The 2025 Remix Report Card Vol. 4
Thursday, November 20, 2025
Here's Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and Vol. 3, and the Spotify playlist of every remix I've covered in 2025. This might be my longest Remix Report Card ever? This definitely makes 2025 the most remixes I've covered in a year, way over 100. The best/worst lists are on the way in December.
"Affirmations (Remix)" by Flippa T featuring 2 Chainz
I like the part of this song where Flippa T riffs on "I Can," but I guess it's not realistic to suggest Nas could've been on the remix. But I'm always happy to hear a Tity Boi guest verse and he killed this one, love the way he went 20 bars with the beat fading out under the last couple bars, good ending. Hate the AI cover art for the remix but it's pretty hard to escape that shit in rap these days.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: A
"All I Ever Asked (Remix)" by Rachel Chinouriri featuring Sombr
I'm a little late to this one, I didn't realize Sombr jumped on a remix of this back in February, a couple months before he really blew up. Apparently Sombr is a Rachel Chinouriri fan, which is pretty cool, the song is close enough to his sound that his voice sounds decent on it, he cleverly turned it into a duet where he sings from the perspective of the ex Chinouriri is singing about. What A Devastating Turn of Events was one of my favorite albums of 2024, I'm glad this song did well on the charts in the UK, I wish her label took the opportunity to promote this remix in America more after Sombr got big.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"Before Hip Hop (Premix)" by Ice Cube featuring LL Cool J and Chuck D
Ice Cube and Chuck D were two of the greatest rappers on earth in 1990 when they collaborated on songs on Fear of a Black Planet and AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted. Hearing them on a track together again 35 years later, when neither is at his best, is a little anticlimactic. LL, on the other hand, released a great album last year and pretty easily carries the remix (and I'm not sure why it's called a 'premix,' it's not a Premo beat or anything fun like that).
Best Verse: LL Cool J
Overall Grade: B
"Blanco (Remix)" by Wale featuring TOB
I love hearing Wale rapper over Go-Go, I don't think he gets enough credit for repping the D.C. sound in the mainstream, I'd love if he did an entire Go-Go album, but I'll take the occasional tracks like this. And I dig that this is actually him performing the song with TOB, they didn't just put his vocal from the original "Blanco" over the band.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+
"BNB 2" by Dee Billz featuring Zeddy Will
The original "BNB" was by Brooklyn rappers Jay Gelato and Dee Billz, and the sequel is by the latter and Queens rapper Zeddy Will. These are all young guys who aren't great rappers doing obnoxious new school drill/club stuff, and I debated whether to even qualify this as a remix because they're completely different songs with different beats, 'BNB' doesn't even stand for the same thing ('bad and bougie' in the first track and 'bottles and bitches' in the second one). And they trade lines on the one verse, so I can't even really give the best verse to either. Zeddy Will, whose song "Twerkin Wit Ya Friends" broke through to mainstream radio this year, is a real poet ("I can tell by your butt you the thickest").
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: D
"Bodies (BNYX Mix)" by Offset featuring Drowning Pool, JID, and BNYX
Drowning Pool's 2001 single "Bodies" is a nu-metal classic, and sadly the band's original frontman Dave Williams died of an undiagnosed heart condition in 2002, barely a year after the song was released. But the band is still going, and after Offset sampled Williams's whisper from the song, the band got to perform a mashup of the two songs on "The Tonight Show," and it's pretty fun to hear a version of the Offset track with the guitars and everything.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"BodyRock Part 2" by TisaKorean featuring Lil Uzi Vert
The original "BodyRock," which featured Lil Yachty, is one of the most annoying songs I've ever heard. The remix is still pretty annoying, but Uzi's verse is a definite improvement.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B-
"Bumbaa (Remix)" by Ohthatsmizz featuring Sturdyyoungin, Bay Swag, Cash Cobain, and Jenn Carter
Another annoying TikTok rap song, improved very mildly by a remix.
Best Verse: Cash Cobain
Overall Grade: C+
"Don't Look Down (Remix)" by Ed Sheeran featuring Hanumankind, Dhee, and Santhosh Narayanan
Ed Sheeran recently released the Play (The Remixes) EP, with artists from India guesting on songs from his latest album. Not really sure why India, just feels like Sheeran is following the Coldplay playbook (Coldplaybook?) of using gratuitous multicultural collaborations to spice up his bland British pop/rock. Hanumankind, who's been in this column before for the A$AP Rocky remix of his hit "Big Dawgs," is a decent rapper, I like how he sounds on this.
Best Verse: Hanumankind
Overall Grade: C+
"Country Girl (Trailride Version)" by Tonio Armani featuring Jeter Jones
"Country Girl" basically riffs on Lil Jon's early hit "I Like Dem Girlz," that was a pretty mediocre song and so is this. Tonio Armani and Jeter Jones have somewhat similar voices, so I don't feel like the remix makes much of a difference, but that's the version that's getting R&B radio spins.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C
"Doot Doot (6 7) [Remix]" by Skrilla featuring G Herbo
The "six seven" meme that was spawned by a song by Philadelphia rapper Skrilla is absolutely everywhere these days, but the song itself hasn't broken into the Hot 100, even after a pretty big star, G Herbo, jumped on a remix of it. I think that speaks to how shitty the song is, it's just a slow, clunky blur of murder talk delivered in an obnoxious squeaky voice. I'm generally not much of a fan of G Herbo's recent music, but he's got a couple of memorable lines on here ("dirty game, it cost a whole man to play"). Skrilla didn't do a whole new verse for the remix but he added a couple bars to intro the G Herbo verse, and I do appreciate that kind of attention to detail. He also references "Baby Shark" during one of the 'doot doot' parts, which feels apt, the "Baby Shark" toddlers grew up to be the "6 7" teenagers.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+
"Drugs Callin (Remix)" by Hurricane Wisdom featuring Lil Baby
"Drugs Callin (Remix)" by Hurricane Wisdom featuring Lil Baby
Boring song, boring Lil Baby verse, it feels like he knows to show out when he's guesting on a song by Drake or someone else big, but when he's working with smaller artists you can tell he doesn't give a shit.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C-
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C-
"Eatuh (Remix)" by Big Take featuring R2R Moe
The Bronx's Big Take and R2R Moe both basically make "sexy drill" like D-list equivalents of Cash Cobain, but R2R Moe calls his style of music "angelic drill," and I trust that you can sense how hard I'm rolling my eyes right now.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C-
"ErrTime (Remix)" by Cardi B featuring Jeezy and Latto
One of the standouts on Cardi B's Am I The Drama? album namechecked Latto in a positive way. And five days after the album's release, a remix featuring Latto came out, which felt like a good look, it kinda has the same vibe as "Put It On Da Floor Again." But six days after that, a recording of a phone call between Cardi B and Ice Spice's manager leaked where Cardi repeatedly namechecked Latto in a negative way. So I don't know if they're even friends anymore, but the remix is a hit. And then last week Cardi added Jeezy to the remix, but kept the Latto verse on there too, and it really feels more complete in that form.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: A
"FMB pt. 2" by wolfacejoeyy featuring Hurricane Wisdom
FYI, "FMB" stands for "free my bitch." Goofy little song, Hurricane Wisdom is a natural fit for it but doesn't necessarily make it any better.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C
"Folded (Remix)" by Kehlani featuring Brandy
"Folded (Remix)" by Kehlani featuring JoJo
"Folded (Remix)" by Kehlani featuring Mario
"Folded (Remix)" by Kehlani featuring Ne-Yo
"Folded (Remix)" by Kehlani featuring Tank
"Folded (Remix)" by Kehlani featuring Toni Braxton
"Folded" recently became Kehlani's first top 10 hit, and it felt like a big record for her from the very beginning. And one of the cool things about the song building buzz was a few R&B veterans doing their own versions of the track, which were then collected on an EP called Folded Homage Pack. I don't think the song really makes sense as a duet and the quality isn't really consistent -- the Brandy one was engineered pretty poorly, in my opinion -- but I like that everyone approached it differently, it's kind of a cool showcase of different R&B singing styles. Tank is the one who really went all out on remixing the track, but some of the lyrics are cheesy. A Baltimore native, DK The Punisher, co-produced "Folded," and two of my favorite of the remixes are by Marylanders!
