The Moya View
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Joy Ride: A Raunch Comedy with Asian Cowgirl
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: The hilarious and unapologetically explicit story of identity and self-discovery centers on four unlikely friends who embark on a once-in-a-lifetime international adventure. When Audrey’s (Ashley Park) business trip to Asia goes sideways, she enlists the aid of Lolo (Sherry Cola), her irreverent, childhood best friend who also happens to be…
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After the Cure
I came back and I could see through the pane it had fallen, this leaning tree that grew pridefully close to the house,roots torn from earth in the winds.When all others died, it had survived the heat and blight, all the cold night winds, but not my separation, cure, return. I cried for its sorrow…
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May/December: Mirror, Camera, Persona
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, Gracie Atherton-Yu and her husband Joe (twenty-three years her junior) brace themselves for their twins to graduate from high school. When Hollywood actress Elizabeth Berry comes to spend time with the family to better understand Gracie, who she will be…
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Things Hidden in My Ears
The last hum of mother’s lullaby gently lingers, cradles back and forth, creating equilibrium.Canciones en español,poems in English,birdsongs in the drizzling rain,the faint refrains of all that chooses to linger despite the silence inside.
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Candy Cane Lane: Eddie Murphy Wants to Be the Elf of Christmas
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Eddie Murphy stars in this holiday comedy adventure about a man on a mission to win his neighborhood’s annual Christmas home decoration contest. After Chris (Eddie Murphy) inadvertently makes a deal with a mischievous elf named Pepper (Jillian Bell) to better his chances of winning, she casts a magic spell…
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The Blind Man’s Spot
My hands touch the flagstones of your tomb.In this world of persistent shadowsmy feet go numb walking to this spot.I hear the wind scuff the white granite all aroundossifying thedirt, blood, stonebelow into my nostrilsand lungs. I sit on the benchnear youalmost seeingthe specterof birdsstopping their prolong flightinto the comingstillness of night trees,never really knowing…
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Godzilla, Minus One: Toho Creates a Rip Roaring Monster of a Film
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Post war Japan is at its lowest point when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster, baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb. Review: Godzilla, Minus One gets it all right: the creature, plot, character, emotions. Godzilla is not just a monster, he is…
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Chalk
They traced their chalk hand first; yellow, pink, gold flowers second; memorized the white ridges of that good dog paw mold from the vet third; all the accretions, good and bad of the pastel outlines of life’s hopscotch fourth; copied dutifully the chalkboard forms fifth; leaving only the final one drawn by others, the one…
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Relax, I’m From the Future: Past Shocks the Future
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Relax, I’m From the Future is the feature debut of writer/director Luke Higginson, and is based on his TIFF-featured 2013 short film of the same name. Self-described as a “dirtbag time travel comedy”, Relax stars the comedic absurdist genius, Rhys Darby. Darby leads as the stuck-in-the-past protagonist but in this…
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Frybread Face and Me: A Navajo Summer Reservation
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Frybread Face and Me follows two adolescent Navajo cousins from different worlds as they bond during a summer on their grandmother’s Arizona ranch, learning more about their family’s past and about themselves. Review: Frybread Face and Me historic and personal focus makes it seem almost that an autobiography of its…
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Trying to Follow My Mother
This morning the ghost of my mother haunted me. There was just peace, calm, a blue-green shadowy crystal shimmering steady above my sleeping chair. She came at a time when only I can see and know her- before the last dream and dawn, before the others awakening, she pulsated lovely and in proper motion through…
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Good Burger 2: A Reheated Burger, Even With All the Trimmings
