Posts

The tragedies of Ms. Monroe

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Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in Netflix's Blonde.  The 2022 film directed by Andrew Dominik that stars Ana De Armas as Marilyn Monroe has been panned by streamers and critics alike to the point where it’s been rumored to be cursed because of the way the director portrayed the titular character.   Firstly, it's on record that this film isn't a true biopic but a fictional retelling of Marilyn's life that aims to highlight how Hollywood creates victims out of its stars. The entertainment industry especially in film, fashion, and music is widely known to be a dog-eat-dog world which is why it's extremely difficult for individuals who haven't learned to develop a thick skin towards critics and the emotional demands that comes with acting nor found the right people who truly care for their wellbeing enough to manage them effectively, to survive in.   Secondly, I strongly feel that Andrew's work would have been more appreciated if he had titled it differently...

Much ado about Dahmer

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  Evan Peters as Jefferey Dahmer. photo credit: Netflix.  I think that Ryan Murphy is a god when it comes to telling incredibly complex stories based on true-life occurrences. From FEUD , to the OJ story on his AMERICAN CRIME STORY series, to DAHMER . Ryan has mastered the art of conjoining these complexities and intricacies to deliver a spellbinding all round look into the histories of these people he's exploring and the lessons he wants us to pick up and learn from them.   Having read opinion pieces about the victims’ families reliving the hurt before first watching the 2022 Netflix show, the first 3 episodes ticked me off badly as I thought the series was going to follow the trope of Hollywood's horrible history of "idolizing" criminals and serial killers but thank God as the show progresses, you begin to realize it's rather a cautionary tale that forces its viewers to look beyond the surface storytelling of the titular character.   To me, this show was mo...

A Tale of Love, Family and Existentialism through a bagel hole of chaos: Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

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  Photo credit A24  Gozie Agbo in conjunction with A24 and Leyline productions decided to bless us in 2022 with this intricately written and beautifully directed film by buddies, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.   This aptly titled film which really is about Everything from Family to life in general and has the chaotic feel of Everything happening everywhere at the same time applying the concept of Multiverses coupled with existentialism and stars Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Ke Huy Quan, Harry Shum Jr from Glee and Jaime Lee Curtis.  Photo credit: A24.  On the surface, Ms. Yeoh plays Evelyn, an incredibly worn out and dissatisfied, Chinese immigrant laundromat owner in her mid-life dealing with her "rebellious" young adult daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu) her timid husband (Ke Huy Quan) and aged ailing father, Gong Gong (James Hong) We get to witness her marriage and relationship with her daughter crumble before her while she tries unsuccessf...

Two Rocks

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Two rocks  i  We are two rocks,  lying in the middle of the ocean bare,  a defect of nature.  hard and firm, far-reaching the bottom of the sea, you are.  weak like the soapstone,  thrown into confusion at the waves of the sea,  I am.  what shall become of us?  shall we cause shipwrecks?  shall we be removed to the house of the sculptor with magical hands?  or shall we be left here to lie unharmed?  untouched?  with the breeze caressing our rough-edged rigid structure,  scarred by the gentle waves of the sea's goodbyes,  that never seem to end?  or shall we be cast away like the mountain  triggered by the mustard seed of the faithful Christian?  of these, I worry  as we stare at the stars alone this night.  in pleasures painfully conceived but greatly appreciated  smiling at the constellations,  wishing to be free,  not caged,  in the midst of these troubled water...

Why one of the best tvshows in the entire last decade needs to comeback fast and be properly wrapped up

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It is unfortunate and sad that despite the 16 Emmy nominations and several awards that Misha Green’s Lovecraft Country has won, this deeply spiritual and impactful series doesn’t get the accolades and buzz that it rightly deserves. I consider the work to be one of the best tv shows to grace our screens in the entire last decade and feel that it is a disservice to fans that until now, no other tv station or streaming service has indicated interest to pick up the story and expand it to at least two more seasons. The 2020 supernatural, Sci-Fi, horror and historical TV drama was developed for television from Matt Ruff’s novel, which was originally written to satirize the popular racist narratives common in the author, H.P Lovecraft’s mythologies, hence, the title of the book. It is this “protest novel” that the incredibly talented writer and director, Misha Green reimagines into this spiritual, educative work of high entertainment art value.  source: HBO.  Set in mid-50’s Chicag...

Underrated psychological drama, Encounter, tackles PTSD in war veterans by "scifi-baiting" it's audience

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Image credit: Amazon Prime.  Directed by Michael Pearce and written by Joe Barton, this 2021 film stars, Riz Ahmed, Lucian-River Chauhan, Aditya Geddada as main characters, Malik Khan, Jay and Bobby Khan who the story mainly revolves around. Malik, a divorced marine corps veteran decides to take his children outside of their hometown in California, on an unexpected and unplanned road trip. Things get out of hand when the family gets stopped by a police officer and a misunderstanding ensues that leads to several lethal encounters that makes the kids question their father's true intentions, motivations, and sanity as the film progresses.  A lot of sci-fi lovers might definitely feel ripped off by the end of this film due to the massive plot twist revolving alien invasions this film hints at in the beginning and how it's tied in to PTSD, which I really would not like to spoil because it made the viewing experience more enjoyable for me as I figured it out earlier on in the film. ...

CYNISM COUPLED WITH COSMIC FARCE DOES NOT A SATIRE MAKE

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Photo credit: Netflix.    There seems to be a lot of rave reviews regarding how wonderful this piece of pretend satire is and I can’t help but wonder why that is, especially when you consider the amount of gloom and doom that saturated the media during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, and how none of all that drama was even replicated here. The failure to exploit the range of political excesses displayed across different camps makes it hard to find reenactments of right-wing, political figures rejecting science, and ignorant celebrities milking political causes for clout, (which this film is mainly about) funny for long.  Satires are intelligent but this 2021 film by writer/director, Adam Mckay in my opinion, was just an unoriginal farce greatly inspired by MAGA, America’s right-wing politics during the coronavirus pandemic and the general American middleclass society’s obsession with capitalism. Only this time, it pitches as a replacement, the gloomy story of a scie...