OK, here we go, the big one, Inland Empire. This was the first film I ever remember bailing on mid-watch. It was many years ago, before I had a blog, and it was probably my first David Lynch film, watched purely based on a 5-star review in Empire magazine. All I can remember is a rabbit sitcom. I called it quits after about an hour of utter incoherence, but this time I’m trapped on a train, and the next episode of Alien: Earth is refusing to play so I’m watching this instead. I think the best way of me trying to keep track of everything going on is, like with my Twin Peaks re-caps, to keep a stream of consciousness style document going whilst I write, which I present to you now (slightly edited and tidied up after watching). Let’s get going!
Fred (Bill Pullman) plays saxophone by night, and sleeps in his soundproof saxophone-practice bedroom by day. One morning a voice over his intercom tells him “Dick Larante is dead”, and a videotape of his house is delivered to him. Soon, Fred’s partner Renee (Patricia Arquette) is murdered, and Fred is arrested, because there’s a video of him doing it, much to his surprise, but don’t worry, this is a David Lynch film, so there’s a creepy pale guy cropping up all over the place too.
It’s here! Finally! All the other awards have been dished out, but can we really close out the discussion on the films of 2025 without my full, definitive ranking of every new release I’ve seen so far from last year? For various reasons this is a bumper year of films, with over a hundred on the list, which has also led to this list coming out so much later than I’d intended, and the longer it took the more films I’d watch and would then need adding to the list (21 of these films were watched for the first time in 2026). I aimed for the end of January, then the end of February, then the day of the Oscars, but obviously all those dates inevitably sailed by, and I settled on releasing the list today, whatever day that may be as it sure as heck ain’t the day I’m writing this intro. Without further ado, here’s my full ranking of films I’ve seen that were released in the UK in 2025:
When life gives you rain, go look at the waterfalls. That’s been a mantra I’ve been trying to cling to for the end of what has been a tumultuous year for many, many people. Always look on the bright side of life is amongst the most trite of aphorisms, and rarely does following its advice lead to actually fixing a situation, but it can at least improve your mood for the time being. Here are some examples of the gushing waterfall ramifications provided by rainy torrents experienced by me in 2025: – In May we visited Norway for the first time, starting in Bergen then heading to Oslo. On the first day in a new city my favourite thing to do is go for a run and have a little explore, which is exactly what I did. Bergen is beautiful and very pedestrian friendly, and there were many people out and about enjoying the lovely weather and taking photos of the stunning scenery. On my run I made an effort to not obstruct one such photographer and, in doing so, managed to miss a curb and fell over in a manner described by passers-by as looking “Not good” and “Very bad”. I limped back to our AirBnB and spent the rest of the trip hobbling around (I still went for ill-advised daily walks and even a couple of hikes, because I am very bad at both keeping still and looking after myself, this should be a surprise to no-one at this point). A few weeks after we arrived home I eventually went to the doctor about it, had an x-ray, and discovered I’d fractured my ankle, had to undertake physiotherapy, and wouldn’t be able to run for at least a couple of months. Running is how I stay sane, so that wasn’t a great time for me mentally or physically, but it felt so good when I started running and building up my distances again. I’m still not where I was this time last year, and if I’m sat down too long I have a bit of a limp when I set off again, but I managed my traditional Christmas Day half marathon in under two hours in the crisp, chilly sunshine, and that was a wonderful way to spend a morning.
– Speaking of Norway, when we arrived in Oslo we wondered why it was quite so busy – sure, it was the start of wedding season and Oslo is a typical stag/hen destination, but the city was teeming with people! It turns out we’d booked to stay during Holmenkollstafetten, the world’s largest relay race with 70,000 participants across over 5,000 teams, all seemingly mocking my inability to run alongside them. Needless to say this made finding a restaurant that evening somewhat tricky, and we ended up going a little further afield. The burger place we headed to was overflowing, but the tapas restaurant next door (Castello) was miraculously devoid of a queue. We ducked inside and claimed the last available table – right before the place was swarmed with hungry runners – and I enjoyed easily the tastiest prawns I’ve ever had. I’m still thinking about them over seven months later. Delicious.
– Most of my weekends this past year have been spent doing home improvements to our new house, often involving arduously digging up the garden, much to the chagrin of my spine. The garden seems to be mostly comprised of roots, rocks, and random things thrown away by previous owners, including broken tools, random assorted animal bones, and over thirty whole glass bottles and jars. My favourite thing found in the ground? A big rock. Not just any rock, this is a rough stone cube, approximately 18″ / 45cm to a side. What is it for? Why was it buried in the ground? What will I do with it now? I have no idea to any of these (our best guess is it was used for tying up horses), but it’s my new favourite stone, and everyone should have one.
