Author: Ezekiel Yu

Ezekiel Yu is a writer and critic with The North Texas Film Critics Association. He graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a degree in Literary Studies. His main focuses are in literature, cinema and culture.
Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A still from Christopher Nolan's "Memento" (2000), depicting a shirtless Guy Pearce with an expression of shock during a telephone call, as analyzed and reviewed by poet and film critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

WHERE WAS I? Analyzing Christopher Nolan’s “Memento” (2000)

If Christopher Nolan’s debut “Following” (1998) is the blueprint to his filmography, laying out all his thematic concerns and technical flourishes (albeit in primitive form) from the jump, then its follow-up “Memento” (2000) might very well be the culmination, as all those elements seem to find their ideal narrative manifestation in the nigh-experimental crime drama about a man with a traumatic brain injury who cannot form new memories.

It also remains Nolan’s best film, and while more recent generations have become enamored with the likes of his “Batman Trilogy” and sci-fi epic “Interstellar”, it is “Memento” that will stand the test of time; if simply by virtue of its status as a film school mainstay, if not for its popular standing, fickle as such standings can be.

This is not, I admit, the most controversial claim. One cannot say that “Memento” is an underrate” work, though one may be able to say that Nolan’s more popular fare has decidedly overshadowed his earlier accomplishment(s) in the public eye. I’m willing to bet that a not insignificant number of those flocking into 70mm IMAX screenings of “The Odyssey” have never even heard of, much less seen, his first two features. And of those who have, how many would likewise claim that “Memento” tops the oeuvre? I’ve only ever met a handful of self-professed Nolan admirers who have done so, despite its stature as an independent film classic. […]

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A shot of Orson Welles (Harry Lime) in a dark tunnel, from Carol Reed's 1949 black and white film, "The Third Man", as reviewed and analyzed by poet and film critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

These Shadowed Angles: Analyzing Carol Reed’s “The Third Man” (1949)

Man, just how great is Orson Welles?

Can you name another major American filmmaker—world filmmaker, for that matter—who was not only responsible for multiple, medium-defining masterpieces but also turned in stellar performances as both leading man and supporting actor?

Cassavetes comes to mind, though he was often overshadowed onscreen by his partner and muse Gena Rowlands. Woody Allen revolutionized the serio-comic film and was, at the same time, very capable as an actor in his own screenplays; but he had a limited schtick, and one which he (and others) would eventually run to the ground. The great Silent Clowns may be close comparisons, and Welles himself professed a deep admiration for Buster Keaton. De Sica was a fine actor, certainly; and the pioneering Swedish director Victor Sjöström performed splendidly in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries as its main character.

After these (name-drop some of your own, as I’ve inevitably short-shrifted at least a few notables), though, it’s slim pickings. Clint Eastwood? A spaghetti western icon, yes, but his own films as a director do not hold a candle to Sergio Leone’s, much less Welles’s. Tarantino? Nope. Mel Gibson? Please. Tim Blake Nelson is a good actor and filmmaker—but medium-defining? No dice. (I do not count those who turned in only cameos or bit parts, such as Scorsese, Hitchcock, Sayles, etc.) And I won’t be considering up-and-comers like Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, or Bradley Cooper just yet, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. […]

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A still from Kane Parsons's "Backrooms," depicting Chiwetel Ejiofor in a brightly lit yellow room, as reviewed and analyzed by poet and film critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

I Think I Like It In Here: Reviewing Kane Parsons’s “Backrooms” (2026)

Kane Parsons’s “Backrooms” is the first mainstream film that I’m aware of to have been inspired by, of all things, a 4chan post. Chances are you already know about the Backrooms, especially if you’re Gen Z or a millennial or have spent any significant amount of time memeing on the Internet. If you don’t, then it’s a simple enough concept to explain. Imagine a dank, yellow-wallpapered office space, empty of all features save the blank angularity of walls and a vaguely unsettling openness. Now imagine that going on and on, forever.

