Garrett Wareing's Four Favorites...

... includes my beloved Skinamarink??? As if I wasn't already crushing! Pull my heart right out, beautiful baby. Somebody should tell Skinamarink's director Kyle Edward Ball that he's got a possible star for his next movie here. Put the Skin in Skinamarink!

5 Off My Head: The Steak F*cker Supreme

The sparkling vampire with the iconic up-do is celebrating his 40th today! Robert Pattinson aka RPattz is officially the big four-oh, slamming the door not just on twinkdom but twunkdom altogether. Which is fine by me because our man just keeps getting better and finer with age -- I don't care what people are saying about his wonky accent work in The Odyssey or Dune 3 trailers, as I love it when Rob gifts us a wonky accent. Remember his Pepé Le Pew accent work in The King? 

You probably don't remember that, because who remembers The King. But it made that entire movie spring to life, it did, I swear. Anyway I'm going to finally give you my list of five favorite performances now, and lemme tell you -- one of these is a favorite quite possibly entirely due to the accent he adopts for the film. (I won't say which one and it could go for several but I mean one specifically and if you've seen it you probably know what one I'm talking about.) Anyway it took some time (I still haven't seen a single Twilight movie) but I've fully come to love it whenever Rob shows up anywhere -- I do miss...

... the interviews where he'd gleefully spit out nonsense like how he really jerked off on camera because he couldn't fake an oh-face for that Gay Salvador Dali movie he made, but I guess he's 40 now. He has to be semi-respectable. Hehe "semi." Well clearly turning 40 didn't make me grow up! Take note, Rob!

My 5 Favorite Robert Pattinson Performances

Connie, Good Time

"You know what, tonight, as fucked up as it is, I just think... I think something very important is happening and it's deeply connected to my purpose. And I think that you are somehow connected to it as well. I mean, do you feel me at all? Or do I just sound like a total faggot?"

Thomas, The Lighthouse

"Goddamn yer farts! You smell like piss, you smell like jism, like rotten dick, like curdled foreskin, like hot onions fucked a farmyard shit-house. "

Jackson, Die My Love

"Maybe if I spend a little less time with my hands down my pants and a little more time writing, maybe I'd write something, maybe."

Monte, High Life

"The sensation of moving backwards even though we are moving forwards, getting further from what's getting nearer, sometimes I just can't stand it."

Samuel, Damsel

"Regular horses don't have names,
they're just, uh, you know, regular."

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Runners-up: Mickey 17, The Lost City of Z,
Cosmopolis, Maps To the Stars 

 So what are your favorites?

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!

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

20 -- SIRAT

19 -- AFTER THE HUNT

-- Read my review here! -- 

18 -- LURKER

-- Read my review here! -- 

17 -- PETER HUJAR'S DAY

-- Read my review here! -- 

16 -- WAKE UP DEAD MAN

15 -- THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME

-- Read my review here! -- 

14 -- BLACK BAG

-- Read my review here! -- 

13 -- DUST BUNNY

-- Read my review here! -- 

12 -- THE SECRET AGENT

11 -- MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART 1

10 -- SENTIMENTAL VALUE

9 -- GRIFFIN IN SUMMER

-- Read my review here! -- 

8 -- BUGONIA

-- Read my review here! -- 

7-- THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE

6 -- THE HISTORY OF SOUND

-- Read my review here! -- 

5 -- NO OTHER CHOICE

-- Read my review here! -- 

4 -- PILLION

-- Read my review here! -- 

3 -- PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF

-- Read my review here! -- 

2 -- MARTY SUPREME

-- Read my review here! -- 

1 -- ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

-- Read my review here! -- 

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I have like 20 runners-up but fuck it, 

I'm done. Goodbye forever, 2025! 

John Waters Rams 2025 Down Our Throats

Fuck off, National Board of Review -- the only Top 10 Movies of 2025 list that matters is here to fist us in our brains! Head on over to Vulture to read John Waters' ten favorite movies of 2025 -- it's got everything from Ari Aster's latest to the new Final Destination movie, and those are just his first two choices! Also per usual his list is like 50% stuff I haven't seen even though I see so many fucking movies every year -- John always sees more! The new Bruno Dumont movie and the one called Room Temperature both sound like must-finds to me. Anything stand out to you people?

