Top 10 of 2025: 8. Freaky Tales

★★★★--This technically came out in 2024, but you couldn’t see it anywhere until 2025. So I’m including here.
 
God, I’m a sucker for whacky, blood soaked anthology movies. Throw in the summer of any random year from my childhood. And set it in the Bay area. And toss out some obscure 1980s NBA. Goddamn. 
 
This wild, nostalgic ride blends punk, hip-hop, crime, the supernatural, and basketball into a four-part anthology that’s is pure chaotic energy. Solid, fun ensemble cast led by Pedro Pascal (who absolutely kills it), Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis (the best part of the movie), Normani, Dominique Thorne, Jack Champion, Tom Hanks (who is amazing), Too Short, that Angus Cloud kid that died a couple years ago that I keep seeing in movie, and Marshawn Lynch. It is a crazy good time and ends on the highest of notes. 

Asteroid City - Wes Anderson - 2023

★★★★★-Since The Royal Tenenbaums, I've been all in on Wes Anderson, seeing every film opening weekend. He is one of maybe 10 directors who I'm going to make a spectacle of when they have a movie come out. Have I had a great seeing all of them? Fuck yeah, I have. Asteroid City is no exception, though I am not sure if I really understand it. 

The film is pretty complex in the way that The French Dispatch is complex. Where we get the story of a publication in The French Dispatch while we are also given some of the best stories to come out of that journalism, in this movie we are told about the production of a play, showing that play, and weaving other stories within them. 

This is what you call a metatextual approach, yeah, I went to grad school. First the movie gives us a broadcast of the story behind the play which segues into the first act which follows people as they arrive at a Junior Stargazer convention. Between acts, we are then given behind-the-scenes moments with the actors, director, writer, broadcaster, so forth, who are giving this production a life of its own while offering the audience (real [us viewing the movie] and imagined [the 1955 television viewer]) a glimpse into the creative process. Beyond this, not to give too much away, the film is really, deep down, a lighthearted search for meaning, complete with nuclear testing, alien encounters, and ray guns. And that is just within the play. 

Cast includes most of his usuals and some newcomers to his universe. They include: Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell (loved him in this, by the by), Hong Chau (she the front of house manager in The Menu), Margot Robbie, Matt Dillon, Hope Davis ( The Daytrippers, American Splendor), Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Rupert Friend (he's one of the stars of the show Homeland), Maya Hawke (nepo baby child of Ethan Hawke and Uma, she was in such flicks as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Fear Street Part One: 1994, Do Revenge, she also played the part of  Robin Buckley in Stranger Things), Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Liev Schreiber, Fisher Stevens (he's the white guy playing the Indian guy in Short Circuit, he's also in Succession), Tilda Swinton, Tony Revolori (he was the bellboy, the lead, in The Grand Budapest Hotel), Edward Norton (who looks pretty exactly like William Faulkner in this), Steve Park (he is probably most remembered for being the Asian guy on In Living Color, he was also in Do the Right Thing, Falling Down, Fargo, and The French Dispatch among other things. I suspect this might be a breakout role), and Jeffrey Wright. Also, a bunch of children, Anderson loves him some witty wiz kids. Among them, the main one, this kid Jake Ryan, is the most notable and is probably destined to be in all kinds of Wes Anderson future projects. Also, Sophia Lillis from It, and this Grace Edwards girl who plays ScarJo's daughter. 

I love a meta movie, and I love some Wes Anderson. This one is full of his signatures and feels like the culmination of his work. Not sure if I'll like it more or less with more viewings, but more viewings are definitely required. Didn't crack my top three Anderson movies, (The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums) but right now I'd put it at about four. We'll see if I feel better about it down the road. 

Toy Story 4 is the greatest movie of all time

Toy Story 4. Pixar. Dope shit. Just as good as the other films in the franchise. Took me back to 8th grade. Watching this shit. Brought a tear to my eye once or twice and made me jump more than once with the creepy ventriloquist dolls popping up everywhere and trying to rip out voice boxes and all.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Heartwarming, funny, and beautifully animated, Toy Story 4 manages the unlikely feat of extending -- and perhaps concluding -- a practically perfect animated saga.