– One evening, after several delayed trains, I arrived at my weekday flat later than usual, so it was in fact early Tuesday morning rather than late Monday evening. I went to open the door, but the key wouldn’t turn, the lock was jammed. I tried everything I had in my backpack to open the door, from a DVD wallet to a laptop charger cable, a penknife and a small vial of bike grease, all to no avail. The flat’s owner was understandably asleep, and hundreds of miles away. Every 24-hour locksmith I called failed to live up to their claim (10am was the best offer I received, from one of the two who answered the phone, compared to the dozen who didn’t). All the nearby hotels were fully booked or closed for the season. I despaired. Then, I used my ingenuity, perseverance, can-do attitude and, crucially, a discarded metal garden border divider I found in the front garden, to successfully break into the flat without causing any extra damage to anything other than my knuckles, and was buoyed on a wave of pride and relief to the deepest sleep I’ve slept in some time. Apologies to my wife, who got to impotently participate in this hours-long saga at the other end of a phone, and my parents, whom I awoke at 2am to come help (they live 30 miles away), mere minutes before I figured out the solution myself.
– Finally, where the initial mantra stems from, we took our annual trip to Scotland in September, this time heading to the Isle of Mull, where we spent much of our time hunkered down during a particularly bad storm that caused a power cut and delayed our departure from the island for an extra day. That sucked, but when I went for a few little runs I did find some particularly engorged waterfalls that put the biggest smile on my face.
So those are some things that happened this year. Let’s have a look at how I fared with my resolutions from 2025:
The Twin Peaks hiatus is over! Apologies for the delay, but as this film was rated 18 and the IMDB Parental Guidance section is somewhat graphic I deemed this would be unsuitable for my usual Twin Peaks viewing environment of my laptop on a public train, and it’s taken me several months to find an evening devoid of other more pressing activities in order to actually watch this film. But watch it I now have, and my thoughts I will soon distribute.
As with the first two seasons of Twin Peaks I went in knowing precious little of Fire Walk With Me, other than it was a prequel to the original show. My assumption was that this might follow Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) on the Theresa case, and whilst that was partially correct, this is far more about Laura Palmer’s week leading up to her washing up on the river bank encased in clingfilm, and my what a horrendous week she had. We’ll get there, though. For now, here’s my regular stream of consciousness from watching the film, albeit more edited this time due to the film’s length, otherwise we’d be here all day.
Sailor Ripley and Lula Fortune (Nicolas Cage & Laura Dern) are young, spirited, and very much in love. When a man (Gregg Dandridge) approaches Sailor at a classy function and accuses him of trying to sleep with Lula’s mother Marietta (Diane Ladd) and tries to kill him, Sailor defends himself and brutally kills the guy, and is sentenced to two years in prison for his trouble. Upon his release, he and Lula set out on a road trip, much to the chagrin of Marietta, who sends a selection of assailants out to put a stop to their escapades.
Captives from Africa aboard a Spanish slave ship revolt and take control, but are re-captured and taken to the USA. Various factions claim ownership of these people, and a trial is required to attempt to settle the situation. This is one of those very important Spielberg films, portraying a significant and specific moment in history, with a phenomenal cast that had me going “Hey it’s that guy!” every 5-10 minutes. When your cast boasts the likes of Chiwetel Ejiofor, David Paymer, Ralph Brown, John Ortiz, Anna Paquin, Stellan Skarsgard, Xander Berkeley and Pete Postlethwaite amongst it’s supporting members, you know there’s going to be something worth your time.
I know I’ve seen bits of this before, but I think this was my first time seeing it all in one piece and, hopefully, it’ll be my last as well. The premise is confusing and mangled. Everyone’s favourite energetically chaotic funnyman Robin Williams is laboured with playing the least fun person imaginable, strapped to his giant mobile phone instead of spending time with his kids. Way too much time is spent in the real world before heading into the fantasy realm. It’s just so boring!
This year I pledged to fill in all my Steven Spielberg blind spots, reviewing them as I go. I’ve been making reasonable progress with the watching, but customarily slacking when it comes to the actual reviewing, partly because I got side-tracked with the Twin Peaks of it all. So far I’ve watched Always, Hook and Amistad, (along with the already-reviewed Sugarland Express and Empire of the Sun) none of which I feel overly compelled to watch again anytime soon, so these next few reviews will likely be a little lighter than usual, hope that’s OK. I still have Munich and Catch Me If You Can to go, so hopefully look out for them soon!
This is it, the final episode of that initial Twin Peaks run! I’m concerned by quite how many mysteries were still left at the end of the previous episode, but let’s see how many we can cross off today. I’m certain there can’t possibly be any new one added, surely? I understand this was essentially the last slice of Twin Peaks, other than a prequel film and a bunch of deleted scenes, for like 25 years, so I can only assume absolutely everything is going to be neatly wrapped up and didn’t leave anyone curious as to what was going on here.
Life Vs Film 