Jake Tropila

NO OTHER CHOICE (2025, Park): Nothing quite like fighting tooth & nail to get back into the machine that chewed you up and spat you out. While not as dazzling as Decision To Leave, this still ends on a note as equally haunting, all buoyed by a terrifically harried Lee Byung-hun.

Now watching NO OTHER CHOICE.

I just watched the QT Fortnite short “Yuki’s Revenge” and hoo boy! Move over, Four Rooms!

Let's Go to Prison (Yes Nut November 2025) - Optimism Vaccine THIS WEEK: Don't worry about it. Nothing to see here.

New Ep! For our final installment of this year’s Yes Nut November, we genuinely may have crossed a line. We won’t even share what we watched beforehand. Please enjoy, just don’t judge us too harshly.
www.optimismvaccine.com/episode/lets...

Rest In Peace to the great Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (seen here in License to Kill)

Feel Bad Hardcore (Anti-porn Pornography) - Optimism Vaccine THIS WEEK: Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974), Through The Looking Glass (1976), A Woman's Torment (1977) It's feel-bad pornography time!

New Ep! Our penultimate episode of Yes Nut November includes generous helpings isolation, grief, psychological meltdowns, art house horror, and rectal carrots. We discuss Memories Within Miss Aggie, Through The Looking Glass, and A Woman's Torment. Enjoy.
www.optimismvaccine.com/episode/feel...

FRANKENSTEIN: I have failed to connect with Del Toro yet again, but I will say that I seem to have enjoyed Oscar Isaac’s mad scientist more than most.

GAMERA VS. GUIRON (1969, Noriaki Yuasa): I love this franchise because the plot of any given film can be something like two small boys getting abducted by brain-eating aliens, and then the monster Guiron will show up to casually dismember another kaiju with his giant knife head.

IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU (2025, Bronstein): The biggest surprise of the year. Like watching a raw nerve get tickled with an ice pick for two hours (complimentary); Rose Byrne, who is typically great, is absolutely tremendous here. And Conan O’Brien’s really good, too.

November 2025

AJ Goes to the Dog Park
Bugonia
Destroy All Monsters
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
Gamera, The Giant Monster
Gamera vs. Barugon
Gamera vs. Gyaos
Invasion of Astro-Monster
Son of Godzilla
Reflection in a Dead Diamond
Wake Up Dead Man
Warm Water Under a Red Bridge

The final moment of The Chair Company finale got a big laugh from me. Incredible show.

Nothing beats watching a film at night with this as the only light source in the room.

Happy to contribute some free marketing for The Frida Cinema’s screening of Black Christmas.

GAMERA VS. GYAOS (1967, Noriaki Yuasa): These just keep getting better and better. Aerial dogfights between kaiju, wounds that gush geysers of blood, and Gyaos lasering every single vehicle - helicopter, plane, car, or otherwise - it can lay its eyes on.

A legitimately insane thing occurs seven minutes into GAMERA VS. GYAOS (1967):

He painted all the drawings around the masks.

Some personal news: Dalton has discovered yet another cool thing he likes.

Black Friday Sourdough

EYES WIDE SHUT: A cautionary tale about why you should never leave the comfort of your own home. The new 4K restoration clears every single previous release. Just so staggeringly beautiful, beginning to end.

Wife and child asleep. Closing out Thanksgiving on this.

GAMERA VS. BARUGON (1966, Shigeo Tanaka): Barugon is a destructive little guy who can shoot rainbows out of his back. It’s actually really awesome.

Also helps that he has a tremendous lead performer in O’Connor, who really carries the entire thing. Craig’s Blanc is characteristically excellent, Brolin is also very strong, and I can’t remember the last time I saw Renner or (especially) Close be this enjoyable.

WAKE UP DEAD MAN (2025): Doubt it’ll convert any skeptics, but this is handily the strongest of the three. Johnson dials back on his worst instincts (i.e., his chronically online liberalism) to let the crackerjack gothic murder mystery and central reckoning of faith really sing.

It is accomplished. Had to brave The Grove to get this (still a lot of copies left, L.A. friends), thankfully it wasn’t *too* bad this time of day.

GAMERA, THE GIANT MONSTER (1965, Noriaki Yuasa): Sure, this basically just swaps out a famously radioactive kaiju for a prehistoric fire-breathing turtle, but you cannot deny the analog beauty of his practical effects driven rampage, captured in gorgeous monochromatic Daieiscope.

Dalton and I are now checking out the first Gamera film. Very excited to find out what his deal is.

Maybe Trump can convince Vincent Gallo to release Promises Written in Water.

“To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life in the gall bladder.”

Cannot recommend The Kingdom enough. Kier is cast in a patently bizarre role but he lends a ton of pathos to the part to make it genuinely affecting, much more than the grotesque prosthetics would initially lead you to believe.

Rest In Peace to the extraordinarily incomparable Udo Kier.