The Moya View
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Poet’s First Bath
Falling into the soothing waters all around his infant body- the gurgle of words, meanings to reach with his hands until his mind is ready to explore them, the possibility of something so beautiful that he would spend his life defining her, the knowing of her every single word.
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Ordinary Angels: Creating Extraordinary Acts of Kindness and Tenacity
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: Based on a remarkable true story, ORDINARY ANGELS centers on Sharon Steves (Hilary Swank), a fierce but struggling hairdresser in small-town Kentucky who discovers a renewed sense of purpose when she meets Ed Schmitt (Alan Ritchson), a widower working hard to make ends meet for his two daughters. With his…
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Freedom’s Path: The Defiant Ones of the Civil War
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: After a Union soldier flees from battle, rescue comes unexpectedly from a free black man operating a section of the Underground Railroad. But when a ruthless and desperate slave catcher discovers the secret network, he conspires to bring it burning to the ground. REVIEW: Sometimes, a movie will get shelved…
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Mea Culpa: Tyler Perry Does Housewives Stupid
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: When criminal defense attorney Mea Harper (Kelly Rowland) takes on the murder case of artist Zyair Malloy (Trevante Rhodes), the truth isn’t as obvious as it seems. While she tries to determine the innocence or guilt of her cagy-yet-seductive client, it is uncovered that everyone is guilty of something. Tyler…
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All of Us Strangers: Souls Longing for the Impossible
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam (Andrew Scott) has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal), which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn…
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The Zone of Interest: The Holocaust as Hidden Camera and Background Soundtrack
MOVIE INFO The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp. REVIEW: The Zone of Interest a Holocaust film about Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz, opens in idyllic blackness— to the sounds of…
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Play Ball! (Haiku)
This big green diamond waits for these boys of summer to make it sparkle.
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Questions Left After the Big Bang
Suppose the stars burn with a just divine neither man nor beast can rightly define?A blessed passion we can not returnand that humbles all love in its big burn?Will we miss them more should they glow awayleaving all to define their life long way?Will we look at the then starless night skyand remember there were…
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Rotting in the Sun: Instagram Real like NC-17 Real and Just as Vapid
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: Writer-director Sebastián Silva’s Sundance hit ROTTING IN THE SUN is a darkly funny and refreshingly audacious meta-comedy that skewers the business of filmmaking and our self-obsessed culture. While unwinding at a Mexican gay beach town, depressed director Sebastián Silva meets gregarious Instagram influencer Jordan Firstman (both playing versions of themselves),…
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Two Haikus On the Death of Youth
Dead leaves underneath:The grief of a now shorn thing That knew sky and stars.The dew has dried.The red blossom shadow’s grows—Exhales, fades away.
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Thanksgiving: Eli Roth Dishes Up a Turkey Day Anti-Consumerist Satire With All the Best Horror Trimmings
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts — the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan. Will the town uncover the…
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Other People’s Children: Feeling the True Romance
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: Rachel is 40 years old, with no children. She loves her life: her high school students, her friends, her ex, her guitar lessons. When she falls in love with Ali, she becomes attached to Leila, his 4-year-old daughter. She tucks her into bed, cares for her, loves her like her…
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Next Goal Wins: A Winning Strategy
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: Directed by Academy Award Winner Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Ragnarok), NEXT GOAL WINS follows the American Samoa soccer team, infamous for their brutal 31-0 FIFA loss in 2001. With the World Cup Qualifiers approaching, the team hires down-on-his-luck, maverick coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender) hoping he will turn the…
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Why I Write
I didn’t start writing poems because I felt the indifference of nature,or soon after my mother diedon a hot September day.I never sat on a stone bench weeping with the blooming lilies and roses all aroundor wrote because something wasblack and broken inside meor to correct the world’s injusticesor any such serious poetic stuff.No, I…
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Ocean Apostrophe
