Larry's 100

movies

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Gore Verbinski (2026)

Maybe only absurdist satire can shock society out of the techno-death spiral we are diving into. Verbinski’s movie posits just that, exploring the humor wing of the Black Mirror genre. Cat-centaurs, Mar’s Attacks’ rayguns and malicious toys are mere flourishes in this bonkers cautionary tale. 

The plot is Terminator if it were mainlining a chemical cocktail of Monty Python and LSD. Geoffrey Zanelli’s score signposts the plot like video game music.

Sam Rockwell’s messenger from the future is a career time-capsule role, and he leads a talented cast that grounds the film’s hopeful humanitarianism. 

Buy a ticket, take the ride.

Good Luck

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Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie (2025)

A frenetic thrill ride beginning in the Lower East Side tenement buildings of NYC to become a globetrotting misadventure, ping-ponging across Europe, Africa, Japan, and New Jersey. Loosely based on real-life Ping Pong shark Marty Reisman, the movie is a mash-up of The Hustler and True Romance.

The plot borders on ridiculous, but the film is fueled by Timothy Chalamet’s charisma, ensnaring us into his madness. Hyper-stylized, with anachronistic needle drops, the movie feels contemporary until you see a car or a rotary phone.

Safdie assembles a cast that includes reality show stars, rappers, and Gwyneth Paltrow. 

See it.

Marty

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Larry's Faves: 2025 Movies

See all #Larrys2025Faves

Bad year for movies. Or a bad year for me seeing movies. Award season rules push studios to cram releases at year’s end, and it's hard to keep up. I will catch up with films I missed in Jan-March.

My list, ranked, with microreviews:

1. One Battle After Another: Brilliant, has a tragic flaw 2. Sinners: Juke Joint Cinema 3. Pavements: Larry’s100 Review 4. Weapons: Campy, creepy, freaky 5. Baltimorons: [Larry’s100 Review] (https://larrys100.writeas.com/the-baltimorons-2025-duplass-brothers-productions-directed-by-jay-duplass-4) 6. The Ballad of Wallis Island: Tim Key is brilliant 7. KPop Demon Hunters: Trust the phenom 8. John Candy: I Like Me: Sadder than you’d think 9. Fantastic Four: Didn’t suck 10. Nonnas: More sweet than savory

Weapons

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The Baltimorons 2025, Duplass Brothers Productions, Directed by Jay Duplass (4 out of 5 Hot Chocolates)

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There is a recent tradition of established film directors giving their elevated spin on the Christmas movie. See Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers and David Gordon Green’s Nutcrackers. Mumblecore filmmaker Jay Duplass is the 2025 entry.

Baltimorons is a melancholy May-December Rom-Com between a disillusioned millennial improv comedian and a divorced post-menopausal dentist in a mid-life rut. Their day-long accidental adventure reignites their joy for life, against a backdrop of grimy urban Christmas pastiche.

Duplass mines the beats and tropes of a holiday romance but eschews the holly-jolly trappings of Hallmark for a realistic take on loneliness and connection.

Watch it.

baltimorons

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Oh. What. Fun. Amazon 2025 (1.75 out of 5 Hot Chocolates)

Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Dennis Leary, Felicity Jones, Dominic Sessa, Joan Chen, and Jason Schwartzman. Directed by Michael Showalter

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This movie is a holiday party eggnog left out to curdle. I imagine an Amazon exec dumping 1970s gender stereotypes, check-collecting stars, and meanness as 'satire' into the blender and thinking “Yum.” Gross.

Borrowing plot and themes from The Family Stone, Home Alone, and Planes, Trains & Automobiles, writer/director Michael Showalter doesn’t like the genre enough to craft a compelling family dramedy. It's slice-and-bake Christmas cookies sold as “from scratch.”

Every year, streamers throw money and stars at the Christmas TV movie template, attempting to legitimize something that doesn’t need it. A holiday message: More isn’t always better.

