Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We’re really into the winter doldrums at this point, which I frankly at least prefer to the agonizing November period of knowing winter is right around the corner. Anticipation of a calamity tends to be more painful than the calamity itself; at this point, even though a mercilessly cold January is approaching, I can at least comfort myself with the assurance that the year’s shortest day is almost behind us. And yes, I really should have moved out of New England years ago if I hate winter this much, I am quite aware of that thank you very much. On the plus side, the cold has at least given me a perfect excuse to hole up and finish The Summer Hikaru Died, which puts me in fairly reasonable shape to reflect on the year in cartoons. And of course, there were film screenings aplenty, as we all did our best to tuck in against the hateful salvos of That Bastard Nature. Let’s run ‘em down!
Tag Archives: Film
Fall 2025 – Week 11 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’m still in end-of-year catch-up mode at this point, and am currently munching through the sunshine and cicada shells of The Summer Hikaru Died. I’m also looking to devour outstanding anime films from any era in order to furnish my year in review post, having found myself in the unique situation of doing so much writing in the preceding year that I’ve actually fallen behind on my film viewing. I checked out Inu-Oh last week and will likely finally get to The Colors Within next week, but feel free to let me know what other gaps in my education could use some addressing. In the meantime, let’s burn down the Week in Review!
Fall 2025 – Week 10 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We’re truly entering the holiday season now, which tends to be a period of profound self-recrimination to me personally, as I attempt to make up for missed family time and finish off a year’s worth of outstanding ambitions. But I’m trying to take it easy on myself this year, and it’s certainly helping that I’m about to pass the hundred page mark on my ongoing fantasy story. I’ve been writing dubious fantasy novels since middle school, and it feels incredibly validating to be back in that space and making steady progress, actually chasing my ambitions rather than admiring them from afar. I only sorta half-believed in this DnD writing to traditional fiction pipeline when I started off, and it sure is nice for something to turn out right for once. Anyway, enough navel-gazing for now, we’ve got some movies to break down. On to the week in review!
Fall 2025 – Week 9 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been writing up a fuckin’ storm; getting ahead on bounties, pushing forward on my novel, and even tossing off an indulgent side quest for my DnD party (we’re doing The Phantom of the Opera and The Taming of the Shrew simultaneously, which will absolutely involve were-shrews). All this feels like a genuine breakthrough for me, as I’ve traditionally found it extremely hard to write in multiple modes at the same time – it’s hard to think in terms of criticism when writing quests, hard to plot in terms of novels when writing songs, etcetera. Now it feels more like I’ve reached that vaunted position where work in one field actually inspires work in others; I was basically stuck at one bar scene in my book for weeks, but fiddling with quests seemed to unlodge something essential for getting momentum back. And yes, the film screenings have continued, alongside copious munching through the Brennan Lee Mulligan extended universe. Let’s break down some movies!
Fall 2025 – Week 8 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week has seen my house cleaning up various media odds and ends, as we finished off the two revival Slayers seasons, concluded season three of Dimension 20, and also checked out the last of the millennium era Godzilla films. This has left my slate open for munching through the year’s outstanding must-watch anime productions, and thus I’ve already started a group viewing of The Summer Hikaru Died, while polishing off the last of Shoushimin Series in my own time. My big blind spot is the year’s top anime films – both the Umetsu and Fujimoto films actually released this year, alongside last year’s Yamada film that at this point should be widely available. I’ll be sure to munch through those as soon as I can, but in the meantime, let’s break down a fresh grab bag of film selections!
Fall 2025 – Week 7 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With the winds of winter approaching, this week saw me putting the finishing touches on my players’ Christmas DnD adventure, which will be the third installment in our mostly annual holiday tradition. These quests have traditionally been written by one of my housemates as a break in the formal narrative action, with the first installment essentially positing Santa Claus as a Futurama-style figure of terror, and the second taking The Santa Clause’s premise in a more lycanthropy-adjacent direction. This third adventure will involve us doing a Diehard scenario with Santa as Hans Gruber, a collaboration where I open the quest as dungeon master, only for the action to be “invaded” by Santa in an active DM handoff. I’m eager to see how it all plays out, and will surely inform you folks in the aftermath, but for now, let’s burn down a fresh week in films!
