2025 Movie Diary

52 Weeks = 52 Movies (Give or Take)

Current Count: 24 movies (14 New / 10 Rewatches) as of Week 17

Okay, so, the gist is that I promised myself I'd watch at least one movie per week this year. Sometimes I skip a week but it evens out because sometimes I double up. You can also follow this journey on my Letterboxd if you're that kind of person. I watch a lot of these with my dear friend Ki. Thanks, Ki, for always being down for a movie. Have any recommendations? Please let me know!

Week 1

Scream (1996)

Rewatch alert! Boo, you cheater! One of my fave slashers- I wanted to show this to Ki because they'd never seen it but little did I know they've absorbed enough throuh Osmosis to already pretty much know the twist. Oh well, still really fun. 4.5 stars.

Week 2

Bullet Train (2022)

Another rewatch. I feel like someone isn't taking this challenge very seriously. Another good one that Ki hadn't seen- fun vibes, super snappy and enjoyable to watch, everyone already knows that Lemon and Tangerine are the highlight of this movie (and that's about all Ki really cared about too). 4 stars.

Week 3

Skipped.

Week 4

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

I've been on a bit of a 50s movies kick lately. Unfortunately this one failed to impress me- I think I went in with my hopes too high. I did like a lot of the dialogue, and the fact that the protagonists were the bad guys was fun. I love a good lackey. I think if the sister and her boyfie had been more fleshed out it could have won me over more than it did. 3.5 stars.

Week 5

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Rewatch. I had to redeem myself in Ki's eyes by showing them a movie from the 50s that was actually amazing. Sunset Boulevard is always a fun watch but it was honestly even more fun hearing Ki react to it- this is a movie I had been trying to get them to watch for like two years and it was worth it, especially right at the end. Honestly, Ki's reaction to the last scene made it just as exciting as when I first watched it. 5 stars.

Week 6

Haunted Mansion (2023)

Watched immediately after going to Disneyland with Ki. They'd never been on the Haunted Mansion ride which was bizarre to me because they've visited that theme park way more than me. But anyway, they wanted to watch the movie when we got back to their house and I very reluctantly agreed because I didn't have anything better in mind. And it made me feel evil. It was just so insanely stupid. And LONG? 2 stars.

Week 7

Dogman (2025)

Ki and I went and saw this one in theatres. It was really, really cute! Loved the animation style, and was pleasantly surprised by how well Pete Davidson did as Petey. This was just adorable. I was a bit too old for the Dogman books when they were coming out, but I did grow up on Captain Underpants, and it has the same sort of heart. I hope there will be a sequel. Or ten. 4 stars.

Double Indemnity (1944)

Rewatch. Showing Ki another one of my favorite older films. You really have to appreciate how solid the plots were back then, I mean, they didn't take a whole lot of detours. The highlight of this movie for me (and for Ki) was the relationship between Walter and Keyes, and that final scene with the two of them is brutal to watch. Makes the whole film for me. 4.5 stars.

Week 8

Skipped. I was pooped after my vacation.

Week 9

Dog Gay Afternoon (1975)

I wanted to watch this one after seeing an image of dissheveled Al Pacino on Twitter. Ki did, of course, come along for the ride. I love movies with bank robberies, heists, cat and mouse games, shit like that, so this was an instant win for me. I love how poorly this one goes from the getgo. The ending gutted me. Good stuff. 4.5 stars.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)

This is the sort of thing that should be right up my alley, but it didn't really do it for me. I don't doubt that it was a very good movie, I just... Never really cared for Aardman's style and don't have any nostalgia for any of their other movies, which I think I saw glimpses of in my childhood but never properly watched. I just find them. Unpleasant to look at. Wallace especially so. Again, I think it's fine, just not for me. 3.5 stars.

Week 10

Skipped.

Week 11

Goodfellas (1990)

Before watching this the only impression I had of the movie was via the Goodfeathers bits in the original Animaniacs series. I know it would be silly to expect the same amount of hijinks as the pigeons provided, and yet... Wishful thinking. It was a good movie. I do think Henry was the most boring character in the movie, but at least everyone else was fun to watch.4 stars.

Week 12

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Watched because I like Mark Ruffalo and was curious about some of his older roles, plus I think that this movie has been making a bit of a comeback lately (possibly due to Severance?). Again, I was... underwhelmed? I wish I weren't! It seems like everyone else loves this movie. It was good, it was memorable, I liked the premise. Absolutely amazing effects and I loved the structure of the story. I found myself not very invested in Joel and Clementine, mostly because I feel like they are the most annoying people on Earth. I really liked all the sickos who worked at the memory clinic. What a bunch of freaks. 3.5 stars.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

I was curious about this one because I like courtrooms. At the beginning of the movie I thought I was really gonna hate Sir Wilfrid, but I ended up quite liking him. He's really very charming. Ki had fun too. 4 stars.