The ocean still spits up toys and shoesyears after the hurricanes blew threw.The erosion of sand below the water andon the beach display other sadnesses.The unwanted apostrophe between sea and shore,the warning red sky and the calm cerise night breaks into crescents on the bay, each moonbeam an invisible memory.The union of jealous wind and…
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Lisa Frankenstein: Putting the Pieces Together in the Wrong Places
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: A coming of RAGE love story from acclaimed writer Diablo Cody (Jennifer’s Body) about a misunderstood teenager and her high school crush, who happens to be a handsome corpse. After a set of playfully horrific circumstances bring him back to life, the two embark on a murderous journey to find…
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The Last Voyage of the Demeter; Making Way for the Nosferatu
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Based on a single chilling chapter from Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula, The Last Voyage of the Demeter tells the terrifying story of the merchant ship Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo–fifty unmarked wooden crates–from Carpathia to London. Strange events befall the doomed crew as they attempt to…
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And Then Comes the Nightjars: An Elegy to Hoof and Mouth and Mouth in Foot
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes : Adapted for the screen from Bea Roberts’ multi-award-winning stage play, And Then Come the Nightjars tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a Devon farmer and the vet who is assigned to cull his precious herd. Review: And Then Comes the Nightjars is a poignant film about male…
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Cinderella in the Second Trump Administration
Cinderella polished the ache in her—washing walls, scrubbing floors,stirring, stirring, stirring the pot, cleaning windows over, overand over again— was her grief.The lady of the house (calling her stepmother she could not do-not that orange haired demon)bellowed her demands: “When one goes to my windowsand looks out, they must be in real doubt whether it…
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Upgraded: A Slightly Better Seat of a Rom Com
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Ana (Camila Mendes) is an ambitious intern dreaming of a career in the art world while trying to impress her demanding boss Claire (Marisa Tomei). When she’s upgraded to first class on a work trip, she meets handsome Will (Archie Renaux), who mistakes Ana for her boss–a white lie that…
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Silent Little Boy
The mother watches her first child in his first wintercatch fistfuls of sun—watches the dust and airriding down to the crib—waiting for the mobile to play sweet music in the arc of light—and the sweep of his hand to its frame.The melody plays but not the words.It’s for mother and childto complete. The mother knows…
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Journey to Bethlehem: Mary the Disney Princess With a “Gleeful” Spirit
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: A young woman carrying an unimaginable responsibility. A young man torn between love and honor. A jealous king who will stop at nothing to keep his crown. This live-action Christmas musical adventure for the entire family weaves classic Christmas melodies with humor, faith and new pop songs in a retelling…
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In Passing (Haiku Chain)
Slowly time crushesthe coal black of all nighttimeto diamond morningsand the bud quivers only in the mystery of its blossoming in the wide meadow-lost in precious existence with the nastic night. ————nastic: the non-directional movement of a plant part in response to an external stimulus is known as nastic movement . The folding up of…
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The Marvels: Not So Much Modern Marvels
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled…
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Deliver Us: From All The Shining Riffs
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: When a nun in a remote convent claims immaculate conception, the Vatican sends a team of priests to investigate, concerned about an ancient prophecy that a woman will give birth to twin boys: one the Messiah, the other the Anti-Christ. Review: I hate it when a halfway decent religious horror…
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Dicks: The Musical: Love Is Love, Even When It’s Gross
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Two self-obsessed businessmen discover they’re long-lost identical twins and come together to plot the reunion of their eccentric divorced parents. Review: Dicks: The Musical features lots of talk about dicks, most of it of the sixth grade boy kind, and for the adults (the director is Larry Charles of Borat…
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Poesy for the Grown-Up Child
(The poem is best read in landscape view, so as to keep the original formatting intact.) This year when the ginormous flamingos arrived Harold and Lilith, little brother and sister so, lassoed the pinkest and to the sky they arose— above all the straw maidens playing games with life’s fire, the slow dancing couple living…
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Oblivion
Sprinkle my ashes in an unknown spot, neglected by everyone but you. Let those who forget me, forget me. My death won’t revive their utter lack of life, relieve their petty jealousies, hates. The tribute of an unknown walker spreading my dust is honor enough, living in your secret oblivion, my joy.
