Over the past few months I’ve watched more movies than when my little brother Leo made our whole family watch our DVD of Atlantis: The Lost Empire multiple times a day every day. When I’m watching this many things, almost compulsively, sometimes it’s hard to lock into the wavelength of a film and really have it resonate with me, a fact that has impacted first-viewings of acclaimed films such as Zodiac (fine?) and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (not good). I get kinda ‘movie’d out.’

‘Movie’d out’ is a challenging place to be when I have an upcoming 4K double feature of Dunkirk and Days of Heaven with Evan (codename: Dunkirks of H-Evan) this Friday. However, I’m relieved to report that some films have managed to reach through that doldrum and shake me to my core regardless, and I got a big list of them (a lot of which are accompanied by long yaps) for you below.

Plus, also movies: In this piece I find the connective tissue between the 2024 film Challengers and the 2026 album Nine Inch Noize, the earth-shattering Nine Inch Noize Coachella performance, love triangles, immaculate cheekbones, and a hot “young” German-Iraqi electronic musician rattling your friendship with your old bandmate and film composition buddy. You can read that here.

This Overheard show at The Local is this Saturday May 9th! Tickets here! See you then!

Anyway, the movies. Links included where there’s more substantial writing over on letterboxd:

The Drama [2026, dir. Kristoffer Borgli] (rewatch)

My favorite film of 2026 so far. I wrote a big piece about how this film nuked me from orbit, and how real love feels impossible in a way that mirrors a miracle.

In watching Charlie and Emma dance around an issue until one of them falls apart, I was reminded a bit of Before Midnight. Two characters I loved in Sunrise and Sunset became a little flanderized, with Jesse's passivity and know-it-all nature duking it out with Céline's loud and emotional mania. That never really worked for me, and I think where The Drama succeeds in a similar concept (fighting from a place of love) is that Linklater's writing strategy of 'people talking' can't meet the moments of relationship anxiety that bombard a couple like Borgli's use of the silence between our leads can. We need those moments spent together in quiet and alone in the dark to dwell, doom, dance, and empathetically throw up. 

The Princess Bride [1987, dir. Rob Reiner] (rewatch)

Picked up the beautiful 4K Criterion copy of this film and borrowed Andrew’s PS5 and also apartment to watch it with Em. I didn’t grow up with this film like some of my friends did, so it doesn’t land squarely in my heart quite the same, but it is still so undeniably wonderful, like a 99-minute magic trick. I think my favorite part was getting to see Em’s tearful reaction to Inigo and Fezzik’s companionship, knowing that they are not immune to the power of Wholesome Dude Energy.

The Master [2012, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson]

The final PTA film in his filmography that I hadn’t seen. I need to chew on this one big time and have a serendipitous chance for a 35mm theater rewatch coming up at the end of the month. I have so far written this, as part of a longer piece on PTA and PSH:

What a treasure Philip Seymour Hoffman was, absolutely magnetic in every role he ever played; from Ben Stiller's best friend Sandy who taught me the word 'sharted' in Along Came Polly, to the insidious and unsettling terrorist Davian in Mission Impossible III, to right smack in the center of what would be his final appearance in a PTA film. He dots this man's filmog in typically show-stealing manner, being the best part of Hard Eight, Magnolia, and Punch-Drunk Love, and the sweet and lovesick boom operator Scotty in Boogie Nights. I still remember when I rewatched Boogie Nights at a sold out 70mm screening at The Paris Theater, and the entire room erupting into applause when Scotty first tumbled into frame. In watching The Master, I can feel a hole in PTA's following films that he seems to be struggling to fill, an easy heart in the shape of a squishy blonde man that seems to have been lost.

Body Heat [1981, dir. Lawrence Kasdan]

The sweatiest film I’ve ever seen, and possible first documentation of the concept of a ‘harmbo*’ via William Hurt (*a himbo that does harm).

The Killing of a Sacred Deer [2017, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos]

Quite a yap for this one, I was really excited to report that I didn’t hate a Yorgos film, and maybe even liked it.

My Father’s Shadow [2025, dir. Akinola Davies Jr.]

Some of you may remember a newsletter I wrote that included ten stories about my father, in the wake of watching Sentimental Value. Every once in a while, I’ll watch a film that reminds me of another one (such as Petite Maman, where I wrote the eleventh). My Father’s Shadow brought out a twelfth.