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Dexter Reed and cashier Ed reunite at fast-food restaurant Good Burger with a hilarious new group of employees. Review: 1997’s Good Burger was an innocuous kids comedy that somehow developed a cult following. The sequel, Good Burger 2 comes 26 years later as a Paramount Plus filler movie for the…
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Master Gardener: Paul Schrader Rakes the Garden of Southern Weeds
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Directed by Academy Award® nominee Paul Schrader based on his original screenplay, MASTER GARDENER follows Narvel Roth (award-winner Joel Edgerton), the meticulous horticulturist of Gracewood Gardens. He is as much devoted to tending the grounds of this beautiful and historic estate, to pandering to his employer, the wealthy dowager Mrs.…
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Leo: A Cold Blooded Creature Who Wants to Warm Kid’s Hearts
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes; Actor and comedian Adam Sandler (Hotel Transylvania, The Wedding Singer) delivers signature laughs in this coming-of-age animated musical comedy about the last year of elementary school — as seen through the eyes of a class pet. Jaded 74-year-old lizard Leo (Sandler) has been stuck in the same Florida classroom for…
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Genie: Rubs Enough Geni-ality Off to Last
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: After millennia of being summoned to grant wishes of gold doubloons and hot babes for greedy men, Flora is accidentally called to service by Bernard Bottle (Emmy nominee Paapa Essiedu; I May Destroy You), whose life is unraveling around him. Bernard’s been so busy working that he has lost sight…
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Napoleon: Ridley Scott Meets His Waterloo
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Napoleon” is a spectacle-filled action epic that details the checkered rise and fall of the iconic French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix. Against a stunning backdrop of large-scale filmmaking orchestrated by legendary director Ridley Scott, the film captures Bonaparte’s relentless journey to power through the prism…
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Sana, Sana
Set the flower aflame.Hold your sister closeamidst the flowing water.Sana, Sana, colita de rana.Si no sanas hoysanaras manana, The bark is exposed.A bird dies in the forest.Hold your brother close.Dry his every tear.Sana, SanaSi no sanas hoy,Sanaras manana.The crack is wide.The cactus has dried.The frog jumps in the drainwith the push of a hand.Sana, Sana,…
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A Time for Stones
The new stones have arrived from the sea,their bruises and changes waiting for my hand to hold, let them dry and shine in the sun—to finally see them from all their different sides.These stonelings exude such a soft subtle energy,full of the rubbings from the kiss of elder stones, every flower and branch, the caressing…
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The Couple (after Tomas Transtormer with a nod to Edward Hopper)
(Read in landscape mode to see the original formatting.)The heavy curtains are clipped at the seams with a pants hanger from the closet.The lamp glimmers hot, bright before dimming to the dark. The climbing shadows seek the embers of the blocked stars.The passion has quieted down. In sleep, secret thoughts aremeeting, softly cuddling. The grays…
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Cardboard
Given enough cardboard and tape I could make my own childhood house.At least until winter. Then, it allflattened, became one big sledthat raced down the brown foothills,so out of control, fast, faster still,until a Plymouth door handle left a permanent time scar on my forehead- one, two, three little rivers forging into each other.Now, that…
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Rustin: Getting to the True Heart of the March on Washington
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: The architect of 1963’s momentous March on Washington, Bayard Rustin was one of the greatest activists and organizers the world has ever known. He challenged authority, never apologized for who he was, what he believed, or who he desired. And he did not back down. He made history, and in…
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Practice
The day’s practice arrives:awakening knowing one more day stretching arms and toes until the deadness fades, breathing in life until you are out of breath,cutting off the words in a hopeless conversation,playing the scales over and over,until each day ends and sleep comes againand the waking dawn orders us to practice again.
