My July 2025 Media Diet

July came and went in a blur, and honestly, I don’t have a whole lot to show for it. I helped my brother move, which mostly involved hauling heavy furniture and running CAT6 cabling. I ran some more CAT6 of my own to facilitate another wifi access point. I also played an embarrassing amount of Donkey Kong Bananza, an incredible game that’s basically consumed my free time.

My jobby-job has started picking up again after a long stretch of quiet. I’ve been poking around with Claude Code, trying to figure out how to wrangle my apps into shape for iOS 26. I hate the pressure cooker Apple creates every year. At this point, I’ve fully accepted that I’m not hitting the day-one release. Trying to build around half-baked beta APIs is exhausting and, frankly, not worth the stress.

Here is everything else I did last month:

🍿 Ballerina. I had low expectations for this movie and it was kind of great?! Ana De Armas killed it and John Wick played a much larger role than I expected. I’ll definitely watch this one again before rewatching John Wick 2 or 3. 👍

🍿 Bring Her Back. The Philippou brothers have done it again. This follow-up to 2022’s Talk To Me is everything I enjoy about horror movies. I liked that the story was deeply rooted in family trauma (a la Hereditary). There are some deeply disturbing scenes in this one. I can’t wait for whatever they do next. 👍

🍿 The Phoenician Scheme. Wes Anderson makes the most beautiful movies. Every one should be nominated for an Oscar in cinematography and set design. This installment was funny and kept me engaged, though I don’t think it quite reaches the heights of his earlier work. 👍

🕹️ Ballionaire. Goofy, mindless fun. It’s like Plinko but in reverse! The dancing characters crack me up every time they show up in the menus.

🕹️ Nine Sols. I love metroidvania games, and this one is near the top of the genre. Unfortunately, I found it a bit too difficult for my current mood. The story and atmosphere are excellent. I hope I make it back to this eventually.

🍿 eXistenZ. Wow. This was a very weird movie.

🍿 Batman Ninja vs. The Yakuza League. Bizarre premise but fun Sunday morning cartoon energy. I wish DC would move away from the 3D-lite animation style they keep using. I need more Batman: The Animated Series vibes.

📺 Squid Game: Season 3. Meh. I watched this because I watched the first two. The games are still fun in that “What would you do in this situation?” kind of way, but I’m over the franchise. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the last we’ll see of it—no matter what Netflix says.

📺 Leviathan. From the studio behind The Dragon Prince, and it shows—maybe a little too much. The two stories are eerily similar. The animation style works until it doesn’t. I’m sure it’s cost effective, but I’m not a fan.

📺 The Sandman. I love the comics, but something about this adaptation feels like it was made for the WB network in 2009. Maybe The Sandman just isn’t adaptable? That said, the actor who plays Desire is phenomenal. I’d absolutely watch a spin-off just about them.

🍿 Superman. Did James Gunn actually pull this off? I’m cautiously optimistic about the new DC Cinematic Universe for the first time in… ever? Let’s see if he can keep it going, or if this was just a fluke. 👍

📺 Witch Watch. Funny and irreverent. I love having an anime my girlfriend looks forward to watching. 👍

📺 K-Pop Demon Hunters. So good. The music and animation are excellent. Apparently sequels are in the works, including an ill-advised live-action adaptation. 👍

🍿 Eddington. I will see every Ari Aster movie in theaters, no question. That said, this one didn’t quite land for me. I enjoyed it up until the final act where it went off the rails. I’m conflicted, because that unpredictability is usually what I love about his work.

🕹️ Donkey Kong Bananza. Oh, Banana! Move over Mario. Nintendo nailed it. Bananza might be the best platformer since Super Mario Odyssey. It might even be better. 👍

🕹️ Goodboy Galaxy. A modern Game Boy Advance game with incredible pixel art and a fun gameplay loop. Been playing this one on the subway.

📖 The Sandman. I started rereading the comics after watching the show. Hoping to recapture that same magic I felt the first time around. 👍

🍿 M3GAN 2.0. More Terminator than horror this time around. Blumhouse might’ve overplayed their hand. Sounds like the next one is supposed to return to horror roots? Either way, I watched this one on my couch and I’ll watch the next one the same way.