Best Verse: Toni Braxton
Overall Grade: B
"Friend Do Remix" by Belly Gang Kushington featuring YK Niece
The original "Friend Do" is just an obnoxious song with a guy bossing a woman around, so adding a woman on the remix instantly gives the whole thing a better vibe. YK Niece raps 12 bars, which is the longest verse she has on any of her three hit collaborations.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B-
"Frontline (Remix)" by Hurricane Wisdom featuring NoCap
Another boring Hurricane Wisdom song but the remix in this case is actually a slight improvement.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B-
"Happen To Me (Remix)" by Russell Dickerson featuring the Jonas Brothers
The Jonas Brothers have a hit on country radio right now with Rascal Flatts, and also did a remix of one of the biggest country hits of the year. But these are all pretty much pop/rock songs, nobody's really moving an inch outside their comfort zone. It sounds fine but doesn't really add anything to the song, I much prefer the original
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C
"Hawk 'Em (Remix)" by R2R Moe featuring Sheff G
Oh good, more "angelic drill." Brooklyn's Sheff G is a better rapper than R2R Moe, so the remix is a slight improvement on a pretty whatever song.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+
"Hips Don't Lie (Spotify Anniversary Version)" by Shakira featuring Ed Sheeran and Beele
This might make me sound like a wet blanket, but I've always hated "Hips Don't Lie." Shakira's first reggaeton song, "La Tortura," was cool as fuck, and then a year later she came along with this cornball English language reggaeton record that was annoying and inescapable. "Hips Don't Lie" won't turn 20 until February but I guess Spotify wanted to get a jump on it with this new version. Ed Sheeran sings bits of Wyclef's parts and Shakira's parts, and sounds about as ridiculous as you'd respect, with some new vocals from Shakira and young Colombian singer Beele as well.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: F
"I'm A Dog (Remix)" by Kevin Gates featuring Rick Ross
Kevin Gates did a version of "I'm A Boss" back in 2011 when the original Meek Mill/Rick Ross song was the hottest record out. And I'm not sure how, but "I'm A Dog" went viral this year and has more streams than any song from Gates's recent album. Ross's verses on both "I'm A Boss" and the OG "I'm A Boss" remix were great, but he's just washed now and blandly trying to approach the beat with a different flow now, it's anticlimactic.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: F
"(Isn't It) Obvious (Remix)" by Alessia Cara featuring Lucky Daye
I like Alessia Cara, I feel like she's probably making better music now than she was when she became famous as a teenager. This song from her latest album sounds pretty good as a duet with Lucky Daye, but I mostly just like the song in its original solo version.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B-
"It Depends (Remix)" by Chris Brown featuring Usher and Bryson Tiller
I don't really understand Usher and Chris Brown's relationship. Brown's debut single was such an obvious knockoff of Usher's biggest hit that it started beef between the song's producers, and Chris never really caught up to Usher but Usher still generously treats him like a peer. Two years ago a crazy story circulated that Chris and his security team jumped Usher at a party, but here we are with Chris having a big hit that samples "Nice & Slow" and Usher jumping on the remix like it's all good. He definitely adds something to the song with a fun verse because, again, he's much more talented than Chris Brown.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+
"Lick Back (Remix)" by Coi Leray featuring Skrilla
I'm not too cranky about short rap songs, I think they're great sometimes. But the original "Lick Back" is literally 76 seconds long, so doing a remix that pushes it over the 2-minute mark is like turning a snippet into a real song. The beat sounds a little like "Doot Doot (6 7)" but Skrilla's rapping on here is actually significantly more competent than it is on "Doot Doot."
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
Overall Grade: B
"Love the Way (Down For You PT2)" by Mobb Deep featuring Nas and H.E.R.
As much as I love Mobb Deep's The Immortal, it feels a little anachronistic that "Down For You" featuring Jorja Smith is getting the biggest push of any song on the album, I wouldn't really think that anyone checking for a Mobb Deep album in 2025 cares if they have another "Hey Luv (Anything)." It's a good song, though, and there's a good remix/sequel at the end of the album with another R&B hook from H.E.R., and Prodigy, Havoc, and Nas all have different verses from the original track.
Best Verse: Nas
Overall Grade: B
"Midnight Sun (Remix)" by Zara Larsson featuring Muni Long
I love "Midnight Sun" and was a little disappointed that the (also very good) "Crush" has become the American radio hit from Zara Larsson's latest album. So the fact that a remix of "Midnight Sun" with an American artist was just released last week gives me a little hope that maybe her label is still trying to capitalize on it being the album's biggest streaming hit. Not that Muni Long is necessarily such a huge star that this remix is likely to do much, but it sounds good, I wouldn't mind hearing this version on the radio.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"Moving On (Remix" by Jake Carter featuring Tonio Armani
I wrote about a Tonio Armani song earlier in the post, and here he's appearing on another southern soul artist's song that's a little slower and more rootsy, lots of guitar and organ. A much better vocal showcase for Armani, but all this stuff sounds a little cheap and sloppily produced to me, I wish this scene had live bands instead of drum machine-driven tracks.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+
"Old Tricks" by Thomas Rhett featuring Niall Horan
Julian Bunetta is one of my favorite producers in popular music today, partly because of his versatility. Bunetta has been making pop hits since his work with One Direction, and broke into country first with Thomas Rhett. So I think it's really cool to hear Rhett and a member of One Direction sing together on a new version of a song Rhett originally recorded with Blake Shleton.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"Over Under (Remix)" by Joe Leone featuring Ne-Yo
A really mediocre R&B song by total amateur, Ne-Yo showing up with his elite pen and seasoned performing chops on a song that doesn't deserve it almost feels like it demeans both of them.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C
"Pardon Me (Remix)" by La Reezy and PJ Morton featuring Rapsody
Teen rapper La Reezy and middle-aged R&B guy PJ Morton are both from New Orleans and made a fun collab EP together, and Rapsody jumped on a remix of one of the project's standout tracks. Rapsody is such a good MC, I wish she did more features, it's always fun to hear her just do a quick hired gun 16.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"Pretty Girl Anthem (Remix)" by Kavi Synatra featuring Zeddy Will
Kavi Synatra is from Miami but this song is really riding that Cash Cobain sexy drill wave, and not very well. Zeddy Will slightly improves the song though.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+
"Putting Ya Dine (Remix)" by Monaleo featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again
This song really seems to be a tipping point hit for Monaleo, I just started hearing it on the radio after this remix dropped, although my local stations are playing the original version. I'm not the biggest NBA YoungBoy fan but this is the exact kind of tempo he can catch a good flow on.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+
"Rein Me In" by Sam Fender featuring Olivia Dean
I've been a fan of Sam Fender for years and just recently became a fan of Olivia Dean. It wouldn't have occurred to me that I'd like to hear them duet, but they picked the right song from People Watching to do it with.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"Ride (Remix)" by Chance The Rapper featuring Twista and Do Or Die
Do Or Die are cool as hell, I loved that Chance featured them on Star Line and saluted that '90s era Chicago rap. And adding Twista to the remix to reunite the whole "Po Pimp" team makes it even better.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: A-
"She In Love Wit A Dumper (Remix)" by Ball Hog q featuring Rockout Danny
"She In Love Wit A Dumper (Reaper Remix)" by Ball Hog q featuring Lil King
"She In Love Wit A Dumper (Scammer Remix)" by Ball Hog q featuring BabyTron
Teen Milwaukee rappers Ball Hog q and Tae released their first song in August, and it's already got a million streams and three remixes with regional rap stars. It's a goofy little track riffing on T-Pain's "I'm N Luv) Wit A Stripper" and it doesn't feel like anybody on any version of the song is taking it remotely seriously. I'm not huge on BabyTron but this is one of those situations where he's clearly a bigger talent than any of these other guys. It's pretty funny that each version is about a girl being in love with a different variety of lowlife.