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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe: Awakening to La Cultura de Corazon
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Resentful at the world, 15-year-old Aristotle Mendoza wants to blend in and be left alone, but the summer he meets free spirit Dante Quintana at the local swimming pool, everything changes. Dante is everything Ari isn’t, and his wanderlust for life and artistic spirit shake something loose in Ari; finally,…
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Infrared
The palms glow infrared in the night.The city has set up tables and chairs under them so the citizens can feel the breeze and watch the tide.The stick fence held together by razor wirethat separated the street from the shore use to be longer until the hurricane blew the gate away. What’s left, bends against…
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The Killer: He Bores Them to Death
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: After a fateful near-miss an assassin battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn’t personal. Review: David Fincher films are full of criminals, homicidal maniacs, serial killers and other assorted murders and murderers. Even his last film, the glorious Mank, featured Hollywood producers who ruthlessly killed…
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Father, Sin and Holy Ghost
I squatter in the catacombs of remembrance. grinding my bones with pumice and chalk for a fine bone dust to clean the vellum bindings of my soul’s revisions. The scars glitter the ground. All the others with almost identical names, are around me, enough alike to make me doubt the date I was born. Something…
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The Holdovers: The Gifts of the Curmudgeonly Magi
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: From acclaimed director Alexander Payne, THE HOLDOVERS follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them —…
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Reclaiming Posey from the Clay and Releasing the Voice to the Air: A Translation
Author’s note: I have been reading a lot of indigenous poetry since November is Native American Heritage Month. One thing that struck me is the Native American poet’s need to adopt Western poetics- rhyme, rhythm, meter, formal stanza- in order to find acceptance with a white reading audience. The poems of Alexander Posey (yes, that…
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Anatomy of a Fall: Putting the Author and Audience Response on Trial
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: For the past year, Sandra, her husband Samuel, and their eleven-year-old son Daniel have lived a secluded life in a remote town in the French Alps. When Samuel is found dead in the snow below their chalet, the police question whether he was murdered or committed suicide. Samuel’s suspicious death…
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The Death Wife’s Tale
After nine months,three hours of laborand a mile of wanderingTahlequah gave birth in the middle of a salted world.For half an hour,Tahlequah could look into her child’s eyes.For thirty minutes the child, until it became silent, was a sacrament to love.In the inexplicable beauty of her death Tahlequahdecided to carry her.She remembered how there was…
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Nyad: The Salty Sea Nymph of Movie Determination
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: A remarkable true story of tenacity, friendship and the triumph of the human spirit, NYAD recounts a riveting chapter in the life of world-class athlete Diana Nyad. Three decades after giving up marathon swimming in exchange for a prominent career as a sports journalist, at the age of 60, Diana…
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Quiz Lady: Jeopardy Sisters for $81,000.00, Please
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: In Quiz Lady, a brilliant but tightly wound, gameshow-obsessed young woman, Anne (Awkwafina), and her estranged, train-wreck of a sister Jenny (Sandra Oh), must work together to help cover their mother’s gambling debts. When Anne’s beloved dog is kidnapped, they set out on a wild, cross-country trek to get the…
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Fingernails: Pulling Them Off to Know Love’s Agony and Ecstasy
Movie info via IMDB: Anna (Buckley) increasingly suspects that her relationship with her longtime partner may not actually be the real thing. In an attempt to improve things, she secretly embarks on a new assignment working at a mysterious institute designed to incite and test the presence of romantic love in increasingly desperate couples. Review:…
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Four Haikus on Childhood
1. A MAGICAL PLACE From the yellow hut near the power plant’s river he’s shocked to see fish. 2. THE INTERNAL NOTEBOOK She scratches the spot on her arm where her parents buried deep their dreams. 3. ALONE AT THE FAIR WITH MONEY Rubber duck winnings buys popcorn, moo-moos, a pony, car rides, burst balloons.…
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Priscilla: All Shook Up in Heartbreak Hotel
Movie info via IMDB: When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a vulnerable best friend. Through Priscilla’s eyes, Sofia Coppola tells the unseen side of a great American myth…
