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Matt Cipolla

@cipollamatt.bsky.social
875 followers 233 following 1.2K posts

Was a film critic for seven-ish years (Bright Wall/Dark Room, The Spool, Ebert Voices, The Film Stage, so on). Now I guess I’m just critical. Tail-end millennial trash. Music, motorcycles, etc. #MeToo Mostly on Instagram @Cipolla.Matt cipollam926@gmail

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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Truly insane double feature last night. Only at @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social!
My left hand holding two receipt paper tickets for the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. The left one is for the 4K restoration of Gregg Araki’s MYSTERIOUS SKIN at 9:15 pm in Theater 3 and has two horizontal creases from having been folded in my wallet. The right one is for Liam Lynch’s TENACIOUS D IN THE PICK OF DESTINY on 35mm in the main theater at 11:45 pm. Both are dated for 9/11/26 and have QR codes on the bottom half. The title on the TENACIOUS D ticket is cut off and says “Tenacious D in the P.”
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Just finished THE NINETIES by Chuck Klosterman after reading FOOTBALL two weeks ago, and it’s fantastic (of course)! Not quite on the rhetorical level of FOOTBALL (which makes sense since he wrote that four years later), but continuously readable in his mix of academic prose and attention to (cont.)
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I truly love WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR and I SAW THE TV GLOW. TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA has to be the biggest disappointment in years, holy shit. boxd.it/fULXnr
boxd.it
A ★★ review of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)
This has to be the biggest disappointment in years. I love We're All Going to the World's Fair and think it's one of the best films of the 2020s. I Saw the TV Glow gave me four emotional breakdowns ov...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I truly love WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR and I SAW THE TV GLOW. TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA has to be the biggest disappointment in years, holy shit. boxd.it/fULXnr
boxd.it
A ★★ review of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)
This has to be the biggest disappointment in years. I love We're All Going to the World's Fair and think it's one of the best films of the 2020s. I Saw the TV Glow gave me four emotional breakdowns ov...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
At a loss for words regarding Hayden Panettiere’s passing. Her work in SCREAM 4 was so important to me in high school and still is to this day: an all-timer horror performance in which her sarcasm was her greatest sincerity. She kept her comedic edge as her most straightforward asset.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Is Verizon cell service incredibly spotty or just downright not working for anyone else?
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Just finished Chuck Klosterman’s FOOTBALL, a copy of which I happened to acquire at work at the beginning of this year. I absolutely adored it, and I wonder if my ambivalence (and former antipathy) toward the sport actually enhanced my love for the book.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Got around to THE ODYSSEY before its 70mm run ended. Honestly, so much was just in one ear and out the other. A series of handsomely mounted distractions with no staying power, and more critically, no sense of interiority. Jennifer Lame’s editing also needs to take a chill pill. boxd.it/fMIDqd
boxd.it
A ★★½ review of The Odyssey (2026)
In one ear and out the other, the product of a man whose camera can only passively reflect rather than refract. There's no interiority here, which is a problem for any film, especially one ostensibly ...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Well, I WANT YOUR SEX is in competition for my least favorite Gregg Araki movie, but it’s a high bar. It feels like diet KABOOM, and also the first time an Araki film felt like it had studio notes or something. Great cast and I had fun for stretches, but this script is a mess. boxd.it/fEEQIT
boxd.it
