The May 2025 Check-in

Not everything requires a big long post. Like everyone else I have enough plates spinning that things can wash over and leave with not enough to reflect on. What’s wild is (at least in terms of movies) my Letterboxd scores this month were on a waxing (as opposed to a waning) and it feels like I watch a bunch of good stuff. Funny how even the transcendently good stuff can sometimes only move the needle so much.

As such, here’s a check-in on what’s been running across my retinas lately and what I’ve got to look forward to.

The Studio

This is hardly the best thing of the past month, but it’s one I find myself giddy for when I get the notifications on Tuesday nights. Seth Rogan & Evan Goldberg’s new, highly stylized Apple TV+ series about freshly-promoted Hollywood mogul Matt Remick is extremely up my alley.

With shows like this, I’m always worried about the Barton Fink of it all. Leave it to Hollywood to be so self-obsessed and narcissistic that it thinks a wide audience will find navel-gazing about the industry as exciting and fascinating as they do. There are loads of examples of these sorts of stories: writers writing about writers, filmmakers making films about filmmaking… and a lot of them are really only good for those nerdy enough to care. It’s rarely meant for a general public.

What makes this work (at least… for those who’d want a show that’s this insular and quasi-masturbatory) is the way its form plays to its genre’s strengths. The show is produced almost entirely in long takes/masters/oners. The style is absolutely flashy and made for massive film nerds who’ve definitely lost hours to watching the best/longest oners on YouTube. But what makes it work is the way it feeds into the show itself. The cast is insanely good, with Rogan starring alongside Ike Barinholtz and Kathryn Hahn It allows the actors the freedom to be kinetic and active and present, which means the comedy is always running. There’s no sense of it getting chopped in editing or having the wrong amount of air. It works in the take, so it’s likely to work within the episode.

But the actor I keep coming back to is Chase Sui Wonders as Matt’s assistant-turned-junior-executive Quinn Hackett. I’ve not really seen her in anything before this (Bodies Bodies Bodies has been on my list since its release), but watching her hold her own when she’s regularly paired with these massive comedic talents is a joy to watch. The show also knows what it has in her, confident enough to puts the fifth episode’s narrative squarely on her back as she partakes in an ever-escalating war of petty attrition against Ike Barinholtz’s Sal. Before this, the show is basically the Matt show, but it taking the time to do a one-off like this is the sort of great episodic storytelling that easily gets lost in the era of the shriking episode order.

It’s a terrific show. Maybe not for everybody, but definitely for me. And I gotta say, if I had to pick a singular favorite joke, it’s the absolute football spike at the end of the Ron Howard-directed movie that’s the subject of Episode 3 “The Note.” It’s the final beat of his high-octane action crime-thriller, one that’s devolved so hard into a schmaltzy, saccharine, off-tone ending, that as Gordon Lightfoot’s “You Could Read My Mind” plays. We pan to the moon and “A Ron Howard Film” appears, the “O” of his last name encircling the celestial orb in the sky in a moment of cloying sentimentality.. That entire ending was so perfectly executed. I cackle whenever I think about the cherry that is that moon.

Satoshi Kon

In my ongoing efforts to catch up on Blank Check, the big hurdle for this month was getting through the films of Satoshi Kon. Normally four films would be super easy, even if they’re all anime films with subtitles. Of course, Blank Check decided (rightly) to include the Satoshi Kon anime series Paranoia Agent, which was a 13 episode series. By my math, it adds the equivalent of three films to the list. So it took me a bit of extra time I didn’t super account for.

I wrote a bit about him on Letterboxd, but I was not familiar with Satioshi Kon prior to this. I’d heard of his directorial debut Perfect Blue, but all the rest was new.

God he was a good filmmaker.

It’s easy to see why Perfect Blue (a creepy and eerie psychological thriller) is his most popular film. It’s an excellent exercise in tension, very different from the anime films I typically end up catching. Mostly, it’s a great introduction into Satoshi Kon’s strange take on magical realism, where it’s not exactly clear how the reality of the main character is actually functioning. So much of it feels like it stems from her own psychosis and fractured psyche, being put into increasingly harrowing situations by her decision to step away from her life as a pop idol and into the exploitative world of being an actress. So much in reality really is freaking her out that it makes parsing out the truth challenging. Fantastic film.

