The Moya View
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Family Tree
Family Tree began as an image of a house without windows and a river carrying away its debris. The poem explores how time erodes lineage—the way humanity sloughs into the river’s swell and becomes part of its current.
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PROPELLER ONE‑WAY NIGHT COACH FINDS ITS ALTITUDE IN MEMORY AND LONGING
Propeller One‑Way Night Coach is a tender, nostalgic debut from John Travolta, carried by Clark Shotwell’s grounded performance and the film’s devotion to the emotional textures of memory. Its romantic tone and aviation‑soaked atmosphere give the story a gentle lift that lingers.
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Dead Man’s Wire: A Man Demands the World Answer for Itself
Dead Man’s Wire turns the 1977 Kiritsis standoff into a fierce study of grievance, power, and public spectacle. Bill Skarsgård delivers a blistering performance in Gus Van Sant’s sharp, morally charged reconstruction of a crisis America never truly resolved.
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My Father’s Shadow: THE DAY THAT REFUSES TO DIM
My Father’s Shadow is a tender, pressurized memory-film that follows a father and his sons through a single day that reshapes their understanding of love, danger, and distance. Akinola Davies Jr. crafts a luminous, emotionally charged portrait anchored by Sope Dirisu’s extraordinary performance.
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Rosemead: ROSEMEAD MOVIE REVIEW — A MOTHER’S VIGIL, A SON’S SHAKEN WORLD
Two‑Sentence WordPress Summary: Rosemead is a measured, emotionally exacting drama anchored by Lucy Liu’s most quietly devastating performance to date. Eric Lin directs with unwavering compassion, shaping a story of illness, fear, and maternal resolve into a work of haunting clarity.
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Expulsion
I wrote Expulsion after realizing how exile can happen inside the body itself—how being torn from one’s own ground feels both violent and necessary. The poem’s theme is rupture as transformation: the moment when pain becomes the only proof of change.
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The Purple Glass
The Purple Glass” began with an object my mother once handed me—useless, she said, but beautiful. The poem traces how that uselessness became memory’s last vessel, holding what language can’t restore.
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Morning Origami
I wrote Morning Origami out of the daily ceremony of chronic pain — the body folding itself under invisible pressure. The poem enacts that ritual as a dialogue between sky and flesh, where endurance becomes a kind of devotion.
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Obsession: The Wish That Wouldn’t Die
Curry Barker’s Obsession turns romantic yearning into supernatural contagion, balancing horror and humor with unnerving precision. A messy, funny, and disturbingly tender debut that earns its B for ambition and emotional rot.
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The Love that Remains: THE WEATHER OF THE HEART
The Love That Remains captures a family in the long aftermath of separation, revealing how affection, frustration, and memory continue to shape their days. Hlynur Pálmason’s direction and Saga Garðarsdóttir’s luminous performance turn ordinary moments into a deeply felt portrait of endurance.
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I LOVE BOOSTERS RUNS ON VOLTAGE AND VISION, EVEN WHEN ITS CURRENT SPLITS
Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters blends fashion‑world satire, labor politics, and surreal sci‑fi invention into a bold, uneven spectacle anchored by Keke Palmer’s fierce performance. The film’s excesses blur its message, but its political heart and visual daring leave a lasting impression.
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Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu: A MASK, A CHILD, AND THE STRAIN OF A GALAXY TRYING TO REMEMBER ITS Pulse
The Mandalorian and Grogu delivers a sturdy, emotionally charged return to the Star Wars universe, even as its dialogue and action patterns fall into familiar grooves. The bond between Mando and Grogu remains the film’s strongest force, giving the spectacle a grounded emotional center.
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Plagiarism
This poem began as a meditation on how renewal can feel like duplication rather than change. Its theme is the tension between natural recurrence and human fatigue—the way life reissues itself even when we wish it wouldn’t.
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Butchart Repose
I wrote Butchart Repose after walking through the Butchart Gardens in British Columbia. The poem began as a record of fatigue and distance—the moment when beauty becomes something you must leave behind.