It’s a weird alternate take on our reality, as if the universal software had glitched and copy-pasted this uncanny liminal space into its own pocket dimension. An anon on the original 4chan post (which featured on one of the site’s forums dedicated to paranormal phenomena), however, explains it more evocatively:

“If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in

“God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you”

—Anonymous, 4chan (May 13, 2019) […]

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A still from Curry Barker's "Obsession," depicting a woman in silhouette (Inde Navarrette) standing on her lit patio at night, with Michael Johnston sitting in his car, as reviewed by the poet and film critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

Why Don’t You Love Me: Reviewing Curry Barker’s “Obsession” (2025)

The obsession of Curry Barker’s title refers, superficially, to the poor young woman who develops an increasingly unhinged attachment to the protagonist of the film, Bear, after he makes a magic wish that forces her to be “in love” with him. Her name is Nikki, and they are part of a tight-knit circle of friends—involving two others, Sarah and Ian—who work together at a family-run music store.

But the deeper obsession is really Bear’s, which becomes the end-all-be-all of their doomed dynamic, and also that which lies at the heart of all the film’s now notorious moments of horror. Nikki, after all, has her own thoughts and dreams and designs; her own personhood, in a word, and it is that very personhood, that autonomy, that gets in the way of Bear’s idealizations, i.e. his fundamental misunderstanding (willful or not) of who Nikki is, and who he is to her.

You see, Bear likes Nikki (Michael Johnston and Inde Navarette, both relative newcomers). She’s beautiful, artistic, funny, outgoing—the girl of his dreams. Only problem is, Nikki doesn’t seem to like Bear in the same way. She clearly cares for him, and even seems to prize their relationship relative to their other friends—but romantic love? This is decidedly less clear. Much to Ian’s chagrin, Bear commits to confessing his feelings to Nikki at the group’s beloved trivia night; though the death of Bear’s cat from a slip-up involving some old pills puts a damper on the proceedings. […]

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A black and white shot from Ermanno Olmi's "Il Posto" (1961), with 2 older men and a young man (Sandro Panseri) looking in three different directions. This film is being reviewed by poet and film critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

Rude Awakening: On Ermanno Olmi’s “Il Posto” (1961)

The young man played by Sandro Panseri in Ermanno Olmi’s “Il Posto” (“The Job”, in English; or elsewhere titled “The Sound of Trumpets”) fits an Everyman sort of mold, personality-wise, but he also—just slightly, to me—resembles a young Kafka. He has that same dark-browed, thin and angular quality to him, but also a kind of unintrusive watchfulness one might imagine the Czech writer possessed in his late teens/early twenties, coupled with a quaint naivete to his own appeal. More saliently than mere physical resemblance, however, “Il Posto” examines its bureaucracy-enveloped subjects with a satirical edge, though the film is more often than not content to simply depict rather than outright excoriate through Kafkaesque absurdity.

Such a move comfortably places Olmi’s “Il Posto” along the same continuum as the preceding Italian Neorealist movement of his motherland, and such classics as those created by Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. Is it as good as something like, say, De Sica’s “Bicycle Thieves”? I’d wager not, as it lacks the earlier film’s emotional heft and larger societal commentary—but so do most films. Hierarchies notwithstanding, “Il Posto” might be one of the best portrayals of what it is like to work one’s first job, and of workplace culture, in general. It also manages to fit in an almost hyper-realistic depiction of young romance without cost to the film’s fleet 97-minute runtime. […]

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A still from Orson Welles's "The Immortal Story," with a figure in high contrast silhouette, staring at a woman lying down, as reviewed by film critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

Remembered Depths: Reviewing Orson Welles’s “The Immortal Story” (1968)

A couple years ago I reviewed “The Other Side of the Wind”, the last film released under the name of Orson Welles. It is an absolute tour de force, and the crowning jewel in the career of a man who may very well be America’s greatest director. However, a considerable portion of “The Other Side of the Wind” was completed after Welles’s death in 1985, and though the posthumous production found guidance from the notes he left behind, and one could state with reasonable confidence that their efforts conformed close enough to the spirit of Welles’s direction that overall credit still belongs to him, its chimeric nature makes it difficult to say whether or not Welles himself would have approved of the final cut.

