Taking assessment of my favorite films and albums so far at a year’s midpoint might seem like an irrelevant if not entirely futile exercise, although I’ve done so annually for as long as I can remember. While often interesting and occasionally amusing to look back and see what did or did not eventually make the cut at year’s end six months later, this is above all an opportunity to take stock (and an excuse for another blog post.)
I usually see a few films at local (and sometimes international) festivals that make this cut: I’ve already written on three from this spring’s IFF Boston (see links below); On Becoming A Guinea Fowl I viewed at IFF’s Fall Focus last November and I appreciated it more after a second viewing earlier this month. Thank You Very Much is an underrated Andy Kaufman documentary that could have benefited from a wider release; Grand Tour and Universal Language are both admirably unique concoctions that I won’t forget about come year-end.
As for albums, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that at 50, many of my current faves are from artists my age or older (British jangle-pop quartet The Tubs are the youngest here by a considerable margin.) I would argue that most of these “legacy” acts are churning out some of their best work, a few of which I alluded to in the mix I posted last week. I’ll add that Doves’ Constellations For The Lonely mightend up my favorite single new album since my number one of 2023. Even though following their debut Haim has made a stronger case as a singles than albums act, after two full spins, I Quit is cohering better than I anticipated it to.
Favorite Films of 2025 so far (alphabetical by title):
Another IFFBoston, another eight movies seen. My reviews of the first four.
CAUGHT BY THE TIDES
Jia Zhangke (MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART) will never run out of ways to explore rapid change in 21st Century China or roles for his muse Zhao Tao to excel in, thank god. His latest partially distinguishes itself from previous efforts by literally going back to them, incorporating scenes and outtakes from UNKNOWN PLEASURES (2002) and STILL LIFE (2006) along with newly-shot footage to track how much China and, in particular, the Northern city of Datong has reconstructed itself between then and now in part due to the Three Gorges Dam project that the 2006 film centered on.
Using the same actors (Tao and Zhublin Li) and reediting the earlier footage (with help of some intertitles that refashion the earlier stories to relate to the current one), CAUGHT BY THE TIDES is stitched together in a way that often brings attention to its manipulation of time and space for those familiar with the earlier work, although those new to the director’s oeuvre may not even pick up on this. It’s an approach that risks confusion, but that actually might have been Zhangke’s intention. After all, time rarely travels in a straight line; the immersive, collage-like soundtrack which spans copious genres and traditions (East and West) amplifies this sense of impermanence and might be the director’s most ambitious and striking use of music to date. I now want to go back to revisit his strange, rich filmography to see how he arrived here and ponder where he might go next in detailing this world forever in flux. Rating: 4.5/5
PAVEMENTS
Where to begin with PAVEMENTS? Is it a vehicle meant to document the famed 1990s indie-rock quintet Pavement as they reunite and rehearse for a 2022 tour? A biopic of the band casting the likes of Joe Keery and Nat Wolff to play lead singer/songwriter Stephen “S.M.” Malkmus and guitarist Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, respectively? A behind-the-scenes account of the making of said biopic? A look at a stage musical about the group from its conception to its premiere? Footage of the opening of a halfway-reverent museum exhibit of copious artifacts/detritus related to the band?
Of course, the resultant ambitious collage is all of these things and many more. Supposedly, when director Alex Ross Perry (with his first feature since 2018’s HER SMELL) signed on to make a movie about the band, he was given carte blanche to do what he wanted and encouraged not to make anything resembling a traditional overview. He certainly understood the assignment as the final product is equal parts THIS IS SPINAL TAP and SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, but that dual-comparison only scratches the surface of everything going on here.
This isn’t an approach one could use for every musical act but it is the exact right one for Pavement, who arguably never became household names because they were just too sardonic, too drenched in irony, too much willing to be a shambles rather than a dependable, accessible outfit (all of this in the long run benefiting them artistically if not commercially.) There’s footage of Malkmus referring to the band as “the slacker Rolling Stones of the ’90s” at that time, which ends up more apt a description than I could ever come up with. Appropriately, as a genre-bend, PAVEMENTS is a bit of a shambles and ideally for those-in-the-know. Still, there’s so much that’s inventive and exciting about it (especially in how it captures the band’s time and more importantly, how it shows their impact reverberating over time) that it at least gives off the impression it’s willing to reach for the unconverted in spite of itself. 4/5
COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT
Documentaries where the subject is terminally ill are always a tough sell; the people behind this one, chiefly director Ryan White (ASK DR. RUTH) seemingly go out of their way to dispel this impression, highlighting the film’s humor in the face of impending tragedy. Of course, with a subject like poet/activist Andrea Gibson, it would be disingenuous to oversee or even ignore how funny they are in day-to-day life, an intriguing counterpart to archival footage of them intensely performing in poetry slams and one-person shows onstage. It’s not a disconnect but more of a revelation as to how our public and private personae inevitably contrast with and also complement each other.
