Today marks the 30th anniversary of the time I was a featured film critic published in the L.A. Times.

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie The Podcast Episode - Optimism Vaccine THIS WEEK: Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (2025), Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2008) Canadian metal and comedy, circa 2008

New Ep at @optimismvaccine.bsky.social ! We head out to the Great White North to check out two great films about friendship, music, and Orbitz. We discuss NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE and ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL. Enjoy!
www.optimismvaccine.com/episode/nirv...

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Finally seeing Send Help. I typically don’t take a selfie with these posts but I’m on a movie theater date with my wife and wanted to show off the new shirt she got me. No kid, Buncha Crunch sprinkled on popcorn, empty auditorium, it’s a good afternoon at the movies.

Oh, and just one more thing: Tetro!

THE NAPA BOYS 4: THE SOMMELIER’S AMULET (2025, Corirossi): Wielding absurdity like a warm blanket, to divulge much about this would spoil the fun, so I’ll just say this is genuinely one of the boldest and funniest American comedies of the last several years. To the grape!

The Top 3 Films of 2026:

1. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
2. The Napa Boys
3. Irish Zionism

We could honestly just call the year here, it won’t get better than this.

Now watching what Letterboxd tells me is the most popular film I’ve never seen.

Will never stop banging the drum for Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

🎵Crazy dreams of a train coming at me
And my feet are trapped on the tracks
And with an ashtray as big as fucking really big brick
I split that train in half🎵

Dalton’s ranking of every Criterion release he’s seen, from worst to best:

4. Flow
3. KPop Demon Hunters
2. Godzilla vs. Biollante
1. Godzilla: The Showa Era Films

“It comes to you, this stuff just flies through the air, they send this information ‘beamed’ out over the fucking place, you just got to know how to grab it. See, I know how to grab it.”

Goddamn, what a shit fucking week. Rest In Peace to the incomparable Tom Noonan.

Rest In Peace, Robert Duvall

NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE (2025, Johnson): “This is gonna be a copyright nightmare.”

Genuinely one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. The runner with unreliable flashbacks made me laugh harder than anything else in recent memory. Run out and see this!

Now seated. Having now watched some (not all) of the series I feel adequately prepped for this.

Fresh sourdough loaf. Happy Valentine’s Day.

A film about a failed lesbian actress traumatized by the casting couch dreaming herself into the lead role of a prime time soap opera where the director who steals the woman she loves has his movie taken away by the shadowy Hollywood elite who destroyed her dreams. Billy Ray Cyrus is also there.

I made my threepeat appearance on the Marvelous pod to discuss the greatest film ever made. Even more Lynch impressions ensue. Check it out!

Life update: Dalton’s room now has a Kaiju Wall

Cause / Effect

Even the way he shoots a shot/reverse shot of a dinner table conversation is more visually interesting than most things made today.

Watched The Roses last night, which was absolutely dreadful, one of 2025’s worst. Followed that up with 1989’s The War of the Roses today, which is not only great but looks fan-fucking-tastic, a damning reminder of what studio films could be. DeVito is on fire here:

My Citizen app just alerted me of two people who don’t know how to use guns.

Staff Inquiry: Top 10 Best Films of 2025 - Film Inquiry What did Film Inquiry critics love this year? We polled our contributors and want to take you through their top 10 films of 2025.

Full writing on this plus all our lists here!
www.filminquiry.com/staff-inquir...

For FilmInquiry, my Top 10 of 2025, plus some incredible honorable mentions.

For all its horror, I still contend this is the most life-affirming work of art I’ve ever seen.

Now seated for a religious experience.