Check Book: Oops, All Recommendations!
Marie's "Things I Loved in Movies" list, JJ's and AJ's Gift Guides, and the Best Blank Check Books of 2025
Surprise! Blank Check has started a newsletter! Your favorite connoisseurs of context are gonna go on even more tangents, commit to even more bits, and share opinions on even more pieces of entertainment industry news because - hey, why not. Thanks for joining us!
IN THIS WEEK’S EDITION:
THE BARDI PARTY REPORT
I will be the first to admit that I am not a film critic, even though sometimes my dad tells people that I am, as I guess that’s easier than explaining, “my daughter used to be a producer but now she works in entertainment marketing and also sometimes appears on a podcast about movies.” But I do like the process of making year-end movie lists! In the spirit of positivity, I’ve challenged myself to select ONE THING I LIKED FROM EVERY 2025 RELEASE I SAW THIS YEAR. Obviously, some of these movies are incredible and have numerous likable and even lovable performances/lines/setpieces/etc. Some of these movies I felt were (in the words of Sean Fennessey) “quite poor,” but again, I’m pushing myself to be nice. Making movies is difficult, taste is subjective, and this is actually a pretty rewarding exercise.
Please note that this list is in no particular order. I also didn’t include some standout docs this year that I really loved because reducing them to quips felt a little glib. Also, beware of (out of context) spoilers.
Without further ado - THINGS I LIKED IN MOVIES, 2025:
Jim Downey’s delivery of “Lunatics, haters, and punk trash” in One Battle After Another
Power Ranger Jimmy Savilles scored to heavy metal Teletubbies at the end of 28 Years Later
Tramell Tillman flirting with Tom Cruise on that gay submarine in Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning
“Show me how to make thundah” / every interaction between Quaritch and Varang in Avatar: Fire & Ash
Snowman threesome in The Naked Gun
The MRI death in Final Destination Bloodlines
“Trunks” from Highest 2 Lowest
The mostly wordless opening third of The Gorge
The gasp my theater let out when the home gets a modern makeover in Sentimental Value, unexpected jumpscare of the year
Marisa Abela’s lie detector exam in Black Bag
“We should have never left Afghanistan” in Friendship, also the Subway hallucination scene
Rose Byrne vs Hamster, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
All the awesome plants in Predator Badlands
The Evan and Jaron “Crazy for this Girl” needledrop in Twinless
Honestly really struggling to remember anything about the Brett Goldstein/Imogen Poots Apple TV romance All of You, but I’m glad Imogen Poots continues to be employed
Every diss Ethan Hawke delivers about Oklahoma! in Blue Moon
Dona Sebastiana in The Secret Agent
The slow zoom in on Cinderella’s hairy butthole in The Ugly Stepsister, welcome back Walerian Borowczyk
Every single thing Gwyneth Paltrow does in Marty Supreme
The first section of Life of Chuck before it got annoying
The different and unexpected ways multiple characters claim they had “no other choice” in No Other Choice
Coming out of the theater and immediately doing the Weapons run after seeing Weapons
The trip to the amusement park in Splitsville, specifically Kyle Marvin riding a rollercoaster while carrying bags of live goldfish
Aidan Delbis’ lovely performance in Bugonia
Besides the obvious (incredible, spirits-conjuring music scene), every time someone said “cooze” in Sinners
“Golden” obviously gets all the praise, but my favorite song in KPop Demon Hunters is “Your Idol”
The secret “Antifa” squad flying on a private jet to wreak havoc on a small town in Eddington
Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme
Bradley Cooper as Balls in Is This Thing On?
When David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan make out in Superman
The fact that Leo Woodall’s character is named Roxster McDuff and he’s a professional trash man in Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy
Sydney Sweeney in hysteria mode (I think her most successful mode at this point) in Echo Valley
Gabriel Basso on FaceTime with the joint chiefs of staff as he’s running through White House security in A House of Dynamite, made me think of all my sister’s millennial friends who work in DC
Idk, the leg lengthening stuff in Materialists is pretty funny
When the “awards screener” watermark popped up over the (intentionally) shitty biopic portions of Pavements
Pathetic horny priest in Misericordia
David Jonsson and Cooper Hoffman got a lot of praise for The Long Walk, but I want to shout out Ben Wang as Hank Olson
The walruses saying “Hi Bub” in Zootopia 2
The ending squeaks of It Was Just An Accident
When Callum Turner admits that he experimented with a few guys in the afterlife in Eternity, a film that really shows the limits of heteronormativity
Billy Crudup one scene heater performance in Jay Kelly, also every time Alba Rohrwacher said “your daddy”
The jazzy score of The Mastermind
The karaoke scene in Urchin, where I thought everything was gonna be okay (and then it wasn’t)
When I realized what the title “On Becoming A Guinea Fowl” meant
Similarly, the scene in Sorry, Baby where she apologizes to a baby
The “What’s the Difference Between Love and Obsession” song/music video at the end of Lurker
The “mention me” / “don’t mention me” notes in Ella McCay
Being encouraged to watch Atom Egoyan’s Speaking Parts after watching Videoheaven, which ultimately became one of my favorite first-views of the year
JJ AND FRIENDS’ CHECK BOOK HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE
I love giving gifts: holidays, birthdays, graduations, whatever—if there’s a gift to give, I’m happy to give it. Gift giving presents the opportunity to do two things I love to do: 1) closely consider the interests, needs, and wants of my favorite people, the gift as a representation of my lasting love and careful attention; and, more importantly, 2) force my own interests on my loved ones, who are bombarded with too many recommendations from me throughout the year to ever take me up on most of them, but with a gift, they have no escape, the recommendation is here in the room, the box has been opened and there is no closing it now.
