagae (RVNG Intl.)
18. L'eclair - Cloud Drifter (Innovative Leisure)
19. Clipse - Let God Sort Them Out (ROC Nation Distribution)
20. The Cords - The Cords (Slumberland)
Note: Call me crazy, but I'd rather watch Austin Butler run through the streets of New York City than Timothée Chalamet. To each their own, I guess, but Caught Stealing is also a great cat movie with a truly great cat in veteran performer Tonic, who plays Butler's "Bud."
21. John Glacier - Like a Ribbon (Young)
22. Sault - 10 (Forever Living Originals)
23. Pulp - More (Rough Trade)
24. Water Damage - Instruments (12XU)
25. Natural Information Society - Meditation (New Soil Limited)
26. Natural Information Society - Manifestation (New Soil Limited)
5. Mateus Alves and Tomaz Alves Souza - The Secret Agent (Lakeshore)
6. Johan Lenox - The Plague (OST) (Waxwork)
7. Anika and Jim Jarmusch - Father Mother Sister Brother (Sacred Bones)
Notable concerts (unranked): Ty Segall (solo acoustic) with King Tuff at the Neptune, Kim Deal with Morgan Nagler at the Neptune, Branford Marsalis live score for silent Armstrong biopic Louis at the Paramount, and Wet Leg with Mary in the Junkyard at the Paramount.
This was a weird year. Not in terms of the movies I watched--well, not really--but everything else.
I'm not normally one to tune out politics--especially since 2016--but for the entire year, I couldn't get away if I tried. Under the current regime, everything has been politicized; nothing is neutral, innocent, innocuous.
Everything that promotes free thought--public media (the field in which I've worked since 2009), non-billionaire-owned newspapers--must be destroyed, everything that discourages free thought--chatbots, professor watchlists, book-banning campaigns--must be encouraged.
It's hard not to feel pessimistic, but I took hope from movies in which characters sought answers, forged connections, fought oppression, and found ways to make a difference. Not superheroes, just regular people.
Maybe they made mistakes, maybe they failed, but at least they tried, and maybe they even inspired others to do the same. Not all of these films fit that description, but I'm grateful for those that did.
Left: Jafar Panahi at the Uptown on Nov 20.
Links lead to my reviews for Book and Film Globe (okay, just one), Letterboxd, Seattle Film Blog, and Video Librarian.
9.It Was Just an Accident / Un Simple Accident (Jafar Panahi )
10. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
Note: I was planning to review The Secret Agent, and prepared by catching up with Neighboring Sounds--the only Mendonça narrative I hadn't seen yet--but the new film screened for the press while I was at the New York Film Festival, and since I was only in town for five days, I missed it at NYFF, too. (I still need to catch up with Pictures of Ghosts.)
Runners-up
11.28 Years Later (Danny Boyle)
12.Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh)
13.Sentimental Value / Affeksjonsverdi (Joachim Trier)
14.Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)
15.Weapons (Zach Cregger)
16.The Ice Tower / La Tour de Glace (Lucile Hadžihalilović)
Right: Ira Sachs introduces Peter Hujar's Day at the Walter Reade Theater during this year's NYFF (I missed the premiere screening with Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall).
Note: Seattle Film Critics Society awarded Sorry, Baby with the inaugural SIFF Seattle Critics Award. In one of my last official acts as SFCS president, I announced the winner and nominees at the awards ceremony. In April, my board term will come to an end.
Note: 2025 was a comeback year of a kind for Richard Linklater, and I'm absolutely here for it. While walking back from the Hudson Theatre after catching a late-September performance of Waiting for Godot with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, I happened to walk past Sardi's, which is also on 44th Street, and where Blue Moon takes place. Only later did I find that Linklater filmed the entire film on a soundstage in Dublin. Sure fooled me!
31.Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson)
Right:WTO/99 director Ian Bell and producer Gavin P. Sullivan at Seattle Film Critics Society's PNW nominee screening at SIFF Film Center on Nov 23. The film went on to win our best documentary award.
Short:Shelly's Leg (Wes Hurley).
Animated feature: Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, and Jin Kuang).
2024 films (that I caught up with in 2025):A Different Man, Black Dog, The Flamingo(directed by former Northwest Film Forum head programmer Adam Sekuler, who co-edited Suburban Fury), Kneecap, and The Outrun.
Missed or haven't seen yet:BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, Caught by the Tides, Come See Me in the Good Light, Eddington, Father Mother Sister Brother, Is This Thing On?, Materialists, Megadoc, Mickey 17, My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow, Presence, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, Resurrection, and The Voice of Hind Rajab.