A ★★★ review of I Want Your Sex (2026)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Listened to MUSIC, FASHION, FILM last night. Between BRAT and this, I’m really taken with how Charli XCX structures her albums to unpack identity as an internal pendulum that, against all odds, remains tangible through outward experience itself, and the dissonance that stems from that.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
It turns out that the real devil’s lettuce… … was Taylor Farms
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Just saw the 4K restoration of SHERMAN’S MARCH. Essentially a perfect American movie and a virtually flawless examination of the Western male psyche. boxd.it/fkF7jV
boxd.it
A ★★★★★ review of Sherman's March (1985)
About as ephemeral an experience can be. So perfectly perched against the concept of finality without seeming to ever end, and only for the better. There’s just something so effusively American to McE...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Whoa, just found out that if you let “Freak on a Leash” play directly into “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” the transition from song to song is kind of perfect.
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Chris Steller @chrissteller.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Someone just sent me this photo from Chicago, unbelieveable
Album cover photo of the Marina apartments in Chicago for Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot CD
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
I haven’t been outside since I walked nine seconds from inside an Uber into a building like eight hours ago and I feel like my esophagus is burning with some demon hell spawn stuck in my chest. Honestly, do not go outside *at all* unless you literally have to.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Saw GAIL DAUGHTRY AND THE CELEBRITY SEX PASS, which has some truly silly gags and solid cackles! But oh my God, did the “hey look it’s a celebrity you recognize and that’s meant to be the joke now laugh” of it all start to irritate me by the end. boxd.it/fg1lmj
boxd.it
A ★★★ review of Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass (2026)
Funny and silly and gag-on-gag in a cackle-at-best, amusing-at-worst way even if it's never quite what I'd call memorable, but that's okay. It's fun and it's refreshing to have fun, and everyone's ver...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Wrigley Field is the most data center-coded building in the Chicago area that isn’t actually a data center
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Revisited LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE for the first time since high school and holy hell is this screenplay so much messier than I remembered. boxd.it/eW5bnT
boxd.it
A ★★½ review of Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
The guy in front of me was talking before the movie about Guster, and I was just like, Shit, it really does feel like 2006 right now. I hadn't seen this since high school, and I liked it then, but I d...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
We’re also showing a 35mm print of Gus Van Sant’s LAST DAYS on Saturday, June 13 at 7:15 pm. Another favorite of mine, and I wrote a few quick words on why you should see it: www.musicboxtheatre.com/films-and-ev...
musicboxtheatre.com
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
For the opening night of Bleak Week at @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social, l’ll be introducing Gregg Araki's MYSTERIOUS SKIN in a new 4K restoration this Friday, June 12 at 6:45 pm. Truly one of my favorite films of the 21st century. www.musicboxtheatre.com/films-and-ev...
musicboxtheatre.com
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
For the opening night of Bleak Week at @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social, l’ll be introducing Gregg Araki's MYSTERIOUS SKIN in a new 4K restoration this Friday, June 12 at 6:45 pm. Truly one of my favorite films of the 21st century. www.musicboxtheatre.com/films-and-ev...
musicboxtheatre.com
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Somehow spent a bunch of my day rewatching SCARY MOVIE and SCARY MOVIE 2 before watching 3 and 4 for the first time. How did they misspell Lil Jon’s name in the credits of 4? Damn, this one really sucked.
The screen of my MacBook Pro playing the end credits of David Zucker’s SCARY MOVIE 4 (2006), showing a black screen with the following in centered white text:

