My Top Ten Films of 2025

Every year is a good year for movies, and 2025 offered some great ones.  However, I found it very difficult to put this list together.  There was a lot of second guessing, partly because some of my favorites received next to no attention whatsoever, while others felt like echoes of titles I'd picked within the last few years.  I find myself being more susceptible to hype these days, and sometimes it takes a while for me to really nail down my feelings about a film.  Writing the reviews helped considerably.  

My criteria for eligibility require that a film must have been released in its home country during 2025, and film festivals don't count.  Picks are unranked and listed in no particular order, and previously posted reviews are linked when available.

Eephus - A poignant, elegeic baseball film that is about the love of the game in face of great adversity - not rival teams or personal demons, but the more existential forces of irrelevance, apathy, and time simply passing by.  The stakes of the game may be minor, but it feels like it's signaling the end of an era, and you understand why the players don't want to see it end.  

The Ugly Stepsister - A sister film to "The Substance," which marries a subversive fairy tale narrative with extreme body horror.  Instead of Hollywood stardom, it's the classic "Cinderella" story that gets gleefully skewered.  The important thing here is that "The Ugly Stepsister" is still a solid fairy tale film, albeit one that leans into the older, meaner origins of these stories as cautionary tales.

Weapons - That climactic finale was my favorite moment in the theater this year.  Zach Cregger is one of my favorite currently working directors, because I have no idea what's going to happen in his films from moment to moment, and he's so good at paying things off.  You can spend hours picking apart what it all means, or you can sit back and enjoy the hysterical carnage, and of course I did both.

Sinners - There's something for everyone here - romance, action, horror, melodrama, and some soaring musical sequences.  Deftly blending genres, and presenting a version of the Mississippi Delta you won't find anywhere else, "Sinners" is the kind of project that couldn't have been made by anyone else but Ryan Coogler, with the resources of a major studio willing to give him the chance.

One Battle After Another - I like the pieces better than the whole, but the more you dig into the film, the more there is.  The ensemble that really impressed me here, with so many perfectly cast minor roles.  You could make dozens of movies about characters who are onscreen only briefly.  Chase Infiniti was my favorite, and ironically was the only one of the main cast not to be Oscar nominated.  

Kiss of the Spider Woman - Tonatiuh's performance was one of my favorites this year.  The film it appeared in was very imperfect, but I so admire the efforts of everyone involved to make "Kiss of the Spider Woman" into a full-throated screen musical.  I find it ironic that it was so ignored by the awards race, when it got so much right that "Emilia Perez" got so very wrong the year before.  

The Plague - Kids are capable of a level of cruelty that we don't like thinking about.  "The Plague" examines the toxic group dynamics and ostracism that are already occurring with a group of eleven year-old boys, behavior that looks like play at first, but is more and more troubling the closer you look.  It's one of the most effective horror films of the year because it rings so true to life.

The Alabama Solution - Much of the documentary centers on striking cell-phone camera footage smuggled out of the prisons which was shot by the inmates themselves.  This shows us life inside from their perspective, and gives them some control over their own depiction.  And it puts the abuses of the system in much starker contrast, as we learn how bad the situation has become. 

Hamnet - Of course it's manipulative.  However, the kind of catharsis it skillfully evokes is a rare and wondrous thing, and I think we all need a reminder of the power of fictional narratives and communal enjoyment of art.  What I really appreciate is the clarity of the storytelling, which makes the film so accessible, whether you have any experience with Shakespeare or not.

Left Handed Girl - This was the last title I added, because I was worried that my affection for the film was rooted too much in how well I felt it captured the Taipei of my childhood.  And then I accepted that this was a perfectly good reason to get behind the film.  "Left Handed Girl" is a very personal, vibrant picture of a city and one of the families that inhabit it.  And it's fantastic.