His later films aren’t quite so intense, or, not so relentlessly anyway. I spoke a bit on Letterboxd about Millennium Actress, but his use of the form to tell the story of one woman’s life via retrospection was at times impossibly profound. He figured out the perfect way to tell this exact story within the economy of a film that runs less than 90 minutes. The whole film explores the eponymous character through her art and how the art she performed reflected and informed the life she was living. Like Perfect Blue, it blurs the line between reality and fiction, though this time to make grander statements about existence and how small moments can inform entire lives. In the end, the entire film feels like Satoshi Kon licked his thumb and smeared it across the chalk drawing he just completed, blending the colors into something unique and special.

Because it’s not television, Paranoia Agent is easy to skip. That would be a mistake. It’s utterly gripping. I admit to being relieved that it was only 13 episodes (can’t imagine how he could have stretched it out longer), but each one functions within its own logic and its own rules as it plays within the space of this social quandry. The series explores questions about communal psyches and the sociological questions that come from mass culture. Watching that knotted tension percolate into the larger society made for a fascinating theory about how art can transform the lives of those whom it touches. The show itself is very strange and can get quite abstract at times, but in the end, he manages to bring it back around to something deeply personal. Normally when this happens, a grand thesis about societal earthquakes coming down to a single person’s trauma can feel like a letdown. But it’s so fully within the scope of what the show does and how it functions that it didn’t feel cheap like so many other conspiracy-based stories can.

And, of course, Paprika ended up being his swan song. Satoshi Kon died far too young at the age of 46, but he left us with a wonderful gift. Some four years before Inception he made a movie about the exploration and strangeness of dreams that opts for a thriller baked in mystery rather than Nolan’s choice of heists/crime. There’s plenty of room for both, but this plays with its concept by having alternate dream personalities and a more fantastical reality, far removed from Nolan’s more grounded aesthetic. Again, they’re different movies, but as a fan of Inception the two are so wonderfully complementary that I’d love to see them as a double feature (despite it being incredibly obvious). If you’re a fan of one, I’d recommend giving the other a shot.

As far as Satoshi Kon himself, I didn’t realize he’d died over a decade ago, not long after Paprika. It made that watch incredibly wistful and sad. He was such an incredible visionary, fascinated with the forms of his medium and the ways he could use them to best tell these seemingly simple stories by embellishing them in just the right way. He made them complex without making them complicated. I’m so, so glad I watched his stuff. It’s the sort of experience that makes me so grateful for Blank Check, and overly self-congratulatory about my insisting I watch every film they cover. Without them I’m sure I never would have gotten to these. My life would be poorer without it.

The Underground Railroad

I finished this Amazon Prime series this week after slowly working my way through it over the past few months. This was part of this year’s Criterion Challenge, and the original plan was to watch one episode every week for ten weeks. It didn’t really work out, but mostly I’m kicking myself for doing it weekly because Amazon released all the episodes in a single drop back in mid-2021.

The show itself was a bit of a struggle for that reason. Director Barry Jenkins didn’t really design the show for a weekly watch. It would probably have played better on a binge, where one-offs like the episodes focused on Ridgeway and Fanny Briggs feel like brief respites before we dive back into the hell of this situation. Normally, these diversions are wonderful, and they’re wonderful here. But when every episode feels like it’s skipping past grounding moments, it leaves the show feeling disoriented, like the diversions were the ramblings of someone so excited they forgot to circle back to the point.

Jenkins himself is a terrific director, and Moonlight is really one of the best films of the century so far. He brings everything to this, and it’s a gorgeous series, wonderfully realized across the board. There was also so much good throughout it that it’s easy to recommend for anyone who can stomach it.

That’s the issue, though. This is a series for those who can sit through it. Jenkins is unflinching and unromantic about anything involving the industry of slavery in Antebellum America. Just about every horrible thing you can imagine happens in this series and it weighs the piece down. I can only imagine the number this did on those who decided to watch it all in one go.