Best Verse: BabyTron
Overall Grade: C+
"Somebody Loves Me Pt. 2" by Drake & PartyNextDoor featuring Cash Cobain
I kind of felt bad for PartyNextDoor that Drake put several solo tracks on $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, and predictably the two biggest hits from the album didn't have PND on them. Maybe Drake felt bad about that too, because a few months later, they put a big push behind the biggest duo song from the album, releasing 19 (!) music videos for "Somebody Loves Me" and a pretty good remix with Cash Cobain. Drake has jumped on remixes of a lot of other artist's songs, but when's the last time he did a remix for one of his own singles? Has he ever done it? I'm drawing ablank.
Best Verse: Cash Cobain
Overall Grade: A-
"Stateside (Remix)" by PinkPantheress featuring Bladee
"Stateside (Remix)" by PinkPantheress featuring Kylie Minogue
"Stateside (Remix)" by PinkPantheress featuring Zara Larsson
PinkPantheress's music is already a melting pot of different styles, so her remix album Fancy Some More? is a fun opportunity to stir different cultures together even more with a huge international range of guests, including two Swedes and an Australian. Some of the remixes have the same instrumentals as the album versions, some get new beats, I like what Oscar Scheller did with the "Stateside" beat on the Zara Larsson remix and she hits some crazy vocal runs.
Best Verse: Zara Larsson
Overall Grade: B+
"Tombstone Town (Outlaw Country Remix)" by Dorothy featuring Lanie Gardner and Slash
Dorothy, the band fronted by Dorothy Martin, has been Roc Nation's token rock act for almost a decade without much to show for it besides four top 10 hits on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. "Tombstone Town" fell a few spots short of being their fifth top 10, even with Slash playing on it. The 'outlaw country remix' is the same instrumentally as the original, which already had some banjos and some twang on it, but I enjoy the addition of Lanie Gardner, who released one of my favorite debut country albums of 2025.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"Understood (Remix)" by Eric Bellinger featuring Tiwa Savage
American R&B singers jumping on the Afrobeats bandwagon feels a bit transparent but in my opinion the results often sound pretty decent, as is the case here, their voices just seem to fit together naturally.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"We On Dat (OG Mix)" by Monaleo featuring Bun B, Lil Keke, and Paul Wall
Bun B had one of the greatest runs as a remix guest rapper of all time back in the day, but last year was the first time he popped up in this column in over a decade, on a random track by a Japanese rapper. So I'm happy that the latest Houston rapper to blow up ended her new album with a remix featuring Bun and some other Texas legends.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+
"We On Go II" by BIA featuring Denzel Curry and A$AP Ferg
I feel like it's appropriate that "We On Dat" and "We On Go" are next to each other in this post, similarly shouty songs with similar titles. I hold Denzel Curry in pretty high esteem but BIA put a new verse on the remix and I think it's a cut above her verses on the original or either guest on the remix.
Best Verse: BIA
Overall Grade: B
"Witcha Dude (Remix)" by Black Queen featuring YK Niece and Saucy Santana
As usual, YK Niece gives the bare minimum with a 8 bar verse that kind of devolves into talking on the beat in the last bar or two, but it weirdly works for her, and Saucy Santana also does 8 bars, but is a bit more of a professional rapper about it. Sidebar: I hate how often people just say 'Santana' on social media when they're talking about Saucy Santana as if he's the only famous Santana. If he even qualifies as famous anymore, his moment in the spotlight was pretty brief.
Best Verse: Saucy Santana
Overall Grade: B-
"Working II" by Keith Sweat featuring Lil Wayne and Qing Madi
Another pleasant American/Nigerian R&B/Afrobeats crossover that doesn't feel too forced. I think Wayne might really finally be tapped out, though.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C-
"Work It Out (Sweet Thing) (Remix)" by Lizzen featuring Saint Lamaar and Jacquees
I feel kind of bad for Lizzen, she makes better music than Lizzo but she's way less famous, so I see her name and think of Lizzo. "Sweet Thing (Work It Out)" first with just Saint Lamaar, and that's the version I've heard on the radio a bit, but it was remixed again on Lizzen's collab tape with Jacquees, and he's a nice addition to the song.
Best Verse: Jacquees
Overall Grade: B
"Yes It Is (Remix)" by Leon Thomas featuring Muni Long and Marsha Ambrosius
Good song, and I think it's better as a duet with Muni Long -- Marsha doesn't really have a verse, she just kind of ad libs over the outro.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
Movie Diary
Monday, November 17, 2025
a) Frankenstein
Of all the IP that Guillermo del Toro has been attached to over the years without him ultimately directing a movie, dozens of adaptations or franchises and characters, I'm not thrilled about his last two features being Pinocchio and Frankenstein, some things have just been done too many times for me to care. The latter certainly is right in the wheelhouse of the themes and visuals that he excels at, though. It didn't dazzle me like Pan's Labyrinth or anything, but I thought The Creature was rendered really well. Jacob Elordi had the right physicality to make him terrifying when he needed to be (I'm glad Andrew Garfield had to drop out due to scheduling issues, I can't picture him being as effective). But he also pulled off the voiceover stuff in the second half way better than I expected, and I was amused that del Toro had him in little yellow shorts like Rocky Horror for half the movie. My wife pointed out that Oscar Isaac is really too old to play Victor Frankenstein as written, which is probably a good point, but overall it worked for me, it not terribly memorable.
b) Sorry, Baby
It was only like 6 years ago that Eva Victor was someone who occasionally posted funny videos on Twitter, then a supporting player on the underrated cable drama "Billions," and now the star and director of a very good A24 feature. Sorry, Baby manages the interesting feat of a very visceral, haunting depiction of a sexual assault that doesn't show any of the actual act taking place -- you just see the before and after, how the protagonist is shellshocked by it, how the betrayal reverberates through their life. And then there are these moments of happiness, warmth, or comedy that feel like such a relief and a release in that context -- friendship, a kitten, a new relationship, and one of the most memorable one-scene performances in a movie in recent memory by John Carroll Lynch.
I wasn't crazy about Daniel and Michael Philippou's first big word-of-mouth horror hit Talk To Me. I liked Bring Her Back a bit more, but I chuckled when I saw someone call it a 'poor man's Hereditary' and don't entirely disagree. 12-year-old Jonah Wren Phillips gives perhaps the most disturbing performance by a child in a horror movie since Linda Blair in The Exorcist, but I don't know if I mean that unconditionally as a compliment, it felt a little gratuitous after a certain point. Sally Hawkins also great, but it kind of felt like Sora Wong's visual impairment was kind of used as a cheap plot shortcut.