Akira [1988, dir. Katsuhiro Otomo]

I wish people had told me before going in how cruel this movie is, I had prepared myself for hype motorcycle gang action and got scarred by images I will probably never forget whether or not I want to. However, the animation of this film is undeniable, some of the best hand-drawn images ever put to screen so far in humankind’s history, like some ‘send this in a space shuttle to aliens’ type shit. Also I had the privilege of seeing the 4K remaster at The Prince Charles theater “Cinema” in London(!!) with Han, which absolutely rocked.

Shall We Dance? [1996, dir. Masayuki Suō]

Simply put one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in my life. Watching this felt like earnest delivery of beats right out of an anime: the tragic, campy backstories; the characters providing live commentary on competitions; exposition that never feels intrusive; hell, even the gruff no-nonsense PI becoming a begrudging fan of competitive ballroom. I loved it so much, I wept, and it wrung this out of my aching heart:

Floating between the celestial window of fantasy and the patient presence of reality, a new whimsy can set the soul alight, to warm the waiting arms of our beloveds when we inevitably return to earth.

Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) [2025, dir. Joel Alfonso Vargas]

Touching (and literal) portraits of the beauty of my ancestral homeland of the Bronx, a scathing indictment of useless baby daddies, and performances so real and true that it felt like no one was acting at all. I wrote a bit about how this movie hit on a very personal level for me.

Uncut Gems [2019, dir. Josh & Benny Safdie] (rewatch)

Was honestly shocked by how much I yapped about this film, the Safdies’ arc as directors, and how important I find the sonic journeys of Daniel Lopatin. I debated saving that piece for the newsletter but kind of published it in a fugue, and you can read it at the above link, but here’s a snippet:

This film was part of the "Pop Star" series run by Nitehawk, celebrating the composers of film scores that took time out of their musical celebrity to give a film its sonic life (such as Air, Johnny Greenwood, Tangerine Dream, and Quincy Jones), and the music chosen to advertise the series before the movie was the aforementioned song "Holocaust Honey" from the Marty Supreme score. It's a song that I struggle to listen to without choking up, on the merit of its own beauty, but also for the memory of the scene of hope, strife, and sacrifice that accompanies it. I think that song being selected to advertise 35mm screenings of Uncut Gems ironically highlights its status as an in between point for Josh Safdie and Daniel Lopatin.

Decision to Leave [2022, dir. Park Chan-wook] (rewatch)

Seeing this in print, the blues were so lush and delicate, the desperation and sweat on Seo-rae and Hae-jun’s brows unmistakable behind the speckles of 35mm film. I was reminded of how often I write about the ocean, my less-than-secret desire for that vast blue body to someday swallow me up. The most troubling part to me, though, is the way I can convince myself that those writhing blues and greens care for me, that I deludedly believe it will pull me in with a respect deserved; that I’m not just another rock to be rolled over decades, whittled down to common sand. Decision to Leave is a movie that infected me, beginning in my mind as a dot of ‘lmao what was that’ on first watch, expanding unchecked to where it is now, a weight that lives atop me, rent-free, making each step in a weekly wander that much more considered. I love it.

I have been thinking a lot about this newsletter lately, about how it’ll look going forward, whether I want its formats to be strict or loose, whether I want all the writing to come from me alone, whether it should come out every other Tuesday specifically (exhibit A, at the time of this newsletter’s release, it is Wednesday) and whether I should be limited to writing, pictures, and music alone. Different creative callings have fallen in my lap over the past few months, and I guess we’ll see what’s to come! I tried to shake out of my usual format a bit this week and will Continue to Shake.

In any case I’ll have music recs and film photos and all that for ya next time.

I’ll leave you with some stuff I’ve enjoyed reading:

• “Like an emcee at the fever in the dJ booth,” by Niko Stratis. A piece about Beastie Boys for the anniversary of MCA’s passing, contains a ton of my favorite thing: tying music to memory, its joys, its sorrows, everything in between.

• “Our Longing for Inconvenience” by Hanif Abdurraqib (one of my heroes). A bunch of fools ran with the headline and posted idiotic takes regarding assumptions of this beautiful essay’s content without actually reading it, so I’m hoping I can give it a little more of the time of day here.

• “The want to fight club” by Rax King. Funny piece about aging punks and the eggshell of toxic masculinity, those that we crack, and those that we walk on.

• My friend Colton’s new blog, Despite Everything! Hope and optimism intertwined with tech amidst the current nightmare of the latter, and his earnest attempt to reclaim the joy of writing. It is no exaggeration to say that Colton is one of the core reasons I started writing at all, this newsletter would not exist without his friendship (and, occasionally, editing). I’m so glad he’s opted to share his work with the world again.

Thanks for your patience, if you happened to notice I was gone for a bit anyway. If not, hey, I’m back! It’s like I never left!

-Will