If I sound disappointed it’s because… I am. Considering the magical realism of its premise (in which there literally is an underground railroad with locomotives and everything) I was expecting something more… balanced. Or, at least, something that didn’t fall so easily into the trap of misery porn that black stories can often fall into. To Jenkins’s credit, he finds moments for wonder and beauty and true connection even in the face of horrific evil. Sure, those are fragile and easily snatched away by white supremacy, but it doesn’t remove those moments where they’re present.

Even outside of the content itself it did struggle from a lot of the streaming era’s pitfalls and those mixed with what felt like a Barry Jenkins who got free rein to do whatever he wanted. While notes can feel constricting and limiting artists’ visions, it’s important to get the feedback that will help the eventual audience. Whenever any Prime release comes out, it mostly feels like some hollow entity, like Amazon is trying to ape how to make something good as opposed to like… making something good. Compare it to HBO (the gold standard in this respect) and you can tell the difference. Whenever Amazon comes out with some hit it usually feels like it’s entirely by accident.

Hardly the tastemakers you’d want when you’re competing in these massive streaming wars.

Looking ahead…

Here’s some stuff coming up for me in the next month…

New Films:

• Thunderbolts*: I’ll ideally be seeing this in the next week or so. My expectations are a bit lower than they probably should be based on the hype, but we’ll see. Hopefully everyone else is right and not me. Planning to do a review here if it warrants it.
• Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning: Obviously I’m seeing this opening weekend. Thoughts will definitely follow.
• Another Simple Favor: This sequel just dropped on Amazon Prime. Paul Feig is usually hit or miss for me, but the original is a wonderful mystery thriller. So much fun. Looking forward to seeing if this does more of the same.

TV

• Andor: As I write this we’re halfway through the second (and final) season. It’s just as good as I was hoping and I can’t wait to see where it’s going. I’m a freaking evangelist for this show. Everyone should be watching.
• Hacks: Hacks is back! Last season ended in a good place and I’m excited to see where it goes from here. I know that the creative team has a five-year plan and an ending in mind. Curious to see how we get closer to there considering the new Debra/Eva dynamic coming off last season.
• The Last of Us: The new season started but I haven’t started it up yet. Really interested to see what it does and how it gets there.
• Doctor Who: This time next month the season will be over and we might be in a whole new world of whatever’s next. Lots of rumors flying around, few of them encouraging. We’ll see what happens, but I’m still excited for the rest of this run, however it ends up.
• Twin Peaks: The Return - Have been doing this basically one-a-week with my partner, following the release schedule as happened when it originally aired. We’re watching the last two episodes on Monday. God it’ll be sad to see it go.

Gardens of the Moon

• I’m seven chapters into this for the next Sandee Boyz1. It’s good to slip into the world of Malazan again. And there’s so many things I missed the first time! Gosh. I can’t wait to get even deeper.

Non-new films

• The films of Martin Brest: This is for Blank Check and I’m interested to see basically all the ones I haven’t seen (which are the ones you’d probably most assume I’d seen).
• The films of Kevin Costner: In my brain, Costner represents a macho swagger that I usually don’t go for. Putting him behind the camera is not something I’m looking forward to, but… hey. Maybe Dances with Wolves will be good.
• David Lynch shorts: Big stack of these to go through. Hoping to knock them out this weekend before finishing The Return. We’ll see how much weird I can take.
• Criterion Challenge: Only got through about half the Criterion I wanted this month. Catching up on Blank Check is making me fall behind here. Still, I have a bunch of exciting films lined up including The Magnificent Ambersons, Matewan, Evil Does Not Exist, House, and Hard-Boiled. Stoked for all those and a bunch more. Home stretch is in sight!

Thanks for reading!

Y’all the best and I love you tremendously. Hope you have a good May. Always open to recommendations for inputs into my eyeballs/earholes/both. Drop a comment if there’s something you want to hear about and I’ll try to squeeze it in!

Toodles!