The Substance is, depending on who you ask, roughly the 7th or 8th horror movie to ever be nominated for Best Picture, and I was really hoping it'd live up to that lineage. But I thought it was about 40 minutes longer than it should've been, some things about the plot didn't hang together well, and the satirical aspect was kind of hamhanded, Dennis Quaid in particular was really Going For It in a way that I just rolled my eyes at. Some of the visuals in the second half were really impressive, I'm glad it won the Oscar for hair and makeup, but I wish it got across the concept of one person alternating between two different lives onscreen as well as "Severance."
e) Smile 2
I called Smile a "perfectly average mainstream horror movie" and hoped that writer/director Parker Finn would make good on the potential shown in his debut feature in something other than the "inevitable Smile sequels." But I gotta say, he really knocked it out of the park with Smile 2, building on the original with something that's better and more gripping in every way, and it ends in a way that actually makes me excited to see what he does with Smile 3 (although, again, I hope he starts diversifying and doesn't become one of those horror directors who just milks one franchise for most of his career). Smile 2, like The Substance, taps into how fame can be a force multiplier in horror movies -- whatever the protagonist is going through can be so much worse if they're a major celebrity trying to hide it from the world -- but uses that much more effectively though Naomi Scott's bravura performance.
f) Thunderbolts
Definitely one of the most enjoyable recent MCU movies, although I liked the first half with the whole ragtag crew slowly banding together more than the second half's usual bombastic supervillain spectacle stuff. Great cast, Florence Pugh really led the ensemble well and it was fun to see "The Wire" guys like Chris Bauer and Wendell Pierce populating a Marvel movie.
g) Presence
There was a lot of handwringing about the recent revelation that Adam Driver and Steven Soderbergh pitched a Star Wars movie that didn't get made. But the thing I like about Soderbergh is that he's just gonna keep making movies even if he doesn't land a big franchise gig -- he's probably going to direct his 40th feature before Quentin Tarantino (who's the same age) makes his precious 10th and final film. Presence is one of those small budget Soderbergh experiments that I always enjoy seeing him attempt, although like Linklater, I think the quality of the direction and the acting suffers a little when he goes all out on trying something new. I think critics were probably too generous to Presence, but I liked what worked enough that I don't really mind.
A guy named Joe Shrapnel wrote this movie. I think I'd have the confidence to write a mediocre screenplay if I had a name as awesome as Joe Shrapnel. Silly story but the cast did a decent job of treating it with seriousness.
j) The Amateur
Sometimes even when a role is right in the brooding intense niche that Rami Malek made his name on, it feels like he's just not a very good actor. I liked the premise of this movie but I feel like it would've been a lot more enjoyable with a more charismatic established leading man.
k) Midway
It's funny to think that even Roland Emmerich's passion project that he worked for years to get produced independently is just another bloated, formulaic war movie, just without big name actors, so it bombed at the box office.
Actress Amy Seimetz has had a good run of directing TV, and I also really liked this low budget horror feature she made. Visually interesting, good performances, reminded me a little of one of my favorite cult movies, Pontypool.
Good movie, the strength of Adriano Tardiolo's performance really makes that ending hit hard.
John Candy died about a month before Kurt Cobain, when I was 12, and those may have been the first two celebrity deaths that meant something to me and left an indelible impression (just a few months after the first family death that meant something to me and left an indelible impression, my maternal grandfather). So this movie was going to make me laugh and cry even if it wasn't an effective tribute, but it was, I was impressed. It was great to hear so many stories from family members and friends and SCTV people and co-stars. It felt sometime like the movie was too focused on how young he died, repeatedly rooting each chapter of his life in how many years he had left, but for the most part it was a very warm and moving doc that did justice to his work and his talent.
o) Being Eddie
Eddie Murphy was part of a very good documentary about Black movie stardom, Number One on the Call Sheet, earlier this year that aptly captured the impact of his career. So I didn't necessarily have high hopes that Being Eddie wouldn't feel quite as essential, and might just feel too much like a guy sitting in his mansion talking about how great he is. This was great, though, Eddie has a really interesting perspective on his career and broke down so many elements of his performances and the evolution of his roles. One of the recurring themes of Being Eddie is how Murphy's survival in show business is a pretty rare thing, especially for someone who became so famous so young. And I'm glad that they emphasized that so well, it felt especially poignant because I watched it the same week as the John Candy doc, it makes you appreciate that Murphy navigated his life and stardom so deftly that his low points are as benign as Vampire in Brooklyn or not winning an Oscar.
Pryor's one of my all-time favorite comics, but some of his concert films I've only seen in bits and pieces, so it was fun to finally watch this from front to back. And it was especially entertaining in light of Eddie Murphy really detailing how much he was influenced by Pryor in Being Eddie.
q) Jaws
Another movie that I'd seen here and there on TV over the years but finally watched in full. It's entertaining, having heard all the stories of how the animatronic shark barely functioned and they had to limit how much it's on camera, to see how well that functions in the context of the movie, how much the strength of the cast and the visual storytelling works around that beautifully. I particularly loved Robert Shaw, it was sad to realize he died just 3 years after Jaws came out. Namedrop time: weirdly just a few days after I watched Jaws, I met Steven Spielberg! I teleprompted his speech when his portrait was unveiled for the National Portrait Gallery, so I got to shake his hand and work with him for a couple minutes on script revisions, pretty cool.
r) Mamma Mia!
I like ABBA's music and pretty much the whole cast of Mamma Mia! so I always kind of assumed I'd enjoy this movie. But as soon as I started it, I remembered that I almost never like movie adaptations of stage musicals. There's this stiffness that undermines the songs, the actors, everything.
Friday, November 14, 2025
I interviewed Tim McIlrath of Rise Against for Spin, and also wrote about Tracy Chapman's "3,000 Miles" for Deep Cut Friday.
Monthly Report: November 2025 Singles
Wednesday, November 12, 2025 
1. Jenevieve - "Head Over Heels"
Jenevieve Johnson is an R&B singer from Miami who released her second major label album in August, but I didn't really get hip to her music until "Head Over Heels" popped up on the R&B radio charts in the last few weeks. Great song, love that unexpected little pause in the intro and all the variations in the vocal melody and the backing track. Here's the 2025 singles Spotify playlist I update every month.
2. Raye - "Where Is My Husband!"
I dance around the house so much when this song comes up on my playlist, I love how she just kind of leans into the silliness of this song while still making the emotion of it feel real. She's operating on a crazy level of craft, really really singing in super fast cadences like a rapper about as well as anyone not named Beyonce ever has, and the song is just jam packed with all these fun little riffs and dynamics.
3. Zara Larsson - "Crush"
At first I was annoyed that U.S. radio went for "Crush" when "Midnight Sun" was the bigger hit in her native Sweden, but really I just like every song on Zara Larsson's new album, and "Crush" has grown on me a lot. Great chorus, great modulation on the bridge.
4. Hayley Williams - "Parachute"
The more parasocial Paramore fans quickly picked up that Taylor York doesn't play on Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party like her first solo album and that several songs could be about the end of their relationship. And since those initial 17 songs were released, she's added three more songs to the album that make it really clear that that's exactly what she's writing about. The second verse of "Parachute" is probably the most emotionally wrenching thing Williams has ever written, I find it a little overwhelming every time I listen to it.
5. Tyla - "Is It"
People tried way more to make "Push 2 Start" a big record for Tyla, but this is the one since "Water" that I think really showcases her on-record charisma, feels like the right tempo and right kind of production for her. I'm a little annoyed that she's already moved on to another single that I don't like nearly as much, "Chanel."
6. The Last Dinner Party - "This Is The Killer Speaking"
Last year the Last Dinner Party released a cover of "This Town Ain't Big Enough For the Both of Us" and they just absolutely nailed it, great rendition of the song. "This is the Killer Speaking" doesn't sound like that per se, but it feels like it plays around with dynamics and tempo changes in a similar way, much more than anything on their first album, I love how it builds up to the ending.