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From the Sky
They built their tunnels deep into the sky.“No one, will find us here,” they thought.They watched their children playing soccer.They saw their grandmothers making bread.They knew the teen boy, so like themselves,under the olive tree, eating watermelon, writing a love letter on his phone. His beloved, not far from the checkpoint where soldiers were cocking…
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About My Father: Dad mode De Niro
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: The hottest comic in America, Sebastian Maniscalco joins forces with legendary Italian-American and two-time Oscar winner, Robert De Niro, in the new comedy ABOUT MY FATHER. The film centers around Sebastian (Maniscalco) who is encouraged by his fiancée (Leslie Bibb) to bring his immigrant, hairdresser father, Salvo (De Niro), to…
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Our Song of Sadness
Live long enough and your Father will serve you grief with oranges on a silver platter—Shed enough tears and your Motherwill appear, remorse in one hand,a pomegranate in the other—Bury a spouse, and salt will be your servant, once the beloved’s water leaves, and you’ve swallowed the last bitter herbs.Lose a child, and light will…
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Piecing It All Together
I knew the silence before the birdsong— Each note not a note, but plaintive echoes, making painful calls before a leeward wing danced a thrush in the brambles. Author’s note: I spent a considerable part of an afternoon watching videos of blind infants wearing their first pair of glasses. Seeing the world clearly for the…
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Old Dads: Stumpy Old Men
Movie info via The Hollywood Reporter: Inspired by Burr and co-screenwriter Ben Tishler’s experiences of becoming fathers later in life, the film revolves around best friends and business partners Jack (Burr), Connor (Bobby Cannavale) and Mike (Bokeem Woodbine). The three find themselves sidelined after selling their vintage sports jersey company to Aspen (Miles Robbins), a…
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Five Nights at Freddy: That Old Rocky Horror Picture Show Vibe.
Movie info via IMDB: In the year 2000, a desperate young man takes a job at an infamous, long-abandoned pizzeria with a dark past, bringing his little sister along. As they uncover the restless spirits and vengeful animatronics within, they must confront their own haunting memories. With the help of an enigmatic police officer, they…
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Dogwoods
The rusted tips of the dogwood petals, fall after fall, indented to the shape of crosses, leaving bloody crucifixes after bloody crucifixes.The collected light, felt wounded,drenched in a suffering beauty, the kind the soul draws as perfectly straight.The red berries, past ripe are now wine. They stand naked in the air in lovely shame,past innuendo,…
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A Discovered Graveyard
(After Robert Frost’s In a Disused Graveyard)The dead come along the living unexpectedly,their grassy treads kicking upon their stonesonce upright now downturned in the weeds.They just wish to rest in peace, away from these stumbling fools that wound themselveson weathered marble letters written large: “THE ONES WHO LIVING COME TODAYTO READ THE STONES AND GO…
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Truths
Three things that are silent and true:the twilight hour,the plummeting snow,death beneath every window.
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Remember the Grass
Delight in the cool grass,its elusive, delicate, shy,brush on your face,tingling arms, bare soles- for one day you will be too far beneath even its touch.
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If You Were the Last: It’s About Time Screwball Gets Spacy
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Adam (Anthony Mackie) and Jane (Zoë Chao) are three years into a NASA mission that has gone very wrong: Their ship is broken and drifting between Jupiter and Saturn. Finding ways to pass the time as they become certain that no one is coming to save them, they argue over…
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No Hard Feelings: Getting to Hot to Trot Via the Old Slow Hand
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: On the brink of losing her childhood home, Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents looking for someone to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, before he leaves for college. To her surprise, Maddie soon discovers the awkward Percy is no sure thing. Review: Jennifer Lawrence…
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Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken: A Really Big Growth Sprout that Avoids the Red Panda
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Sweet, awkward 16-year-old Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before franchise) is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High, but she mostly just feels invisible. She’s math-tutoring her skater-boy crush (Jaboukie Young-White, Ralph Breaks the Internet), who only seems to admire her for her fractals, and…
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Killers of the Flower: Scorsese Stays on the Reservation