CHINGY
FABOLOUS
LIL JOHN
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
30 days without a drop of alcohol. Would I say I’m fully Sober™ from alcohol from good? No, to be honest. I’m sure I’ll drink again and I believe that’s fine for me. But this impromptu break is nice, and honestly, I don’t really miss it that much.
A picture I took of myself in my bathroom mirror, shower curtain visible behind me. I’m wearing a dark blue t-shirt with the Triumph Motorcycles logo on it, which is tucked into blue jeans with a black leather belt, which has a black leather key hanger holding my keys over my left hip. The logo on the shirt is partially obscured by my right arm and hand holding my iPhone. I’m also wearing a red baseball hat that has the red, white, and blue Harley-Davidson #1 logo on it and a black bill, as well as my eyeglasses. My left thumb is tucked into the left pocket of my jeans with the rest of my hand hanging out. I’m looking up and into the mirror at myself. My full beard and mustache also looks quite good, if I do say so myself.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Sometimes I just think about 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU and still can’t believe that Letters to Cleo is stuck on top of that building for the rest of time
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Saw OBSESSION, which I found to be about as cowardly as its protagonist, its violence with zero impact and its attempts at cringe comedy too broadly pitched to ever be uncomfortable. But most importantly, this thing looks *atrocious*—so under-lit, so grey, so washed out, so boring. boxd.it/ev7rfH
boxd.it
A ★★ review of Obsession (2025)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Rewatched WIENER-DOG on a whim after having a weird, amorphous dream about Todd Solondz films last night. I watched this several times shortly after it came out 10 years ago and it’s just about as punishing as I remembered. Terrific stuff, but truly sad, and now I have to get out of this headspace.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Finally saw THE DRAMA. … That was it? boxd.it/elReZJ
boxd.it
A ★★½ review of The Drama (2026)
That was it? As this script exists, there's a good one-hour movie here. The other 45 minutes are just milking a premise without doing enough with it. Here's a great setup, two perfectly cast leads, an...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Nothing like having to lie on your bed in the dark with a dehumidifier and an air purifier blasting while listening to “My Girls” by Animal Collective on repeat because this unusually inconsistent weather has been triggering migraines on a weekly basis
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Saw ERUPCJA earlier tonight. Pleasantly surprised by its ability to be both succinct and intuitive, matching its narrative devices to the emotional dynamics at play. Not revelatory, but something that did make me quite sad at points. Curious to see more of Charli XCX as an actor. boxd.it/eaBf9N
boxd.it
A ★★★★ review of Erupcja (2025)
This really made me quite sad at points. I'm almost always in favor of a movie where characters don't have clear-cut arcs or really grow, but Erupcja strikes a fascinating balance in that it feels bot...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Baz Luhrmann’s KHMER ROUGE! Is this anything
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Happy 15th to Wes Craven’s swan song; perhaps the most fun theatrical experience I’ve ever had; and one of the most prescient films of the 21st century, whether horror or not.
Two light blue ticket stubs for Wes Craven’s SCREAM 4 (2011) in a ticket stub booklet, both from the Emagine Novi movie theater in Novi, Michigan in auditorium #10. The first is for the film’s opening night of Friday, April 15, 2011 at 8:20 pm. It cost $7.50. The second is for Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 5:50 pm and cost $5.00.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
O BROTHER, WHERE ART MY CAR? Is this anything
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Wrote a bit about three all-timers and one very on-brand horror favorite for the @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social Letterboxd page: letterboxd.com/musicboxchic...
letterboxd.com
4 FAVS WITH THE STAFF || MATT CIPOLLA
A story on Letterboxd.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Wrote a bit about three all-timers and one very on-brand horror favorite for the @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social Letterboxd page: letterboxd.com/musicboxchic...
letterboxd.com
4 FAVS WITH THE STAFF || MATT CIPOLLA
A story on Letterboxd.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Happy Friday the 13th to the kid in PART VI who fell asleep reading Jean-Paul Sartre.
A still of a Tom McLoughlin’s FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES (1986) in which a little girl lies asleep on a small camp bed in a cabin with a copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s NO EXIT (1944) resting open on her torso, its cover in plain sight.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
Proud to be part of the 9 club! (The script is called MEXICAN WINE if, ahem, anyone’s interested.)
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Still *love* how Neve Campbell’s outfit for a huge chunk of SCREAM 3 is exactly like Ingrid Bergman’s in AUTUMN SONATA.
A still of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) in Wes Craven’s SCREAM 3 (2000). She has shoulder-length black hair and is standing in front of a swimming pool at nighttime holding a black cell phone to her right ear, wearing black pants, an olive green sweater with a brown/tan jacket over it, and a gold fraternity necklace she received from Derek (Jerry O’Connell) in SCREAM 2.A still of Eva (Liv Ullmann) and Charlotte Andergast (Ingrid Bergman) in Ingmar Bergman’s AUTUMN SONATA (1978). The former is to the left, looking down, while the latter is to the right, looking at Eva. Charlotte has short black hair and is wearing an olive green sweater with a brown/tan jacket over it along with two gold necklaces.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Didn’t realize NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE took place on my birthday. The guerrilla filmmaking is great. I still needed this to be less broad. boxd.it/doR5UT
boxd.it
A ★★★ review of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (2025)
I didn't really go in with many expectations, but I still wasn't expecting this to be as broad as it was. As a collection of ideas it's amusing, but it also doesn't actually get going until its second...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
I wasn't expecting to spit out almost 1,500 words on this thing at 2:00 am, but here. As a movie, SCREAM 7 is really, really bad. As a SCREAM movie, it's a disaster. letterboxd.com/mattcipolla/...
letterboxd.com
A ★½ review of Scream 7 (2026)
It's over. We're done here, everyone. Okay, anyone who knows me knows that I'm a massive Scream fan. The first three were integral to not just my taste in movies as a middle schooler, but in how a mar...
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
I’ll write a Letterboxd blurb or something, but anyone who knows me knows that I am a *huge* SCREAM fan… and SCREAM 7 was an unmitigated shitshow. Did ChatGPT write this? Did everyone behind the scenes conspire to make the greyest, blandest-looking movie imaginable? This franchise is over, y’all.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
51 weeks from when I started the outline, I’m done with the depressing horror script. Thanks to all who read or gave notes. Logline: “Five depressed acquaintances spend their final weekend at a Texas lake house to carry out a suicide pact while they are unknowingly stalked by an anonymous killer.”
A screenshot of the title page to a screenplay. It reads:

