Close a door, open a window.

As ever, Conan O’Brien did the best he could, but between a number of the wins and a number of the quote-unquote "comedy" routines, last night's Oscars were something of a shit show. I actually kind of wish I skipped over to "American Dad". Weird to think they aired a new episode last night and despite my worries about being back on the Fox farm after seeing the big city lights of TBS, this new season is crushing it. 

But there is still joy in Mudville, folks. The unemployment situation I was staring down the barrel of has resolved itself. Paying off my bills for the foreseeable future and - more importantly - being able to get a new car to replace a rusted out shit box whose brakes could literally go at any second...well there’s only one thing to say:

Ah, to have 'Oscar-winner' in front of your name...

Less than a week to go, so I may as well get to work. Last year, I went 7 out of 23. I'm sure I can do better this year.

Picture: Again with the ten nominees. That's the way it is, I suppose.
What would I have added to the category: Mickey 17 and Weapons.
My pick: Sinners, if only to convince Warner Bros. that stories made by, for and about people of color have worth, something their (possibly, but hopefully not) imminent bosses will not embrace even with loaded guns pointed at them.

Actor: No matter how right or wrong Chalamet's comments may have been, they do not erase the performance of his career. Period. There is a strong chance at a sympathy vote for Jordan. Di Caprio was good, but...he already has an Oscar. Didn't see The Secret Agent or Blue Moon.
Who would I have added to the category: Brendan Fraser (Rental Family), Paul Walter Hauser (The Luckiest Man in America), Robert Pattinson (Mickey 17) and Channing Tatum (Roofman)
My pick: Michael B. Jordan (but only if people are as sick of Chalamet as Twitter claims they are)

Actress: Didn't see a single one of these movies, so I have no dog in this fight...but unlike opera and ballet, I do care about cats. Eat shit, Jessie Buckley*.
Who would I have added to the category: Kirsten Dunst (Roofman), Chase Infiniti (One Battle After Another) and Sophie Thatcher (Companion. Yes, she was that damn good.)
My pick: Rose Byrne

Supporting Actor: Perhaps, the most difficult category of the night. Haven't seen Skarsgard's work and Penn was fine, but his wasn't even the best performance nominated for this movie in this category. That leaves three. Dangit. Couldn't we get a tie for this?
Who would I have added to the category: Mark Ruffalo in Mickey 17. I am dead fucking serious. Also, Jeffrey Wright for Highest 2 Lowest and Michael Cera (for The Phoenician Scheme, to be specific).
My pick: Delroy Lindo.

Supporting Actress: I don't know. Maybe, I should see Sentimental Value one of these days. It must be something if it got two nominations in this category.
Who would I have added to the category: Gwyneth Paltrow (Marty Supreme; for real, I am gobsmacked she was left out), Regina Hall (One Battle After Another; likewise) and Glenn Close (Wake Up, Dead Man).
My pick: Wunmi Mosaku.

Director: Another solid lineup.
Who would I have added to the category: Honestly, I can't think of anyone.
My pick: Ryan Coogler.

Original Screenplay: It Was Just an Accident sounds rather depressing and Blue Moon sounds like a filmed play topped off with cutesy cameos. Seriously, what went wrong here?
What would I have added to the category: Rental Family and Weapons. There. Much nicer.
My pick: Sinners (Much as I enjoyed Marty Supreme, it's about an unlikable schlemiel stepping on everyone in his path. I don't know if voters in this category would respond to this.)

Adapted Screenplay: Generally, a pretty expected lineup. Still, being nominated should be prize enough. Adapting someone else's material cannot be easy.
What would I have added to the category: Almost enough to fill five more slots. Highest 2 Lowest. Mickey 17. Roofman. The Roses. 
My pick: One Battle After Another

Cinematography: Nothing here to object to, I think.
What would I have added to the category: I think Weapons was well-shot.
My pick: Marty Supreme

Editing: Not really anything to say here, which is unfortunate given that I hope to edit the movies I make. What can I say?
What would I have added to the category: Highest 2 Lowest. Also, Roofman. God's sakes, it deserved something.
My pick: Sinners

Production Design: Nothing to argue here. Good list, if somewhat predictable.
What would I have added to the category: Mickey 17 and The Running Man. And Fantastic Four. That nomination should've been a slam dunk.
My pick: Frankenstein

Costume Design: Pretty solid grouping of nominees, though I still think the Avatar nod is some bullshit.
What would I have added to the category: I don't know. Maybe, The Housemaid? Oh, wait. The Phoenician Scheme. Shit, everyone forgot that movie.
My pick: Sinners

Original Score: Of course, I'm gonna have an opinion on this. Very middlebrow a lineup. That's the problem with this category and film scoring as a medium today: Nobody wants to even attempt coloring outside the lines for fear of getting into trouble. If no one experimented in film music, Goldsmith's Planet of the Apes would be merely decent instead of memorable and awesome (and, hey, it was an Oscar nominee!)
What would I have added to the category: Nicholas Britell's Jay Kelly (because the music was that damn good) and Brian Tyler's Nuremberg (because he's long overdue major award recognition). Outside the official shortlist, there's Michael Giacchino's The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Howard Drossin's Highest 2 Lowest (seriously, you haters can all blow me) and Alan Silvestri's Play Dirty. A brand new category unto itself.
My pick: Frankenstein

Original Song: Just another group of songs. Unlike years past, though, I'm struggling to think of a tune that was unfairly cheated here.
What would I have added to the category: See previous statement.
My pick: "Golden", I guess.