Honorable mentions: 

Wake Up Dead Man

The History of Sound

Train Dreams

The Life of Chuck

Marty Supreme

Frankenstein

F1

Hedda

Nouvelle Vague

Deaf President Now

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"The Artful Dodger," Year Two

"The Artful Dodger" is back for a second season, another fun romp through 1850s Australia with a couple of Charles Dickens characters.  After narrowly escaping the noose in the opening sequence, Jack Dawkins finds himself back under the influence of his old mentor Fagin, and forbidden from seeing his lady love, Belle Fox.  Belle's manipulative mother, Lady Jane (Susie Porter), is bribing her with Jack's freedom and a potential medical career if the two of them stay apart, but of course Belle breaks her promise almost immediately.  Much sneaking around and angsty love declarations commence.  New characters this year include Belle's untrustworthy uncle Dickie (Jeremy Sims), a hunky new Inspector, Boxer (Luke Bracey), and Tim Minchin as a villainous harbor master, Cracksworth.  We also see more of Belle's younger sister Fanny (Lucy-Rose Leonard), who discovers a talent for criminality.

There's a breezy irreverence to "The Artful Dodger" that makes it very easy to watch.  Despite the subplots about plagues and criminal schemes and even a serial killer on the loose, the show stays lighthearted and very entertaining throughout.  It's operating by the tried-and-true rules of more old-fashioned serials, where the lovers will always come back together in the end, despite being tested and pulled apart at every turn, and an old trickster like Fagin will always land on his feet, no matter how unlikely the circumstances.  I find I don't mind the paper-thin plotting and the characters whose hearts can be swayed with the flimsiest arguments, because the show is so good about delivering satisfying emotional moments and everyone looks like they're enjoying themselves so much.  I might grouse about David Thewlis being way too good for this material, but he's clearly having a ball with Fagin's florid patter and questionable hygiene.  

The show is not a cheap production with its period setting, elaborate costuming, ambitious art direction, and frequent action and chase sequences, so we were lucky to get a second season at all.  I suspect that the budget was a little more generous this time around, at least when it came to the money for music licensing.  The needledrops are a lot more prominent this year.  I was hoping we would get more of the Australian interior and indigenous characters in a second season, but this is not the case.  Fagin's regular conspirators include locals Rotty (Brigid Zengeni), Flashbang (Aljin Abella) and Aputi (Albert Latailakepa), who are mostly comic relief, and though there's a lot of discussion about the unexplored Australian outback, the show never leaves Port Victory.  

Instead, more of the spotlight is given over to the underutilized female characters.  Lady Jane emerges as a primary villain, the one who's really running the show instead of the governor.  Fanny gets her own love interest with her uncle's assistant Phineas (Zac Burgess), and then has a delightful arc where she embraces the dark side and decides Fagin and company are her new "bohemian friends."  And while "Artful Dodger" does prominently feature the clinic, and medical procedures are still central to many episodes, there's less of a focus on surgery and medical mysteries.  I'd go so far as to say that you could characterize the first season as a medical show, but not the second, which is shifting towards period romantic melodrama.  Not that I'm complaining.   

The show also moves even farther away from its Dickensian origins, though Uriah Heep (Benedict Hardie) becomes a recurring character this season, as a representative of the East India Company.  Fagin is still pulling schemes left and right, and the rich-poor divide is a major theme, but the character dynamics have changed since the first season.  Jack is rarely in danger of falling back into his criminal ways, and stays very committed to Belle.  His relationship with Fagin is also more unambiguously paternal, and probably too one-sided - if there's one weak spot in this year, it's that Jack and Fagin don't get enough scenes together.

All in all this was a nice surprise, probably one that only happened because of the new Australian streaming quotes for local content.  We might get a third season as well, but this season wraps up well enough that I won't be disappointed if we don't.  

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"Zodiac Killer Project" and "Predators"

True crime content has raised a lot of concerns over the years for many reasons, and I'm seeing more and more media trying to address this.  Two features from last year stood out as excellent examples of the work of filmmakers trying to grapple with some of the major issues, one focusing more on form and the other one more on content.  

"Zodiac Killer Project" is a festival favorite that went largely under the radar due to its more experimental nature.   It's not a film about the Zodiac Killer, but writer/director Charlie Shackleton's film about a Zodiac Killer documentary that he was not able to make.  Shackleton intended to adapt Lyndon E. Lafferty's 2012 book, The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up, AKA The Silenced Badge, about a policeman's investigation into a specific suspect, but negotiations for the rights fell through.  This left Shackleton with detailed plans for his film and no way to realize them.  However, he still wanted to share his vision.