The band is still together. Bonnie is the new toy owner. Remarkably, the toys, they're all there. Given to this little kid in bulk. Only one that got away or whatevs was Bo Peep, voiced by Elaine from Ghostbusters, who is out in the world on her own, a lost toy, but she thriving. Living her best life and what not. She don't need no kid. I feel you, Bo. Anyway, this Bonnie has some separation issues when starting school. It's only orientation and all the other kids have been chums since the womb, I guess. But there she is. No friends to speak of. Wood (T.Hanks), who sneaks in to school with her by hopping into her backpack, tries to help by giving her a bunch of trash. With said trash, this Bonnie idiot makes herself a little friend and names it "Forky" because, you know, it's a spork and kids are sort of dumb. Stupid kids. This monstrosity comes to life and Woody takes it upon himself to protect it and what not. But trash is gonna trash and he, voiced by Tony Hale (Baby Buster from Arrested Development), keeps trying to litter himself and ends up on the highway. 

Woody finds him and they head to the RV park that Bonnie and her fam are staying at when he sees Bo Peep's little nightlight that she and her three headed goat (Billy, Goat, Gruff) were a part of in an antique store. So Woody and Forky go into the shop and some creepy ass, possessed doll with a faulty voice box, Gabby, voiced by the bustalicious Christina Hendricks, and her army of demonic ventriloquist dummies led by this maniac Benson, see that Woody's intact box is just waiting to be ripped out of his insides and stuffed into ghoulish Gabby. When they fail, they end up taking Forky hostage. Woody then employs a bunch of vintage, abandoned toys, as well as a pair of stuffed carnival prizes that reunites Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele literally as they are attached at the wrist, in taking back this goddamned abomination of a toy.

Best lines of the movie where surprisingly delivered by Forky. Sort of a dark horse in this category. He had a couple that were killer. Always cheery, one came when he was being held captive and what not by Gabby when henchman ventriloquist butler Benson sort of claps at him and he gleefully exclaims "he is terrifying!" The other, and the best in the movie, is when he is trying to convince Woody that he is not in fact a toy and is indeed trash. "I was meant for soup, salad, maybe chili. And then the trash!," he says before launching himself out of the window of the RV, exclaiming, "I'm litter!" with pure joy.

Hanks is fucking perfect in this role and totally wins the fucking movie. Maybe his best ever though I am pretty partial to Jimmy Dugan. So is Annie Potts as Bo and Hendricks is pretty great as well, displaying a convincing range in this flick. You go from hating her to totes empathizing and what not. Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear is stellar. Also my favorite role for him. But Keanu goddamn Reeves steals the show, as he does, with as Canadian stuntman action figure Duke Caboom. From the trailer I was a bit worried about this guy as it looked irritating AF. But he is over the top in a good way as opposed to the annoying way he comes off in the preview. 

Also, sort of got tired of writing so much about every flick and stopped doing it. Was doing a lot of writing magazine articles for my side hustle, cover letter writing, and company newsletter shits. It stopped being fun. But now I'm getting back into it. Going to try to keep these short and sweet. Just what I liked or didn't. A joke or two. Stuff that stuck out. Shit like that. 

The Burbs is the greatest movie of all time

The Burbs. One of my favorite movies from this era. Remember seeing it right when it came out on video and then watching the shit out of it on HBO. At some point, my bro and I caught it and got it on VHS and from it was on like Simon Le Bon. It is light. Funny. Occasionally dark. Has a killer cast with Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, the dude who plays Art, Mr. Rumsfield, and Corey Feldman. This is the greatest movie of all time.

Pros: Comedy/horror. My favorite genre. Both work. Cast is like insanely 80s great. Some pretty great one liners. Love some of that zany camera work. I wished my neighborhood was like this when I was a child because I was insane.

Cons: Not the best message really. Art gets harder to stomach as time goes by. Ditto for Rumsfield who partly suffers that unfortunate name.

This is what happens when you are bored in suburbia and your neighbors are Nazis. The gist of the film is bored suburbanites, led by Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks), come to believe their newly installed eccentric neighbors, the Klopeks, are members of a homicidal Satanic cult that killed the old man Walter (Gale Gordon) who has gone missing at the end of the cul-de-sac. While the wives, played by Carrie Fisher and Wendy Schaal (who is probably most famous for voicing Francine in American Dad), believe nothing is out of the ordinary, dudes Art (Rick Ducommun), Peterson, Mr. Rumsfield (Bruce Dern), and the neighbor kids, led by Ricky Butler (Corey Feldman), all think the Klopeks are are members of an evil satanic cult. All this equals shenanigans of a hilarious and creepy nature.