Animated Feature: As of last weekend, I saw all five nominees. I genuinely can't remember the last time that's happened before watching the ceremony. The lineup is pretty strong, but...
What would I have added to the category: The Dreamworks features Dog Man and The Bad Guys 2 to sit in for the somewhat pretentious foreign entries. And how did The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie and Predator: Killer of Killers escape any notice?!
My pick: KPOP Demon Hunters. The hype is real, y'all.

Visual Effects: What I wouldn't give for a nominee in this category that didn't rely primarily on CGI. I know it could never happen at this point, but there's no law against dreaming...yet.
What would I have added to the category: What wouldn't I have added? Captain America: Brave New World, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Final Destination: Bloodlines, How to Train Your Dragon, M3GAN 2.0, Mickey 17, A Minecraft Movie, Paddington in Peru (I had to look it up. None of these movies have ever been nominated in this category. Open the schools!), Predator: Badlands, Superman, Thunderbolts* and Until Dawn. Oh, and Snow White, just to troll people.
My pick: Jurassic World: Rebirth, if only to throw off any haters (you know who you are) upset at a potential Sinners streak.

Make-Up and Hairstyling: Pretty solid lineup here, even if I've never heard of one of these movies and couldn't sit through another even if you paid me. I'll leave you to figure out what's what.
What would I have added to the category: Weapons. For real, how do you beef that? Oh, and The Toxic Avenger. Yes, really.
My pick: It's got to be Frankenstein, full stop.

Casting: The first year for this category. Sucks that it had to be introduced the year after Saturday Night. For real, that was spot-on.
What would I have added to the category: Companion, How to Train Your Dragon, The Life of Chuck, The Luckiest Man in America, Mickey 17, Roofman and Weapons. 
My pick: Sinners

Animated Short Subject: "Retirement Plan". It just sounds nice.

Live-Action Short Subject: Didn't really watch any of these, so I looked up the plot summaries online. "The Singers" sounds sweet enough, if lightweight, but among the others, the least malign of them - "A Friend of Dorothy" - would be my choice.

Documentary Short Subject: "Perfectly a Strangeness" and no, I will not elaborate.

Documentary Feature: No John Candy: I Like Me. This show is a farce. It seems the trend is current events, but I would think that they'd award something a bit uplifting. Come See Me in the Good Light.

International Feature: Sirat sounds the most interesting (and least depressing) of the bunch.

Sound: F1, if only because it's the least insulting category for the film to be nominated in.

And that's my personal ballot. Hell, I'm not gonna have a job in a few weeks. Make me an Academy member! Watch movies? Fuck yeah! That's a living!

* - This comment was made in jest. I'm sure she's a lovely person, overall.

Oh, yeah, the Oscars.

Hey. Better late than never.

- With the newly added Best Casting category, Sinners is the most nominated (16) movie of all time. It’s very rare that my favorite movie of the year is so honored, so there’s extra reason to celebrate.

- Damn shame that both of DreamWorks' animated features were shut out. Either The Bad Guys 2 or Dog Man would've been a worthy nomination. Arco was fine, but a little too derivative of E.T. and Hayao Miyazaki's oeuvre to really hit the mark.

- After so many potential nominees for horror movies get passed over, Amy Madigan scores one for Supporting Actress for Weapons. I suppose it was asking a little too much to have the film be nominated in categories beyond that, but, hey, it is what it is. Credit where credit is due: it was a terrific performance.

- Though not the lineup I'd have chosen, this year's Original Score category is perfectly cromulent; no Babylons or Social Networks to offend the ear.

- Speaking of music, apparently that is the same Nicholas Pike nominated for Best Original Song that works with Mick Garris. Who knew?

- A whole lot of first-time nominees for acting: Jessie Buckley, Rose Byrne, Jacob Elordi, Elle Fanning, Michael B. Jordan, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Delroy Lindo, Wagner Moura, Wunmi Mosaku, Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard and Teyana Taylor.

- Some unfortunate snubs to speak of: Highest 2 Lowest, Mickey 17 (yes, I'm serious), The Phoenician Scheme and Rental Family.

- Okay, did Avatar: the Thingy of Whatsis honestly get a nod for Costume Design? A lot of those outfits were created in a computer and this is really in contest with designers and their teams who made outfits by hand? Paul Zastupnevich wept.

- March 15th. Beware the Ides of March.