But even I—someone who loves to give gifts—have sometimes found myself in the difficult position of not knowing what gift to give. So, dear Check Book readers, if you happen to find yourself in that position right now, I—along with some pals—have assembled the following gift guide for your last-minute holiday (or future birthday, graduation, or whatever) shopping needs. Merry giftmas to all, and to all a good gift.
A Gift Subscription to an Independent Creator
This one is personal. Blank Check is able to be what it is today in large part because many of you have chosen to support the show with monthly Patreon payments. Supporting an independent creator not only gives you a chance to throw some money to the people who have made you laugh or cry or think or whatever else they made you do, it also might give those people a chance to bring aboard other people who might make you laugh or cry or think or whatever else in the future. That’s how I got this job. You all changed my life (by voluntarily paying to hear 40 commentary tracks for Marvel movies). So here are four other independent creators you might consider gifting to one of your friends—or supporting yourself if anyone in your family gifts you a card with some cash inside this holiday season.
Blogging is good and no one blogs better than Defector, the Internet’s last good website, re-born out of the ashes of Deadspin. There are so many writers I have long admired at Defector—I’m a Roth man first and foremost—and they all remain essential reading. Their annual reports also show you exactly how their subscription revenue is being used to do cool shit, which I appreciate, as a fan of cool shit, generally.
In January 2024, news broke that Condé Nast was folding Pitchfork into GQ and letting go of many longtime staff members. At the time, I remember people saying, “Why don’t they make their own music Defector?” Well, they did! It’s called Hearing Things and it’s great! Subscriptions get you access to every post, including their essential weekly “Five Songs” and “Five Albums” newsletters. Each of the site’s five great ex-p4k writers (Ryan Dombal, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Dylan Green, Jill Mapes, and Andy Cush) has their own clear taste profile and voice: it’s as much of a joy to read their words as it is to listen to they music they recommend. Subscribers also gain access to the Hearing Things discord, where Dombal hosts a community listening session every Friday morning, always one of the highlights of my week. (If you liked this year’s 101 Songs—streaming now on APPLE and SPOTIFY—let me just come clean and say that many of the playlist’s songs were first heard during those sessions.)
I feel so good about the money I spend each month on my MinnMax subscription, and I don’t just say that because they once let me and Ben host a trivia show and because they talk about Blank Check pretty much every episode. (Also, I still feel bad about my energy on that show: my Internet crashed right before the show started and I was so nervous the entire time that it would die!! I had never met Ben (Hosley) before that show!! I promise I’m normally much livelier than that, YouTube commenters!!) Like the first two entries on this list, MinnMax started with defectors from a more established brand—Game Informer—but has expanded well beyond its GI origins during its six years of operation. It is home to a rotating panel of some of the best commenters in the gaming space, and founder Ben Hanson is the hardest-working—and nicest—man in podcasting. I am continually astounded by the breadth of the work put out by this small team of inventive people, and I am even more impressed by their commitment to raising money for good causes seemingly whenever they can.
American Values Club Crosswords
Yes, this one, too, has its origins as part of a more established organization, in this case the print version of The Onion AV Club. Now entirely online, AVCX puts out a handful of great crosswords of various sizes every single week. One of the joys of subscribing to AVCX lies in getting to know the voices of each member of the year’s roster of crossword constructers, so get in NOW before next year’s new roster starts publishing. (A subscription also grants you access to the AVCX’s incredible, vast archive of crosswords.)
ENOUGH JJ, IT’S TIME FOR SOME AJ
The following recommendations come from Blank Check associate producer/editor AJ McKeon:
SLAM PRESENTS: THE ULTIMATE NBA BOOK FOR KIDS — No comment provided by—or needed from—AJ for this one. It’s simply the ultimate NBA book for kids.