Some shit I really liked in this movie was the zany camerawork. I don't usually like stuff like that but in this movie it totally fits the tone and works. The instances that I am thinking of are when the camera focuses in on everyone's faces as they watch Ray go up to ring the door bell on the Klopeks's house and the zoom in and out scene with Art and Ray screaming. In the face scene, it is pretty tense and everyone stares ahead very seriously and then we get a shot of Walter's dog intensely looking ahead. It was pretty great. The other one is after Art and Ray find the femur in the back yard and Art explains to Ray what that bone is and such, ending it with "this is Walter!" and they both scream as the camera keeps sort of bouncing in and out as they completely freak out. Eventually the moment passes though and Art calms down. Ray though is still scream so Art taps him like, "come on man", and he straightens up.

Also, this film, as with Goonies before it, has just the right amount of Corey Feldman, in this flick as stoner/teenager painting his parents' house Ricky Butler. Spoiler, Ricky never paints that fucking house. He comes in, usually on the periphery but once or twice carries the scene, yucks it up, says some surfer shit, and he is out. Joe Dante, who did the same shit with Feldman in Gremlins, seems to have perfected the art of Feldman usage. Good shit.

Klopek. Sessions. Same damn person

Easily my favorite scene of the movie is when the Rumsfields and the Petersons go over to the Klopek household for an insane and awkward neighborly meeting at the behest of the wives. Ray, for the most part, plays it cool like he is unsure what the Klopeks are up to. Mr. Rumsfield, however, is all in on them being murderous psychos and pulls no punches, making pointed, confrontational small-talk with the occasional accusation just thrown out there. Whenever this happens, Ray acts like a freak in order to keep things semi sane. One of the best ones is when Rumsfield asks if Klopek is Slavic in a way that implies that he definitely thinks there is something wrong with being Slavic and the one played by Brother Theodore, Rueben, who is so angry throughout his entire time on screen, barks back "NO!" to which Rumsfield is like "about a nine on the tension scale there, Rueb." He asks a bunch questions about why they move around so much, what happened to the people that used to live there, and all this shit which come to think of it, why the Klopeks are murdering all these people is never really addressed but I'm pretty sure they are probably Nazis. Part of my reasoning is Rueb's insane reaction to the Slavic question. Then Dr. Klopek, who I think grew up to be Jeff Sessions, is totally Mengele-esque with his weird paintings and trunk of bones and all that. But I think they are more or less just Nazi caricatures than anything. Just some homicidal weirdos that are vaguely Nazi(ish). Speaking of, the one Hans, played by infamous ginger Courtney Gains, the Pinocchio Klopek, has the most disgusting neck beard in all of film. You might remember him in the slightly less disturbing roll of Malachai in Children of the Corn.

Rueb. Total sweetheart

The ending, spoiler, sends some mixed signals. What happens is Tom Hanks blows up the Klopeks' house looking for the rest of their neighbor Walter whom they are sure they have burned and buried in the basement. They appear to be totally wrong as the Klopeks have brought the police to the scene and act completely innocent. At first, when that that shit is going down, you side with the Klopeks as Tom Hanks does he thing, explaining that they are the crazy ones for being paranoid and burning their neighbor's house down. But then their trunk pops open and Corey Feldman looks underneath this blanket and we see underneath it their trunk full of skeletal remains. From there it is all, nope, just kidding, they are totally justified in their insane behavior because the Klopeks were fucking crazy after all. But I still like it and it was definitely better than the alternative. In the original script, Ray gets killed in the ambulance and the Klopeks go free which is obviously a huge bummer of a scene. There is another alternate ending that isn't terrible. If you want, you can check it out below...

Anyway, Tom Hanks is the obvious MVP of the movie. I feel this is sort of the movie where he went from goofball kid to America's dad. He is totes still goofy AF, but with this flick progresses from the hilarious, lovable frat bro/manchild from Bachelor Party and like everything else he did prior to the 1990s, and is everyone's surrogate dad for the next 20 years or so. He is stressed out and out of control and is god damned perfect which we later just take for granted with good old reliable Hanks. Total MVP performance right here. Feldman and Dern were also solid. Fucking greatness, this flick.