Deal of the Century (Arthur B. Rubinstein)

Arms dealer Eddie Muntz (Chevy Chase) has been doing pretty well, but an opportunity falls into his lap for the score of a lifetime: a military plane to a South-of-the-border country...with a few bugs. No one seems to like this movie, least of all its star and director (William Friedkin!!!), but while it's unlikely to be confused with Dr. Strangelove, this satire manages some hearty laughs.

Between this, WarGames and Blue Thunder, Arthur B. Rubinstein seemed to be the go-to composer for 1983's ‘military hardware gone berserk’ movies. (Do you think he’d have also done Best Defense if it hadn’t pushed back to 1984?) Rubinstein creates a number of fascinating elements, from a 'doubt' motif for Gregory Hines' born-again pilot (“Hobbling to the Rescue”, “Bickering”) to a slinky love theme (“End Credits”) as well as flavorful, exotic cues (“San Miguel”) and a quietly noble march theme for Chase's Eddie (“Ed's Got a Plan”, “Finale”).

Deal of the Century
composed & conducted

by

Arthur B. Rubinstein

1. Main Title 0.15
2. Tankbuster Ad 0.47
3. San Miguel 1.15
4. “Oh my, oh my.” 1.45
5. Successful Sale 0.28
6. “...a sorry thing.” 0.19
7. Bearing Arms 1.20
8. The Peacemaker 0.50
9. Ed's Got a Plan 0.33
10. The Airport 0.57
11. Babysitting 1.17
12. Not Under Control 0.36
13. Harold's Affairs 1.38
14. “I believe you.” 1.28
15. Ray Reminisces 0.48
16. Bickering 0.26
17. “A little touch-up.” 0.39
18. Regret 0.10
19. Cram Session 0.44
20. Good Night 0.34
21. Beddy-Bombs 1.00
22. Re-Gifting 0.21
23. Arms for Peace ‘84 0.20
24. “Shine” 2.50
25. A Gift to Kathy 0.50
26. Making a Date 1.26
27. Baptism 0.33
28. Hobbling to the Rescue 1.06
29. Peacemaker Chase 2.34
30. Planes in Flames/Finale 1.29
31. End Credits 1.51

Here's the “End Credits” cue:

The film music of 2025.

Another year of composers sticking it to the man and writing memorable film music. Let's take a gander.

My favorite scores of 2025:

(Theodore Shapiro - Lakeshore)
Wonderfully sinuous music that played like a soundtrack for a much better version of this movie.
Favorite cues: “Into the Lion’s Den”, “I Know Who You Are”, “We Belong Together”

(Danny Elfman - Because)
With this latest adaptation, Elfman was in his element; dark, yet beautiful.
Favorite cues: “Detective Work”, “The Dance”, “Amen”

(Alan Silvestri - Netflix)
Whatever one could say about the movie, Silvestri throwing back to his Back to the Future heyday was greatly appreciated.
Favorite cues: “The Year the World Changed”, “See Where the Day Takes Us”, “The Day is Ours”

(Carter Burwell - Lakeshore)
Burwell provided this comedy with a mix of light pop and heavenly grandeur.
Favorite cues: “Wings Over L.A.”, “You’re Gonna Make Me Go Back?”, “A Life Worth Living”

(Howard Drossin - A24)
The kind of bold, upfront music that seems to have disappeared from cinema.
Favorite cues: "Somebody Got Trey", “We Got This”, “Free Yung Felon”

(John Powell - Back Lot)
Okay, so Powell wrote this score fifteen years ago, but that didn’t stop it from still kicking ass.
Favorite cues: “I Hit a Night Fury”, Test Driving Toothless”, “We Have Dragons”

(Nicholas Britell - Netflix)
A truly lovely effort and a career-best score from Britell.
Favorite cues: “Practicing the Score”, “Here in Italy/Driving With Alba”, “Jay Kelly Suite”

(Alexandre Desplat - Back Lot)
Desplat got to put his own stamp on the franchise with his rambunctious music.
Favorite cues: “Boat Chase”, “Crossing the River/T-Rex”, “Bella and the Beast”

(Brian Tyler - Lakeshore)
The third time was the charm for Tyler, pulling off some interesting new tricks.
Favorite cues: “Upstaged”, “A Twist in the Tail”, “The Vandenberg Family”

(Brian Tyler - Sony Classical)
Tyler responded well to the subject matter, crafting one of his most substantive works.
Favorite cues: “Begin”, “Goring and Hess”, “End Titles”

(Alan Silvestri - La La Land)
Silvestri’s too-cool-for-school music may have been even more fun than the (entertaining) movie.
Favorite cues: “Main Titles”, “Rob an Entire Country”, “The Vault”

(Benjamin Wallfisch - Netflix)
The highlight of an especially eclectic year for Wallfisch; a grand thriller score.
Favorite cues: “The Yacht”, “Carrie”, “The Gala”

Other good scores of 2025:

The Alto Knights (David Fleming), Desperate Journey (Ilan Eshkeri), Dog Man (Tom Howe), Downton Abbey: the Grand Finale (John Lunn), Dust Bunny (Isabella Summers), Final Destination: Bloodlines (Tim Wynn), Fountain of Youth (Chris Benstead), Frankenstein (Alexandre Desplat), One Battle After Another (Jonny Greenwood), Presence (Zack Ryan) and The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (John Debney)

My favorite CDs of 2025:

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein...and the Keystone Kops (Frank Skinner, William Lava, Herman Stein and Henry Mancini - Intrada) - Skinner’s scary/fun score for the classic horror-comedy was topped off with the Mickey-mousing madness of …Keystone Kops.

