Just A Peck 0029 // ICE, ice, and my favorite (non-2025) watches from 2025

1/25/26

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Journal
Memories
2025: Favorite Non-2025 Watches/Rewatches
Things I'm Excited About
Quick Links
My Favorite Quote of the Week

JOURNAL

It feels strange to be putting together this newsletter in the face of such dire circumstances here in Minnesota. If you are able, consider joining us in supporting the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota which has been working with immigrants and refugees in Minnesota for 50 years, and the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund which is routing support to dozens of organizations that are helping people with immigration-related emergencies.

In the face of shocking daily awfulness, it has been heartening to see our family, friends, and neighbors turn out to support each other this week, despite the brutally cold temperatures.

I also love this logo, fusing the Rebel Alliance with our state bird, the loon.

Speaking of brutally cold temperatures, it got so cold in Duluth this week, that schools had to close on Friday.

In the decade that we’ve lived along the lake, we’ve only seen ice form a few times. (Usually ice blows in.) This week was one of those times.

A thin film of ice forms along the shore of Lake Superior

It’s prime movie season, and some really great movies are finally reaching us here in the hinterlands. Jody and I got to see Hamnet at the Zinema, and tearily processed it afterwards over lunch at Zeigeist.

What I watched this week:

Mr. Scorsese (2025). Watched this five hour documentary over the course of a Sunday with my friends Jason and Jody. Some surprising access to childhood friends and personal home life footage. It got a little rushed at the end, but I enjoyed it.
Orlando (1992). My first time seeing Sally Potter's fantastic feature debut with Tilda Swinton in a role it feels like she was born to play, Billy Zane, Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth, a young Kathryn Hunter, a baby Toby Jones, gender fluidity, and Fleabag-style direct to camera address.
The Bank Dick (1940). My first time seeing this W.C. Fields classic. His uncertain muttering is particular kind of genius. Shemp as a bartendender, a bank examiner named "Snoopington", and a crazy car chase. "You'd like to have a nose like that full of nickels, wouldn't you?"
Tornado (2025). The daughter of a Samurai puppeteer is chased across the Scottish highlands by the bandits who killed her father. A bleak samurai/western revenge flick with hints of Kill Bill. Tim Roth is always great as a baddie.
The Naked Gun (2025). Funny enough. Paul Walter Hauser and Pamela Anderson are great. Danny Huston and Kevin Durand definitely got the memo. Anderson's scat solo was a highlight. "It says here you did twenty years for man's laughter. Must have been quite the joke."
Sentimental Value (2025). Joachim Trier's quiet, moving, beautifully observed film about inherited trauma, families, forgiveness, and grace. Reinsve, Skarsgard, and Lilleaas are all incredible. There were moments so powerful they caught my breath. The family home as metaphor, even becoming a literal soundstage replica by the end, also worked well for me.
Hamnet (2025). I saw this at Zinema with Jody. I was a little nervous about it, since I didn't love the novel, but it was great. Jessie Buckley is brilliant. It can be hard to strike the right balance in movies about the loss of a child, but Hamnet isn't overly precious during its tender moments nor is the grief overplayed. There are moments where things are on the brink of unbearble without ever crossing that line. And I'll forgive any historical inaccuracies with theater-related final act because of how potent and beautiful the final moments are.
No Other Choice (2025). Park Chan Wook's newest. An adaptation of a Donald Westlake novel with Looney Tune influences. After being laid off, Lee Byung-hun goes to extreme lengths to recover his dignity. Park Chan Wook is a wildly inventive filmmaker. Son Ye-jin is so good.

What I’m reading this week:

FINISHED: Upright Beasts, by Lincoln Michel. I inhaled this collection of short stories by Lincoln Michel, and then ordered his novels immediately afterward.
FINISHED: Carl's Doomsday Scenario (audiobook), by Matt Dinniman. The second in this series really starts to get mired down in the game mechanics.
Ghost Town Run, Moravec
The Ferryman and His Wife, Grytten
Middlemarch, Eliot
Hollywood: The Oral History, Bassinger, Wasson

MEMORIES

Five Years Ago:

Spencer and I went out to eat in a public restaurant for the first time after lockdown, visiting one of our favorite local cafes for a popup from Gumbo Boi!

Ten Years Ago:

Ten years ago we were enraptured by the alien beauty of sea smoke during our first winter along the lake.

2025: FAVORITE (NON-2025) WATCHES/REWATCHES

I watched 150 movies in 2025. (If you’re interested, you can see my full 2025 stats here.)