So, instead of making the documentary, he made a satirical meta-documentary, where he tells the audience all about the movie that never got made, using a lot of clips from other true-crime documentaries to illustrate various storytelling devices that he expected to use, and some limited original footage - mostly location shots around the Bay Area.  It's a very minimalist film, consisting almost entirely of Shackleton's narration and the cobbled-together images.  However, "Zodiac Killer Project" isn't just a look into the mind of a stymied filmmaker trying to let go of a project he was very invested in, but turns out to be a really biting critique of the whole true-crime genre.  Initially it's funny and illuminating to watch Shackleton point out all the common tropes of true-crime documentaries, from the use of grainy home movies and "evocative B-roll," to the prevalence of law enforcement figures named Bulldog, all while constantly referencing other true-crime docs like "Making a Murderer." 

As Shackleton describes how he planned to adapt parts of Lafferty's book and stage various pieces of action, the whole endeavor becomes increasingly troubling and the satire gets darker.  He's perfectly willing to stage scenes that never happened and play up the sinister nature of the suspect to make his narrative more engrossing to the viewer, even though he knows it's all bunk.  He points out the fallacies and inaccuracies of other directors, and then praises them in the next breath for making such entertaining work.  There's a fantastic moment where he describes a location that he plans to show as foreboding and creepy due to the appearance of disturbing painted symbols found there - only to reveal that the symbols are actually just scribbles and lewd graffiti that looks like a kid drew them.  Shackleton is the least interested in actually filling in the real details of the Zodiac killings, which are too well known and don't give him enough room to be more creative.       

And now it's time to talk about "Predators," David Osit's examination of the history and legacy of "To Catch a Predator," the popular reality television series that aired as a part of "Dateline NBC" from 2004 to 2007.  Osit was able to obtain behind the scenes footage and unused footage shot during the show's notorious sting operations, designed to entrap and force on-camera confrontations with purported child predators.  He also interviewed some of the crew and talent involved, including host Chris Hansen and actors who played the fake minors in the stings.  If you already thought that "To Catch a Predator" was ethically troubling, "Predators" just makes it all the more obvious that the show often operated on dubious moral grounds.  

Osit, an assault survivor, is very careful about how he presents his material.  Throughout, his position is that despite the show's enormous success, it does little to help the victims or to shed any light on why the crimes are committed.  Meanwhile there was every incentive for Hansen and his collaborators to operate recklessly, dehumanizing their targets and ignoring safety considerations to a disturbing degree.  The harms that resulted were foreseeable and preventable.  The show's targets were often caught in a way that meant they couldn't be prosecuted, and the public nature of the confrontations resulted in more than one suicide.  The success of "To Catch a Predator" also led to multiple copycat operations being run by amateurs chasing clout.  

There's been a spate of similar media lately, revealing what was going on behind the scenes of other prominent television shows from the same era, like "Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser" and "Quiet on the Set."  "Predators" is much more thoughtful than most of these, because it has a very personal throughline thanks to Osit, and the goal is to dispel much of the sensationalism that the others encourage.  Some of the most effective moments are very simple, like seeing the additional footage of the "To Catch a Predator" targets in more human moments.  There are no real bombshells, just a conscious reframing of the narrative to call our assumptions into question.  Hansen says nothing new here, but nonetheless his interview is damning.  

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My Top Ten Episodes of 2005-2006

Below, find my top ten episodes for the 2005-2006 television season below, in no particular order.  And a few spoilers ahead, including "The Sopranos" and "Lost."  Also, my apologies to the finale of "Six Feet Under," but the show remains on my very long "To Watch" list. 

The Sopranos, "Members Only" - Let's ease into things with "The Sopranos" returning after a very long break, to begin its final season.  Most of the episode is spent catching us up on all the characters and how they've been - AJ's in college and no one is the wiser about Adriana - but things take an increasingly dark turn as the Eugene Pontecorvo story plays out.  And then Uncle Junior ends things with a bang.

Doctor Who, "The Girl in the Fireplace" - I love how this episode is really the whole series in miniature.  The Doctor stumbles across an interesting new person, only gets a very limited amount of time with them, yet impacts their lives profoundly.  Having time travel just speeds the familiar cycle up considerably.  Reinette is such a memorable character, it's a shame that she only appears in this episode.  

Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus" - Just when you thought that the Galactica was finally catching a break, finding a lost Battlestar - surprise!  They're baddies.  Led by Michelle Forbes as a merciless admiral, the Pegasus is a dark mirror to the Galactica, pushing the show into much darker territory as we learn about their treatment of Cylon prisoners.  It's one of the gutsiest, most harrowing  episodes of the show's run.    

Avatar, "The Blind Bandit" - Toph's introductory episode is such a wonderful series of subversions, and really expands what  the show does with earthbending.  The animation is great, but this pick is chiefly for the humor.  Toph trash-talking the Boulder immediately establishes so much about her, and the fact that she can back it up is such a joy.  The whole series improved dramatically with her in the mix.    

South Park, "Trapped in the Closet" - Some of the jokes have aged very badly, but this episode of "South Park" remains indispensable for its no-hold-barred takedown of Scientology.  The closet bit with the celebrities was widely parodied at the time, but once the "This is what Scientologists actually believe" segment hit the wider culture, the credibility of the organization plummeted permanently. 

My Name is Earl, "Pilot" - "Earl" aired in an awkward timeslot, so I never saw much of it beyond a few episodes in the first season, but I always loved the pilot, where we're introduced to a reformed reprobate played by Jason Lee, and learn about his karmic quest.  The worldbuilding and the character introductions are so fun - Hey, Crabman! - and the cast instantly clicks like few others have.   

30 Days, "Minimum Wage" - Morgan Spurlock is cancelled, but back in 2005 he made one the better reality TV shows, having volunteers live totally different lives for 30 days to try and foster more empathy and understanding.  Spurlock and his fiancee at this time were the subject of the first episode, where they live off minimum wage for a month.  And it's both illuminating and infuriating to see play out.

Lost, "One of Them" - Sayid never got enough screen time. He's one of the most complicated "Lost'" characters, with a very checkered past, but the writers often didn't seem to know what to do with him.  This episode is one of the few times they confront his capacity for evil head-on, as he interrogates Henry Gale for information.  The performances really give their scenes together a rare intensity.  

Arrested Development, "The Ocean Walker" - The entire arc with Rita is wonderful, spoofing romantic-comedy tropes and giving Charlize Theron a chance to show off her comedy chops.  However, the end of the arc, where the shoe finally drops, and we learn the very non-PC reason for Rita's behavior is just brilliant.  Also, I just love awkward wedding episodes, and this one has a doozy.  

Mushishi "Light of the Eyelid" - You're going to start seeing more animation on these lists, as we move into the period where I was an active otaku.  "Mushishi" is an anthology series about supernatural creatures who inadvertently cause trouble for human beings, and this particular episode stands out for its quiet, mesmerizing storytelling and absolutely gorgeous animation.

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My History of "Star Trek" Fandom

I've wanted to write this post for a while, detailing my relationship with "Star Trek" media and fandom.  I wrote one of these for "Star Wars" a while ago, and I want to do the same for "Star Trek," because my experience with the franchise is similarly filled with odd little nuances that I want to have a record of somewhere.

As a child of the '80s, "Star Trek" meant "Star Trek: The Next Generation."  It was one of the earliest shows I became a fan of that wasn't a cartoon  or children's programming.  My syndicated station ran the reruns in the early evenings before anyone else was using the television, so I could watch it regularly.  I didn't have the access to watch any "Star Trek" in prime time until the mid-90s, so my fandom was entirely based on repeated viewings of the earliest seasons of "Next Generation" starting around 1993.  I was able to get my hands on episode guides and a few tie-in novels from the library, which also helped.  Metamorphosis, the one where Data becomes human, remains a favorite.

The 90s were arguably the peak of "Star Trek." At one point there were three series airing simultaneously, plus shows like "Babylon 5" that were going after the same audience.  There were plenty of fans around and plenty of chatter about the series in wider pop culture, which filtered down to me eventually.  The premiere of "Star Trek Voyager," the flagship for the new UPN network, was a big deal in 1995, and I purposely rearranged my schedule so I could watch the show live.  However, I found that I didn't like the characters much and lost interest about halfway through the second season.  I started watching some of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" around that time, though it was a tougher show for me to keep up with.  Eventually I would watch most of the last two seasons live, and more in syndication, starting around 1996.  I keep meaning to go back and watch the whole thing properly one of these days, but I haven't managed it yet.