The Bruce Broughton Collection - Vol. 1 (Dragon's Domain) - A pair of solid TV-movie thriller scores that gave ample hints of the compositional force yet to hit the big screen.

The Celluloid Closet (Carter Burwell - Quartet) - Perhaps, the biggest shock of the year; a stirring score for the underrated documentary.

Class (Elmer Bernstein - Quartet) - The only 80s teen comedy on Bernstein’s resume was propelled by a nicely stirring main theme.

The Dark Crystal (Trevor Jones - La La Land) - Arguably Jones’s magnum opus, brought to powerful, melodic life in this complete release.

Flatliners (James Newton Howard - Intrada) - Howard brought together a lot of disparate elements for this thriller, resulting in one of his first great scores.

The Lalo Schifrin Collection - Vol. 1 (Dragon's Domain) - A collection of previously released minor classics joined by the debut of Day of the Animals. Enough said. Now bring on Love and Bullets and/or The Manitou!

A League of Their Own (Hans Zimmer - Intrada) - Zimmer’s first collaboration with Penny Marshall owed a debt to Randy Newman, but it was great fun, all the same.

The Secret of N.I.M.H. (Jerry Goldsmith - Intrada) - Every blessed note of this spellbinding score was finally made available, revealing the full breadth of Goldsmith’s storytelling prowess.

The Twelve Chairs (John Morris - Quartet) - Perhaps the most forgotten of Mel Brooks’ movies, given a Morris score that was equally joyous and melancholy, while showcasing Brooks’s wonderful theme song.

Other great CDs of 2025:

Beverly Hills Cop III (Nile Rodgers - La La Land)

Cape Fear (Bernard Herrmann - Quartet)

The Chairman (Jerry Goldsmith - Intrada)

Crimson Tide (Hans Zimmer - Intrada)

Devil in a Blue Dress (Elmer Bernstein - La La Land)

How Did You Get In? We Didn't See You Leave (Alan Silvestri - Music Box)

Starship Invasions (Gil Melle - Dragon's Domain)

Table for Five (John Morris - Dragon's Domain)

The Three Musketeers (Michael Kamen - Intrada)

Union Pacific: the Paramount Westerns Collection - Vol. 2 (various - La La Land)

Random thoughts:

- In listening to the scores for these year-end posts, I, inevitably, found myself running into a composer whose music filled me with such ennui, if not outright hatred, that I was pretty much forced to cut them off cold turkey. There were quite a few on that short list, but just missing it was recent Oscar winner Volker Bertelmann. His music is less bad than a lot of the people I run into, but there’s just no life to it. Just, you know, ‘punch in, provide 50 minutes to an hour of droning porridge and that’s it, let’s do it again, sometime’. He had a whopping six scores from the previous year many of which fell into the ‘porridge’ category. There was a little more life in the score for the animated movie Grand Prix of Europe, but nothing terribly memorable, but then came Ballad of a Small Player. It didn’t end up making the top 25, but holy piss, it’s like Bertelmann‘s battery got switched on. Why isn’t he writing music this lively all the time?

- Okay, according to Scott Bettencourt, none of these scores - among the top hundred of those I listened to for the year-end cram session - have received physical releases of any kind (and, no, LPs do not count because why the fuck would they?): The Alto Knights, The Amateur, Americana, Anaconda, Another Simple Favor, Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Bad Guys 2, Ballad of a Small Player, Bugonia, Captain America: Brave New World, The Conjuring: Last Rites, David, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, Desperate Journey, Dog Man, Dracula: a Love Tale, Dust Bunny, Eden, Ella McCay, The Electric State, Elio, Eternity, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Fixed, Fountain of Youth, Gabby's Dollhouse: the Movie, Good Fortune, Grand Prix of Europe, Highest 2 Lowest, Honey, Don't!, The Housemaid, I Know What You Did Last Summer, In Your Dreams, Jay Kelly, The King of Kings, The Legend of Ochi, Long Distance, A Loud House Christmas: Naughty or Nice, Marty Supreme, Materialists, A Minecraft Movie, The Naked Gun, Now You See Me: Now You Don't, Nuremberg, Oh, Hi!, One of Them Days, Paddington in Peru, The Phoenician Scheme, Predator: Badlands, Predator: Killer of Killers, Presence, Primitive War, The Roses, Rule Breakers, Sarah's Oil, Smurfs, Snow White, Soul on Fire, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, Stitch Head, Thunderbolts*, 28 Years Later, Until Dawn, Wake Up, Dead Man, The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep, William Tell, Wolf Man, The Woman in Cabin 10 and Zootopia 2. Clearly, something needs to change...or change back. Varese Sarabande, where art thou?**

- I can only wonder if it was a scheduling conflict that kept Terence Blanchard away from scoring Highest 2 Lowest for Spike Lee, but his orchestrator, Howard Drossin, stepped in and - I think - did a damn fine job. However, most people on the internet don’t quite agree with me, calling this, if you can believe it, ‘one of the worst scores I’ve ever heard!’*. There was an honest-to-blog Goldsmith riff in “Somebody Got Trey” and people are calling this one of the worst scores they’ve ever heard?! It’s just the sort of thing to put someone firmly on Team God, Please Flood This Worthless Fucking Planet.

