my new plaid pants: The Golden Trousers (25)

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Alright Here's an Oscar Post

This happens every year I think, even though I block it out -- it gets to be a few days before the Oscars and they're what my movie people are talking about so I "begrudgingly" do a post about them with some of my wishes or whatever. I rightly got called out for being an exhausting hypocrite when it comes to the Oscars the last time I whined about them -- I've tried to explain the attraction / repulsion thing they bring out of me before but really there's not much to it. It's a part of the movies, love it or hate it, so I just want them to do better if they must, so I can not feel attacked while watching the show in order to indulge my fetish for staring at pretty people wearing pretty clothes. Anyway it's probably clear by now who my favorites are -- I shared my own Top 20 List of 2025 back in January, after all -- but I rattled this off-hand on Bluesky earlier so I might as well share this, my ranking of the Best Picture nominees, here on the site itself:

2026 Best Pictures nominees, as ranked by me!

1. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

2. MARTY SUPREME

3. THE SECRET AGENT

4. BUGONIA

5. SENTIMENTAL VALUE

6. SINNERS

7. FRANKENSTEIN

8. HAMNET

9. TRAIN DREAMS

10. F1

No big surprises there! And it's a better batch of nominees than it is worse, so that's nice -- really any of those Top 6 winning Best Picture wouldn't rankle me. Because of the way awards conversations twist everything into shit I do have to keep reminding myself that for the most part I really like Sinners -- nowhere near how much I like its main competetion for this award (and I think we'll all be shocked if it's not either Sinners or OBAA that wins), and some of its champions have gotten real fucking annoying in the past few weeks. But it's a fun movie full of terrific performances and one for-the-record-books sequence. I get why people love it so much. So let's just enjoy the movies and all of those pretty people wearing pretty clothes for a few hours this weekend! The barn's burning down around us otherwise, might as well. Gimme your rankings in the comments!

Monday, January 26, 2026

My Top 20 Movies of 2025

A decade or so ago I was doing gigantic elaborate awards every year here that showcased my favorite movies, my favorite performances, and on and on and on... then the last decade happened and I'm lucky I can even get out of bed anymore y'all. Who has that kind of stamina anymore? Not I. Not I! So yes these things -- The Golden Trousers, as I've been calling them since 2007 -- have considerably narrowed. Tis what its. But I do feel proud that both last year and this year I'm at least getting these locked in before I dive head-long into fresh Sundance stuff, which basically marks the start of the next year of movies. (Apologies to the first three weeks of January releases every single year but you know what you did.) I'm doing Sundance virtually again this year but that still means that I'll be mostly off-line while I do that, so it's likely there'll be no MNPP for you starting this Wednesday, lasting about a week. And so it's best I get this done immediately, before that happens! Otherwise who knows, it could be months knowing me. So let us brush off these 2025 concerns as I head into the future, with one last glance back toward the past with 20 of '25s gifts and wonders....

My 20 Favorite Movies of 2025