I was very aware of the original 1964 "Star Trek" by this point, but I had almost no exposure to it except occasional archival clips and parodies.  The movie series with the original series cast was over by 1991, and I wouldn't seek any of those out until I was an adult.  Of course I knew who Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and all the rest were just via cultural osmosis.   To date, I've watched a handful of the most famous older "Star Trek" episodes, like "The City on the Edge of Forever" and "The Trouble With Tribbles," but I have no nostalgia for the series and  no interest in watching more.  I didn't even know about the existence of the first animated series until a few years ago.  

With the 2000s came "Enterprise," and I was ready to call it quits.  The previous shows had all ended.  "Enterprise," with its very different aesthetics and attempts to broaden the appeal of the franchise, looked so off putting in the advertisements that I still haven't seen any of it beyond the unfortunate title sequence.  By that time I was in college and had plenty of access to other genre media that was taking precedence.  I was still watching the movie series, which had switched over to "The Next Generation" characters starting in 1994, but these were also in decline.  2002's "Star Trek: Nemesis" would be the last until the 2009 reboot.  I largely stopped paying attention to "Star Trek" for the rest of the decade.

However, just because I stopped watching "Star Trek" didn't mean I wasn't still a fan.  When the reboots did come along, I was very receptive to having "Star Trek" in my life again.  I've watched every single movie and episode since 2009.  Even "Prodigy."  Even the "Short Treks."  I went back and watched all the older "Star Trek" films and all the episodes of "The Next Generation" that I'd missed.  I've watched multiple documentaries on "Star Trek," and even visited the Las Vegas Hilton so I could go to "Star Trek: The Experience," with its recreations of the Enterprise D bridge and Quark's bar.

Ultimately, I think I have to admit that I'm more of a "The Next Generation" fan than a "Star Trek" fan, but I've gotten awfully attached to other parts of the franchise, and I don't plan to stop watching anytime soon.

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"The Agency," Year Two

Spoilers for the first season ahead.

I complained last year that Paramount's "The Agency" was a slow burn spy series that was burning too slowly for me, and needed to pick up the pace.  Well, the second season has definitely picked up the pace.  The newest batch of ten hour-long episodes positively flew by, and I'm hoping we get a lot more to come.  Everything that the first season of "The Agency" set up pays off in the second, as the scope of the show expands.  

So, when last we left CIA operative Martian, he'd become a double agent, while Danny was just getting settled in Iran.  Martian is still working various angles to rescue Samia, getting himself more entangled with the Brits.  Meanwhile, Danny attempts to recruit a new asset, Hassan Zamani (Keanush Tafreshi).  We also follow another case officer, Owen Lublin (John Magaro), trying to track down a mercenary leader code named Viking (Clayne Crawford), based in the Central African Republic.  Meanwhile, the situation is heating up for Martian at London Station, with both Naomi and Henry Ogletree suspicious of his actions.  This year, the focus shifts so that "The Agency" makes much more use of its ensemble, and more characters are carrying storylines individually.  We still get plenty of Martian and Samia, but I found many of the other stories and relationships just as compelling, and it was great to see actors like Jeffrey Wright and Richard Gere, as the London Station Chief, Bosko, really get to sink their teeth into some of this juicy material.    

As much as I like Michael Fassbender in spy mode, and think he's fantastic in this series, "The Agency" works better when it's showing us more POVs and not just relying on Martian as a focal point.  Samia spends the bulk of the season trapped in the custody of ne'er-do-wells in Khartoum, and the isolation from the rest of the characters allows Jodie Turner-Smith's performance to have much more interiority and resonance.  It's the same with Saura Lightfoot-Leon as Danny, who is often left to navigate complicated situations on her own as her mission progresses.  A lot of the minor characters who were only fleeting presences in the first season are a lot more well-defined now, like Blair (Ambreen Razia), Simon (Bilal Hasna), and Craig (Raza Jeffrey).  Katherine Waterston's Naomi is still playing second fiddle, but you can tell that she's being set up for bigger things down the line.  Even Poppy, who came off as a tiresome distraction in the first season, is a lot more nuanced and sympathetic in the second.