7. Gorillaz f/ Sparks - "The Happy Dictator"
Speaking of Sparks! They opened for Blur back in '95 so in retrospect I'm kind of surprised it took this long for them to be featured on a Gorillaz track. This is the first time they've appeared on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart, although they were staples of KROQ in the '80s before Billboard had started the chart (then Modern Rock).
8. Demi Lovato - "Here All Night"
Three years ago, Demi Lovato held a jokey 'funeral for my pop music' while releasing her first guitar-driven album in over a decade, Holy Fvck. She recently released a dance pop album aptly titled It's Not That Deep, and I like both of those records, it's all in fun to me.
9. Aespa - "Rich Man"
A demo of this song has circulated with an intro that samples the famous Cher interview clip that inspired the song, but the real version has a sort of reenactment that really kind of flubs the line in an annoying way. Still, using that as the premise of a pop song is kinda brilliant.
10. Saweetie f/ J. White Did It - "Boffum"
Saweetie's two biggest solo hits both samples mid-2000s Lil Jon productions, and I never really liked those, but I think she did a much better job with this song that samples Young Buck's "Shawty Wanna Ride." It's kind of unfortunate that it's come out at a time when Saweetie's career has become a laughing stock, because I think it's one of the best thing she's done, the second verse is great ("where the USD/ still see that ass in a two X tee/ wanna stick it in like a USB/ put a Trojan on like USC").
The Worst Single of the Month: Chase Matthew - "Darlin'"
I almost like this song but Chase Matthew's voice makes the lyric sound even more jerky and aggressive than it already is. Right now it's #1 on country radio and Jackson Dean is #2, so I feel personally invested in Chase Matthew getting out of that spot so Jackson Dean can have his first #1 hit.
Friday, November 07, 2025
This week on Spin, I ranked Cyndi Lauper's albums and Lenny Kravitz's albums and wrote a Deep Cut Friday column about Public Enemy.
TV Diary
Thursday, November 06, 2025 
I never really kept up with "Slow Horses" past the first season but I'm really enjoying the new Apple TV series which is based on a different Mick Herron novel and developed by "Slow Horses" writer Morwenna Banks (who has a fascinatingly random career -- she was also an "SNL" cast member for four episodes in 1995 and voices Peppa Pig's mother). Great performance from Emma Thompson, and Darren Boyd steals every scene he's in. The end of the first episode is a huge bummer that also totally hooked me on watching more, with a really creative and weird score by Laura Karpman (who was nominated for an Oscar for her work on American Fiction) and great needle drops (John Cale, The Nerves, etc.).
b) "I Love LA"
I feel like there's a general weariness at the very existence of any new TV comedy about striving twentysomethings in New York or Los Angeles. I totally get that, but I generally like Rachel Sennott, and she co-wrote one of her better movies, Bottoms, so I was interested to see a series created by her. "I Love LA" definitely doesn't feel totally distinct from some of the shows it will invariably be compared to, but the first episode was pretty promising. I like to make fun of Odessa A'zion for coming up with a fake last name so people won't know she's Pamela Adlon's kid, but she's just absurdly beautiful, and she's good in the 'chaotic former best friend' role here.
c) "All's Fair"
It was obvious back when he had a whole fan service tangent about them in "The People vs. O.J. Simpson" that Ryan Murphy is obsessed with the Kardashians, and now he's made it his mission to give Kim an acting career. First he cast her in a season of "American Horror Story," now he's built a whole series around her with a ridiculously overqualified ensemble cast including Glenn Close, Naomi Watts, Sarah Paulson, and Niecy Nash-Betts. And I'll admit it more or less works, it reminds me of those goofy yet watchable legal dramas that David E. Kelley used to make, and Sarah Paulson in particular is hilarious.
Last week I wrote about how Friendship kind of transferred the world of a Tim Robinson sketch to a movie with mixed results. "The Chair Company" is much the same but as a miniseries, and so far I think it's a little more successful than Friendship. Most "I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson" sketches have one character who thinks and acts bizarrely, often but not always played by Robinson, and almost everyone else is a completely normal straight man. "The Chair Company" is kind of fun because every time you encounter a new character, you don't know if they're going to talk like weird Tim Robinson characters or whether they're going to act like a real person would. At a certain point it's almost like two sets of people living in different realities keep running into each other.
e) "DMV"
I live in a part of the Washington, D.C./Maryland/Virginia area that people have decided to call 'the DMV' and I hate it. That's the Department of Motor Vehicles. That's not a flattering thing to compare your region to! So I'm happy that there's a new network sitcom called "DMV" and it's about the government building where people renew their driver's licenses. And it's probably the best old-fashioned workplace sitcom CBS has done in a long time, with a great cast including "SNL" alums young and old (Molly Kearney and Tim Meadows), Harriet Dyer from "Colin From Accounts," and Tony Cavalero from "The Righteous Gemstones."
Maybe I just couldn't give this It spinoff series a chance because I absolutely hate the clunky title, but I really just don't like, it feels like a huge step down from the movies, feels like they're piling on the crazy fx-driven scenes without the proper buildup that the original It story had.
Obviously The Witcher was a very successful franchise of books and video games before Henry Cavill starred in the TV series, but when Cavill left, it really felt like any attempt Netflix made to keep the show going after he dropped out was doomed. And the fourth season with Liam Hemsworth as Geralt feels like a particularly pathetic attempt, it even opens with a recap of the first 3 seasons where they avoid showing Cavill's face as much as possible, and they've kind of haplessly tried to turn it into more of an ensemble show where the title role isn't quite so important.
i) "Loot"
I've always kind of complained that "Loot" is not the hilarious vehicle Maya Rudolph deserves, but it has developed into a pretty strong ensemble show and Joel Kim Booster has gotten more opportunities to be hilarious. The first episode of the third season, with a nudist colony led by Henry Winkler, was by far the funniest episode of "Loot" to date so I feel like they're finding a groove.
I enjoy this show, Kristen Bell and Adam Brody are generally charming and have chemistry together, and sometimes the writing is pretty sharp -- I laughed for a solid minute at "She kept saying 'It's a hot dog for us.'" But sitcoms about relationships that keep drawing out the 'are they gonna stay together or not?' thing can be a little exhausting, it felt like they really dragged it out in the second season and will hopefully stop using it as the engine of the plot in future seasons. Jackie Tohn from "GLOW" is great in this show, I'm glad they moved her from a 'recurring' character to a full cast member this season.
"The Morning Show" also became kind of exhausting around the third season and I was not really looking forward to the fourth season. It's won me back a little bit, mainly because they kind of relocated the right balance of darkness and light for Billy Crudup's character. They're still pretty hit-and-miss with 'ripped from the headlines' plots, the Joe Rogan-style podcaster is even worse than the Elon Musk-style billionaire last season, but the AI storyline has a pretty good payoff.
I'm not much of a gamer so I didn't realize Tom Clancy created an Xbox game 20 years ago. I kind of enjoy the animated series based on it, though.
I kind of hate this show, it's like everything about Adult Swim that I'm totally tired of packed into one show, a toothless parody of '80s family sitcoms where everyone is overly stupid and has an annoying voice and a weird face, feels like "Beavis & Butt-Head" if it was never funny. I'm sure the people that created this show just came up with that awkward vocal mannerism the main characters have and thought it would carry the whole thing.
I like the Netflix international shows that feel pretty close to American sitcoms, like I've seen this kind of wacky 'single girl who has bad luck dating' show so many times but it's fun to see the Swedish version.
Similarly, we have so many American comedies that satirize the film industry, but it's fun to see a show that's parodying Bollywood instead of Hollywood, this show is pretty entertaining.
p) "Two Graves"
A pretty good Spanish series where a badass grandmother seeks revenge after her granddaughters disappear.