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A Night of Rain
I wrote A Night of Rain after watching a bird cling to a lemon tree during a storm. The image became a study in distance—the bird, the person, and the observer caught in a triangulated gaze.
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THE SHEEP DETECTIVES FINDS ITS STRANGENESS AND STANDS IN IT
The Sheep Detectives blends absurdity and emotional depth into a family mystery that respects its audience and trusts its own strangeness. Hugh Jackman anchors a story that grows richer as its flock uncovers not only a killer but the cost of forgetting.
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Remarkably Bright Creatures; The Tide That Stirs Beneath the Glass
Remarkably Bright Creatures gains its strength from Sally Field’s luminous restraint and Olivia Newman’s patient, textural direction, which together elevate the film beyond its uneven script. The result is a mixed-to-positive meditation on grief, labor, and the unexpected currents that draw people toward one another.
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The Watching
I wrote My Pigeon Heart after watching a pigeon settle on the ledge of an abandoned building downtown. The image felt like a mirror — a creature surviving in ruin, indifferent to collapse. The poem’s architecture is vertical: a descent from observation to fracture. It’s about the violence of stillness, the small greatness of endurance,…
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Dust Bunny and the Hunger Beneath the Floorboards
Dust Bunny blends fairy‑tale dread with hitman precision, creating a world where childhood fear reshapes reality. Bryan Fuller’s ornate vision and Mads Mikkelsen’s controlled performance anchor a story that balances menace, wonder, and emotional truth.
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THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2: POWER, RUIN, AND THE GLINT OF SURVIVAL
The Devil Wears Prada 2 deepens the original’s world with a sharper, colder look at power, labor, and reinvention. Hathaway and Streep anchor a sequel that critiques its own glamour while reveling in the tension it creates.
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The Work of Survival in Park Chan‑wook’s No Other Choice
Park Chan‑wook’s No Other Choice transforms a tale of economic desperation into a dark, lyrical study of ambition, humiliation, and the violence bred by scarcity. Lee Byung‑hun delivers a masterful performance that anchors a film both wickedly funny and quietly devastating.
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MICHAEL: A BODY IN MOTION, A MYTH IN REVISION
Antoine Fuqua’s Michael delivers a luminous central performance from Jaafar Jackson and a series of electrifying musical recreations, yet it avoids the darker complexities that shaped the singer’s life. The result is a polished, emotionally restrained biopic that honors the legend while keeping the man just out of reach
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ROOMMATES AND THE SHADOW IT CARRIES
Roommates pushes against the boundaries of the Happy Madison formula, revealing the emotional and moral fractures beneath its campus comedy exterior. Strong performances from Sadie Sandler and Chloe East give the film a surprising depth even when the humor falters.
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Exit 8 and the Soft Violence of Turning BackMovie Review
Exit 8 turns a looping corridor into a study of hesitation, responsibility, and the cost of looking away. Genki Kawamura’s tight direction and Kazunari Ninomiya’s restrained performance give the film a steady, lingering resonance.
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Snow, Secrets, and the Slow Burn of Violence: Normal Finds Its Uneven Rhythm in the Hands of Odenkirk and Wheatley
Ben Wheatley’s Normal blends small‑town unease with bursts of chaotic violence, carried by Bob Odenkirk’s steady, weathered presence. The film’s rough textures and tonal fractures create a crime thriller that stumbles in places yet leaves a lingering, off‑kilter charge.
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The Sand Keeps Moving in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy revives a classic movie monster with a bruised, atmospheric sense of dread and a family drama that keeps the horror grounded even when the mythology sprawls. Strong performances and tactile practical effects carry the film past its structural stumbles and leave a lingering sense of unease.