Week 13

Novocaine (2025)

Goes down easy. Not a whole lot of depth but fun action scenes and a few jokes that really got me. I liked how pathetic the main guy was, it was fun to watch him ragdoll around. The villain guy was boring... He didn't even really have a motive besides just being an asshole. Which, like, I can appreciate an asshole, but he went so far for absolutely no reason... And the way he was written made me feel like a 14 year old came up with him. But look, this isn't the kind of movie you come to for amazing character writing. 3 stars.

Week 14

Men in Black (1997)

Rewatch. Ki had never seen it, so I had to show them. I've always liked this franchise! K is so so delightfully funny to me. And Laurel is really, really hot. I wish they kept her in the sequels, she's just so good. 4 stars.

Men in Black II (2002)

Rewatch. We watched this the very next day- I did warn Ki that it was nowhere near as good as the first. Too many callbacks to jokes from the first movie, and they lasted way too fucking long. I could've appreciated, like, a glimpse of the pug alien- I didn't need to see it as a main character. Still, there's some really fun scenes and I feel like there's so much potential here. I just wish it was like, better. And I wish it wasn't just trying to do the exact same plot as MiB but with a sexy lady instead of a gross bug man. MiBIII does the mentor-trainee role reversal thing between J and K so much better. 3 stars.

The Eunuch (1968)

Woah. That's a weird movie to jam into the middle of a MiB rewatch. I liked a lot of the cinematography. The flashbacks and foreshadowing are all nicely done, but the transitions between scenes can be pretty jarring. I liked the sex scene at the ending the best- the shift in music with the nuanced acting really had me hyped. 3.5 stars.

Week 15

Men in Black III (2012)

Rewatch. Ah, there we go! My favorite of the series but I'm biased by nostalgia because it was also the first one I saw (in theaters, when I had just turned 12 years old!). Time travel plot but it wasn't hard to follow. Brolin plays a great K. There's a bit more of an emotional core to this one that isn't really there in the rest of the series. My biggest nitpick is the sudden shift in K's character in this movie- it wants to portray him as this gruff, serious, no-fun guy, but I've always thought he was so fun and had such a sense of humor in the other movies. C'mon! Straight-faced doesn't mean unfunny! 4 stars.

Week 16

The Host (2006)

Ki wanted to watch this one. It was a wild ride. A bit sad, a bit funny, pretty absurd. I like how everyone in the family was a total loser. The fish monster was hard to take seriously, especially when it was doing monkey bars shit. Didn't expect the direction it went, and I really didn't expect that ending... I enjoyed how blatantly the message was that "Americans make everything worse." 4 stars.

Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus (2019)

Rewatch! I'm honestly still surprised this movie got made, and even though it's been 6 years (WHAT) since it came out, I still really hope they make another. I loved the animation, the longer story was really solid and didn't feel dragged out, the incorporation of things from the series (Like Tak's ship?!) was so fun. Just a blast overall. 4.5 stars.

Airplane! (1980)

Asked Ki to watch this with me directly after watching a bunch of anime OVAs which was a bizarre shift in tone. I loved it because I'm a sucker for one-liners and sight gags. Super duper funny but the constant flashbacks and lack of any meaningful plot makes this movie seem, like, three times as long as it actually is. Ki described it best when they said "a solidly edited clip compilation could probably get the job done just as well." 3.5 stars.

Happy Feet (2006)

My OTHER friend Ozzie had never seen this one so I forced them to watch it. You don't expect a jukebox musical with realistic 3d animated penguins to touch on religion, racism, developmental disabilities, ableism, environmentalism, alien abductions, and zoo animal welfare, but it absolutely does all of this and more. Should it have? Well, that's for you to decide. Fun fact, when I was a little kid with an iPod Nano, this was the only movie I bought on iTunes. I probably watched it 30 times on that two inch screen. My parents kept complaining because the file would sync to their iPods too. 3 stars.

Week 17

Madagascar (2005)

They really loved to shove those stupid animal faces right directly into the camera for like 2 frames at a time just to make this movie as jarring to watch as possible. But fuck it, fun characters, fun stylization, fun story... It does hold up. And the penguins will always hold a special place in my heart. 3.5 stars.

Mickey 17 (2025)

As fun as I'd hoped. I wish I had gotten to see this one in theaters. Really cool premise, great characters and dynamics, answered a lot of the questions I had and yet still left me wanting more. Ending was a bit more drawn out than I'd expected. I loved this! 4 stars.

My Cousin Vinny (1992)

A bit slow until the trial actually gets started. I almost gave up but this movie did end up winning me over. God, Mona Lisa Vito is so fucking hot I could die. 3.5 stars.