Marty Supreme (2025)

First movie of 2026, we are starting off strong with Marty Supreme. Nail-biting, relentless and electric all at the same time, this was a supreme cinematic experience. 

When I first learned they were making a movie about an American ping-pong player, I thought “how good can this guy be?”, knowing that Americans never really had much representation in this sport that’s dominated by East Asian countries. Then I learned that it was set in the 1950s, which explained things. 

Marty is objectively a terrible person. He has no scruples and is basically pure poison that burns everyone who shows him even a shred of kindness. So it’s karmic that he would end up with the equally unhinged Rachel. Why did I still root for him? Because as power hungry and manipulative as Marty is, the capitalist pig who is so drunk on power that he has forgotten how to treat others, including his own wife, as people, is still much, much grosser.  

I’m pretty sure Timothee Chalamet wants that Oscar as badly as Marty wanted that championship, if not more. Well, he might just get it with what is easily his career-best performance. If he does, he should thank the Mao government for keeping Chinese people preoccupied with being starved throughout the late 1950s and 60s, without which this movie probably wouldn’t exist.