A touching Korean show about two women who were friends as kids and reconnect when one of them has terminal cancer in her forties.
r) "Miss King"
I wasn't familiar with Shogi, but apparently it's 'Japanese chess,' so it's hard not to watch this Netflix series without thinking it as sort of a Japanese version of "The Queen's Gambit."
This Korean dating show is about people who've never had a serious relationship, so it's not explicitly about virgins like the recent American show "Are You My First?" but it feels a little similar, and a little more humane and less sensationalized.
Allen Iverson seems more like a folk hero than any living NBA star, this 3-part Amazon docuseries is a good way to delve a little more into his story and career. I must be really sick of Stephen A. Smith, though, I don't even like seeing him in a sports documentary now.
u) "The Road"
Keith Urban and Blake Shelton had lengthy tenures on "American Idol" and "The Voice," respectively, and I feel like they did a good job of putting together a reality competition series for country artists that isn't just about singing covers. Each competitor on "The Road" is a singer-songwriter who's been touring for years, some of them have written hits or had record deals in the past, most of them are over 30 if not over 40. And here they open for Keith Urban and try to make the case that they deserve to make that jump to headliner status, and a lot of them are really talented, there's one guy who's kinda quirky and worships John Prine, it's great to see the variety of country music they presented here.
A few years ago CNN had a show where Stanley Tucci travels and eats, and now they have one with Tony Shalhoub. traveling and trying bread from different cultures. I feel like somebody over there is a big fan of Big Night.
A Netflix docuseries about people who've experienced paranormal phenomena. It's easy to make this stuff interesting in my experience but this isn't particularly well done.
Some crazy violent stories in this Netflix doc. I'm assuming they get to the Chicken Man from Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City" at some point but I haven't gotten there yet.
Apparently Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz shoes were stolen from a museum in Minnesota, I had no idea. I think they overplayed their hand in thinking this was interesting enough to sustain a whole miniseries, though, I barely made it through the first episode.
Every new season of "SNL" after some longtime cast members have departed seems to change the dynamic in interesting way. For instance, Ashley Padilla is still a 'featured' player but it seems like she's in so many sketches already, probably because Heidi Gardner leaving opened up a lane for her. Ben Marshall has been on the show with Please Don't Destroy for four years but he's now kinda back to square one as a 'featured' cast member, which is weird. I always thought Martin Herlihy was the funniest of those guys and he's just on the writing staff now, I'm glad he still got to star in a pretty good sketch in the Sabrina Carpenter episode. Really, though, I wish they just really gave James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman and Bowen Yang more room to do weird passion project sketches, those are the people that can really lead the tone of the show in a new, more contemporary direction.
Monthly Report: October 2025 Albums
Wednesday, November 05, 2025 
1. Amber Mark - Pretty Idea
A great sophomore album that subtly expands Amber Mark's sound, which was already pretty fluid and omnivorous to begin with. Mark made a lot of Pretty Idea with Julian Bunetta and John Ryan (who she duets with on "Different Places"), two guys who are behind a lot of One Direction and Sabrina Carpenter's hits, but the sound of the album isn't really 'pop' per se, it's still more on the adventurous side of R&B and singer/songwriter stuff. Interestingly the two songs that Mark wrote and produced by herself, "Cherry Reds" and "The Best of You," are folky guitar-driven songs. Those are a couple of my favorites on the album, along with "ooo" and "Let Me Love You."
2. Florence + The Machine - Everybody Scream
Florence Welch has been a hugely talented vocalist for her whole career, but where I think she's really blossomed and gotten more interesting with each release is as a lyricist. On Everybody Scream, she weaves together Norse mythology and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and her personal tales of show business and asshole male rock stars into an album that's often grandly dramatic or dryly funny, sometimes even in the same song.
3. Mobb Deep - The Infinite
Nas and Mass Appeal Records launched the Legend Has It series a few months ago, 7 new albums from legendary hip-hop acts, a really beautiful concept and so far the execution has been great, especially on the first Mobb Deep album since Prodigy's death. There are a lot of posthumous P verses and they're up to a pretty high standard, he's just incredible on "Pour The Henny," it feels like the perfect sendoff for one of the greatest MCs of all time. And Havoc and Alchemist make sure everything sounds like classic Mobb, and Nas guests on three songs.
4. Repelican - Dim Halo
Jon Ehrens lives in Vermont these days and continues to pump out the same kind of brilliant, unpredictable lo-fi rock records that he made in Baltimore back when I started writing about his work. In the last few years he's released some collaborative projects and a compilation of his early stuff and an EP and a mixtape. So Dim Halo is kind of the first straight-up Repelican album in a while, and it's awesome, there's some movie dialogue samples and segues making the whole thing feel very put together and cohesive but there's still a tossed-off 4-track vibe that I love, and I feel like he's always writing lyrics that have never been written before, just always interesting word choices on songs like "I Think I'm Thanking God" and "The Worst Win."
5. Flock of Dimes - The Life You Save
Jenn Wasner's been one of my favorite voices in the world for, wow, I guess almost 20 years. I started going to Wye Oak shows in 2007 before they were even called Wye Oak, and was at her first performance as Flock of Dimes in 2011, which was a show with one of Jon Ehrens's projects, White Life. At the time Flock of Dimes was fully a solo thing with more synths and beats, but her third proper Flock of Dimes record is a lush singer-songwriter record with occasional more electronic textures on songs, and "Defeat" and "The Enemy" have these gloriously noisy guitar solos that I just love. Wasner has worked on some pretty big albums by Bon Iver and Dijon this year, but I hope people don't miss out on her own stuff, she's so consistently great.
6. Miguel - CAOS
Miguel Pimentel, another one of my favorite voices and the creator of my favorite album of the 2010s, released his fourth album 8 years ago. His 2011 single "Sure Thing" had a TikTok resurgence and became the biggest chart hit of his career about 2 years ago, and around the same time he previewed his fifth album, then called Viscera, with a bizarre performance where he hung suspended in the air by metal hooks in his skin. Along the way he separated from his wife, reconciled, then finally divorced, and he recently had a baby with his current girlfriend And then in October he finally released his fifth album, now called CAOS with practically no publicity and zero radio play, and it completely missed the Billboard 200 (after a trio of top ten albums). So basically, I have no idea what happened with this guy and it's depressing that he's back from such a long hiatus with so little to show for it, and I almost wish CAOS was some kind of daring uncommercial thing instead of a natural progression from his previous work. But he remains a great vocalist with interesting taste, and the George Clinton cameo on the closing track "Comma / Karma" is a nice way to Miguel to nod to one of the forebears of the murky guitar-driven psychedelic R&B he makes.
7. The Lemonheads - Love Chant
It was kind of a fluke that the Lemonheads' biggest songs back in the day were covers, but then there was a stretch of nearly 20 years when the only albums the band releases were cover albums, which suggests that Evan Dando is just fine being underestimated as a himbo with more taste than talent. But the guy has written some great songs and I'm glad he's finally sharing some new ones with us on Love Chant, including one that borrows liberally from The Troggs' "Wild Thing" without feeling like a mere tribute or troll. I love that J Mascis plays on a good number of later Lemonheads tracks, his face-melting solos are never quite what I expect to hear on an Evan Dando song but I'm always happy when they arrive.
8. Monaleo - Who Did The Body
Houston's Monaleo has been one of my favorite underrated up-and-coming rappers the last couple years, and it really feels like she's reached a tipping point in recent weeks, both from the publicity around her wedding to fellow rapper Stunna4Vegas, and her subsequent album release. The single "Sexy Soulan" is kind of a pro-Black anthem, as one of her biggest white fans I think it's kind of funny, I'm not mad at it ("all the non-Blacks to the back...I ain't shaking white hands"). But it's interesting that as a young newlywed with a blossoming career she made this album that's very morbid and preoccupied with death, it's kind of her Ready To Die.
