Ben

Favorite first watches of October

One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025)
A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, 1986)
City on Fire (Ringo Lam Ling-Tung, 1987)
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (Beeban Kidron, 1995)

Favorite first watches of September:

Odd Man Out (Carol Reed, 1947)
The Long Walk (Francis Lawrence, 2025)
Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton, 1968)
Caught Stealing (Darren Aronofsky, 2025)

Continued:

Black Narcissus (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
The Naked Gun (Akiva Schaffer, 2025)
Weapons (Zach Cregger, 2025)
Highest 2 Lowest (Spike Lee, 2025)

Favorite first watches of August:

Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2024)
Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
13 Assassins (Takashi Miike, 2010)

Favorite first watches of July:

An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujirō Ozu, 1962)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid, 1943)
Retribution (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2006)
Rocky III (Sylvester Stallone, 1982)

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle key art

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Incredibly impressed with this! So much better than I would expect an Indiana Jones game to be. A good story that really captures the tone and spirit of the films with a very fun gameplay loop and combat approach on top of it all. Great stuff!

The Parallax View (1974)

Inland Empire (2006)

Strictly Ballroom (1992)

What Did Jack Do? (2017)

Continued:

The Parallax View (Alan J. Pakula, 1974)
Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
Strictly Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann, 1992)
What Did Jack Do? (David Lynch, 2017)

The Swimmer (1968)

28 Years Later (2025)

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

Favorite first watches of June

The Swimmer (Frank Perry, 1968)
28 Years Later (Danny Boyle, 2025)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (Anthony Minghella, 1999)
The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson, 2025)

The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (Wes Anderson, 2024)

Favorite first watches of May:

Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Kaili Blues (Bi Gan, 2015)
The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993)

The Republia Times

Short and sweet game from Lucas Pope about a newspaper editor being tasked with ensuring that his paper paints the government in a good light, no matter what the truth may be. Much simpler than Pope's later games, but still very effective.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty key art

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

This builds incredibly well on the first game both in mechanics and texture and in narrative complexity and ambition. Kojima paints a picture of social control through AI and internet censorship that feels incredibly prescient 24 years later.

Sinners

The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Queer

Night Moves

Continued:

Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025)
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot, 2019)
Queer (Luca Guadagnino, 2024)
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, 2013)

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

Eraserhead

Metropolitan

Still Walking

Favorite first watches of April:

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Paul Schrader, 1985)
Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977)
Metropolitan (Whit Stillman, 1990)
Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008)

Arco key art

Arco

A character-driven RPG set in a fantasy version of Mesoamerica, about various indigenous communities dealing with the violence and upheaval brought on by incoming European settlers. So so impressed with this, beautiful art and music and an incredibly affecting narrative.

Three Outlaw Samurai (1964)

The Rules of the Game (1939)

Three Colours: Red

I Am Cuba (1964)

Favorite first watches of March

Three Outlaw Samurai (Hideo Gosha, 1964)
The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Three Colours: Red (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1994)
I Am Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964)

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector key art

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

A really solid sequel with another phenomenal score by Amos Roddy. There's some very interesting changes to the gameplay structure, allowing you to further explore the incredibly intriguing far-future cyberpunk setting of the Starward Belt.

Alain Delon

'Le Samouraï'

Jean-Pierre Melville

1967

Mahmoud Khalil's Detention Is A War on Terror Milestone ICE turned a campus activist for Palestine into a political prisoner. Witness a coalescence of several post-9/11 currents that threaten your most basic freedoms

Mahmoud Khalil has become a political prisoner for protesting a US-backed genocide. His detention heralds new vistas of repression made possible by institutions and technological developments begun by the War on Terror.

cannot be understated that the war on trans rights is a war on identity

their issue is with anybody's right to form any form of self expression, it's a war on art, it's a war on choice, it's a war on your ability to be human

no matter who you are, it's a war against you

Sauron and Celebrimbor

I scratched up a page with a landscape

VIDEO KID: Cowboy BeBop at his computer.

VIDEO KID: Cowboy BeBop at his computer.

Continued:

The New World (Malick, 2005)
Night Moves (Penn, 1975)
Roujin Z (Kitakubo, 1991)
I'm Still Here (Salles, 2024)

Favorite first watches of February:

The Apartment (Wilder, 1960)
Malcolm X (Lee, 1992)
A Matter of Life and Death (Powell & Pressburger, 1946)
Three Colours: White (Kieślowski, 1994)

Life is Strange key art

Life is Strange

Really liked this one! The story was so much more interesting and complicated than I was expecting going in, and I grew to really care about all of the characters by the end. It uses its approach to time travel ideas to amazing effect as well.

Amazing!! So cool to hear it as it was originally intended to be heard. Fagles's translation sounds very poetic and beautiful but can't really capture the cadence and meter that Homer would have intended in the original language

Awesome, I will definitely be saving this, thank you! It’s a subject I’m definitely lacking in knowledge on so any direction is very appreciated

Oh wow, I’ve never even heard of this! I’ll have to look into that as well, that sounds extremely interesting