Fall 2025 – Week 6 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With the original three seasons complete and the films proving a bust, this week my house munched through the 2008 Slayers revival Revolution, featuring the same director and much of the same cast as the original ‘90s entries. While the transition from nostalgic cel photography is unfortunate, this season proved itself a fine addition to the Lina Inverse canon, carrying on the spirit of the original series. Meanwhile, the introduction of Brennan Lee Mulligan into Critical Role gave us the perfect excuse to return to Dimension 20, where we’re now following the Bad Kids on their quest to retrieve the Crown of the Nightmare King. Though the team moving away from fully designed sets initially put us off, it’s actually been easy to reintegrate into this season’s Theater of the Mind-style combat, which undeniably facilitates fights of greater scope and complexity than a physical board would allow. All this DnD viewing has actually inspired me to get started on this year’s Christmas DnD Adventure, a much-loved annual tradition around my place. Perhaps more on that later, but for now, let’s run down the week in films!
Fall 2025 – Week 5 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Alongside the week’s usual scattering of films and videogames (in spite of my grumbling, I am still bashing my head against Hades 2), this week saw us screening the first three episodes of Critical Role’s fourth campaign, which trades out their usual DM Matt Mercer for Dimension 20’s Brennan Lee Mulligan, alongside essentially doubling the table size to a total of thirteen rotating players. All of this sounded like it might amplify the inherently confusing, unwieldy nature of Critical Role’s live sessions, but the results have been astonishing; to be honest, this campaign has so far been the most compelling D&D project I’ve ever witnessed.
Mulligan’s strategy of breaking his sessions into concrete scenes has made for a far more propulsive, coherent ride than the CR standard, the world they are revealing feels substantive, lived-in, and rich in thematic implications, and the cast are inhabiting a dynamite array of characters, successfully rallying back from the “everyone’s trying to be Jester” doldrums of campaign three. Mulligan’s influence and the cast’s clear renewed enthusiasm have turned Critical Role into genuine appointment television, and if you’ve never seen a live play before, I’d say this is a fine chance to see what peak performance looks like. Regardless, I have of course made time for more of our regularly scheduled movie screenings, so let’s break down some films in the Week in Review!
Fall 2025 – Week 4 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week my house finished off our rewatch of Slayers’ original three seasons, which we then followed up with the first Slayers film. This unfortunately proved a total disappointment; the film basically butchers Lina’s character, the tone shifts from fantasy adventure to outright farce, and Lina’s reliable adventuring party has been replaced by one obnoxious co-lead. Considering the other films all apparently follow this same formula, I’m now debating whether we should jump to the more recent Revolution seasons or just consider the franchise finished. I know those are generally less highly regarded than the original series, but it’s frankly hard to say goodbye to Lina and the gang – particularly knowing that with this, we’ve basically burned through anime’s apparent catalog of tabletop-reminiscent fantasy adventures. Anyway, our Slayers travels were accompanied by plenty of the usual film screenings, so let’s break down some movies in the Week in Review!
Fall 2025 – Week 3 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Our late summer weather reprieve finally broke this week, meaning I’m hunkering down for half a year of gloomy New England doldrums. I’ve never been thrilled to live in a region whose weather feels like the meteorological embodiment of depression, but I imagine I’ll bear it with roughly as much grumbling as usual, and as much media to distract myself as I possibly can. As far as that goes, my house is now done with Andor and nearly out of Slayers, meaning it’s time to add some new productions to our daily diet. I’m thinking Future Boy Conan will be our next classic series screening, and I’m eager to see a young, fire-eyed Miyazaki tackle his first TV production. In the meantime, let’s break down some goddamn films!