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Based on David Grann’s broadly lauded best-selling book, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is set in 1920s Oklahoma and depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror Review: Killers of the Flower…
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Bottoms: Taking Relevance to an Irrelevant Extreme
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: BOTTOMS, a refreshingly unique raunchy comedy, focuses on two girls, PJ and Josie, who start a fight club as a way to lose their virginities to cheerleaders. Their bizarre plan works. The fight club gains traction and soon the most popular girls in school are beating each other up in…
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Bringing Hope Home
They brought Hope home in crisp sunshine on a cloudless day to a backyard overlooking a forest.Just a mother and daughter, a shovel,a smallness wrapped in a ziplock bag, born four or five days before.The lack of rain had hardened the earthand the digging was unyielding work, an hour of frustration before the ground yielded.Finally,…
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Serenade
Down the beach, the strum of guitars, congas,the rhythms of life knowing its longings.The come on is intense. It sweeps me along.Yet, I pause. The sea has deceived me before. It calls out with a jaunty chant, “I love you.”Its greatness sings from sun to moon.“I’m not asking you to run. Walk slowly,Take your time,…
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the spaces she left behind
they turned brown before you arrived by the time you came on them swiped the dust off turned the pages they were crumbling you never looked at the rest surrendering them to silence you could lie down again now there was nothing between you now the rain was beginning outside or was it just the …
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The Cenotaph
The street life went on all night outside their kitchen until their laughter-last shouts shattered the dawn.In Brooklyn, the rabbi reading the Times would only seethe shattered picture window,the blood on the rusty door,the broken mugs, two forkson the breakfast table,the rounds that formed holes,red balloons amidst the night clothing on the wall.“They did not…
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The Burial: Mississippi Unburning
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Inspired by true events, when a handshake deal goes sour, funeral home owner Jeremiah O’Keefe (Academy Award® winner Tommy Lee Jones) enlists charismatic, smooth-talking attorney Willie E. Gary (Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx) to save his family business. Tempers flare and laughter ensues as the unlikely pair bond while exposing…
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Blue Jean: Getting Pass the Girls Locker Room Perceptions of LGBTQ
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: England, 1988 — Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government is about to pass a law stigmatizing gays and lesbians, forcing Jean, a gym teacher, to live a double life. As pressure mounts from all sides, the arrival of a new girl at school catalyzes a crisis that will challenge Jean to her…
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Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret: Getting Beyond First Period to Full Teen Identity Crisis
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: For over fifty years, Judy Blume’s classic and groundbreaking novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. has impacted generations with its timeless coming of age story, insightful humor, and candid exploration of life’s biggest questions. In Lionsgate’s big-screen adaptation, 11-year-old Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) is uprooted from her life…
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Bed Bugs: A Love Story
He smuggled them in his pockets. Easy— just a step into the house, after digging in the yard. There they stayed until after he was fed and washed. Then, he removed them from their hidden space, released them from the lining and seams into the dwindling bedroom light, to snuggle under the warmth of blanket…
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The Caine Mutiny Court Martial: Righting the Ship
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: At the start of a naval court-martial, Barney Greenwald (Jason Clarke), a skeptical naval lawyer, reluctantly agrees to defend Lt. Steve Maryk (Jake Lacy), a first officer of the Navy who took control of the U.S.S. CAINE from its domineering captain Lt. Philip Francis Queeg (Kiefer Sutherland) during a violent…
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Leaving Tracks
let’s amble along snowy white spacesfoot tracks silent steady peaceful pacesrevealing lacy silk veils wooly earth white as milk invisible doves the white skylet’s amble along our still small townits soft somber peace and white down our velveteen boots these softer thingswalking along the dew leaving tracks
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Grief Dog
Our new dog, a chihuahua mini husky mix,tries to fill, with kisses, the space of all the dogs before, even some of the people. I think he could smell the ashes on themantle of all those that came before him, feels the grief in us that ebbs and flows. I have a sizable collection grown…