DAYS OF HUMILIATION


Written by

Matt Cipolla


January 25, 2026
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
An amazing thing about riding motorcycles is that it alleviates migraines and moderate hangovers for me. What sucks about winter is that the cold weather and barometric pressure are trying to murder me with a migraine, but without the ability to go for a ride, I feel hungover despite not drinking.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Happy 17th anniversary to when Obama said that Guantanamo Bay would be closed within one year lol
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
ACAB for Cutie Is this anything
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Kind of insane how we’ve been stuck in 2003 for the last two and a half years, but only the absolute shittiest parts of 2003.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Happy 26th anniversary to the climax of Hype Williams’ BELLY
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Happy New Year’s to Tara and Raven and to Tara and Raven only
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Quick Sharpie self-portrait, 12/30/25. I guess if 2024 was learning a ton about myself, 2025 was actualizing that and doing a bunch of stuff I always wanted to. Thanks to pretty much everyone who taught me something. Looking forward to more writing, more bikes, and more figuring shit out in 2026.
A picture of a self-portrait I drew with a black Sharpie. I’m wearing my glasses and a Harley-Davidson trucker hat whose design is partly obscured by the hat’s rim, looking directly into the viewer. There’s an oval around my face and I wrote a bunch of stream-of-consciousness thoughts, formatted so it’s like the words are “underneath” the oval that has my face in it. The partially visible words say:

“WAIT, 2025 WAS THE FIRST YEAR IN LIKE A DECADE THAT I DIDN’T DO AT LEAST ONE FULL DARIA REWATCH. WEIRD. JEEZ, SOMETIMES I WONDER… LY HAVE OCD EVEN THOUGH I DON’T MEET T… EA. I’VE STILL NEVER USED APPLE PAY… SHOVELHEAD IS SURREAL TO… ME TRUE. I HOPE IF FIXED T… G A GRINDING NOISE, B… YPERBOLIC WHEN I SAY T… OTORCYCLES SAVED M… LOVED BIKES SO MUC… ROUND PEOPLE WHO LO… TRIUMPH IS LIKE M… CHOPPER IS LIKE M… MY BODY. I LOVE… FYING, BUT IT ISN… KNOW? I GUESS… OF CHOPPERS AS ART… AESTHETICS IN A V… FUL TO HAVE MET SO… LY CREATIVE PEOPLE. G, TOO. REALLY HOSPITAB… LEARN MORE AS I GO… REW A LOT IN THE PAST Y… T I HAVEN’T BEFORE. IT… I’M JUST THANKFUL FOR THESE DO… DO COOL SHIT. THANK YOU ALL FOR T… US TO SEE WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS. I MEAN, MORE BIKES, MORE WRITING, AND WHO KNOWS. BUT HEY, THAT’S SOMETHING. AND I JUST”
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Given how many people Obama deported, him putting ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER on his list of his favorite movies of 2025 is about as devoid of self-awareness as when he included BACURAU in 2020, a movie where the villains drone strike an innocent village.
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Matt Cipolla @cipollamatt.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
This tracks. Also, I skimmed through and it looks like over 80 of my top 100 songs were on corresponding playlists to one of three scripts I worked on this year: 2003-set post-9/11 drama-comedy, drama-horror-slasher about suicide, and 2009-set recession comedy. Makes sense.
My 2025 Spotify Wrapped showing my top five songs of the year, as follows:

1.) “405” by Death Cab for Cutie
2.) “Stars and Sons” by Broken Social Scene
3.) “There, There” by Radiohead
4.) “La Mer” by Nine Inch Nails
5.) “La Grange” by ZZ TopMy 2025 Spotify Wrapped showing my top five artists of the year, as follows:

1.) Death Cab for Cutie
2.) The Mountain Goats
3.) ZZ Top
4.) Townes Van Zandt
5.) Rilo KileyMy 2025 Spotify Wrapped showing my top five albums of the year, as follows:

1.) YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE by Broken Social Scene
2.) THE SUNSET TREE by The Mountain Goats
3.) SANTIGOLD by Santigold
4.) WE HAVE THE FACTS AND WE’RE VOTING YES by Death Cab for Cutie
5.) THE EXECUTION OF ALL THINGS by Rilo KileyMy 2025 Spotify Wrapped showing my top five genres of the year, as follows:

1.) Alternative rock
2.) Indie rock
3.) Dance pop
4.) Singer-songwriter
5.) Indie folk
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