The rest (all categories):25 Cats from Qatar, Acolyte, The Actor, American Baby, Americana, April, Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day, Before the Call, Bird in Hand, The Balconettes, Born for You / Nata per Te, Boys Go to Jupiter, Braindead, Bring Her Back, Bugonia, Cat Town USA, Charlotte, 1994, Companion, ¡Corazón!, Crusty Fouler, Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued, Die My Love, The Disappearance of Miss Scott, Jacqueline du Pré: Genius and Tragedy, Duse, Eat the Night, Endless Summer Syndrome, Enigma, F1, The Fantastic 4: First Steps, A Fateful Weekend, Fidelity, Foreign Objects, Four Mothers, Freedom Renegade, Girl with Two Belly Buttons, Good Boy, Grafted,Great Absence, Hamnet, Holland, Honeyjoon, House of Dynamite, Jay Kelly, Jimmy in Saigon, Late Fame, The Life of Chuck, Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, Marty Supreme, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, Matt and Mara, Moonwater, More Beautiful Perversions, Mother, Couch, Naked Ambition, On a String, One to One: John & Yoko, Orwell: 2+2=5, Pavements, The Perfect Neighbor, Pescador, The Phoenician Scheme, Pooja, Sir, Predator: Badlands, A Private Life, Ready or Not, Revelations of Divine Love, Riefenstahl, Rope Tied, Roofman, Rose of Nevada, The Salamander King / The Long Shot, Samuel and the Light/ Samuel e a Luz, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, Séance, The Secret of Me, Sisi & I / Sisi & Ich, Softshell, Song Sung Blue, Songs of Black Folk,Superman, Suspended Time, Style: A Seattle Basketball Story, Sylvania, There, There, Times with God, Tripolar The Movie, The True Beauty of Being Eaten by a Tick, Twelfth Night, The Ugly Stepsister, Water Lilies, Ways to Traverse a Territory / Formas de Atravesar un Territorio, Vulcanizadora, We Want the Funk, Wolf Land, Wolf Man, The Womenists, and The Zodiac Killer Project.
Left: Director Mark Jenkin with cowriter/actor/partner Mary Woodvine at Walter Reade Theater during NYFF.
Note: For the second year in a row, I served on the judging committee for Cucalorus, though I wasn't able to make it to this year's festival--it conflicted with the SFCS screenings--and that's how I saw 32 of the films above. A few have distribution, but most don't. I'm thrilled that American Baby and Beautiful Evening, Beautiul Day made the cut, and reserve the right to rank them at a later date if they get a proper release.
Right: Steve De Jarnatt's Miracle Mile was the Grand Illusion Cinema/Scarecrow Video member screening for December at the NWFF. De Jarnatt was in attendance, and also introduced his short flm, Tarzana.
Note: Thanks to Kanopy, the Internet Archive, Tubi, and YouTube for making many of the above films available. All four sites were helpful while preparing for my horror western panel at Crypticon.
Television/streaming (unranked):All Creatures Great and Small S5, Anatomy of Lies, Apple Cider Vinegar, The Bear S4, Brokenwood Mysteries S1-2, Call Her Alex, Call the Midwife S14, Dept Q, Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, Dope Thief,Dying for Sex, Finding Your Roots S11, The Gold S1, The Good Karma Hospital S1-2, Grantchester S10, Law & Order S24, Law & Order: SVU S27, The Lowdown, Mad Men S6, The Marlow Murder Club, Miss Scarlet S5, NYPD Blue S6 - 7, Patience S1, The Pitt, Professor T S4, Reacher S1-3, Severance S2, Slow Horses S5, Task, Unforgotten S6, The White Lotus S3, Wolf Hall - The Mirror and the Light, and The Yogurt Shop Murders. Also, select episodes of Atlanta, The Good Place, and Sex Education.
Books (unranked):The Ax (Donald E. Westlake), Girl in a Band: A Memoir (Kim Gordon), King's Ransom (Ed McBain), and Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger (Dan Matovina). I also bought copies of memoirs from Neko Case, Tim Curry, Werner Herzog, and Lydia Yuknavitch, but haven't read any of them yet.
Top image from Screen Anarchy (One Battle After Another poster).
I write about popular music and film and the relationship between the two. I'm Irish on one side, Italian on the other—British on both. I was born in Connecticut (Far From Heaven), raised in Alaska (Northern Exposure), and I've lived in Seattle, WA (Trouble in Mind) since 1988.