- I finally figured out Benjamin Wallfisch. When he stays away from any kind of musical distortion, he’s one of our greatest living composers. I’ll definitely keep this in my back pocket if I ever get to work with him.

* - Unless they’ve heard the likes of these, those people can fuck all the way off with their ‘worst score ever!’ talk:

Dunkirk (Hans Zimmer)
Evilspeak (Roger Kellaway)
I Saw What You Did (Van Alexander)
Loverboy (Michel Colombier)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Edward Ward)
Sharky’s Machine (Doc Severinsen!!)
Star Trek: Generations (Dennis McCarthy)

** - Oh, and for shits and giggles, here's how I think the physical CD situation would've broken down in a better year:

Hollywood
The Amateur
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Captain America: Brave New World
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Predator: Badlands
Predator: Killer of Killers
The Roses
Thunderbolts*

Lakeshore
Another Simple Favor
Bugonia
Good Fortune
Honey, Don't!
The Housemaid
Rule Breakers
Stitch Head

La La Land
The Bad Guys 2
The Naked Gun
Primitive War (because this is probably the only way a 90-minute album like this would ever see a physical release)

Milan
David
Eden
Eternity
The King of Kings
The Legend of Ochi
A Loud House Christmas: Naughty or Nice
Marty Supreme
Materialists
William Tell
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep

Sony Classical
Anaconda
Fixed
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Nuremberg
Oh, Hi!
One of Them Days
Paddington in Peru
28 Years Later
Until Dawn

Varese Sarabande
Americana
Ballad of a Small Player
Desperate Journey
Dog Man
Dracula: a Love Tale
The Electric State
Ella McCay
Fountain of Youth
Gabby's Dollhouse: the Movie
Highest 2 Lowest
In Your Dreams
Jay Kelly
Long Distance
Now You See Me: Now You Don't
Smurfs
Soul on Fire
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants
Wake Up, Dead Man
Wolf Man

Walt Disney
Elio
Snow White
Zootopia 2

WaterTower
The Alto Knights
The Conjuring: Last Rites
Final Destination: Bloodlines
Grand Prix of Europe
The Day the Earth Blew Up: a Looney Tunes Movie
A Minecraft Movie

I didn't include The Phoenician Scheme, Presence or Sarah's Oil, because the score content on those albums is less than 30 minutes. Paying $17.99 for a 20-minute album? Honey don't play dat.

“Life is like a hurricane…”

Roger Feigelson and, no doubt, the late, great Doug Fake have proved themselves tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties, because by the time you see this post, the two-CD release of Ron Jones‘s music for the 1987 series “DuckTales” will have been released by Intrada Records. I know better than to do the whole ‘posting what else I would like in this release’s vein’ thing on public forums, but we’re not on public forms. We’re on my blog, so here are a few other releases from Disney cartoon shows I would love to see put out sometime between now and my (undoubtedly food-related) death:

1. TaleSpin (Christopher L. Stone) - The next logical choice for a TV soundtrack release if “DuckTales” is a decent seller (he said, wryly). I had a CD-R of Stone's 40-minute promo back when I first got into obtaining CD-Rs, so, of course, it's practically unlistenable now. All the more reason.

2. Spider-Man (Udi Harpaz) - Technically, it is Disney. A lot of Saban-produced shows and movies in the 90s had orchestral music that the projects didn't really deserve. I genuinely feel that this may have the highest chance of getting a release.

3. Kim Possible (Adam Berry) - No, it's not orchestral, but it is colorful as shit and, sometimes, that's all you need.

And, as long as I'm playing with house money, let's flip around to some other channels with shows whose music I'd love to see released:

Nickelodeon

1. The Penguins of Madagascar (Adam Berry) - As with all of his scores for McCorkle/Schooley shows (see above), Berry’s music is nicely catchy and the jazzy edge is a welcome mix with his energy.

2. My Life as a Teenage Robot (James L. Venable) - The show’s sci-fi/action feel gave Venable a lot to work with and he delivered.

3. The Angry Beavers (Charlie Brissette) - Brissette clearly had a blast with the movie, TV and song parodies he wove into his music. Name me another composer who would reference the theme music from Good Neighbor Sam (“Dag’s List”)!