Now, that's a great year!

I’m saving my Top Movies of 2025 until I have a chance to catch up with some of the movies that haven’t gotten a wide release yet (I’ll have that list in a week or two). In the meantime, here are my twelve favorite watches/rewatches from last year, excluding all 2025 movies. You can see the full list of my non-2025 faves here.

Jaws (1975). I spent a lot of time this year thinking about Jaws and why it is such a masterpiece while working on The Shark is Broken, but my favorite viewing was in a friend's backyard under the stars surrounded by friends.

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). This is one of my five-star movies, but seeing it this year at the Zinema with live musical accompaniment from Ten Thousand Lakes was a special treat.

Pavements (2024). Much like Pavement, this documentary about "the world's most important and influential band" somehow manages to both satisfy and subvert the expections of the form--simultaneously earnest and irreverent. I love the music and the slacker ethos of Pavement, and I loved this doc.

Daguerréotypes (1975). I love Agnes Varda and I love this sweet portrait of the small shops of Rue Deguerre, all within 300 feet of her home. Accordions, magic shows, butchers, bakers, and Mrs. Blue Thistle.

Army of Shadows (1969). This year was my first time seeing this Melville masterpiece. The unsentimental, unglamorous portrait of the French Resistance during World World II felt especially relevant this year.

Secret Mall Apartment (2024). This documentary about a group artists performing a 4-year act of "artistic defiance" by building a secret apartment inside the walls of a Rhode Island mall was surprisingly inspriational.

Eephus (2024). This is showing up on a lot of Best Of lists for 2025, but since it was officially released in 2024, I'll put it in this list. A lovely little indie comedy about a group of rec-league ball players playing one last game on their community ball field before it gets razed for a new development. An eephus is a type of baseball pitch that seems to hang suspended until it flies by you, which is a metaphor for both baseball and life.

Le Trou (1960). A French crime film about a real life prison escape in 1947 which details the plan in fascinating detail. It uses mostly non-actors, even including one of the men who was involved in the actual escape as one of the leads.

Killer of Sheep (1978). Charles Burnett's MFA thesis film follows the daily life of a slaughterhouse working trying to provide for his family in 1970s Los Angeles. A collection of vignettes that captures a time and place so specifically that it feels like a documentary at times.

Brute Force (1947). Another prison break movie, this time by Jules Dassin before he was blacklisted. Inspired by the Battle of Alcatraz the year before, and shockingly violent for a noir from the 40s is has great performances from both Lancaster and Hume Cronyn as a sadistic warden.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972). We lost Redford this year. In addition to rewatching many of my favorite Redford films, I figured it was time to catch up with one I'd never seen before. Set in the Utah landscape Redford would call home for the rest of his life, this bleak, beautiful anti-western about a legendary mountain man was as good as I'd been told.

Where is the Friend's House (1987). This was my first time seeing Kiarostami's beautiful film about a boy trying to return his friend's school notebook, with a heartbreaking performance from a young actor and Kiarostami's singular style. I can see why this was one of Kurosawa and Herzog's favorite films.

Here’s to more great movies in 2026!

THINGS I'M EXCITED ABOUT

Next week, my friends open Dial M For Murder at the Playhouse! I can't wait to see it! Tickets are available here!

Help the Playhouse decide which shows to consider for next season! The annual survey is available here until Friday.

QUICK LINKS

MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I suspect there is a cultural divide at work here. In England our heroes tend to be characters who either have, or come to realise that they have, no control over their lives whatsoever – Pilgrim, Gulliver, Hamlet, Paul Pennyfeather (from Decline and Fall), Tony Last (from A Handful of Dust). We celebrate our defeats and our withdrawals – the Battle of Hastings, Dunkirk, almost any given test match. There was a wonderful book published, oh, about twenty years ago I think, by Stephen Pile called the Book of Heroic Failures. It was staggeringly huge bestseller in England and sank with heroic lack of trace in the U.S. Stephen explained this to me by saying that you cannot make jokes about failure in the States. It's like cancer, it just isn't funny at any level. In England, though, for some reason it's the thing we love most. So Arthur may not seem like much of a hero to Americans – he doesn't have any stock options, he doesn't have anything to exchange high fives about round the water-cooler. But to the English, he is a hero. Terrible things happen to him, he complains about it a bit quite articulately, so we can really feel it along with him - then calms down and has a cup of tea. My kind of guy!"

-- Douglas Adams

That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!

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