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American Fiction: Getting to the Inauthentic-Authentic Black Story
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: AMERICAN FICTION is Cord Jefferson’s hilarious directorial debut, which confronts our culture’s obsession with reducing people to outrageous stereotypes. Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a frustrated novelist who’s fed up with the establishment profiting from “Black” entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, Monk uses…
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Orion and the Dark: Confronting the Eternal Darkness of the Child’s Mind
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: The thing Orion fears the most is the dark. When the embodiment of his worst fear pays a visit, Dark whisks Orion away on a roller-coaster ride around the world to prove there is nothing to be afraid of at night. Review: Charlie Kaufman’s name on a screenplay guarantees a…
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The Night Is a Triptych
You sit invisible in the green chair of the diner not enough lightto cast a shadowthe dinner is tastelessyou think you have Covid on the way back to the car your footsteps sink into the blacktopgetting lost in the yellow overheadsthe strippings belowYou trip, stumblefind the carstruggle with the keysthe opening the closing all the…
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The Other Zoey: A Romcom Where You Wish for an Avalanche Before the First Kiss
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Zoey Miller (Josephine Langford), a smart computer major who thinks she has love all figured out, has her life turned upside down when Zach (Drew Starkey), a popular college soccer player, gets amnesia and mistakes Zoey as his girlfriend. Before she can reveal the truth, she meets Zach’s cousin, Miles…
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You Hurt My Feeling: How She Deals With It
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: From acclaimed filmmaker Nicole Holofcener comes a sharply observed comedy about a novelist whose long standing marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband give his honest reaction to her latest book. A film about trust, lies, and the things we say to the people we love most.Content collapsed.…
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Poor Things: Welcome to the Monster Mish-Mash
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: From filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and producer Emma Stone comes the incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she…
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Walking Along the Bay Beach at Night
The dusty stars above, the stars in waves besides,where the very sand is dust.The bay is the nightinseparable from the starsand the winding coastline,the brilliant creatures tide-linedin the black sands swirlsas we walk in their darkness—star ash, beyond the life watch,the dusty light of their spiralaway from the swish and spill,the other walkers walking back,holding…
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Moon Play
The moon slipped into his room a suitcase of light seeking commiseration,The boy imagined three stars stolen from the Northern Sky packed inside.The beam stopped by the bookcase,thumbed its light on a few titles,and since the books would not open and confess their wordsdrifted its attention to the unexpected life awakening on the other side—a…
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Song of the Air
The dying fisherman stares at the sea gray as his hair, cap and clothes-knowing the day he freed the tangledmermaid from the kelp, and how she spoke of the brine and slid back into the waves. On this last day of his nothing, she appears- and he hides behind the mast so she would not…
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The Oven Bird
The song of this ugly bird fills the kitchen and escapes through the window, this thing that could only gobble in life, teaching the tree one to sing. Note: There are two birds being referred to: the first- the turkey in the oventhe second- an actual bird species, the ovenbird.