Innioasis Y1 Mp3 Player with Bluetooth HiFi Mini Portable Music Digital Player — AJ “mentioned” this one “a few weeks ago.” It’s an “old school MP3 player loaded with audiobooks for kids.”
DUNGEON RUNNERS — AJ’s son Hayes has been “really into” these.
And “as always,” AJ says, “listen to Kid Cinema.”
Thanks, AJ! Now back to me (JJ). Does this formatting make sense for everyone? I hope so!
THREE GAMES YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS WILL ACTUALLY WANT TO PLAY
Magical Athlete — Extremely chaotic racer with GORGEOUS art from the geniuses over at CMYK. Nothing has made my family laugh harder this year than playing this game.
Outfoxed! — My daughter’s aged out of this one a bit, but for the four- or five-year-olds in your life, there are few games more fun for their developing brains than this Clue/Guess Who hybrid.
CMYK’s Magenta line of card games — I’ve written about these before—a couple of times—and I’ll keep writing about them as long as CMYK keeps making them. These games are easy to learn, quick to play, and brilliantly designed, all of them. So beautiful, too.
AND NOW … ALAN SMITHEE’S BOOK CORNER
Alan Smithee—Blank Check’s pseudonymous editor—reads a lot of books. He said as much when he texted me, “I read… a lot of books this year.” In fact, Alan thinks that this year he might have read “more than I’ve read in every other year.” Here are the five he recommends most:
The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder - “A bunch of dudes get together to do a pointless task. Funny, bleak, short.”
Penpal by Dathan Auerbach - “Looking back over his life, a guy realizes that something really fucked up was going on the entire time. Creepy, readable, surprising.”
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen - “A deeply reported look at what would happen (mostly) in the hour or so after North Korea launched a nuke at the US. Exciting, troubling, better than A House of Dynamite.”
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte - “A bunch of interlocking stories about rejection. Perceptive, timely, toe-curlingly fucked up at times.”
You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue - “It’s 1519 and Hernán Cortés is in (modern day) Mexico City trying to meet Moctezuma. Kaleidoscopic, strange, hilarious.”
And here’s Alan’s massive list of honorable mentions: “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios by Dave Gonzales, Joanna Robinson, and Gavin Edwards; There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm; The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett; The Rider by Tim Krabbé (thank you for the rec, JJ); Orlando by Virginia Woolf; You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat] by Andrew Hankinson; Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher; The Secret History by Donna Tartt; James by Percival Everett; The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton; Clean Hands by Patrick Hoffman; When the Clock Broke by John Ganz; The King of Video Poker by Paolo Iacovelli; The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman.”
Per Alan, “If you have been thinking of reading any of the books just mentioned, you are now legally required to acquire and read them.”
ENOUGH BOOKS, LET’S TALK ABOUT FIVE-PLUS CHEAP ASS VIDEO GAMES
JJ here again. (Would you have known it was me if I hadn’t said that? I’m going to say it just to make sure.) I read a lot for this job and that means that I have unfortunately not read as much as I want to outside of this job this year. However, I do play a lot of video games. So, here are a ton of games that are currently on sale on Steam, for the gamer who already has all of the other games:
Despelote ($9.74) — One Battle After Another runs for two hours and forty minutes, which means that Despelote is the best two hours you can spend this year.
Shogun Showdown ($7.49) — Deserves to be mentioned alongside Slay the Spire ($2.49) and Balatro ($12.74) as one of the greatest deckbuilding roguelites of all time. If you’ve already played all three of those games, it’s time to play Q-UP ($7.49).
UFO 50 ($18.74) — $0.37 per game, how can you pass that up? (Also it’s one of the greatest and most impressive works of art released this decade, probably this century.)
Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines ($8.99) — I thought the first Grapple Dog game was promising but a little clunky to play. But I wanted to like it enough that I played the sequel, and it improves upon the first game in almost every conceivable way, making it one of the best budget platformers you could grab right now. Some other recent ones: Lunistice ($3.49), Vampire’s Best Friend ($7.99), Öoo ($7.99), Garbanzo Quest ($9.59), and Windswept ($15.99).
LOK Digital ($10.49) — I haven’t actually played the digital version, but I loved the physical version of this extremely unique puzzler. Some other good puzzle games on sale: Strange Jigsaws ($3.99), Patrick’s Parabox ($9.99), and, yeah, Blue Prince ($19.79)
OK, AND NOW DAVID SIMS WANTS TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS, TOO
All of the following book recommendations come from the Dog himself:
“Also Rejection, Mr. Smithee already talked about it, but certainly the book that left me most slack-jawed this year.