There are two other shows I'd love the soundtracks for, but there's a big ol' asterisk next to them. May as well pull off the Band-Aid:

Invader Zim (Kevin Manthei)* - Technically, this was released. On a 77-minute promo CD I was lucky enough to obtain and on a mini-CD containing every note that Manthei wrote for the show that I was also lucky enough to obtain. As soon as I find a way to play the latter, I am set.

Ren and Stimpy (too damn many composers to list here)* - The stock music utilized for the many episodes came from Raymond Scott (and I have an album featuring most of them) and a number of production houses. A YouTube user has done great work cataloging the pieces and the episodes in which they were used, but I wouldn't mind a professional pair of hands.

Saturday morning (and elsewhere) mashup:

Beetlejuice (Acrobat Music) - What can I tell you? I've been re-watching the show on MeTVToons and it reminded me of how fun the background music was. The collective known as Acrobat Music did a fine job and even threw in some neat variations on the theme Elfman wrote for the show.

Futurama (Christopher Tyng) - You'd think that this would've found its way out in the Comedy Central era (We got a CD of “Family Guy” scoring. Why not strike while the iron is hot?), but better late than never. Or sooner. It's only a matter of time before Hulu loses interest in financing new seasons, leading to this never coming out.

Galaxy High (Don Felder) - Stemming from an earworm of a theme song, the former Eagle’s underscoring was quite delightful.

Green Eggs and Ham (David Newman) - Each episode score was recorded with a 70-piece orchestra. Add to that the labels' collective allergy to taking a chance on further Newman albums and you have a classic case of pissing in the wind. It's not fair.

Inspector Gadget (Haim Saban and Shuki Levy) - All I want is for some label to come through with this show's underscore the way that La La Land did with Saban/Levy's “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” back in 2012. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Jim Latham - Yes, I know this isn't a cartoon. This is a composer. A damn talented one who provided the music for just about every Sony movie spin-off cartoon series. “Men in Black”. “Jumanji”. “Extreme Ghostbusters”. All deserving of releases. Oh, hell, let's throw in “Godzilla”and “Jackie Chan Adventures” for the sake of completism.

ReBoot (Robert Buckley) - Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve watched this show, but I have fond memories of Buckley’s underscore. Surely, there’s something about this to appeal to others.

Sailor Moon (Bob Summers) - Summers released a digital album of his tracks a few years ago, but a more comprehensive version would be very welcome. Don't think so? Even people who hated (?!) the DiC dub loved the music.

Tiny Toon Adventures (various) - If nothing else, the chance to hear veteran composers go full Stalling (Broughton, Stevens, Rosenthal, Rubinstein) is worth preservation. 

Xiaolin Showdown (Kevin Manthei) - With a more expansive scope than “ZIM” (appropriate, considering the show’s many characters and settings), Manthei produced some exceptional music.

A boy can dream, can't he?

The movies of 2025.

Well, another year come and gone. Let's take a look back.

My favorite movies of 2025:

10. The Luckiest Man in America - As a devoted watcher during those oh-so-rare days off in grade school, it is impossible for me to be objective about “Press Your Luck”, so I appreciated this look at one of its darkest chapters, fueled by a typically strong Paul Walter Hauser performance as the wily Michael Larson.

9. Play Dirty - It is unfortunate that this movie ended up lost in the wilds of streaming and purists of Richard Stark’s work will certainly find fault, but I found this a fun mix of Stark’s sensibilities and those of writer/director Shane Black.

8. Elio - I'll be the first to admit that Pixar’s latest isn’t quite up there with the studio’s masterpieces, but it is colorfully designed and incredibly charming.

7. Zootopia 2 - There were just as many fun moments in this sequel, but the stronger handle on its messaging made all the difference.

6. KPOP Demon Hunters - Animated feature is bursting with energy, eye-popping animation and catchy songs, making for one of the year’s most pleasant surprises.

5. Highest 2 Lowest - It’s an audacious thing to remake an Akira Kurosawa movie, but Spike Lee succeeds as a number of others have with this wonderfully tense and flavorful remake.

4. Mickey 17 - The world building in this Bong Joon-ho joint is off the charts and the performances from Robert Pattinson and Mark Ruffalo are sensational.

3. Dog Man - Perhaps the year’s most purely entertaining animated movie; a goofy and sweet treat for the young and the young-at-heart.

2. Marty Supreme - By all rights, the main character should be someone you want only the worst for, but in the hands of Timothée Chalamet, you find yourself rooting for him in this most unusual underdog sports movie.

1. Sinners - Even before the vampires hit the scene, this movie is rich in Southern atmosphere and powerful characterizations.