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Each Morning Before Dawn
I wrote Each Morning Before Dawn after noticing how the small rituals of care—refilling a bird feeder, waiting for song—can reveal the violence beneath domestic calm. The poem began as a record of sound and silence, but it evolved into a meditation on expectation and dread. The mockingbird and squirrel became emblems of persistence and…
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Merrily We Roll Along; THE TURN OF THE YEARS AND THE TURN OF THE CAMERA
Maria Friedman’s Merrily We Roll Along preserves the emotional sweep of Sondheim’s musical through committed performances from Jonathan Griffith, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez. Even with its cinematic stumbles, the film remains a worthy addition to the canon and a generous gift to new audiences.
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Making Lemonade Street
I wrote “Making Lemonade Street” after watching a forest near my neighborhood being cleared for new housing. The poem began as a note on the phrase “the forest in front of the forest”—a doubling that felt like both description and elegy. I wanted to record the moment when the natural and the artificial overlap, when…
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Vestige
I wrote Vestige out of the memory of my mother’s rituals—how care and vigilance could harden into preservation. The poem began with the image of towels draped over thorns, a gesture that felt both protective and sacrificial. I wanted to explore how domestic acts—counting, tending, washing—become ceremonies of control and grief. The poem’s tone is…
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The Book
wrote The Book after finding my mother’s old paperback on my nightstand—a relic of her insistence that language could save us from silence. The poem began as a study of inheritance: how reading becomes a form of haunting. Each line traces the movement of a child carrying a book through rooms, echoing a mother’s voice…
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The Road That Burns and Beckons in Sirat
Oliver Laxe’s Sirat is a mesmerizing, unorthodox desert odyssey anchored by Sergi López’s wounded, unyielding presence. Its beauty, brutality, and spiritual equanimity combine into one of the year’s most haunting cinematic journeys.
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Pizza Movie Finds Its Frenzied Pulse in a Dorm Full of Bad Decisions
“Pizza Movie” turns a dorm‑wide drug trip into a frantic, self‑aware comedy that blends formal invention with genuine emotional stakes. Not every gag lands, but the film’s bold energy and sharp character beats make it a surprisingly satisfying slice.
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A Romance in Freefall: Zendaya and Pattinson Keep “The Drama” From Cracking Apart
Kristoffer Borgli’s “The Drama” turns male panic into a cracked romantic comedy held together by Zendaya and Robert Pattinson’s undeniable charm. The film spirals into dark comedy and narrative chaos, yet its performers keep the whole thing strangely touching.
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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie: A Galaxy Spinning on Charm, Chaos, and the Occasional Cosmic Shrug
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie spins through its cosmic adventure with charm, chaos, and a restless imagination, even when its storytelling thins. A mixed but mildly positive sequel, it dazzles in bursts and stumbles in others, carried by a spirited cast and a universe that still glows.
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Vision Carried on a Shaking Floor: Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee
The Testament of Ann Lee is a sweeping, interior biographical musical that follows Amanda Seyfried’s fierce embodiment of the Shaker founder through devotion, suffering, and revelation. Mona Fastvold crafts a world of ritual, music, and spiritual intensity that rewards viewers willing to enter its charged atmosphere.
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Forest of Grief and Fury: Bambi: The Reckoning Finds Its Brutal, Haunted Pulse
Bambi: The Reckoning turns a childhood myth into a brutal fable of grief, mutation, and retribution, carried by Roxanne McKee’s steady, haunted performance. Dan Allen shapes the chaos into a tale of contamination and consequence, where the forest answers its wounds with fury.
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Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice: A Loop of Trouble, Tenderness, and Trigger-Happy Fate
A bruised, energetic time‑travel crime tale, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice turns betrayal, gunfights, and marital collapse into a sharp, exuberant genre mash. Vince Vaughn anchors a story where the past becomes raw material for reinvention.
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THEY WILL KILL YOU Finds Its Pulse in the Wallpaper
WordPress Blurb (Two Sentences) “They Will Kill You” turns a satanic high-rise into a fevered battleground where Zazie Beetz delivers a performance charged with fury and purpose. The film’s script wobbles, but its production design, gore-soaked invention, and emotional undercurrents keep it gripping.