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Sundance Review: In the Summers: Estrangement and Maturity in the Reeling of the Years
Movie info via Sundance: On a journey that spans the formative years of their lives, two sisters navigate their loving but volatile father during their yearly summer visits to his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico. With grounded thoughtfulness, debut feature director Alessandra Lacorazza weaves a rich tapestry of memories in New Mexico as childhood…
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Sundance Review: Ponyboi: An Intersex Neon Noir
Movie info via Sundance: Unfolding over the course of Valentine’s Day in New Jersey, a young intersex sex worker must run from the mob after a drug deal goes sideways, forcing him to confront his past. Ponyboi bursts off the screen in this bombastic, edgy, and campy roller-coaster ride of a film. Flipping the script…
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Sundance Review: Exhibiting Forgiveness: All the Suns of Fathers and Sons Absolved in Heaven
Movie info via Sundance: Utilizing his paintings to find freedom from his past, a Black artist on the path to success is derailed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father, a recovering addict desperate to reconcile. Together, they learn that forgetting might be a greater challenge than forgiving. This soulful, sophisticated, and beautifully crafted…
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Sundance: Good One: Hiking with All the Flawed Dads
Movie info via Sundance: On a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills, 17-year-old Sam contends with the competing egos of her father and his oldest friend. India Donaldson’s intimate feature debut deploys a deceptively simple narrative imbued with poetry and humor to wrestle with weighty truths about teenage girlhood. Capturing the pristine serenity of the…
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Sundance Review: Stress Positions: A Virus Comedy that Manages to Infect Itself
Movie info via Sundance: Terry Goon is keeping strict quarantine in his ex-husband’s Brooklyn brownstone while caring for his nephew — a 19-year-old model from Morocco named Bahlul — bedridden in a full leg cast after an electric scooter accident. Unfortunately for Terry, everyone in his life wants to meet the model. Stress Positions is…
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Sundance Review: Love Me: Human Constructs Falling in Love, Hurtling to Their Doom
Movie info via Sundance: Long after humanity’s extinction, a buoy and a satellite meet online and fall in love. As filmmakers Sam & Andy demonstrate in their wildly imaginative debut feature, telling the love story of a smart buoy and an orbiting satellite that spans a billion years and probes the mysteries of being and…
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Sundance Review: Didi: The Asian Invention to Being an American Teen
Movie info via Sundance: In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom. In his striking directorial debut, Sean Wang takes us on a kinetic ride through…
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Sundance Review: Between the Temples: The Nice Jewish Girl Version of Harold and Maude
Movie info via Sundance: A cantor in a crisis of faith finds his world turned upside down when his grade school music teacher reenters his life as his new adult bat mitzvah student. Between the Temples is a rare, offbeat comedy buoyed by its cast’s lively yet heartfelt performances. Indie stalwart Nathan Silver reteams with…
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Sundance Review: Suncoast: Finding Grief, Friends and Freedom in a Coming of Age Story
Movie info via Sundance: A teenager who, while caring for her brother along with her audacious mother, strikes up an unlikely friendship with an eccentric activist who is protesting one of the most landmark medical cases of all time. Inspired by a semi-autobiographical story. Writer-director Laura Chinn makes an unforgettable debut with a script inspired…
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Sundance Review: A Real Pain: Reconciling the Eternal Pain of Jewish Existence
Movie info via Sundance Mismatched cousins David and Benji reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. Writer-director Jesse Eisenberg (When You Finish Saving the World, 2022 Sundance Film Festival) returns to the Festival…
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Slamdance Review: Brando With a Glass Eye: The Madness That Lies Behind “The Method”
Movie info via Slamdance: Athens, Greece. Luca resorts to armed robbery to fund his dream of studying Method Acting in New York. In a heist gone wrong, he accidentally critically injures Ilias, an innocent bystander. While visiting Ilias in the hospital trauma ward, Luca forms an unlikely friendship, but he keeps his crime a secret.…
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Slamdance Review: The Complex Forms: All the Illusions of the Mind and Soul
Movie info via Slamdance: There is an ancient villa where desperate people have the opportunity to revive their fortunes by selling their bodies to mysterious entities in exchange of money. When huge and age-old creatures emerge from the deep woods surrounding the villa, a series of strange and sinister events prompt three unlikely guests to…