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 2008

Now that the festival rush of Fall 2025 is behind me I've been feeling the nagging sensation to check back into our long long too-long running series of "Siri Says" posts -- the last one I did was back in January! These posts have gotten increasingly sporadic as the remaining years have dwindled -- when I checked what's left this morning I saw there were only five years out of one hundred left for us to do. Do what, you ask since it's been so long since I've done one? Well the idea is that I had my phone choose a random number between 1 and 100 and then I picked my five favorite movies from the year that corresponds. Once we got down to the teens the process changed a little because it took too long for Siri to get to a number I hadn't already done, so I wrote the remaining years on slips of paper and picked one with my eyes shut. And that's how we ended up with the year 2008 today.

It's the last year of the Aughts we had left to do -- another decade crossed off! And this is another year when I was actively blogging here at MNPP so there's documentation of my thoughts on 2008's movies already -- click here to see what my favorite movies were at that moment. My list now, seventeen years later, has changed a little! Not entirely, but some. So let's get to it. I give you...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 2008

Synecdoche, New York

(dir. Charlie Kaufman)

-- released on October 24th 2008 --

Let the Right One In 

(dir. Tomas Alfredson)

-- released on December 12th 2008 --

In Bruges

(dir. Martin McDonagh) 

-- released on February 29th 2008 --

The Fall 

(dir. Tarsem Singh) 

-- released on May 30th 2008

Lake Mungo 

(dir. Joel Anderson) 

-- released on June 18th 2008 --

-----------------------------------------

Runners-up: Wall*E (dir. Andrew Snanton), The Wrestler (dir. Darren Aronofsky), Wendy & Lucy (dir. Kelly Reichardt), Mister Lonely (dir. Harmony Korine), Funny Games U.S. (dir. Michael Haneke), The Chaser (dir. Na Hong-jin), Timecrimes (dir. Nacho Vigalondo), Happy-Go-Lucky (dir. Mike Leigh), [REC] (dir. Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza)...

...  Teeth (dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein), Encounters at the End of the World (dir. Werner Herzog), The House Bunny (dir. Fred Wolf), The Ruins (dir. Carter Smith), Doomsday (dir. Neil Marshall), Cloverfield (dir. Matt Reeves), Hunger (dir. Steve McQueen), Reprise (dir. Joachim Trier)

What are your favorite movies of 2008?

Newfest Is Calling From inside The House

Yesterday when I shared the line-up for the Brooklyn Horror Fest here in NYC I mentioned that the next several weeks are about to get psycho-nuts on me with that fest, NYFF and NewFest all barreling toward me -- well here we are less than 24 hours later and NewFest has dropped their line-up, proving my point. But thre's no saying no to any of these fests as they cover all sides of me -- fancy-man movie-lover with NYFF, horror hound with BHFF, and fag supreme at NewFest. I am a rich tapestry! Anyway you can check all of NewFest's line-up right here but as I did for BHFF I'm gonna narrow it down, simplify simplify simplify, and give you the titles I personally got ants in my pants about.

5 NewFest Movies To Get My Gay On

Night Stage -- Per usual you'll always get me at "queer erotic thriller." And the last time I saw one was Femme and that worked out great! This one from Brazil is about a rising politician with a penchant for public sex. TELL ME MORE.

The Chronology of Water -- Written and directed by Kristen Stewart! This premiered at Cannes and I didn't hear much about it but then I tend to ignore Cannes as much as possible. It stars the great Imogen Poots (who I just saw in person last night at that Hedda screening) in the true-story of a swimmer who fell in love with literature. Yes, books! It's crazy! (The movie also co-stars Tom Sturridge, yum.)

Blue Film -- I mentioned this movie on Bluesky a couple of weeks ago when I first read about it as it screened in Edinburgh; by all accounts a deeply provocative film about a camboy spending the night with an older man (Reed Birney) with pedophilic fantasies this movie sounds legit dangerous in a way movies (and art) should be more often. Can't wait for this.

Only Good Things -- Another Brazilian movie! Bless the Brazilians. This one's from Dry Wind director Daniel Nolasco, which is all I really needed to know -- Dry Wind was terrific (and very very sexy). This one's a love story set in the 1980s. (And looks very very sexy.) 

Fucktoys -- The only one of these movies that I've posted here at MNPP about already, when back in March I shared the teaser trailer for it because it co-stars François Arnaud looking like that above. It debuted at SXSW then and everything I read about it made it sound very up my alley. John Waters gets name-checked by its director (and lead actor) Annapurna Sriram a lot! 

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NewFest 2025 runs from October 9th through 21st, both here in person in NYC and also online! So make sure you check their website to see what you can see on this here World Wide Web if you're outta town. And there were many many other titles announced today so make sure you check the whole line-up, top to proverbial bottom. You can buy badges right now; individual tickets go on sale September 15th.