Feels like a modern-day Tarkovsky film with neon-lit cityscapes, Chinese people/characters that I can actually differentiate, and a more direct narrative focusing on a love story. This was made just for me. The first time I watched this film, I had seen zero Tarkovsky films. Revisiting after completing Tarkovsky's filmography only made me appreciate this more. There are some superficial references to Stalker in this film, but more than anything, it reminded me of Mirror due to its fragmented nature…

The perfect rom-com. The one that started it all. I watched this when I was much younger and it sparked my love for these kind of guilty pleasures. For a whole year of 2011, all I pretty much watched were rom-coms.

I won't even deny that this is extremely formulaic. Boy meets girl in some super weird way (she waters his plants LMAO) but they hit it off right away. Slowly they fall in love, but there's obviously an ex…

I like the idea that dinosaurs talk and the human characters did not. I certainly expected this to be a bottom-tier Pixar film, and while it doesn't surpass the likes of Coco or Wall-E, it's a charming film nonetheless.

The film is pretty cheesy for the most part, and while the ending felt pretty unearned, I had a good time with it. The sticks sequence with the two characters explaining their family situations was a really nice bit. Pixar films…

The biggest issue I have with Ghibli's Nausicaa and Tales from Earthsea is how they cram way too much material within its runtime. Ocean Waves suffers from the exact opposite. It's already extremely short, but this feels stretched thin even at 72-minutes. I just felt like it wasn't really a story worth telling. Or perhaps the way it was told left me far from impressed.

Taku narrates his high school days, structured in a way where he's kind of just…

Essential viewing, especially for Asian-Americans. Our parents made infinite sacrifices for us to be here today. They came to America without knowing a word of English. They gave up the security of being in their home country so that we could have a better life. At some point in their lives, they had their own dreams they wanted to pursue; some were lucky and were able to achieve their goals, but others, not so much.

Jacob Yi is one of…

An absolutely life-changing experience.

From the first frame of the film, you know this is the work of an auteur. Director Nzingha Stewart puts us in the shoes of someone who belongs to one of the most oppressed groups of people in the entirety of the United States of America: tall white girls. Her bold directorial choices are obvious from the start. As Jodi stands up, Stewart plays with the depth of field and makes it look as if Jodi…