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Slamdance Review: African Giants: Reconnecting, Reconciling, the African, African American Experience and Their Brotherhood
Movie info via Slamdance: Alhaji (28), an aspiring actor living in Los Angeles, is visited for a weekend by his younger brother, Sheku (25), a law student. Unknown to Alhaji, Sheku has come with a specific intention: to reveal the secret that he will be dropping out of law school and moving to LA to…
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Slamdance Review: All I’ve Got & Then Some: A Comic Refines His Shtick and Finds His Voice
Movie info via Slamdance Based on a true story, All I’ve Got & Then Some follows a day in the life of Rasheed, a homeless stand-up comedian living out of his car in Los Angeles, giving everything he’s got to make his dreams come true. Having booked his first paid stand-up gig, this day is…
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Slamdance Review: The Bitcoin Car: The Hills Are Alive With the Glow of Crypto
Movie info via Slamdance: THE BITCOIN CAR is a musical adventure in which a young goat farmer on a small coastal village finds herself on collision course with the megalomaniac death wish of a young crypto investor. After her brother comes home for the summer, she has to explain that she’s partially responsible for the…
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Slamdance Review: The Accident: Trying to Tow the Line in an Italian Way
Movie info via Slamdance After being fired, Marcella, a gentle hearted mother going through separation, buys a tow truck; she gets trapped deeper and deeper in a cynical and aggressive world until a terrible opportunity shines in front of her. Review: Giuseppe Garau’s The Accident is shot strictly from the passenger side of the leading…
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Slamdance Review: Sam’s World: Non Binary Drama With Too Much Talk and Little Real Insight.
Movie info via Slamdance: Sam’s World follows the immersive subjectivity of its main character, Sam, as they grapple with a decision about their secret pregnancy, fantasize about a more supportive partner, and feel dissociated from their friend group. The film centers around a hyper-niche milieu but manages to evoke the universal themes of identity, jealousy…
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Slamdance Review: Darla in Space: Scoby Dooby Doo
Movie info via Slamdance: Darla runs a business called Kitty Kasket, LLC which makes custom burial receptacles for recently deceased loved ones (of the pet variety). It is an up-and-coming business, so Darla is stunned to learn that she owes $349,00.22 in taxes, due in one month! While filling in for her mom Leona cleaning…
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Behind the photo of the boy on the rubble
The boy sits atop of the rubble of his homeHis father lies silent twelve feet belowHis infancy has fallen from that summitThe darkness chokes his gentle neckNeedles of despair push into himTheir sharpness kills his heartInside he feels all his organs shrivel His tears fertilize the moundFrom them, a black flower seedsIts delicate roots claw…
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The Kitchen: Resisting the Gentrification of Hell’s Kitchen
MOVIE INFO- ROTTEN TOMATOES: London, 2040 — rising house prices, computerized labor and eradication of the Welfare State has turned the city into a billionaire’s playground, pushing the lower classes to provincial empty slum-like high rises like The Kitchen. Ex-Smash-and-Grabber Izi is desperate to go straight but when his young son contracts a devastating illness,…
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Fallen Leaves: Reviving Dead Souls
MOVIE INFO- ROTTEN TOMATOES In modern-day Helsinki, two lonely souls in search of love meet by chance in a local karaoke bar. However, the pair’s path to happiness is beset by numerous obstacles — from lost numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism, and a charming stray dog. Reviews : Aki Kaurismaki has a visual style all…
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Revoir Paris: Salvaging the Gaps of a Shattered Memory
MOVIE INFO- ROTTEN TOMATOES: After an idyllic date night full of red wine and a late-night motorcycle ride home, Mia (Virginie Efira) stops at a Parisian bistro to take shelter from a downpour. Her reprieve is shattered when a gunman opens fire. Three months later, with a frustratingly hazy memory of the attack, Mia finds…
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Fremont: An Afghan Immigrant Looks for Her Right Place
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Donya works for a Chinese fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Formerly a translator for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, she struggles to put her life back in order. In a moment of sudden revelation, she decides to send out a special message in a cookie. Review: Fremont is a…
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Gift of a Good Little Girl