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Totally Killer: To Get Back to the Future You Must Know How to Scream
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Thirty-five years after the shocking murder of three teens, the infamous “Sweet Sixteen Killer” returns on Halloween night to claim a fourth victim. Seventeen-year-old Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) ignores her overprotective mom’s (Julie Bowen) warning and comes face-to-face with the masked maniac and, on the run for her life, accidentally time…
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The Creator: Simulating Humanity Via Machine Language
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: From writer/director Gareth Edwards (“Rogue One,” “Godzilla“) comes an epic sci-fi action thriller set amidst a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence. Joshua (John David Washington, “Tenet“), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Gemma Chan, “Eternals“), is recruited to…
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Circuses Go Round and Round
On days when the girls were circusestheir mother would parade them in the dusky living room where the overhead spotswould highlight each one in their own three ring aura, The Entrance of the Gladiators stuck on repeat on the old phonograph, brass and woodwinds bouncing lithely off their bodies and trumpeting off the walls,the humid…
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A Prayer for Beloved Mothers
Beloved, mother this day you will eat, in this body of trying, the bread of hope. Beloved, mother this day you will bathe, amidst this body of breaths, in the fragrance of rose water. Beloved, mother this day you will hear, inside this sounding body, the soft laughter of your children. Beloved, mother this night…
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The Blackening: Racing to Get Every Bit of Killer Satire In
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: The Blackening centers around a group of Black friends who reunite for a Juneteenth weekend getaway only to find themselves trapped in a remote cabin with a twisted killer. Forced to play by his rules, the friends soon realize this ain’t no motherfu**in’ game. Directed by Tim Story (Ride Along,…
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Pushing the Needle
My father wasn’t the kind of man to let his ashes just blow in the wind. He spent his life trying to push him-self through needles.At his celebration of life, I watchedas his ash drifted down through the smallest cracks.The poor manwould have been pleased.Then, the sea tasted his embersand scattered himamongst the waves breaking…
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Survive: Dashing Through the Snow
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: When their plane crashes on a remote snow-covered mountain, Jane and Paul have to fight for their lives as the only remaining survivors. Together they embark on a harrowing journey out of the wilderness. Review: In Survive, an adventure drama now streaming on STARZ, Sophie Turner not playing a bestie…
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A Single Line- She Builds It Up- You Wreck It Down
Along an icy pond the witch awaits you with your old toy sailboat in her hand.You passed her once in the white wall of the city, laying your head where her heart use to be—her white dress waving in the footlights, showing the parts of you,you so so gladly threw away.In the melting streams of…
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Dumb Money: Not So Pretty Day Traders Try to Make Wall Street Look Dumb
Movie info via IMDB: Dumb Money does a good job of skewering the knowledge and experience of the Wall Street Elite. It’s a take back the power comedy with all kinds of take backs- the power of the struggling middle class mass to outsmart the rich betting on companies, essentially America, to fail. It shows…
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Flora and Son: A Frowzy Song Filled Fable for Today’s Anxious Soul
Movie Info via Wikipedia: Flora, a single mother living in Dublin, is having trouble with her estranged son Max, a rebellious teenage petty thief. Encouraged by the Gardaí to find Max a hobby, Flora rescues an old guitar from a dumpster and, with the help of a Los Angeles-based online guitar teacher, discovers that one…
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Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant: A masterfully manipulative war thriller
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant follows US Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Afghan interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim). After an ambush, Ahmed goes to Herculean lengths to save Kinley’s life. When Kinley learns that Ahmed and his family were not given safe passage to America as promised, he must repay…
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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar: Wes Anderson Rediscovers His Substantive Style
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar: A rich man learns about a guru who can see without using his eyes. He sets out to master the skill in order to cheat at gambling. Extremely faithfully adapted from Roald Dahl’s long short story. Review: Asteroid City was what happens when Wes…
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Sanctuary: Who’s Screwing With Whom?