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PRETTY LETHAL FINDS ITS EDGE IN BLOOD, BALLET, AND THE COST OF GRACE
Pretty Lethal delivers a fierce blend of ballet and bloodshed, carried by a cast of women who attack every scene with conviction. The film falters when it explains too much, but its action sequences and emotional core keep it compelling.
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Elegy for a Future Death
Elegy for a Future Death began as a refusal. I wanted to write an elegy that didn’t console, didn’t mythologize, didn’t reach for metaphor. The poem strips away atmosphere and sentiment, leaving only the physical residue of absence: chain, pan, towel, nail. It’s a lyric of erosion—of what remains when return is no longer possible.…
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Rest Stop
Rest Stop” began as a memory fragment—an actual roadside pause that became a corridor for grief. I wanted the poem to resist sentimentality and instead let the environment carry the emotional weight. Every sound, every object, every interruption is doing the work of memory and refusal. The poem is about the failure to name, the…
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Is This Thing On?: Bradley Cooper Turns Midlife Upheaval Into a Sharp, Wounded, Very Funny Pulse Check”
Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? turns midlife upheaval into a sharp, funny, and unexpectedly tender portrait of two people rediscovering themselves. Will Arnett and Laura Dern ground the chaos with performances that reveal the cost of silence and the thrill of starting over.
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Where Are You My Friend…?
This poem emerged from walking through a heat-struck urban lot where absence felt more physical than memory. I wanted the poem to carry abandonment through objects—barbed wire, cats, asphalt—without commentary. The body persists, but only through what it touches. The theme is not grief but residue: what remains when someone doesn’t.
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After the Movie
“After the Movie” emerged from the residue of a theater’s disassembly—the rupture of communal silence into the flicker of screens and the crackle of wrappers. I wanted to capture the moment when the film ends but its emotional architecture lingers in the objects and gestures left behind.
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Fackham Hall”: A Frothy Send‑Up That Trips, Grins, and Keeps Charging Forward
Fackham Hall is a featherweight but spirited satire of British period dramas, sending up every costume‑drama trope with a barrage of gags and visual mischief. Thomasin McKenzie and a game ensemble keep the chaos buoyant, even when the jokes pile up faster than the plot can breathe.
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SISU: THE ROAD TO REVENGE Finds Its Fury in the Long Walk Home
Sisu: The Road to Revenge” turns grief, endurance, and homecoming into a wild cascade of ultraviolent invention. Jorma Tommila’s stoic force steadies a film that keeps pushing its action pastiche into gloriously unhinged territory.
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“Ready or Not 2: Here I Come” Doubles Down on Class Rage, Carnage, and Samara Weaving’s Relentless Will to Survive
“Ready or Not 2: Here I Come” expands its world of deranged elites with sharper class satire, relentless violence, and a gripping central performance from Samara Weaving. The sequel repeats familiar beats but reinvents them with enough gory invention and emotional weight to stand on its own.
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Project Hail Mary Finds Its Pulse in the Dark
“Project Hail Mary” blends cosmic dread with a warm insistence on hope, carried by Ryan Gosling’s steady performance and a first-contact story that grows into an unlikely partnership. The film softens as it goes, yet its embrace of space’s beauty and terror gives it a lingering glow.
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The Transparent Mother
The Transparent Mother began as a refusal to sentimentalize disappearance. I wanted to write a poem where the mother’s vanishing wasn’t metaphor but physical fact—bare feet, bloody toes, a face turned away. The poem inherits her instability without naming it.
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A Family Under Siege: Anniversary Tracks the Drift Toward Obedience
Anniversary follows the Taylor family through five years of rising political pressure, using mood, structure, and performance to chart their gradual unraveling. Diane Lane leads a strong ensemble in a thriller that draws its power from ambiguity and emotional erosion.