Runners-up:

The Bad Guys 2

Black Phone 2

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

John Candy: I Like Me

The Naked Gun

Now You See Me: Now You Don't

Paddington in Peru

Predator: Killer of Killers

The Running Man

Weapons

Underrated:

The Amateur, M3GAN 2.0, The Roses

Overrated:

Black Bag, Caught Stealing, Predator: Badlands

Streaming exclusives that should've been released in theaters:

Heads of State, John Candy: I Like Me, Play Dirty

Theatrical movies that should've been sent to streaming:

In the Lost Lands, Lilo and Stitch

My favorite things in movies - 2025:

the arresting Petey montage in Dog Man

Charlie's analysis in The Amateur

the courting ritual in Jurassic World: Rebirth

the creation waltz in Frankenstein

the crew peruses the videos in The Luckiest Man in America

“Did you get all that?” - The Naked Gun

the dinner prayer/musical number in Mickey 17

Eli and Patrick hit the dance floor in Companion

the final chase in Weapons

the friendship montage in Elio

Grofield tracks the bad guys to their hideout in Play Dirty

the history of Hunter's family in Paddington in Peru

“It's a killing floor.” - Sinners

the job interview montage in The Bad Guys 2

“Joint signing!” - KPOP Demon Hunters

the knife throw in G20

the lawyers pay Kikuo a visit in Rental Family

“Long story.” - Heads of State

Michael Cera in The Running Man and especially The Phoenician Scheme

Monsignor Wicks' confession in Wake Up, Dead Man

the Powerhouse montage in The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

“Push forward.” - Hell of a Summer

the rap battle in Highest 2 Lowest

the second appearance of the Biscuit Bandit in One of Them Days

the show-off round robin in Now You See Me: Now You Don't

the taming montage in How to Train Your Dragon

the three-way phone call in Black Phone 2

the wanted poster in The Running Man

Random thoughts:

- Clown in a Cornfield. Just...Clown in a mothertruckin' Cornfield. Surprisingly, this was not based on an original screenplay, but a series of novels. Given that Pennywise was back in the pop culture consciousness due to the HBO show “Welcome to Derry”, it’s quite likely that the production team didn’t want to go with a supernatural angle for their nemesis, Frendo the clown, even though a supernatural angle would’ve been far preferable to what this project ended up going with. As it turned out, Frendo was played by a number of citizens of the small town its main characters moved to. (And that sound you hear is Stephen King handing off the “Hello, lawsuit!” baton to Edgar Wright.) The big difference here is that unlike the Sandford residents of Hot Fuzz, who seemed quite polite and normal before their true colors came out, the sheriff, the waitress and the schoolteacher were so obnoxious from the first moment of their respective introductions, it would’ve been stupid to suspect that they weren’t somehow involved in this…and to deepen the connections to Hot Fuzz even further, the parents of the teenagers who got killed throughout the story were just completely fine with this whole situation? We never met the parents of the victims, but did they really believe their teenagers to be so obnoxious that they deserved to be killed by their neighbors dressed up as clowns? The dynamics in those parent/child relationships would’ve been far more interesting than anything this movie farted out. This was made by the guy who did Tucker & Dale vs. Evil and it’s more than likely not by choice that his movies have had six to seven-year gaps between them, but if this is really the best he could do, maybe we could do with another seven years before he puts out a new movie.

- The Life of Chuck. It's been long enough. That first (...third?) segment was basically Identity, right? Someone else has to have noticed.

- Like a whole bunch of people, I went to see Superman and…I have thoughts. The casting was good and it had some exciting action scenes, but I really need to talk about that 800-pound gorilla known as the video from Superman’s parents. Lex Luthor just happened to find it in the Fortress of Solitude and apparently had it verified by Kryptonian linguists that Jor-El and Lara wanted Kal-El to take a harem and dominate the people of Earth. Now Lex is - I would absolutely imagine in-universe - a known Superman hater and, even if in this incarnation he somehow wasn’t, there was a tone of disdain towards Supes that he did absolutely nothing to hide, so as far as I’m concerned, there was no reason whatsoever to suspect that, in terms of the Kryptonian message, Lex wasn’t…okay. What is that expression I’m trying to think of here? Oh yeah…fucking goddamn lying. Honestly, what purpose did it serve to have that message be 100% legitimate? Pretty lucky thing on Lex’s part, wouldn’t you say? If it was supposed to be a bit of metaphor on the part of James Gunn, it had to be the clumsiest cinematic metaphor since High Noon. (People far more educated than myself will explain this better. Google is your friend, after all.) But maybe, I better stop here ‘cause I’m starting to sound like that doorknob that wrote that “Rick and Morty” episode. You can tell he was a total Snyderbro, so to end this entry on a lighter note: you know the scene where Hawkgirl dropped the psychotic dictator from the sky? Yeah, we need more women like that.

- The year in PG-13 f-bombs: Rental Family, Wake Up, Dead Man and, my personal favorite, M3GAN 2.0.

- And here, I thought that it was horror movie scores that sucked these days. Well, they do, but Christ’s sake, look what their composers have to work with! I’ve spoken my piece about Clown in a Cornfield (because that much bullshit had to merit its own entry), so let me devote a few words each to Vicious (A spooky first half gave way to a sleep-inducing, second half touched off by a sequence that hearkened back to all the other one-named Saw knockoffs from 20 years hence. The yearly ‘waste Dakota Fanning‘s talent on a horror writer/director’s bullshit’ experiment continues apace.), The Woman in the Yard (Between the should’ve-been-a-short-film, plot, the unlikable children, and the confusing climax, I’m really hoping that Liam Neeson hasn’t lost Jaume Collet-Serra‘s number.), Him (A series of arresting images on a desperate and ultimately futile search for a narrative strong enough to support them. After losing out on Weapons, I can completely understand Jordan Peele wanting to put feet up asses.) and I Know What You Did Last Summer (I liked it more than most, but the moron that stood in the middle of the road - thus engineering the accident that fucked up everybody’s lives - could not have been killed quickly enough).