Skip it

OhWhatFun

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Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper Hallmark, 2025 (4 out of 5 Hot Chocolates)

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The season’s first banger. Atypical male lead, fresh story beats, and riffing on zany Anchorman-style comedies. The romance is a Christmas Ale buzz. You root for leads Ted and Hope.

Supporting cast matters in holiday movies. From Ted’s high-strung sibling to the Sole Sisters, an a-hole newsman nemesis, and Hope’s straight-talkin' coworker, this movie has a fruitcake of an ensemble.

The plot had a third-act problem with an asinine Three’s Company miscommunication “conflict.” Hope is unnecessarily mean, as she delivers a brutal, undeserved Ted takedown. Justice for Ted! But the hot, handsy, elongated on-camera make-out scene saved Christmas. Watch it.

Ted

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An Alpine Holiday, Hallmark Channel 2025 (2.5/5 Hot Chocolates)

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Two aspects differentiate An Alpine Holiday: authentic French Alps sets (no fake snow!) and a story that focuses more on sibling relationships than romantic entanglements.

A last wish sends two sisters on a quest to retrace their grandparents' alpine love story. Ashley Williams, a Christmas movie regular with quirky comic timing, plays one of the sisters. Their tension drives the plot, each carrying a sleigh full of grievances and regrets to unwrap.

The rest? Weak romance cider. One gets a limp French tour guide, and Williams has a nonsensical marriage epiphany about her dweeb back home.

Only for Hallmark Heads.

An Alpine Holiday

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A Merry Little Ex-Mas, Netflix 2025

3.5/5 Hot Chocolates

So begins Larry's 100 Holiday Movie Season! My family and I have been studying the genre for a decade, and for the past five years, I have been reviewing them on my Instagram. I am now applying the Drable/100 Word review format and cataloging them here. But don't worry, Instagram Fam, I will still post them there to preserve this cherished tradition.

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Notable Stars: Alicia Silverstone, Jameela Jamil, and Melissa Joan Hart. Silverstone, Hart produced for Mellisa Joan’s Mom’s Heartbreak Films production company.

Alicia Silverstone joins the Christmas Movie industrial complex.

Consciously uncoupling Silverstone and Oliver Hudson attempt to maintain post-breakup holiday normalcy with their young adult children, new paramours, friends, and Granddads. Awkward festive gatherings, hurt feelings, and rekindled emotions ensue.

After years of trying, Netflix got its version of the Hallmark Christmas RomCom right, mimicking the look/feel with a few meta inside jokes while tweaking the Young Professional Female Gets Stuck In Wintertown trope.

Middle-aged “what now” angst and Silverstone's puppy-dog eyes ground the plot, and the writing sprinkles the story with core genre elements: humor, empathy, warmth, and baking.

Stream it.

A Merry Little Ex-Mas

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About Schmidt, Alexander Payne (2002)

This movie hits differently at 52 than at 32. 

In 2002, it was a dull Election follow-up; in hindsight, it matches his Nebraska with its suburban inner-sprawl dread. A bleak movie that sends time running short pings to midlife doldrums. Birth, school, work, death-level doom. 

Nicholson gives one of his last great performances, injecting a sneering everyman menace into scenes. Hope Davis at her mousy best, with June Squibb, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates, and Dr. Johnny Fever layering the slow-motion cringe with despair.

Pre-smartphone. Schmidt driving to Rush Limbaugh on AM radio? Quaint.

Need motivation to get going? Watch it.

About Schmidt

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Pavements, Alex Ross Perry (2024)

An inventive and funny movie about a band. Parts documentary, narrative, and musical. The alchemy of farce, myth, and sentimentality is authentic to Pavement; even the parody is believable. 

I searched my Human Intelligence for a comp, and the best I could find was Nathan Fielder. Both use absurdity to find truth.

I cried watching. Was it nostalgia and middle age? Was it watching with my teen daughter? Was it ignoring societal suffocation to revel in the community of the film’s third act? Was it the lyrics divorced from 90s cynicism by musical theater? Who knows, I did. Watch It.

Pavements

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