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A Gentle Future in Peril: Arco Finds Its Glow in Small Human Moments
Arco blends earnest futurism with a grounded emotional story, carried by Romy Fay’s steady performance as Iris and Ugo Bienvenu’s meticulous direction. Its quiet world-building and gentle pacing create a sci-fi tale that favors connection over spectacle.
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Vigil
The poem’s central tension—what it means to breathe through another—emerged from thinking about dependence, care, and the porousness between bodies. I wanted the poem to feel like a held moment, a vigil in the literal sense: a watchfulness, a staying‑with.
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Signal Fault
Signal Fault began as an attempt to write a poem built entirely from sound and fracture. I wanted to see how far I could push minimalism without losing emotional pressure. The poem emerged from thinking about how identity behaves under distortion—how a name, a body, or a moment can feel like a signal rising through…
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The Voice of Hind Rajab: A Voice Held in the Dark
The Voice of Hind Rajab blends reenactment with the real recorded voice of a six‑year‑old girl trapped under fire in Gaza, creating a stark portrait of war’s human cost. The film follows the rescue workers who tried to reach her, revealing the crushing weight of bureaucracy, occupation, and lost innocence.
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WAR MACHINE: THE METAL YOU CARRY
War Machine turns a soldier’s buried grief into a relentless sci‑fi gauntlet, driven by Alan Ritchson’s hardened performance and Patrick Hughes’s muscular direction. The result is a bruising, mixed‑to‑positive action film that finds its strongest footing in the bond between 81 and 7.
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The Small Tremors of Living: A Little Prayer and the Burdened Grace of Family
A Little Prayer is a tender, emotionally pressurized portrait of a North Carolina family unraveling under the weight of secrets, anchored by a beautifully measured performance from David Strathairn. Angus MacLachlan crafts a drama of small gestures and seismic consequences, where every room hums with the tremor of unspoken need.
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A Monster With a Pulse: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! Reanimates Shelley With Fire
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! is a wild, time‑shifting resurrection of Mary Shelley’s legacy, anchored by Jessie Buckley’s fierce dual performance. A chaotic, genre‑hopping howl of female creation and rebellion, it pulses with unruly life even when its seams show.
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Santa Zeta Burns Through the Dark With a Blade Made of Light
“Santa Zeta” blends action, grief, and relentless momentum into a revenge‑thriller that refuses to look away from the darkest corners of our world. Nekane Otxoa delivers a fierce, unforgettable performance in a film that turns visibility into both weapon and warning.
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Hoppers”: A Wild, Warm‑Blooded Fable About Coexistence, Chaos, and the Strange Intelligence of the Animal World
Hoppers is a warm‑blooded, wildly imaginative Pixar fable that blends ecological urgency with absurdist humor and unexpected emotional depth. Daniel Chong and Jon Hamm steer this creature‑chaos into something tender, strange, and deeply alive.
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Slamdance 2026: The Rooms We Borrow: La Clef and the Strange Mercy of Being Seen
La Clef is a drifting, melancholy fable about three men who learn to live by disappearing into other people’s lives, only to discover that invisibility has a cost. Paul G. Sportiello directs a mixed‑to‑positive, quietly absurd tale of friendship, longing, and the fragile dignity of those who slip through society’s cracks.
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Slamdance 2026: Dump of Untitled Pieces: A City in Black‑and‑White: Dump of Untitled Pieces Finds Its Pulse in the Ruins of Art
Dump of Untitled Pieces is a monochrome, jazz‑tinged portrait of two young outsiders navigating Istanbul’s art world with wit, frustration, and unexpected grace. Melik Kuru’s mixed‑to‑positive gem critiques fake intellectualism while showcasing Manolya Maya’s magnetic performance as a photographer caught between authenticity and survival.
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A Mother’s Request
A Mother’s Request emerged from a desire to honor the physical and emotional pull of homeland in the face of death. I wrote it as a response to the quiet grief of diaspora—the longing to return, not metaphorically, but bodily, to the soil that shaped us.