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Set over the course of one night in a single hotel room, “Sanctuary” tells the story of a dominatrix (Margaret Qualley) and Hal (Christopher Abbott), her wealthy client. About to inherit his late father’s position and fortune, Hal tries to end their relationship, but when his attempt to cut ties…
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No One Will Save You: Twisting Everything Inside You Inside Out
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: No One Will Save You” introduces Brynn Adams (Kaitlyn Dever), a creative and talented young woman who’s been alienated from her community. Lonely but ever hopeful, Brynn finds solace within the walls of the home where she grew up–until she’s awakened one night by strange noises from decidedly unearthly intruders.…
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Love at First Sight: Statistically High Chance this Netflix Rom-Com Will Be Guaranteed Fresh
Movie Info via Rotten Tomatoes: After missing her flight from New York to London, Hadley (Haley Lu Richardson) meets Oliver (Ben Hardy) in a chance encounter at the airport that sparks an instant connection. A long night on the plane together passes in the blink of an eye but upon landing at Heathrow, the pair…
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Cassandro: Light as Liberace, With the Punch of the Rock
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, rises to international stardom after he creates the character Cassandro, the “Liberace of Lucha Libre.” In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world, but also his own life. Review: Roger Ross Williams, the director of Cassandro, a biopic…
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A Million Miles Away: To Get to Infinity You Must Be Willing to Get Beyond the Earth
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Inspired by the real-life story of NASA flight engineer José Hernández, A Million Miles Away follows him on a decades-long journey, from a rural village in Michoacán, Mexico, to more than 200 miles above the Earth in the International Space Station. With the support of his family, José’s drive &…
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Plane: Gerard Butler Saves Us from Liam Neeson Once Again
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: In the white-knuckle action movie PLANE, pilot Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) saves his passengers from a lightning strike by making a risky landing on a war-torn island — only to find that surviving the landing was just the beginning. When most of the passengers are taken hostage by dangerous rebels,…
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Dreamin’ Wild: The Fate of Second Chances
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Dreamin’ Wild, the true story of love and redemption, is about what happened to singer/songwriter Donnie Emerson and his family when the album he and his brother recorded as teens was rediscovered after thirty years of obscurity and was suddenly hailed by music critics as a lost masterpiece. While the…
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Fast X: Dumb Fun and Horsepower Thrills
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his family have outsmarted, out-nerved and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they confront the most lethal opponent they’ve ever faced: A terrifying threat emerging from the shadows of the past who’s fueled by blood revenge, and…
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The End of Sex: Killing It Softly in Anxiety
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: The End of Sex tells the story of a married couple (Emily Hampshire and Jonas Chernick) who are feeling the pressures of parenting and adulthood. After they send their young kids to camp for the first time, they embark on a series of comic sexual adventures to reinvigorate their relationship.…
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El Conde: Living With the Vampire of a Nation’s Horror
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: El Conde is a dark comedy/horror that imagines a parallel universe inspired by the recent history of Chile. The film portrays Augusto Pinochet, a symbol of world fascism, as a vampire who lives hidden in a ruined mansion in the cold southern tip of the continent. Feeding his appetite for…
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A Haunting in Venice: Old School Haunts, Taunts and Hints With a Peppery Twist
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: A Haunting in Venice” is set in eerie, post-World War II Venice on All Hallows’ Eve and is a terrifying mystery featuring the return of the celebrated sleuth, Hercule Poirot. Now retired and living in self-imposed exile in the world’s most glamorous city, Poirot reluctantly attends a séance at a…
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Taurus: How to Not Find Musical Inspiration
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: A rising but troubled musician searches for the inspiration to record his next song, pushing himself deep into the void. A work of fiction that explores fame, addiction, the artistic process, and the music industry, Taurus is a soulful and universal cautionary tale. Review: The only way a musician/pop idol…
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Cormorant Fishing in the Oi River Night
The torchlight shines bright in the night making the riverbed in front crystal clear.The fisherman is not a brawny man, just an old reed with a straw beard.Sweetfish hiding in the river lured by the light come drifting up. In the days of the Shogun, Royals would watch the old straws release their gold ring…
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Corsage: Tied and Undone By Odd Choices of Style.
