Intro for December 19, 2025
– 2 min read
Dear Gossips,
This will be the final day of posting on the site for 2025. We will be dark beginning Monday, December 22, and will return on January 5, 2026, with coverage of the Critics Choice Awards. And since 2025 has been a rough year, and it seems determined to go out on an absolute sh-tstain of a December, all I want is to have a Friday Funday for our last day this year. No AI, no mergers, no flops, no bad f-cking news, for one day. To that end, let’s do my favorite thing: judging other people’s judgment.
Ever since he was president, Barack Obama releases his year-end best in books, music, and movies. Here is his list of best films for 2025:
It’s a solid list, though the inclusion of Jay Kelly is f-cking laughable. But other than that, Good Fortune, and the documentary Orwell: 2+2=5, which was not included on the shortlist released earlier this week, this list is a pretty good guess at the Best Picture lineup. Half of these films will probably end up on my own top 10 for the year which no, I have not yet started writing, but I do have Post-its stuck on my wall that I Look At and Move Around Sometimes, so, you know, I’m percolating. Although I do think including One Battle After Another is a little rich, thematically.
Presidents, current or former, don’t get to be introspective, I get it. Still.
Obama’s list of music is also representative of popular taste. Lady Gaga, Chappell Roan, Olivia Dean, BLACKPINK, Bruce Springsteen, Burna Boy, Chance the Rapper, and Laufey all get a shout, among others. I do think including songs from both Kendrick Lamar (“luther” ft. SZA) and Drake (“Nokia”) is unnecessarily bipartisan. You’re not the president anymore, Barack, you can pick a side!
On the book side, well, I don’t read a lot of contemporary fiction, and I take book advice from hardly anyone. The only famous person who I listen to regarding books is comedian Anthony Jeselnik, a voracious reader with excellent taste. Jeselnik does, though, pick a couple of the same titles as Obama in his own top 10 books, including King of Ashes by S.A. Crosby and What Can We Know by Ian McEwan. I guess I’ll move those two up the to-read list.
I will also eventually read that Mark Twain biography by Ron Chernow, because I love Mark Twain, and I look forward to the eventual film adaptation which will star Nick Offerman as Twain, the role for which he will win his first Oscar. (I am manifesting this!) So Barack Obama continues to have mass appeal taste. At least he didn’t turn his best-of list into a weird anti-Paul Dano agenda.
Live long and gossip,
Sarah
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