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Slamdance 2026: Tony Odyssey: A Fevered Pilgrimage Through Monotony, Madness, and the Hope of Rewriting a Life
Tony Odyssey follows a young man who breaks from his suffocating routine and plunges into a surreal quest for meaning, guided by a stolen drug and a desperate hunger for change. Thales Banzai crafts a chaotic, visually bold odyssey that wrestles with existence, faith, and the hope of rewriting a life.
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Slamdance 2026: THREE COLORS: PAN-AFRICAN- A Flag Reimagined, A People in Motion
Three Colors: Pan-African reimagines Kieslowski’s iconic trilogy through the lens of the Pan-African flag, weaving three stories of liberation, unity, and prosperity. Its mixed textures gather into a vivid portrait of Black existence shaped by history, community, and aspiration.
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Morove Cemetery
Morove Cemetery” began as a walk through memory and inheritance. I wanted to write a poem that refused sentimentality while still holding grief in its architecture. The poem is built from objects—signs, stones, flowers, fences—that carry the emotional weight without commentary. It’s a landscape elegy, where the dead are marked by what survives them: rust,…
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Slamdance 2026: ZUMECA: A FIRE LIT IN THE FIRST DAWN OF THE AMERICAS
Zumeca transforms a true story into a lyrical meditation on conquest, faith, and forbidden love. Through the bond between Miguel and the Taíno cacique Zumeca, the film reveals the intimate human cost of the first collision of cultures in the Americas.
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The Summer Book Finds Its Tide Between Grief and Renewal
The Summer Book drifts through a season of grief, renewal, and intergenerational love on a Finnish island. Glenn Close and Emily Matthews lead a tender story about how families rebuild themselves one small moment at a time.
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Slamdance 2026: THE LAST LIGHT IN A DYING STRIP MALL: CLOVERS AND THE AMERICAN WAGER
Clovers is a bruised, empathetic portrait of a North Carolina strip‑mall casino community wrestling with faith, addiction, and the fading promise of the American Dream. Jennifer Paschal and JD Cranford give the film its emotional pulse, turning everyday survival into a kind of spiritual ritual.
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Slamdance 2026: A Story About You: A Boy Examined, A Chorus Remembered, A Week That Won’t Stop Explaining Itself
A Story About You is a mixed but compelling faux‑documentary drama about a young man trying to understand the women who keep redefining him. Joseph E. Austin II’s film over‑explains at times, but its intimate interviews and lyrical tension leave a lingering, searching ache.
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Slamdance 2026: BRB Finds Its Pulse in the Static of Early Internet Girlhood
BRB is a tender, chaotic road‑trip drama that explores sisterhood, early internet longing, and the fragile edges of adolescence. Autumn Best and Zoe Colletti bring raw, searching energy to a story that finds honesty in the static between childhood and adulthood.
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Slamdance 2026: Ten Will: A Man Running From His Shadow, Toward a Future That Won’t Hold Him
Ten Will is a jagged, poetic sprint through Los Angeles, following a man defined by a label he cannot outrun. Max DeFalco’s world‑premiere feature blends graphic‑novel grit with moral ambiguity to create a haunting portrait of redemption, delusion, and the stories we fear to believe.
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Slamdance 2026: MATAPANKI: PUNK FIRE, POLITICAL STATIC, AND THE COST OF WANTING TO FIX A BROKEN WORLD
Matapanki blends punk energy, graphic‑novel style, and political tension into a story about friendship, power, and the chaos of trying to change a country. Diego Fuentes delivers a film that stumbles, surges, and ultimately finds its voice in the improvisation of survival.
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Slamdance 2026: A Year Without a Map: 11 as Pandemic Document, Sensuous Snapshot, and the Birth of a Filmmaker
11 is a sensuous, lightly fictionalized document of the early pandemic, following a young filmmaker improvising her way through a year without direction. Bebe Go turns drift into texture, offering a portrait of an artist who keeps dreaming even as the world collapses around her.