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Empress Elizabeth of Austria is idolized for her beauty and renowned for inspiring fashion trends. But in 1877, ‘Sissi’ celebrates her 40th birthday and must fight to maintain her public image by lacing her corset tighter and tighter. While Elizabeth’s role has been reduced against her wishes to purely performative,…
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God Does Not Want Me Yet
God isn’t calling for me yet,” Ninette said humorously to her century old body on it’s birthday. Ninette has no children. Her husband passed 10 years ago. All her friends too. Ninette is use to celebrating things by herself. There will be no birthday cake, just the usual one skillet dinner of pasta with sausage…
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Sitting in Bars With Cake: A Semi-Weepy that Leaves a Good Taste in the Mouth
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Based on the cookbook Sitting in Bars with Cake by Audrey Shulman. Corinne convinces her baker best friend, Jane, to commit to a year of baking cakes and bringing them to bars with the goal of meeting people and developing confidence. Review: Sitting in Bars With Cake is based on…
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Beautiful Flashes of Life
Grandma Clara knew this day would come,so she put on her favorite blue & white dress.She had been waiting for this, for a long time.Clara switched the television channel to the one her grandkids watched all the time.She pulled up her wheelchair, stowed it neatly in the corner. Clara didn’t want her son/grandkids, stumbling over…
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Listening to the City’s Ghosts
In the blur of rain on the windshield,in the moment it takes the blades to wipe forward and back, he walks into view, across your horizon,hoodie turned up, face down,looking no where but down, hands in pocket— headlight spectersgiving him a transparency that forces you to a dead stop. In that moment from left to…
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Crossing the Bridge
There is a moment in the awful skid of metal in front of you on this two lane bridge when the gold suv loaded with two kids in the backseat, maybe a small dog, a chihuahua asleep perhaps, in the middle, a mom and dad in front, maybe-maybe not talking-arguing, a cargo carrier on top,…
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The Equalizer 3: Finding Home By Killing Everyone in the Old Town
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has struggled to reconcile the horrific things he’s done in the past and finds a strange solace in serving justice on behalf of the oppressed. Finding himself surprisingly at home in Southern Italy, he discovers his new…
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The Little Mermaid: Great Sea Legs, Not So Great Land Legs
Summary via IMDB: The youngest of King Triton’s daughters, Ariel is a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. Longing to find out more about the world beyond the sea, Ariel visits the surface and falls for the dashing Prince Eric. Following her heart, she makes a deal with the evil sea…
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Mafia Mamma: A Half Horse Head Mafia Comedy
Movie info via IMDB: An American mom inherits her grandfather’s mafia empire in Italy. Guided by the firm’s consigliere, she hilariously defies everyone’s expectations as the new head of the family business. Review: Mafia Mamma, a comedy about a suburban American housewife (Toni Collette) who becomes the leader of an Italian crime family through inheritance,…
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Hypnotic: Jedi Mind Tricks All Around
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Determined to find his missing daughter, Austin detective Danny Rourke finds himself spiraling down a rabbit hole investigating a series of reality-bending crimes where he will ultimately call into question his most basic assumptions about everything and everyone in his world. Aided by Diana Cruz, a gifted psychic, Rourke simultaneously…
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Pentimento (a visible trace of earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas)
The cat followed the play of sunlight through the window as the day wore on:the recourse of gable roofs caught in the little town’s slanting brown stillness the diaphane of color floating through the lace curtainmoths seeking a wall’s asylum from the beating ceiling fanthe incantation of the father praying over the steaming cup of…
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Moving On: Something Is Stuck This Time Around
Plot via Wikipedia: Two estranged former friends reconnect at the funeral of another mutual friend, and decide to exact revenge on their dead friend’s widower for the harm he caused to one of them decades earlier. Review: Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are a reliable pair of actors when they work together- and they have…
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Questions ChatGPT Won’t Answer
When the chatbots start killing their darlingsbecause they’ve mastered the masters words,will I be saved or sacrificed? When it starts lying to itself and says it knows the human soul better than God,will we have to love through disillusion?Will we have to rewrite our genetic codebecause they have mastered our humanity?Are we just a murmuration…
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The Wrath of Becky: Getting Her Revenge on the Second Time
Movie Info via Rotten Tomatoes: Two years after she escaped a violent attack on her family, Becky attempts to rebuild her life in the care of an older woman — a kindred spirit named Elena. But when a group known as the “Noble Men” break into their home, attack them, and take her beloved dog,…
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