Oof.

I know nearly halfway through the year is an odd time to drop a year-in-review for the previous year, but, I'll be honest, writing a review of all the fun things I did in 2025 felt borderline irresponsible in early 2026. Each time I sat down to write, another American citizen would be shot or killed by ICE, the goon squad sent to my home state under false pretenses - that it was full of undocumented immigrants, which itself is national policy backed by false pretenses - that immigrants are by and large dangerous, a fact not borne out by any measure of evidence.

If ever I was going to slip into single-issue voter territory, it would be on the issue of immigration due to the maximalist level of pain we are inflicting on innocent families; adults and children, citizens and non-citizens alike. They are being scapegoated in the most biblical sense, death marched into camps and out of our country to carry the sins of our discordance.

I have to give credit to Donald J. Trump for identifying how to hook people by their virtues and vices in order to unleash a level of cruelty unlike any man has been capable in centuries, save for perhaps one.

Travel

February: Minnesota

March: Houston

May: New Mexico

I visited Albuquerque again in May to attend a family funeral. Got to see a lot of family that I hadn't seen since I was a child myself.

June: Michigan

My parents retired.

August: Japan

We took a joint trip with my cousin and his family from Osaka to Kyoto to Tokyo and ended in Tokyo Disneyland.

October/November: Disney World

Then we went back to Disney and took full advantage of our park hopper tickets. We saw Cirque du Soleil.

December: El Paso & Cancun

We visited family and then our family split to relax on the beaches of Cancun.

2025 in Film

Superman (2025)

In early 2024, a casting call for Cleveland-based extras came through my feed and after a bit of digging I learned that it was, in fact, James Gunn's next film: Superman. Only a month or two after submitting Owen's application, we learned that he had been selected to appear in the film. We spent a day in July on set and got to see Gunn at work. It was awesome seeing Cleveland fully decked out as Metropolis.

Opening day, July 2025, our whole family waited in the theater impatiently wondering if Owen had made the final cut. At a little over an hour in, there he was! You can spot him in a line of extras hopping on a bus to escape Metropolis.

CIFF49

2024 was the first CIFF I attended, 2025 was my first CIFF on the screening team. Each week, I was assigned a slate of short and feature-length films to watch and review, ultimately helping to decide what would be shown at the festival.

Ghibli Park

Our journey with the work of Miyazaki and his compatriots continued during our trip to Japan where we did a day trip to visit Ghibli Park, a full theme park based on Studio Ghibli films.

Reviews

• Superman (2025): It's corny, episodic, throwaway, a single-issue comic brought to life. It embraces the freedom comics have always had to experiment, be messy, speak to the moment, be idealistic, naive, optimistic, and colorful.
• Sinners (2025): Coogler's made some of my favorite movies, yet I still didn't realize he had something like this in him. Has all the trappings of a blockbuster hit and the depth of the most intimate autobiography. Deserves an essay, but I'll save that for a future review. He cashed that check!!
• I'm Still Here (2025): The first hour is crucial, as it makes you feel the hole that's torn through their lives more than if they'd jumped right into the action, and it's a major credit to the cast that they were charming enough to make it work. I didn't know about this time period in Brazil. I feel like I've lived an entire life. Seeing the real photos at the end was a real gut punch.
• The Apartment (1960): The best movies aren't puzzle boxes. They aren't thrill rides or epics. While movies can be all of these things, the best ones are those that plumb the depths of humanity for that which can't be mathed out. They uncover the spark within each of us—a universal yearning to be, simply, perceived.
• Stop Making Sense (1984): Crescendos perfectly.
• Grizzly Man (2005): Herzog crafted this film like the shield of Perseus, diluting the cursed events through refraction in such a way that we can study, or at least gawk, at them. Like Treadwell, you can feel Herzog being drawn to the void for answers: “I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy.” He sees a man who overdosed on peering into it and takes a hit himself. No moment captures this better than when we're watching him listen to the audio tape from Treadwell's final moments: “I think you should not keep it. You should destroy it.” This was my first Herzog, yet this was so competently made that I didn't believe for an instant that the interviews being shot like a man investigating and even admiring wild animals were anything but intentional.
• John Carpenter: I was very prepared for Carpenter's later films to be a slog to get through, but I was having the time of my life. It struck me that his raw shooting style would have really lent itself to a Ranown-like series of westerns, and it's too bad his career was completely misaligned with the time when westerns could actually get made. Carpenter just knows how to shoot a movie. Didn't think I'd come out of this one thinking he should come back for another, but… he totally should. Carpenter passed Buster Keaton to be my most watched director in 2025.
• Buster Keaton: My most watched actor, once again. Buster is a director torn between practical stunts and fantasy, the latter having the potential to detract from the former, despite his clear love for both. The challenge for Buster, then, is balancing how many superhuman stunts, extraordinary people, and fantastical places he can include without diminishing the spectacle of these elements. Stunts require grounding, as anything can happen in a heightened unreality. I think he found that balance.

Books

• Reconstruction by Eric Foner, a long-running battle to get through
• On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
• Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka
• The Metamorphosis, Kafka while running
• Something Like an Autobiography by Akira Kurosawa
• Murderbot by Martha Wells
• Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

Highlights

• Spamalot - went in not knowing it was literally The Holy Grail. Luckily I had watched that movie with Owen within the last year. One of my favorites, hilarious play!
• House renovations - hired a carpenter to convert the office into a studio and the spare bedroom into an office with floor-to-ceiling shelves.
• Marathon training- My sister signed me up for a marathon in June, so I started training. Ran through the winter. If you've seen my recent posts, you'll know the result - more details in the next year in review update.
• Kendrick Super Bowl, on artistry- I'm obsessed with Kendrick's music, a true lyricist and artist. The Super Bowl was a real culminating moment. Not just a show, but a capstone to a year of incredible work.
• Biking - Had not owned bikes in Ohio, bought a pair for me and my son. He learned fast.
• Walkabout - mini golf. New levels. Great fun.

Until Next Time

The technology cultivated by my heroes has curdled into dystopian surveillance tools used for rampant rent-seeking, the mass roundup and black bag capture of the most needy among us, and the mistreatment and even murder of those who so much as make a wrong step.

Social media is not a neutral mediator. Removing it means more direct interactions: more time with family, friends, neighbors.

This is an invitation to reach out.