A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel’s 1992 doorstop about the key figures of the French Revolution—Robespierre, Danton, Desmoulins, with some cameos from my favorite freak Sant-Just—that transposes literary fiction with history much like she’d do again with Wolf Hall and its sequels. It’s hefty and tragic but it rocks! The French revolution rocks!
Sleep, the first novel by my friend and colleague Honor Jones, which is the most magnetized I’ve been by a book this year. Had to finish it in a couple of sittings. I’ll say nothing more!
The Crossing, by Cormac McCarthy. Love that silly bitch!!!
Clint: The Man and His Movies by Shawn Levy, which is comprehensive, critical, but correctly appreciative of the man’s work (even if it’s happy to call out what a messy person he usually was).
The Snakehead, by Patrick Redden Keefe—HOW has this not been turned into some epic HBO miniseries?
Blindsight, by Peter Watts, which is some mega hard sci-fi about a spaceship investigating an alien craft but there’s also vampires in it. It’s very serious and scientific but also it has vampires. VAMPIRES.”
FIVE GREAT CRITERION DISCS WITH UNDER 30K VIEWS ON LETTERBOXD
JJ again! Hi! Ok! Fine! Here are some movies, too:
Cairo Station (Youssef Chahine, 1958) — The best movie I watched for the first time in a college class, this one’s for all the Hitchcocko-Hawksians out there, baby!
Rouge (Stanley Kwan, 1987) — Damn movie will break your heart!
Mr. Klein (Joseph Losey, 1976) — This world is a nightmare!
The Girl Can’t Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956) — So funny!
A Confucian Confusion (Edward Yang, 1994) — One of the best movies ever made—and it comes with a bonus Yang, too!
ANNOUNCING CRITICAL DARLINGS - A NEW MINISERIES COMING SOON TO BLANK CHECK PRODUCTIONS
As announced on our Ella McCay episode, Richard Lawson and Allison Willmore will be hosting Critical Darlings, a podcast about the critically-beloved films of the year and their journeys through award season.
Starting January 1st, episodes will be dropping in our main feed every Thursday through the end of March. We’re excited to be expanding the BC Universe with some very talented friends!
BEN HOSLEY’S SLOW XMAS 5 — NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL
ANOTHER REMINDER TO GIVE THIS SEASON
Blank Check is supporting City Harvest this giving season! In short, they are a nonprofit that rescues fresh, healthy food that would otherwise go to waste and distributes it to food pantries and soup kitchens in NYC to address food insecurity. It’s a really cool local organization.Unless you’ve been in a cave, you know that between some recent legislation and the shutdown-related SNAP lapse, our neighbors who live on the edge are getting pummeled right now.We love City Harvest because:
The mission is universal: everyone should have access healthy food. When people don’t have to struggle with food, they can make progress in other areas of life.
They address two problems with one solution: not only are they feeding people, they are helping the environment by reducing food waste.
They go the extra mile: they provide nutrition education and culturally relevant food, which means folks are getting food that is a part of their culture, that they actually enjoy. Actually treating a person in need like a human being, worthy of dignity and respect, we love it!
If you are able, please, help feed some good folks who just need a little help: make a meaningful donation at http://www.cityharvest.org/blankcheck. ($100 provides 193 meals!) It takes like… one minute, and feels great.
THIS WEEK ON THE PODCAST
Fire is hot, but so is Varang. We close out the Decade of Dreams with some swooning over Big Jim Cameron’s third trip to Pandora as we discuss Avatar: Fire and Ash.
MEANWHILE ON PATREON…..
We wrap up our two-film foray into the Timothy Dalton Bonds with Licence to Kill. And we hope Sam Mendes is a Blankie, because we have some really great pitches for scenes in his upcoming Beatles quadrilogy.
COMING SOON:
FORMAL GRAPHIC TO COME, BUT HERE’S OUR MAIN FEED SCHEDULE THROUGH FEB 2026:
DEC 28 - DARK WEEK
JAN 04 - Is This Thing On? with Marie Bardi
JAN 11 - No Other Choice with Marie Bardi
JAN 18 - Ratcatcher
JAN 25 - Morvern Callar
FEB 01 - We Need to Talk About Kevin
FEB 08 - You Were Never Really Here
FEB 15 - Die, My Love
FEB 22 - Send Help (new Sam Raimi)
Love the Criterion recs. Added all to my wishlist to pick up next sale.
If you like AVCX, I highly recommend Puzzmo, which features crosswords and several other puzzles! It’s a website by Zach Gage whom made Really Bad Chess, Spelltower, and others.