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Slamdance 2026: Danny is My Boyfriend: A Comedy of Errors, Alliances, and Almost‑Triumphs
Danny Is My Boyfriend is a clumsy, charming comedy about two women who discover they’ve been dating the same man and form an unexpected alliance. With its mix of parody, heart, and chaotic revenge schemes, the film offers a warm, offbeat take on betrayal and bonding.
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Slamdance 2026: A Parrot Full of Ghosts, A Man Full of Cuba: The Old Man and the Parrot Finds Magic in Exile
The Old Man and the Parrot blends magical realism, Cuban memory, and the restless spirit of exile into a heartfelt tale of grief and release. Ruben Rabasa delivers a luminous performance in a story where myth, family, and faith guide a man toward a hard-won freedom.
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Slamdance 2026: The Circle That Never Breaks: The Plan and the Fever of Belief
The Plan unfolds in a single, breath-held sweep, capturing a group of young believers preparing for an act that will reshape their world. Jessica Barr crafts a thriller of menace, devotion, and fracture, carried by a powerful ensemble led by Ryan Simpkins.
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TICONDEROGA
TICONDEROGA began as a meditation on the physical relationship between body and object—specifically, the pencil as a site of memory, refusal, and violence. I wanted to write a poem that treated the pencil as a forensic artifact. The bite marks, the flaking paint, the taste of wood—all of these are real, bodily details. The poem…
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Wail
Wail began as a test of restraint. I wanted to write a death poem without ornament, without metaphor, without reaching for comfort. The whale song emerged early—strange, bodily, and distant—and I kept it because it refused explanation. The poem is about sound that leaves the body and doesn’t come back. It’s about the final sleep…
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Urchin Finds Its Pulse in the Shadows: Frank Dillane’s Descent and Drift Toward Something Almost Tender
Urchin follows Frank Dillane’s Mike through addiction, recovery, relapse, and the surreal visions that haunt his search for a future. Harris Dickinson directs with a steady pulse, shaping a story that drifts between grit and dream with startling emotional force.
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The Road They Will Leave By
The Road They Will Leave By” began as a meditation on exclusion and memory. I wanted to write a poem that refused sentimentality and simile, one that relied on physical detail and emotional pressure to convey the quiet violence of being remembered wrongly—or not at all. The soldier’s camouflage, the elders’ breath, the locking of…
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A Ladder Built From Shadows: How to Make a Killing Finds Its Fierce American Pulse
How to Make a Killing transforms a classic tale into a dark, lyrical study of ambition, faith, and American wealth. Glenn Powell leads a vivid ensemble in a story that glows with sharp satire and spiritual tension.
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East of Wall: Finds a Tender Pulse in Hard Country
East of Wall follows a horse trainer fighting to keep her ranch alive while guiding a group of troubled teenagers toward steadier ground. Tabatha Zimiga’s luminous performance anchors a story of grief, responsibility, and the fragile beauty of chosen family.
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My Mother’s Wedding; Winter Vows in a House Filled With Memory
My Mother’s Wedding offers a tender winter portrait of three daughters returning home to witness their mother’s new beginning. Scarlett Johansson and Kristin Scott Thomas guide a story filled with warmth, legacy, and the courage to choose love again.
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A Day That Refuses to Vanish: Ben Whishaw in Peter Hujar’s Day
A drifting, luminous portrait of Peter Hujar’s creative life in 1974 New York, anchored by Ben Whishaw’s soulful performance. Ira Sachs shapes a single day into a meditation on art, desire, memory, and the fragile rituals that keep an artist alive.
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Hedda in the Water: Tessa Thompson Rewrites the Storm
Nia DaCosta’s Hedda transforms Ibsen’s classic into a charged, emotionally rich drama anchored by Tessa Thompson’s magnetic performance. This reimagining blends desire, ambition, and reinvention into a film that lingers long after its final image.
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Primitive War Finds Fire in the Jungle
Primitive War delivers a fierce collision of Vietnam War tension and dinosaur‑driven spectacle, anchored by Ryan Kwanten’s steady presence. The film’s blend of science, survival, and prehistoric fury creates a wild, irresistible experience.