After brooding on many deaths I decided to take a walk in the bright winter sunbefore it steals away for the coming night.The wind is blowing harsh, delivering a muddle of birdsong,cacophonies of voices,mostly from behind,one or two familiar,but only one voice,now in front, wasclear and distinct. A little dog, maybe, a chi or a…
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Mean Girls: Doesn’t Mess With What Made Them Mean in the First Place
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: From the comedic mind of Tina Fey comes a new twist on the modern classic, MEAN GIRLS. New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called “The Plastics,” ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina…
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After October 7th
He had collected remains for most of his lifebut now can’t stand the smell of grilled meatHis son marks time from that fateful date,everything before that, lost in time’s horror.His son-in-law now gags at the smell of rotten food.They work to bring the families of the dead closure,even though there is no real closure for…
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On Reading of the Demolition of the Once Good Hospital of My Birth
I think He made this hospital beautiful this place of dying, birthing, healing and enduring—How It opened up like a prayermonumental and pleasinga place to tend God and body—How He wanted those returning from sleep not to know the smell of cotton but the feel of traveling into a kiss—How He made it to repeat…
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The Retirement Plan: Nic Cage Gives Us His Less Comic Side
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: In The Retirement Plan, when Ashley (Ashley Greene) and her young daughter Sarah (Thalia Campbell) get caught up in a criminal enterprise that puts their lives at risk, she turns to the only person who can help — her estranged father Matt (Nicolas Cage), currently living the life of a…
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Self Reliance: Creating the Great Slacker Average Comedy-Thriller
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: When a middle-aged man (Jake Johnson) is invited into a limo by famous actor Andy Samberg, his dull life takes a thrilling turn. Johnson is offered a chance to win a million dollars in a dark web reality TV show, where assassins from all over the world attempt to kill…
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Clarity
Joy rises in feathered swirls on sorrow’s wings, above the illumined dusk— the grieving heart of all living things.
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Mischief
It’s odd how my lifehas balanced on some rat mischief-floating around-curing me previously, gnawing at me the next.Having nibbled my fingertips clean,they gnaw my toes.The three blind micelend me their stick,“It’s your cane,” they say.I beat them away knowing they will return either by drip or thru the walls. Notes: A group of rats is…
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Christos
The beautiful things he made came back to him: the long tableof good wood built solid, true;the simple seatscarved even, joinedtogether perfectly right;the hung doors that swung cleanas he passed;even the crossbeamhe swayed from— his blessed creation.
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Passages: A F-upped Menage a Trois
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Celebrated filmmaker Ira Sachs (Love is Strange) makes a breathtaking return with PASSAGES, a fresh, honest and brutally funny take on messy, modern relationships, starring Franz Rogowski (Great Freedom), Ben Whishaw (Women Talking) and Adèle Exarchopoulos (Blue Is the Warmest Colour). Set in Paris, this seductive drama tells the story…
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The Passenger: The Psycho Thriller as Therapy
Movie info (Rotten Tomatoes): Randy (Johnny Berchtold) is perfectly content fading into the background. But when his coworker Benson (Kyle Gallner) goes on a sudden and violent rampage leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, Randy is forced to face his fears and confront his troubled past to survive. Review: The Passenger, the new…
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Rattlesnake
I tasted rattlesnake once at the annual Wild Hog BBQ held at the old Ocohopee fair grounds.It came in inch thick fork stabbed slabs on a Hefty styrofoam plate.It did not taste like chicken.The hog, however, was sweet,tangy, full of saucy squealing death,and nothing like chicken at all.Back home, my grounded sister,punched me hard in…
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Bank of Dave: The Small Fry Shakes Up the Big Banks
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Based on the true-life experiences of Dave Fishwick; ‘Bank of Dave’ tells the story of how a working class Burnley man and self-made millionaire fought to set up a community bank. Dave Fishwick (Rory Kinnear) sells vans in Burnley, Lancashire. Once the world’s most productive and profitable mill town, Burnley…
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I want to tell you something nice
