Nick Johnston, Author at Vanyaland https://vanyaland.com/author/nick-johnston/ The proven voice in music since 2013 Fri, 12 Dec 2025 19:10:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://redefined.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/31135224/cropped-V-SOCIAL-2023-32x32.png Nick Johnston, Author at Vanyaland https://vanyaland.com/author/nick-johnston/ 32 32 Year in ReView: Vanyaland’s favorite films of 2025 https://vanyaland.com/2025/12/12/year-in-review-vanyalands-favorite-films-of-2025/ Fri, 12 Dec 2025 18:53:26 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042813 If I had to pick one word to describe 2025 — just in general, not at the movies — it’d be “uncertain.” Not “ambiguous” or an equivalent synonym, given that there’s plenty of clearly awful things going on each day, but the kind of uncertainty that pairs well with a sense of foreboding dread. We’re stuck in a bleak comedy of fatal errors, with the sentiment of the moment ultimately summed up accurately by “Well, that’d be funny if it […]

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]]> Year in ReView: Vanyaland’s favorite film screen performances of 2025 https://vanyaland.com/2025/12/11/year-in-review-our-favorite-film-screen-performances-of-2025/ Thu, 11 Dec 2025 19:54:57 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042798 If you’d like to know my thoughts on acting in movies, I’d point you to the scene from Moneyball in which Billy Beane tries to convince Scott Hatteberg to play first base. It is incredibly hard, though the compensation and fame and all of the other accoutrements go a long way to convince the average schlub that it’s easy as hell. Just imagine trying to do a monologue in which you have to run the gamut of emotions while not […]

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]]> Watch Milly Alcock take to space in the first trailer for ‘Supergirl’ https://vanyaland.com/2025/12/11/watch-milly-alcock-take-to-space-in-the-first-trailer-for-supergirl/ Thu, 11 Dec 2025 19:47:58 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042800 Begun, the Avatar: Fire and Ash trailer deluge has. Get ready to see a shitload of new previews for 2026’s biggest releases over the next few days, as every single studio wants to get as many eyeballs as possible on their new features, given that the Avatar movies defy economic laws and make billions of dollars no matter what. There’s Spielberg’s new alien movie, Avengers: Doomsday, and more on the horizon, but the freshly acquired Warner Bros. decided to be […]

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]]> Year in ReView: Vanyaland’s favorite needle drops in the films of 2025 https://vanyaland.com/2025/12/09/year-in-review-vanyalands-favorite-needle-drops-in-the-films-of-2025/ Tue, 09 Dec 2025 21:41:23 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042785 Every major awards show has a “Best Original Score” and a “Best Original Song” category, and most major critics’ groups at least give awards out for the former. But the landscape of movie soundtracks has changed drastically over the years, and the needle-drop is nearly as important. The Big Chill, Risky Business, Reservoir Dogs, Goodfellas, Guardians of the Galaxy, and a billion other examples I can’t be bothered to list out — the needle-drop is an essential part of modern […]

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]]> ‘Marty Supreme’ Review: Josh Safdie serves up a masterpiece https://vanyaland.com/2025/12/05/marty-supreme-review-josh-safdie-serves-up-a-masterpiece/ Fri, 05 Dec 2025 15:13:18 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042749 If folks were disappointed that The Smashing Machine wasn’t just Uncut Gems 2: Howie Ratner Learns How to Lift, they’ll be absolutely delighted by Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme. It’s a continuation of the storytelling throughline that Safdie established with his brother Bennie in their last few films — white-knuckle insanity on the streets of New York taken to absurdist extremes, grounded in a thoroughly-brilliant performance by a uniquely-talented lead — but placed in a more-distant time period, with more textures […]

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]]> ‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come’ gets solid trailer, bad title https://vanyaland.com/2025/12/03/ready-or-not-2-here-i-come-has-solid-trailer-bad-title/ Wed, 03 Dec 2025 19:34:54 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042733 You know, it remains surprising to us that Ready or Not, the 2019 feature debut of the filmmaking duo known as Radio Silence (who, unlike their moniker would suggest, work quite a lot), was as popular as it was. Sure, it did alright at the box office, and apparently did really well on Netflix streaming, but why was that? In a word: Boredom. Think back to that lofty summer six years ago — (Jesus Christ, 2019 was six whole years […]

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]]> The ‘Obsession’ teaser will scare you until you love it https://vanyaland.com/2025/12/02/the-obsession-teaser-will-scare-you-until-you-love-it/ Tue, 02 Dec 2025 19:08:25 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042721 One of the bigger acquisitions out of this year’s TIFF was Curry Barker’s Obsession, which hit the Midnight Madness program like a tsunami and swept a bunch of Focus Features’ cash out to its producers. It looks like the bigger companies have gotten sick of A24 and NEON owning the summer-horror distribution pipeline, so what better way to kick off these jams than with a big festival favorite? We didn’t get a chance to check it out while we were […]

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]]> Anne Hathaway has a hellish comeback in the ‘Mother Mary’ trailer https://vanyaland.com/2025/12/02/anne-hathaway-has-a-hellish-comeback-in-the-mother-mary-trailer/ Tue, 02 Dec 2025 18:53:55 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042719 You have to love it when an ad campaign goes out of its way to directly disavow a director’s former work — see “This is Not a Ghost Story,” the tagline that A24 came up with for David Lowery’s Mother Mary. It’s certainly a better fit than “This is Not a Green Knight” or “This is Not a Dragon Owned by Pete” or “This Ain’t Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.” Throw a triple-X at the end of that last one, and […]

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]]> ‘Eternity’ Review: A good take on the great beyond https://vanyaland.com/2025/11/27/eternity-review-a-good-take-on-the-great-beyond/ Thu, 27 Nov 2025 09:01:12 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042714 David Freyne’s Eternity breaks one of the cardinal rules of first-date cinema — for the love of God, unless you’re absolutely certain the person is sufficiently cool with talking about death, do not bring that subject up in your multiplex selection and, in fact, you should at all times pretend that it doesn’t exist and that you both are immortals unless you’re hot enough to get away with it — but still winds up being what I’d think of (aside […]

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]]> ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ Review: Knives out, crucifixes in https://vanyaland.com/2025/11/26/wake-up-dead-man-review-knives-out-crucifixes-in/ Wed, 26 Nov 2025 10:09:07 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042712 Props to Rian Johnson for turning lemons into lemonade: the man hears that Glass Onion was too preachy, then sets the next feature in the Knives Out series in a parish. It shouldn’t be surprising that he’s wound up here — his movies are puzzle boxes that JJ Abrams wishes he was talented enough to pen — but, as fun as these movies can be, it is somewhat frustrating to find us contractually back here again, when there once seemed […]

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