Gibson’s ovarian cancer diagnosis in their late 40s provides the premise for White following them and their partner, Megan Falley, mostly in and around their cozy Colorado home. Laugh-out-loud conversations about such not-profound activities as fingering and obscure word choices (“octopoidal”?) are given the same weight as the spectre of death that can’t help but color everything; to do so with such intimacy and candidness endears Andrea and Megan to us considerably. Their portrait is one of life not as a series of big moments but as something given inspiration and meaning by all the random, casual ones that naturally occur in the act of simply living. While a little slick for my taste at times (particularly the score and some editing choices), I can’t deny how genuinely effective and moving this is as a whole. 4/5
THE KINGDOM
Opening with a scene so shocking and visceral that you’re best off not expecting the filmmakers to even try topping it (and they don’t), this story of a Corsican crime family set in 1995 is business-as-usual as these things go–lotsa scenes of attacks, retaliation and hiding out from both the enemy and the police. At the center is 15-year-old Lesia (Ghjuvanna Benedetti) who has mostly been shielded from the action until she’s reunited with her crime boss father, Pierre-Paul (Santucci). This relationship is the only interesting facet here and the film’s second half is better for devoting more focus to it (particularly in some tender, nuanced exchanges between Benedetti and Santucci.) Alas, the rest is mostly unmemorable, though I did note that when Benedetti cut and bleached her hair to disguise herself, she suddenly, uncannily resembled a young Aimee Mann (but without the braid.) 3/5
I won’t ever stop making annual playlists but going forward, I’m hoping to curate one of newish songs every three months or so (if I were more ambitious, perhaps this could end up a monthly thing.)
Looking at 2025 thus far, it’s not entirely coincidental that two of my most played new tracks have titles that contain the words giving this playlist its title: newcomer Brooke Combe’s sharp retro-soul and the latest from Destroyer which in the tradition of 2022’s ”June” smashes together a ridiculously catchy hook with near-stream of consciousness lyrics (“My life’s a giant lid closing on an eye”, okay, Dan.) Elsewhere, fellow weirdo Bartees Strange folds something approaching Yacht Rock into his ever-unclassifiable genre-blend, FKA Twigs agreeably harkens back to the moodier stuff off of Madonna’s Ray of Light and nearly 50-year-old postpunk collective Mekons is still kicking with the anthemic “Mudcrawlers” (whose quality bodes well for their forthcoming LP Horror.)
The Tubs’ effortless jangle-pop and Perfume Genius’ venerable art-pop also make welcome returns, each previewing solid albums that may make my year-end top ten; so does Doves, who follow their 2020 reunion with an even better dive into psychedelic textures and sonics on Constellations For The Lonely, here represented by the expansive lead track “Renegade”. Empire of the Sun and Lindsey Buckingham make for natural compadres as much as Robert Forster and wife Karin Bäumler do on the uncommonly jaunty, Lovin’ Spoonful-esque “Strawberries”.
I’m still tickled that even in this cynical age, a great novelty like Joshua Idehen’s cheeky, spoken-word “Mum Does The Washing” can still emerge from the seemingly endless interchangeable dross one has to wade through (algorithms be damned) in uncovering refreshing new music. It nearly lends credence to the relief that this playlist’s title contains the word “edge” and not “end”.
The Edge of the World:
Japanese Breakfast, “Orlando In Love”
Brooke Combe, “Dancing At The Edge of the World”
Bartees Strange, “Sober”
The Tubs, “Narcissist”
FKA Twigs, “Girl Feels Good”
Perfume Genius, “It’s A Mirror”
Twin Shadow, “Good Times”
Lucy Dacus, “Ankles”
Morcheeba, “Call For Love”
Doves, “Renegade”
Sam Fender, “Arm’s Length”
Empire Of The Sun & Lindsey Buckingham, “Somebody’s Son”
Mekons, “Mudcrawlers”
Hurray For The Riff Raff, “Pyramid Scheme”
The Weather Station, “Mirror”
Beirut, “Guericke’s Unicorn”
Sharon Van Etten, “Trouble”
Robert Forster, “Strawberries”
Joshua Idehen, “Mum Does The Washing”
Destroyer, “Hydroplaning Off The Edge Of The World”
Jérémie (Félix Kysyl) clearly belongs to an extended lineage of Alain Guiraudie protagonists: craggily handsome, somewhat sexually ambiguous, a laconic wanderer, an irritant to many who come into contact with him. However, unlike the others, he’s not as passive or seemingly befuddled—rather than letting everything happen to him, he takes a decisive action that carries real consequences for his surrounding community even if the person most deeply affected by it ends up being himself.
Returning from the city of Toulouse to an isolated forest village for the funeral of a baker he once worked with, Jérémie’s invited to stay on by the baker’s wife, Martine (Catherine Frot), much to the consternation of her married son, Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand) and something approaching indifference (but not entirely) from neighbor Walter (David Ayala). It takes time to figure out how everyone knows each other with only traces of what their past dynamics were. About a half-hour in, Jérémie takes that decisive action; from there, the film turns into essentially a dark comedy as he repeatedly makes up stories about what happened, only for other characters to do the same including an older priest (Jacques Develay) whose motives to protect Jérémie are, shall we say, less than pure. It all becomes a sort of “Looney Tunes RASHOMON”, to borrow a phrase from Errol Morris’ 2010 documentary TABLOID.
As usual with Guiraudie, the environment influences the tone (in this case, the autumnal hues of a forest that manages to seem both inviting and quietly menacing.) The film’s rhythms also develop organically with a heightened focus that looks like a course-corrective to the everything-and-kitchen-sink approach of his inferior last feature, NOBODY’S HERO (2022). While not as ingenuous as STAYING VERTICAL (2016), this is funny and surprising enough to render any claims of Hitchcockian influence irrelevant (if anything, it’s closest to an atypical film from that director like THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.) In the end, it’s less important whether Jérémie gets away with what he’s done and more how it shifts our perceptions of those around him. Also, look up the meaning of the film’s Latin title and ponder whether or not it’s meant to be ironic. Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Haunted Jukebox 