Awake, awake my love!I want to tell you something.In summer nights I can hear stars falling,the sound of the big city revel.I want to tell you something niceabout the darkness you believewe live in and are forever going against,how the world stops spinningcatches fire, falls in our hearts.I want to tell you something goodabout how…
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Good Grief: Getting to the Point that “Somehow Life Goes On”
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Marc (Daniel Levy) was content living in the shadow of his larger-than-life husband, Oliver (Luke Evans). But when Oliver unexpectedly dies, Marc’s world shatters, sending him and his two best friends, Sophie (Ruth Negga) and Thomas (Himesh Patel), on a soul-searching trip to Paris that reveals some hard truths they…
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Society of the Snow: Getting Past Survival and Hunger to Know Life
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile, crashed in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of its 45 passengers survived the accident. Trapped in one of the most hostile and inaccessible environments on the planet, they have to…
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a dead poet is discovered
They discovered him in the sandthe dead poethis wordsall of themground to a nice meterthat and his clothesthe only things not rotting in the sun the only place where he never can be and stillread his poems
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One Fine Morning: Living in the Joie De Vivre
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Sandra, a young mother who raises her daughter alone, pays regular visits to her sick father. While she and her family fight tooth and nail to get him the care he requires, Sandra reconnects with Clément, a friend she hasn’t seen in a while. Although he is in a relationship,…
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Morning Routine
The leaving night reveals the city’s imperfectionsin the reflecting crystal fires of the rising sun. Coffee brews in simultaneous percolations with the morning subway schedules.TVs switch on the 6am newscasters speaking the demon chants of the last day’s news. Knives descend on bread, sausage, eggsunaware of angel’s ascending in the new light.The last of glass…
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What Remains?
What remains left of holidays if the days of the week dissolve and stop fading into seasonscars refuse to travel on tarmac& shopping centers become empty& our unharvested crops return to jungleWill we live backwards livesrevel in a smaller world to inhabitwith more birds and seen starsfind bliss in ordinary existence
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Rain Chapter and Verse
He fell in love with the rainvolumes and volumes sheets upon sheetseach drop a wet memorya weather forecast of himThere he was a child in yellowand black rubber bootssplashing up and downfeeling the pinging on his hoodthe flavor of pond on his tongueputting his existence on hold for maybe days and dayslocked away in play…
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this is not my poem
Today the poem I wrote was not the poem I wanted to writeI think it was a decent poemmaybe even a good oneI got enough sleepI thinkThe moon was not shining in the roomthe sun was getting brightThe screen had no stars stripesexclamation marksnothing showing I fell asleep on the keyboardNothing had been erasedNothing deletedEvery…
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A Secret Poem
He buried her kiss.For thirteen months it stayed hidden.She did not knowit was lying there.He did not tell her.When it was time,after she fell asleep, he dug the kiss upand pressed it into a little box he especially madefull of cotton.He walked to the garden,dug a two kiss deep grave under her favorite tree and…
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The Iron Claw: Triumph and Defeats of a WWE HOF Family
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothershttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Erich_family, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports. Review: In…
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Best and Worst Ranked Movies of 2023
I don’t do top ten best or worst list. However, I will give you an unranked list of my best and worst culled from my excel data sheet I keep. These movies were rated 4.0 and above. They’re in alphabetical order. Fancy Dance La Pecera Aftersun All Quiet on the Western Front Women Talking John…
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Ferrari: Racing to Reclaim a Dead Soul
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Ferrari is set during the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle and danger of 1950’s Formula 1, ex-racer, Enzo Ferrari, is in crisis. Bankruptcy stalks the company he and his wife, Laura, built from nothing ten years earlier. Their tempestuous marriage struggles with the mourning for their one son. Ferrari…
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The Fruit
The apple trees emerge from winter sleepcascades of pink-white blooming bright starsbecoming eye memories for the kitchen child eating cherries with cream amidst the cooking spring lamb, the figs, fresh peas, mint As the trees put on their leaves, add yet another ringthe mother puts on the ghost grandmother’s coatfilled with blue-veined memories of the…