9. Brandi Carlile - Returning To Myself
Brandi Carlile is only a few months older than me but she's kind of graduated to this rarefied air as a musician where she can write songs about her friendship with Joni Mitchell (who she has the same number of Grammys as) and make a joint album with Elton John (who she actually has more Grammys than). I kind of wish Returning To Myself had some more of those jaw-dropping moments where she shows off the power of her voice like on previous records, but there's some really beautifully understated singing on here and "You Without Me" is an impressive piece of songwriting. Also the token rocker "Church and State" is righteous and kickass and reminds me of U2 circa 1983, which is not really a sound she's done before.
10. Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl
I put this album (just barely) in the upper half of Taylor Swift's discography, which I suppose would be considered high praise considering that a lot of people are calling this the worst thing she's ever done. I dunno, I think the obnoxious lyrics have been part of the package since Red, but she's returned to bright, elegant Max Martin tracks after a few albums of drab, washed out Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dressner palettes, and I don't mind the song-length dick joke. The last two tracks are probably my favorites, though, the album does take a little while to find its footing, I'll say that.
The Worst Album of the Month: Lily Allen - West End Girl
This could've been an email. It would've been a long email, but I could've read it while listening to some music that isn't such a listless and lifeless trauma dump.
Movie Diary
Thursday, October 30, 2025 
a) Weapons
I realize at this point I am just adding to the chorus of praise for one of the most popular movies of 2025, but man I fucking loved Weapons, totally knocked Zach Cregger's previous movie Barbarian down a peg as one of my favorite horror movies of the last few years. And as a fan of "The Whitest Kids U'Know" from way back, it means a lot to me that Cregger put a nod to Trevor Moore in there (the seven hot dogs) and apparently wrote the screenplay as a way to process his grief. But really I just loved everything about it, the George Harrison song in the opening, the cast, and especially the storytelling. It also felt a little darker than I expected simply because so many sympathetic characters wound up being killed, killing someone else, or not really getting a reassuring or happy ending. I am not the biggest fan of movies that break the story into chapters from different characters' perspectives, but the way it was done here was a best case scenario, really a smart and purposeful way of unveiling a story that would've been a lot less compelling if it hadn't been laid out so cleverly and carefully.
b) Friendship
Friendship seems to be pretty highly regarded by fans of "I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson," but I had more mixed feelings. A lot of Robinson's sketches feel a little slice of normal daily life has been exaggerated or shown through the eyes of a protagonist who's extremely immature or impulsive, and Friendship functions in the same way, but really stretching that approach over a longer canvas and spending time with that character for 100 minutes and seeing their family and friends deal with them inevitably becomes darker and even a little exhausting. Ultimately it kind of felt like a lesser variation on a movie like Cable Guy, and it was a little weird that Paul Rudd's character was so much like his character from Anchorman. Friendship has maybe the funniest, most unexpected "character trips on psychedelics" scene I've ever seen, and a few other moments I loved, but I almost wish those bits had been sketches that could be separated from this imperfect whole.
c) All of You
Brett Goldstein (best known as Roy Kent from "Ted Lasso") made a short film 10 years ago that took place in a near future where people could take a computerized test that matched them with their soulmates. In 2020, Goldstein made an anthology series for AMC, "Soulmates," with that premise, and I feel like I was one of the only people that watched it, it was decent, kind of a more squishy, romantic genre of "Black Mirror" episodes. And then this year Goldstein wrote and starred in All of You, which I guess is a feature-length adaptation of that original short, but when I put it on and realized he was doing the soulmates test again, it just felt like he'd managed to sell an unused "Soulmates" episode script to Apple TV. And honestly the test feels pretty incidental to the plot, the movie didn't really do anything with it at all, it was just a minor blip in this long, brooding story of a man and a woman who were college friends and then became on-again-off-again lovers. By the end of it I was just rolling my eyes at all the dramatic crying and yelling and sex scenes with Goldstein's thrusting buttocks, just a really painfully earnest, self-serious movie.
Sacha Jenkins was a great of the music writing world who co-founded Ego Trip and wrote for Vibe and Spin, and he very sadly died at only 53 earlier this year. So it was a wonderful surprise when a documentary directed by Jenkins came out on Netflix a few months after his passing, a wonderful look back at the Black performers on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and how passionate Sullivan was about the civil rights movement and about featuring racially diverse entertainment on his show. There's a great interview with Harry Belafonte, so I guess a lot of this was filmed at least two years ago, so I guess the Smokey Robinson interview was done before his horrible allegations came out. Really fantastic footage and an interesting angle I'd never really considered, most people just focus on the Beatles and Elvis when they talk about music on Sullivan's show. The filmmakers did use AI to simulate Sullivan's voice, speaking words he'd written, which is relatively responsible as uses of this technology go, but I'm still not crazy about it.
I'd always hear about Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara's old work as a comedy duo back in the '90s when their son Ben became a star and when Jerry had his classic run on "Seinfeld," but I never actually saw any of what they did back in the day. Now that both of his parents are gone, Ben Stiller made this beautiful documentary about how they basically saved everything, including rehearsal tapes of their routines, and every review of Ben's movies (including the negative ones). It ended up being a pretty thoughtful look at the ups and downs of being a famous showbiz family, it's funny and nostalgic at times but also grapples with with the complexities of them as individuals. Stiller and Meara really became stars on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and the movie had a lot of hilarious clips from their appearances, so it was fun to watch the same day I watched Sunday Best and just kind of live in that world for a few hours.
This documentary covers the last few years of Ozzy Osbourne's life, including the recording of Patient Number 9, his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Black Sabbath farewell concert. And it's a little intense to watch something mere weeks after his death that goes into great detail about his health issues and how hard it was for him to make his final public appearances. It's moving at times and has some great little moments I'm glad I saw, but it also made me feel like the Osbourne family got way too into living their lives on camera after the MTV show and probably didn't need to do this, I started to imagine that every member of the Kardashian family will someday have a miniseries about being in hospice care. And the ending felt a little abrupt, it felt like they had a complete cut of the film that ended with the Birmingham concert, and just tacked on 30 seconds of footage from a memorial after he died.
g) Stans
A documentary about "Stan" as well as Eminem fandom isn't the worst idea but it didn't really feel like they had enough there for an interesting feature-length film.
h) Elio
A nice little movie, feels like it was destined to be seen as 'lesser Pixar' from the jump but it was enjoyable.
i) Fixed
"Dexter's Laboratory" and "Samurai Jack" creator Genndy Tartakovsky wrote and directed Fixed, an extremely childish 'adult' animated film about horny dogs trying not to get neutered. I didn't find it offensive or anything, but at a certain point you just feel like you're watching hundreds of drawings of animals' buttholes and objects strategically blocking you from seeing their genitals, like the movie is so exhaustingly satisfied with itself for being moderately naughty.
An action movie where John Cena plays a movie star-turned-POTUS and Idris Elba is the also ripped Prime Minister of the UK is my kind of bullshit. At one point John Cena urgently presses the button to roll up the bulletproof car door window as a rocket launcher aims at his vehicle, just great physical comedy. And there's kind of an unexpectedly great little scene where Air Force One is being shot down and the pilot gives a little speech about how he's happy to sacrifice himself so that the President and PM can parachute to safety.
k) The Pickup
Like Heads of State, The Pickup is one of those Amazon Prime movies that feels so much like something that would've been moderately successful in theaters 10-15 years ago but is now just streaming service filler that doesn't penetrate pop culture in the slightest. Eddie Murphy is old and rich, why does he feel like he needs to do a mediocre heist movie with Pete Davidson?