Another major improvement is that the characters in the field this time are a lot easier to identify with than the passel of similar-looking agents and operatives that were involved in the Coyote mission in the first season.  Dangerous situations feel much more visceral and impactful when they're happening to Danny or Owen, who we get to know before they're sent in harm's way.  As impatient as I was with the first season, I'm grateful that "The Agency" took the trouble to lay out all that groundwork, because it's so invaluable in the second.  Fans of spy media will probably see all the twists and turns coming long before they occur, but the high quality of the production and the accomplished cast really make a difference this time out.  "The Agency" isn't an action show primarily, but when the action scenes do come around, they're terrifically violent and unnerving.

Most of the comparable spy shows running now are much broader genre programs, some leaning toward action-adventure or comedy.  "The Agency" certainly takes the usual liberties to be more entertaining, but the level of the writing and intrigue help to distinguish this as probably the best straightforward espionage thriller out there right now, along with "Slow Horses."  Plenty won't have the patience for it, but those who stick it out will be well rewarded.  The French series "Le Bureau," which "The Agency" was based on, ran for five seasons.  I hope we're lucky enough that "The Agency" will follow suit.

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What Counts as a Movie?

The end of "Stranger Things" brought up an interesting existential question that I haven't thought about in a while: what counts as a movie?

The last episode of "Stranger Things," titled "The Rightside Up," screened in theaters on December 31st, which was a boon for movie theaters who reported making at least $25 million in concessions.  Should we treat "The Rightside Up" as a movie, and if so why?

Do we consider the platform?  Simply screening in a theater shouldn't have anything to do with whether we count a film as a film, though it's a big part of Oscar eligibility.  I've always treated TV movies as movies, especially after watching the Oscar and Emmy organizations squabble over eligibility rules, and the filmmakers themselves often not getting a say about the issue.  Especially in the streaming era, whether a film gets a theatrical release or not seems to be a matter of luck.     

Do we consider length?  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says a feature length film has to be over forty minutes.  I'm more comfortable with using sixty as the bare minimum, but even then I make allowances for older films from back when they were counting the running times by physical film reels.  Anyway, "The Rightside Up" runs 128 minutes officially, which is definitely feature length.  

Do we consider whether the media in question is part of a series?  Here's where things get tricky.  There are some institutions that will treat miniseries, segments of miniseries, television seasons, and specific television episodes the same as feature films.  I generally don't agree with this, and prefer to treat multi-part serials and films as different.  However, the boundary between the two has gotten significantly fuzzier over the years, with many franchise films essentially operating like serials on a storytelling level, and television seasons often being produced and released like films.  And there have always been "package" films bundling television episodes for theatrical release, and re-edits of films into miniseries, like we've seen with "The Hateful Eight" and "Blackberry."  

So the answer here is, it depends.  And in the case of "The Rightside Up," I don't count it as its own feature because it wasn't meant to be watched in isolation, but as the final episode of the fifth season of "Stranger Things."  I know this argument could be applied to "Avengers: Endgame," but the MCU movies were conceived of and released as movies from the outset.  "Stranger Things," despite some advertising describing the last season as a collection of movies, has always been a Netflix series that we're expected to watch at home.

Hold on, we're not finished yet.  A few days after the finale, "One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5" showed up on Netflix.  This is the two-hour behind the scenes, making-of documentary that was put together to spotlight the efforts of the cast and crew of "Stranger Things."  This is essentially an extended version of the behind-the-scenes material that used to be included on home video releases, edited together into a full-length documentary.  Does this count as a movie in and of itself?  I'm inclined to say yes.  A documentary about a piece of media is still a documentary.    

There are a lot more gray areas to consider - Youtube video essays, video installations, museum pieces, stand-up comedy specials, pro-shots of stage shows and musicals, pro-shots of concerts, special installments of programs like "Top Gear," anthology segments, holiday variety specials, and celebrity profiles, like the recent ones for Chevy Chase and Eddie Murphy.  I've counted all of these as films depending on the circumstances, if they happen to be long enough and have enough artistic intention behind them to stand as an individual narrative.  

Sometimes the impetus to call something a movie is simply that I want to recognize something for its quality, but it's hard to talk about it in cinematic terms if I don't treat it like a piece of cinema.  And if there's a director and a cinematographer and an editor involved, there's a good chance they're going to do what directors and cinematographers and editors do with any piece of media, whatever you want to call it.  And in the absence of anything better, sometimes that's a movie.

  

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