The crazy work marathon—if all goes well tomorrow for my co-workers—is over. We did what we needed to do. It worked pretty much as smoothly as I could possibly imagine. I hope everyone is happy. Fingers crossed.
I am wiiiiiippppeeeedddddd, though. Good lord. So exhausted. Happy with myself and the work I did, and it was genuinely an exciting project to work on. So, a very good-feeling exhaustion.
So, yeah, I didn’t get to bed last night literally until 6am, which was wild, because I remember getting into bed with the realization that normally, I’d be getting up again in just 45 minutes. That was nuts. I don’t think I’ve ever done a shift quite like that before. Not that late, anyway. I’ve done plenty that were close to that. But not 6am. At least the sun wasn’t coming back up yet.
Slept as long as I could, which was basically…noon? I think? Something like that. And I think that was okay because I slept long enough to not collapse into a nap during the rest of the day, and I now feel pretty tired tonight. I hope I sleep. We’ll see. And I hope I can have the next two days off so as to have a normal-feeling weekend. That would be absolutely incredible. We’ll see. I asked for it.
The Oscars were tonight. Didn’t get the chance to watch them, but I have to say, I did a really really good job this year watching them films that were nominated, and not even because they were nominated but because I actually read the various “best of” lists back in like late November and decided I wanted to watch the movies they talked about. I really enjoyed doing that. Genuinely. I want to keep up with film more. I’ve fallen off the new stuff. It was really that Best of the Century (so far) NYT list that really kicked me off. That list brought me back, y’all. Truly. And I think I’m back for a while. Because, here’s the thing…
Most of my movie-watching, even (especially?) during awards season, is like it was watching all these best-of-2026 films: meh. I was very meh on almost all of the movies up for awards this year, and I watched almost all of them. I still have Sentimental Value and Marty Supreme to watch, but outside of the docs, I think I’ve watched all the others. Even Sirat, which, man I wanted to love that movie and I definitely did not.
I just finished The Secret Agent last night. That’s one of the better ones. Not perfect, and that mostly comes from how I think the movie is marketed and genre’d rather than the film not actually knowing what it really is…but it is a legitimately beautiful, moving film. And Wagner Moura, my goodness, I’m a fan of his. He’s my pick for best actor, even though he didn’t win it. He should have. That’s a movie where you fall in love with the characters, head over heels. Just don’t buy that it’s a “thriller” in the way we expect a thriller to be these days, nor is it a spy movie whatsoever, there is no heist…there is a showdown, there is violence and a chase…but none of that is what the movie is really about, which is family, corruption, generational trauma, love, respect, humor…Brazil. It’s a love letter, to me, to a very fraught time in that country in which there was astounding beauty and unspeakable horror, all at once. The Secret Agent is a film worthy of Oscar consideration.
So was One Battle After Another. It’s not Anderson’s best, don’t get that twisted. It, also, is not a perfect film. But it was very good.
I did not see a film this year that brought me to tears. Nothing really got under my skin. Some films were actively bad, which I won’t list; the kind of film you watch where you’re baffled how anyone could think it was good, let alone Oscar-worthy. But, I’ve learned that’s normal. It happens every year.
Still have to watch Sentimental Value. That might get me there. We’ll see. Marty, too, but I’m not so sure about that one. Could surprise me. Like, I really enjoyed Uncut Gems, it was without question one of the best movies that year, and one of the better movies I’ve seen in quite some time in that it actually delivered what it was trying to deliver—intoxicating manic energy and suspense—…but it didn’t, like, flatten, me, you know? It wasn’t a deeply moving, emotional experience watching that film. It was a romp. A very specific kind of romp, but a romp, nonetheless. Uncut Gems will not haunt me. I doubt Marty will, either…but we shall see.
I’m really glad I watched all these movies, though. Really, really glad.
Night night 🙂
—artwork tonight is by a young Syd Mead