I love this short. After seeing Spa Night, Andrew Ahn has now become the director for me that tells queer Asian-American stories.

Dol (First Birthday) is a slice of life story that grounds itself in the nominal Korean ritual and tells it from the point of view of a gay Korean man. Themes of parental and cultural expectations are organically built into the premise and Ahn gracefully uses it to have the audience empathize with his personal identity--all by basically…

Loved this movie. The pacing and art direction gave me total Scott Pilgrim vibes right from the opening credits to the comedic timing. As someone who had walked out on the superhero movie genre at Iron Man 2, this was a complete joy to experience. It also serves as a shining example of the pure spectacle animation has over live action-- a counterargument to all of those Disney adaptations that are in development. Yes, animation takes forever and several walls…

w/ director's commentary by Barry Jenkins

Jenkins mentions that he listened to a bunch of director's commentary tracks while in film school in order to gain insight about the films he watched and that he hoped he would do the same for the students watching his work. This track contains a plethora of knowledge about filmmaking and the stresses of creating a low-budget feature, but it also describes how magical the process became and how he and his cast and…