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Wuthering Heights: Emerald Fennell Turns the Moors Into a Fever Dream of Desire and Ruin
Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights delivers a fierce, sensual reimagining of Cathy and Heathcliff’s doomed romance, powered by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s electrifying performances. This adaptation embraces passion, cruelty, jealousy, and generational fury with a boldness that leaves a lasting mark.
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Eternity Opens Its Doors: A Mostly Radiant Journey Beyond Time
Eternity offers a radiant exploration of love across lifetimes, carried by Elizabeth Olsen’s stirring performance. David Freyne crafts a poetic afterlife tale where devotion, choice, and self‑knowledge shape the path toward forever.
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Scarred Body Valentine
Scarred Body Valentine emerged from the aftermath of a surgical trauma that reshaped both my body and my marriage. I wanted to write a poem that refused sentimentality and instead honored the raw, procedural reality of healing—where love is not a balm but a shared endurance. The poem is structured as a medical descent into…
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Crime 101 Turns the Freeway Into a Living Textbook of Desire and Design
Crime 101 delivers a vibrant, character‑driven heist story that doubles as a masterclass in crime‑film construction. Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo lead a cast that turns the 101 freeway into a living blueprint of ambition, tension, and desire.
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A Young Goat’s Ascent: A Review of Goat
Goat delivers a soaring sports tale infused with emotional richness and historical resonance. Caleb McLaughlin shines as Will Harris, guiding the film toward a stirring celebration of ambition and unity.
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Reclamation
Reclamation began as a meditation on the chalk line—first as a metaphor for confinement, then as a literal aura traced by radiation machines. I wanted to write a poem that didn’t glorify survival but acknowledged its cost: the neuropathy, the pouchitis, the ache where the colon once lived. The poem lives in the tension between…
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Wepa en el Estadio — Wepa in the Stadium (Poema en tres formas boricuas)
This poem began as a celebration of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance—a moment where Puerto Rican identity, spectacle, and street energy collided on the world’s biggest stage. I wanted to honor the poetic forms of my heritage—copia, décima, bomba—while letting the rhythms of Spanglish, reggaetón, and crowd chant shape the pulse. The poem is…
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A Country on Fire, A Family in Motion: Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Embeth Davidtz’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight brings Alexandra Fuller’s memoir to the screen with emotional clarity and a vivid sense of place. The film explores family, land, and race in Zimbabwe during a period of profound political transformation.
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Splitsville Finds Its Heart in the Wreckage of Desire
Splitsville explores the tangled threads of divorce, open relationships, and friendship with a tender, searching spirit. Dakota Johnson leads a cast that turns emotional chaos into a story filled with warmth, ache, and unexpected renewal.
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Dracula (2026) — A Crimson Hymn of Love and Salvation
Luc Besson’s Dracula transforms the legendary vampire into a romantic hero whose journey toward salvation unfolds through devotion, sacrifice, and eternal love. Caleb Landry Jones delivers a radiant performance in a film that blends gothic grandeur with a deeply Christian vision of redemption.
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Imprint
“Imprint” began as a meditation on the body’s relationship to memory and terrain. I wrote it after revisiting a childhood site—an abandoned road where I once fell. The poem maps that moment not as trauma but as blueprint: a record of contact, fear, and transformation. The quoted line is real, spoken aloud in panic, and…
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The Weight of a Name: It Was Just an Accident
A charged and lyrical review of Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, exploring its powerful journey through memory, confession, and the fragile space between vengeance and mercy. Vahid Mobasseri and Mariam Afshari deliver performances that illuminate the film’s emotional fire.
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Solo Mio Finds Grace in the Ruins of a Wedding Day
Solo Mio follows Kevin James through a luminous journey across Italy after a wedding day collapse becomes the start of something fuller. The film blends heartfelt comedy, spiritual reflection, and unexpected companionship into a story that celebrates renewal.
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