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The Color Purple: Getting to an Awkwardly Joyous Being
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: A story of love and resilience based on the novel and the Broadway musical, THE COLOR PURPLE is a decades-spanning tale of one woman’s journey to independence. Celie faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood. Review: It’s hard…
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A Harsh Wind
The wind howls in smelling of prisons, cemeteries, hospital ashes— misery.“What does it want from us?”,the people ask. The wind does not answer.They, demand it go away,scram like a lost, confused doglooking desperately for its owner.Instead the wind blows their paintings off their hooks,knocks over their table lights,blows their precious paperswith their meaningful wordsoff their…
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Sound of Freedom: Not exactly a QANON Clapback
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Sound of Freedom, based on the incredible true story, shines a light on even the darkest of places. After rescuing a young boy from ruthless child traffickers, a federal agent learns the boy’s sister is still captive and decides to embark on a dangerous mission to save her. With time…
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Heavier than Age
Morning heavier than ageleaves the birds weighted to the limbs, unable to break out in riotous morning song.In the distance— a church bell,people in black creeping around-“Heaven. Heaven,” in their earsfor the poor soul laying beneath.They wish to hear only the sea.The old sea. The new sea. Any sea— to catch their tears, drown their…
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A Small Post Christmas Miracle
He watched his grandma create this wonderful thing stitch by stitch, just for him, in her remaining free time.He was mesmerized by the looping and pulling, the unraveling skeins meldinginto this beautiful blanket of many colors.By November it had started showing flashes of his favorite hues: blue, green, yellow— black stitching separating into squares.He imagined…
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Songs for When I Am Dead, My Dearest
When I am dead and ash, my love, keep me close or throw me away- do whatever your heart so desires.Sit on the dock of the bay and sing that favorite song of mine to the gulls.Just remember I wasn’t made tobe planted under a hardy oak or buried under a manicured lawnto see the…
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The Three Musketeers Part 1 D’Artagnan: Dumas Would Approve
Info via Rotten Tomatoes: In Part I of the two-part epic adaptation of the beloved classic by Alexandre Dumas, D’Artagnan arrives in Paris trying to find his attackers after being left for dead, which leads him to a real war where the future of France is at stake. He aligns himself with Athos, Porthos and…
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Saltburn: Doing the Dirty Work a Fine Young Man Needs to Do
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Academy Award winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) brings us a beautifully wicked tale of privilege and desire. Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who invites him…
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Wonka: Lots of Chocolate and a Little Paddington Confection
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Based on the extraordinary character at the center of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl’s most iconic children’s book and one of the best-selling children’s books of all time, “Wonka” tells the wondrous story of how the world’s greatest inventor, magician and chocolate-maker became the beloved Willy Wonka we…
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Maestro: Requiem for the Agony and Ectasy of an American Master Maestro
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Maestro is a towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love. Review: Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s emotional biography of Leonard Bernstein’s (Cooper)…
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Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget- Don’t Believe that Heaven Is Finger Licking Good
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes : Having escaped from the farm, Ginger and Rocky welcome a new little adventurer into their lives. Back on the mainland, the whole of chicken-kind faces a terrible new threat. Review: Chickens are naturally funny, almost cartoonish in the way they cluck, attempt to fly and ambulate. So Chicken Run:…
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One Tough Dog
The dog had been shot and knew of pain-the bullet that enters from a mean master dishing out daily doses of cruelty. The dog, had slinkedaway to die, but lived— the bullet scared over, resting perilously close to his heart,rubbing silently against muscle and bone.You didn’t find him. someone kinder did,took him to the shelter,where…
Got any book recommendations?