Sketches on THE BOY AND THE HERON, or, “How Do You Live?”

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A few nights ago, on Christmas, 2023, my circumstances rhymed and riffed off of a similar night a little under a decade ago, improvised by the jazz of life, like jazz, seemingly haphazard and slapdash yet structured, written or unwritten ahead of time, on time, in time. March 1st was a frigid day in 2014, and I was in a different city, in Chicago. As I did on the night of Christmas, 2023, I’d taken a commuter train into the city alone to see a Miyazaki film.

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Shang-Chi: Finding Meaning in Marvel Milestones (Or, the Purpose of Legend and Superheroes)

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The Sunday matinee before Labor Day seemed as good a time as any to watch Shang-Chi, and so at one o’clock that afternoon I sat alone in the dark sanctity of the cinema for the first time in over a year and wondered about the film with cautious excitement, that now-all-too-familiar Marvel Studios fanfare heralding the coming of Hollywood’s first Asian superhero film.

A little over two hours later I came out of that theater and morosely walked the whole way home with a weight strapped to my chest, thinking to myself and wondering why I wasn’t happier about what I’d just watched. After all, there was a lot to love about the film, and I’d expect nothing less when Disney and Marvel Studios has so clearly and adamantly reminded me of my status as a member of the target audience; perhaps the feeling I had was that of someone being aimed at down the sights of the proverbial gun.

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Stray Thoughts About Watching UNCUT GEMS/LITTLE WOMEN on 1. 14. 2020.

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On the night before my day off from my day job as a Starbucks barista, I was faced with a difficult decision. I’d been making it a point for the past month or so to make a trip to a ramen joint every time I went to Boston on my days off, trying to find the best places in the city to have that most beloved of Japanese dishes—sometimes I’m baffled by how much comfort food exists in Japan. Noticing that my next stop, Ganko Ittetsu Ramen, would bring me right next to the Coolidge Corner Theatre, I decided I’d watch a film, but I realized that I couldn’t really decide on whether or not to watch Uncut Gems or Little Women. Continue reading “Stray Thoughts About Watching UNCUT GEMS/LITTLE WOMEN on 1. 14. 2020.” →

Final Fantasy VI: Nostalgia for a Bygone Age

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The following is an essay adapted from a video essay script I wrote. I’m posting it here for now because I fear that I won’t be able to make it in a way that I’d be satisfied with for a while, so perhaps for now I will release this, and my tensions surrounding leaving things unfinished, here on the page.

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This contains end-game spoilers for Octopath Traveler and full spoilers for Final Fantasy VI. It is strongly recommended that you at least play through Final Fantasy VI before reading.

Prologue: Octopath Traveler and the Purpose of Nostalgia

Sometimes you find yourself wishing you could retreat to a simpler time, when you didn’t have to be cynical about things in life and you could just take them at face value, fueled with the seemingly infinite reserve of childlike wonder and starry-eyed excitement for the next thing and the next day, when you get to do it all over again. Continue reading “Final Fantasy VI: Nostalgia for a Bygone Age” →

Getting to the Good Part: Lady Bird and the Coming-of-Age Montage

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Among the long list of films in Hollywood’s history and even among Hollywood films today, Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut Lady Bird is a bit of an oddball in a lot of ways. And that’s a very good thing.

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