Author: thepoemzone
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The Rehearsal: Surrender to the inevitable
I’m not lying when I say that The Rehearsal is one of the most inventive shows I’ve seen on recent television.
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A Woman Under The Influence (1974), Opening Night (1977), and arguing for a cinema of collective care
There is something so tender about John Cassavetes’s filmmaking. I had the chance to watch A Woman Under the Influence and Opening Night this weekend, and both films left me silent, as his characters and the events they go through in both films made me reflect on my own life and relationships.
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Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (Seperti Dendam Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas): Love under the Spectre of State Violence
(Trigger warning: Rape, sexual violence) It’s been a while since I walked out of an Indonesian movie with pure joy and sheer hope for the future of Indonesian cinema. Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas (with its English title Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash) did just that.
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The Washing Society and Jeanne Dielman: Making the Invisible Visible
One of the most underappreciated roles in our society is the labor behind housework and caregiving. There are lots to do to maintain the upkeep of our households — laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc — but these menial tasks keep the household together and, most importantly, keep us alive and put food on the table.
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(NYFF review) Memoria: Rethinking the Purpose of Film with our Feeble Memories
Near the beginning of summer this year, I heard a loud explosion from outside my house. It sounds like both a bang and an explosion, but what intrigued me was that it doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before.
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(NYFF Review) Red Rocket: A Portrait of a Flawed Empire
It’s been two days yet I still can’t stop thinking about Red Rocket. Fresh off its NYC premiere at the New York Film Festival, it feels very refreshing to watch the film on a big screen. The premise might be really simple: Mikey, a washed up porn star, returns from LA to his industrial hometown…
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Titane: Not for the Squeamish? Not for the Heartless
I hyped myself up really hard before watching Titane. I’m a pretty squeamish person and I usually don’t enjoy anything remotely close to body horror/body transformation horror, so I told myself after the film won the Palme D’Or that I’ll just sit this one out. However, after seeing how well it was received around the…
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Mistress America: A Life Beyond 116th Street
I remember my first days in New York City, when I had just freshly transferred to Columbia University from my community college.
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the impressionists and the circle game
I just came home from my trip to Washington DC, where I went to several museums down the National Mall. I went to the iconic National Gallery of Art (with the best museum cafe I’ve ever visited anywhere) without expecting anything.
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an anti-capitalist reading of american psycho
i recently learned about the stock market — not against my will, just to help me consume the new things i am discovering, namely hbo’s succession and trueanon’s latest three-part series on elon musk. i learned what an ipo is and what it means to make a company public/private, but most of all i was…