One of the better discoveries I made while checking out movies for my 2018 list, I have no memory of this coming out but a western starring John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix is a good time.
m) Mandy
As far as late period Nic Cage vehicles go, I didn't like this as much as Pig or Longlegs, but it was alright.
n) Private Life
I feel like this really surpassed my expectations as a dramedy about a middle-aged couple with fertility issues, like there are a million movies like this but Tamara Jenkins put together a compelling story that didn't go quite as I expected and Kayli Carter was really impressive, held her own alongside vets like Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn.
o) Blackbird
Another dramedy with a good cast that I found a bit more overstuffed with characters and subplots and less memorable.
p) Fast Color
I really enjoyed this, felt kind of like Unbreakable in that it was basically a superhero's origin story that wasn't a comic book movie and didn't feel like one.
q) Freaks
A decent Canadian thriller, another kind of original movie that dealt with superpowers without feeling like a comic book adaptation.
The best 2018 movie that I just recently caught up on, I never got around to watching Barry Jenkins's follow-up to Moonlight at the time, although I'd become a big fan of Stephan James from the things he'd done since then, so it was nice to finally see his most acclaimed role. I'm also kind of more familiar with James Baldwin as an essayist and public intellectual so it was cool to see an adaptation of one of his novels and get more acqauinted with that side of his work.
s) His House
A strong debut from British director Remi Weekes, hope he has a second film sooner than later, and recommended as Wunmi Mosaku's breakout role before Sinners.
A really creepy horror movie, I don't think it lived up to the reviews it got but it was a reasonably fresh take on the exorcism movie genre.
A decent action movie, great cast led by Jeffrey Wright and Alexander Skarsgard, but not especially memorable.
I really liked this, I think the first thing involving Miranda July that I've enjoyed at all, very impressive debut performance from Helena Howard.
Very odd plot to this movie, didn't go at all where I expected it to, but one of the best Maggie Gyllenhaal performances I've seen.
I really have a lifelong loyalty to Michelle Monaghan off the strength of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang that I watched this Mark Wahlberg action comedy, might even watch the sequel.
One of Mads Mikkelsen's best performances and one of the movies he's made in his native Denmark that's made an impact over here, really shows what America's missing out on by keeping him in a villain/supporting role niche.
A decent horror movie, should make a note to check out more of Jim Cummings's stuff.
Monthly Report: October 2025 Singles
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
1. Olivia Dean - "Man I Need"
I was just completely stunned the first time I heard Olivia Dean's "Man I Need" and instantly fell in love with her voice and her sound, and judging from the way that song has exploded around the world, I'm not alone in that experience. British soul tends to be a little more stylized and retro than what I really like, but Dean's songs are just very poised and polished in a way that that frames her voice beautifully. The whole The Art of Loving album is pretty good, I particularly like "Baby Steps," but "Man I Need" is definitely the standout. Here's the 2025 singles Spotify playlist that I update very month.
2. Metro Boomin f/ Quavo, YK Niece, and Breskii - "Take Me Thru Dere"
One of my favorite things about Metro Boomin's great A Futuristic Summa tape is that he didn't just get a bunch of Atlanta rappers from the late 2000s/early 2010s era together, he made tracks that sound like they could've been hits back then and restored the swag rap feeling. And the project's breakout single "Take Me Thru Dere" has one of those steel drum loops that brings to mind "Crank Dat Soulja Boy" and D.G. Yola's "Ain't Gon Let Up." YK Niece is a newer artist, but she broke through on an old-fashioned Zaytoven beat this year as Pluto's sidekick on "Whim Whamiee" and is perfect for the track, and Quavo sounds like he's really having fun on a record again for the first time since Takeoff died.
3. Parker McCollum - "What Kinda Man"
I keep a playlist of recent singles I like that I listen to regularly while working on these posts, and "What Kinda Man" was on my playlist when it came out back in 2024, but I never quite liked it enough to write about it last year. Then it finally became a top 10 radio hit recently and I decided to reconsider it, and it's really grown on me. It's a little more of a '70s country throwback than Parker McCollum has done in the past, nice to hear a little harmonica on country radio again.
4. Riley Green f/ Ella Langley - "Don't Mind If I Do"
By the time Ella Langley and Riley Green's "You Look Like You Love Me" hit #1 on country radio last year, they'd already released another duet as the title track to Green's latest album, and I'm glad that that one is finally a hit single as well. I love the way Green sings the first half of the song by himself, then Langley starts to harmonize a little, and when she finally sings lead on a few lines it just hits perfectly and changes the whole emotional dynamic of the song. I hope they do a whole album together, male and female country singers don't make collaborative albums as much as they used to back the day.
5. Justin Bieber - "Yukon"
Like "Daisies," the second-biggest song from Bieber's latest album was penned by Dijon and has an appealingly minimal arrangement. There are 2 Chainz ad libs on "Yukon" but he never actually raps, kind of a throwback to what Kanye did with Jeezy's voice on "You Can't Tell Me Nothing." Annoyingly, the R&B stations I listen to have taken to playing an unofficial remix of "Yukon" that uses the beat from Loverance's "Up!" and I don't like it nearly as much as the original.
6. Sabrina Carpenter - "Tears"
Sabrina Carpenter is on an insane run of six singles that have hit #1 on pop radio in the same of 18 months. "Tears" has reached #8 and could still get to #1 but I have a feeling it's gonna break the streak and the fan favorite album cut "When Did You Get Hot?" may eventually do better as a single. "Tears" has grown on me a lot, and the end of the video is one of the funniest things she's ever done, but it feels like they wrote this song thinking they could get away with the word "wet" in the chorus on the radio but it gets censored every time and it really hurts the effectiveness of the hook.
7. Limp Bizkit - "Making Love To Morgan Wallen"
Limp Bizkit's Sam Rivers died last week at only 48 years old, just heartbreaking news, he was a great bassist, they may be a divisive band but I think people can generally agree that their rhythm section is tight as hell. It's especially sad because it happened just a few weeks after Limp Bizkit released a new single that's become their biggest radio hit in 21 years and probably their best song in even longer. I know the meaning of the title lyric is "making love to Morgan Wallen['s music] in an elevator" but it's more fun to imagine that Fred Durst is singing about banging Wallen.
8. Wunderhorse - "The Rope"
I don't like this British band's name because it reminds me too much of Sparklehorse, who I revere, but I really like this song, looking forward to their next album.
9. Doja Cat - "Jealous Type"
Doja Cat had too much momentum in 2023 for Scarlet's pivot to fail but it feels like the more deliberately accessible Vie is bearing the brunt of her spending a year basically shitting on her fans and the music that made her a mainstream star. Kind of a shame because I like Vie, Doja and Jack Antonoff both have a capacity to make pretty annoying music but they make a really good combination. "Stranger" might be my favorite Doja Cat song of all time and the lead single "Jealous Type" is pretty good too.
10. Jackson Dean - "Be Your Man"
"Heavens To Betsy" recently became Odenton native Jackson Dean's second top 10 hit on country radio, and it's been nice to finally hear the Maryland stations I listen to actually support him heavily, I don't think they really got behind "Don't Come Lookin'" to the same extent. He's already started to release new songs from this third album, so I hope that momentum carries over, "Be Your Man" is really good.
The Worst Single of the Month: A Day To Remember - "All My Friends"
I interviewed Yellowcard recently during their current co-headlining tour with A Day To Remember, which surprised me only because I know Yellowcard's music pretty well but I'd never even heard a band by A Day To Remember before. But I guess they're pretty popular these days, and I just heard them on the radio for the first time the other day and good lord, this song is so terrible. The "aww shit" refrain, the "I got a text from the crew" verse, the nod to "The Boys Are Back in Town," it feels like a Lonely Island song where the comedic twist never arrives.