There is, however, no such difficulty with Welles’s 1968 drama “The Immortal Story”, which truly counts as the last fictional feature he directed, from start to finish, and released to the public while still living. It was initially made for French television, and issues with distributors and censors (par for the course, with Welles) bungled its post-production and subsequent premiere so badly that 1) the film played only for a limited time in select European theaters, and 2) certain critics, particularly in Great Britain and the States, rated it poorly enough that it failed to cross over to Anglophone audiences. As a result, The Immortal Story languished in relative obscurity for decades until it was picked up by The Criterion Collection and given a DVD/Blu-ray release in 2016, though to this day I’d wager no one outside of cineastes and Welles devotees are familiar with its existence. […]

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A still from Paul Schrader's film "First Reformed," with Ethan Hawke as a priest standing in black and white garments, staring at the viewer, as reviewed and analyzed by poet and critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

His Barbed Vestments: Reviewing Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” (2017)

What would happen if you crossed Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light with Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest? What would that priest look like, if you mixed the latter’s tortured overtures toward spiritual purity with the bleak existential angst of the former?

Paul Schrader seeks to answer these hypotheticals with his First Reformed, the tale of Ernst Toller, a disillusioned, middle-aged reverend (played by Ethan Hawke) of a Continental-era Reformed church in New York who undergoes a profound and militant spiritual transformation after one of his parishioners, who is obsessed with the idea of the world’s inevitable environmental collapse, commits suicide.

I first saw this film when it came out in 2017, and found it to be far inferior to Bergman’s classic, and probably a little worse than Bresson’s, which is solid but likely not among his best. Watching it now, almost a decade later, I stand by that overall assessment, though there are positive elements I missed the first go-around, so put off was I by the writer-director’s brazen lifting of plot points from the older films. Those elements, however, are not enough to save First Reformed from its negative trajectory, as it undeniably bottoms out with a bizarre conclusion involving Hawke and co-star Amanda Seyfried deep-Frenching in the rectory while Schrader’s camera wheels around them to a rendition of the old hymnal “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A shot from Kiyoshi Kurosawa's cult classic "Pulse," depicting a woman in front of multiple computer monitors, as reviewed by poet/critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

Wight Screens: Reviewing Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Pulse” (2001)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 J-horror film Pulse (or Kairo, which translates to “Circuit”) operates on two levels: 1) on the atmospheric level, stemming from the film’s mis-en-scene and sound design, creating a fully distinct audiovisual world from pure “vibes,” and 2) as a traditional genre story, since it presents a baffling mystery involving two separate plots which will purportedly be unveiled over the course of its telling.

Pulse succeeds with the first of these, and fails with the other. Its achievements, however, while not enough to completely rescue the film from its (more or less) mid-tier quality, were enough to earn it the status of cult classic upon its release. There are a number of memorable scenes—including what may be, according to one reviewer, the signature sequence in all of J-horror—and an overall aura that believably captures the anxiety over what was fairly new technology at the time: the Internet, and all its attendant dangers, particularly that of mass social alienation.

Pulse is a ghost story, but calling it a ghost story would be to, in a way, undersell the film; at least in terms of its ultimate scope, which widens out from a tight-knit circle of friends in the Kantō region of Japan to eventually encompass the whole world. This enlargement is ambitious but also turns out to be Pulse’s weakness, as its eeriness is most effective when confined primarily to the situation of the main characters. Like many intriguing mysteries, the payoff turns out to be less compelling than the mystery itself. […]