2025 sure was a year. We consumed so many short films that reflecting on best and worst was a rather daunting experience. Therefor Kage and I decided to tackle the end of the year list in a new way: Make our own little award show! Who was the best performer? What had the best set design? What was the worst remake? As usual, the one real rule was that it had to be something we watched for the first time in 2025. Otherwise, it was a free for all. Let's begin! *** Best and Worst of 2025... BEST SCENE OF THE YEAR Flesh and Fire Read Original Review A witchy, arcane experience where a woman tends to herself sing a lit candle. It's also infuriatingly brief and apparently only a trailer for a bigger work we were never able to find. This is our new White Whale. If anyone can direct us to the full experience that is Flesh and Fire, please do. It has never left our minds since we saw it. We are bewitche d. Also, if there was an award for Best Use of a Candle of the Year, Flesh and Fire w...

Title: Cheers! Portland, the Strip Club Capital of America Year: 2024 Starring: Maggie Magnolia, Phoenix Rising, Axel Director: Megan Ashley Alan Synopsis: Portland, Oregon has the most strip clubs per capita of any major U.S. city. Through interviews with strippers, regulars, and industry experts, viewers are invited to leave their preconceived notions at the door and step into a highly misunderstood world. - via Amazon Prime Lilith's Notes: Oh my god why are my eyes wet?? Watch Now: Amazon | Apple TV "So, I was working at a different club and I got in trouble for doing the robot." Some time during the pandemic, I remember reading a tweet that said something along the lines of “We’ve reached the neon cyberpunk portion of the dystopia”. Attached to the tweet was a link to a news story about a strip club in Oregon who invented a drive-thru strip club experience. Five years later, maybe you’re wondering what happened to those sexy entrepreneurs? Or maybe you forgot a...

Title: We Kill For Love Year: 2023 Starring: Andrew Stevens, Monique Parent, Amy Lindsay Director: Anthony Penta Synopsis: A documentary that goes in search of the forgotten world of the direct-to-video erotic thriller, an American film genre that once dominated late night cable television and the shelves of neighborhood video stores. - via Letterboxd.com Lilith's Notes: How many titles do you recognize? Watch Now: Amazon "It's just a thriller." I don’t remember what movie it was, or maybe it was just a show, but I had a VHS of something recorded off the TV, commercials and all, and one commercial for one movie has been unidentified, half-remembered, my own little piece of Lost Media that to this day, haunts me. In the commercial, a woman wearing a long fur coat walks into a room. The camera is behind her. She begins removing the coat, wearing nothing underneath. But before we see anything more risque than a nude back, she either walks into the room and our l...

Title: The Celluloid Bordello Year: 2021 Starring: Juliana Piccillo, Annie Sprinkle Director: Juliana Piccillo Synopsis: The Celluloid Bordello brings sex workers to the cinema. With equal parts historical overview, critique, and homage, this eye-opening film lets real-life dommes, escorts, porn stars, and hustlers tell you which films they love and which they hate, which get it right and which miss the mark, and, most importantly, how perpetuating stereotypes in media affects real peoples’ lives. - Via PinkLabel.tv Lilith's Notes: Depth will cost extra. Watch Now: Prime | Apple TV | PinkLabel.tv "You're either Pretty Woman, or Monster." You know what would be unbelievably annoying? If I brought forth a thesis for this review and then spent the rest of my word count just bopping along from one maybe kind of sort of tangentially related point to another with as little connective tissue as possible. Wouldn't that be a great use of everyone's time? Woul...