- There seemed to be a lot of sticks up asses vis-a-vis Honey, Don't!. Granted, as a mystery, it was pretty shaggy (will Honey catch the shady French chick or was she just gonna be another bang?), but as a hangout movie, it was generally entertaining. The banter between Margaret Qualley and Charlie Day was especially enjoyable. Chalk another one up for the ‘yes, I want to see an original movie, but only if it’s an original movie specifically catered to my arcane tastes!’ category.

- For a while, I was really grooving on Caught Stealing. In spite of the main character’s backstory, the film seemed significantly lighter than a lot of Darren Aronofsky’s usual fare…then came the moment where Austin Butler’s Hank found that the bad guys killed Zoe Kravitz’s Yvonne, and this plot turn cast such a dark cloud over the rest of the movie, I found it impossible to enjoy anything that followed. Honestly, he may as well have found her in a refrigerator.

- I had a really nice time with Elio in spite of it apparently being compromised from its original form. I’m not letting the original form of this movie where Elio was gay bother me because if I reviewed every single movie based on what it originally was supposed to be, I’m not gonna enjoy very much. (Though I was fascinated to learn that America Ferrera was the original voice of Elio’s relative - his aunt in the finished movie, his mom in the development stage - because the character was designed to look exactly like her.) However, the thing that will stick with me the most is me going to the theater, seeing the movie and hearing it raining outside, only to find that I stupidly left my windows down, completely soaking the inside of my front seat.

- I went to see an early screening of Jurassic World: Rebirth. I enjoyed the action scenes, and the effects were as impressive as ever, but I found the character work was way too transparent (how beneficial for one scene to point out the two characters I’m supposed to like the least) and the subplot featuring the Latino family seemed like it was an appendage from an earlier draft that nobody bothered to amputate.

- Love Hurts...and so did this movie. Zing! Yeah, I'm sorry. I can do better than that. Ke Huy Quan‘s first starring vehicle (as realtor Marvin) following his surprise Oscar win started off decently enough with some fun fight scenes and the rather welcome - if too brief - appearance from fellow Goonie Sean Astin as Marvin‘s boss, Cliff. But then, the rather dull John Wick-inspired plot had to get in the way, compounded by the unpleasant killing off of Astin’s character, the only other person in this thing that was even slightly likable. The film sank further and further with a mixture of hard-edged violence and unbridled quirk as appetizing as that of orange juice and toothpaste. (BTW, Gretchen, stop trying to make Marshawn Lynch's acting career happen. It's not gonna happen!) And then, there was the forced-as-hell romance between Marvin and Ariana DeBose's thoroughly insufferable Rose (Sidebar: as unfortunate as DeBose's post-Oscar run has been, I cannot agree with people calling it the worst one of all time. I mean, have people seriously forgotten that Cuba Gooding, Jr. is a thing?). But then again, this helped the title attain truth in advertising: with a relationship as rancid as the one at the film’s center, love absolutely did hurt. Sorry. It couldn’t be helped.

- Ever since I saw the trailer, I was back-and-forth on whether or not I wanted to see The Housemaid, especially since I forcibly ejected myself from the Paul Feig business after Another Simple Favor*, but this turned out to be significantly better than I expected. This film’s brand of crazy was far more appealing to me than the earlier movie’s was and it’s good to see that this film was a box office success, because I’m working on a couple of scripts like this myself.

- If I had a nickel for every Die Hard knockoff that came out in the past year with a female lead, I'd have three nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's damned peculiar that it happened thrice.

- Moreover, if I had a dollar for every movie this year that featured an actor playing two different characters…I could finance a movie of my own. Seriously, there were a ton of them.

- Tron: Ares barely edged out Anaconda as this year‘s ‘who in the hell asked for this?’ project. I wasn’t terribly interested in the previous Tron movies, but this one in particular made me say on several occasions, “There could be a ten-minute scene of Sydney Sweeney doing naked jumping jacks and I’d still be saying to myself, ‘you know, I’m really not sure if I wanna see this’.”

- I’m not sure what annoyed me more about the otherwise entertaining Thunderbolts*: the fact that Marvel and the marketing department pretty much gave a giant ‘fuck you!’ to anyone who didn't see the film opening weekend and just gave away the point of the asterisk in the title or that the corrupt politician responsible for all the shit that happens in the movie gets off scot free...though you can't help but love that the Russian whispers to her, “We own you now.”

* - It has been rumored that Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively take it upon themselves to liven up each other’s recent movie projects. By all the names of God, I never wanna find out what Reynolds added to this movie because it’s just gonna make me mad.