Tag: film review

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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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) […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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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. […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal standing in a forest in Chloe Zhao's "Hamnet", as reviewed by poet and film critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

Passion’s Tatters: Reviewing Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet” (2025)

There is a legend that Johann Sebastian Bach’s sublime Chaconne, in his “Partita No. 2 in D Minor for Solo Violin”, was composed as a memorial to his first wife, Maria Barbara, who unexpectedly passed while Bach was away on a two-month work trip. It is based mostly on apocryphal evidence, and bolstered by certain musicological analyses pointing to salient themes/motifs common to that style of music; but really the main appeal of this theory is that it makes sense, to our contemporary sensibilities, that a work of such staggeringly intense emotive power could only come from a place of commensurate emotional intensity in the artist responsible for its creation.

Of course, there’s no solid reason to believe that this really was the case. Bach, in particular, actually seemed to be among the more quotidian of the canonical Western composers, as much of what has been passed down to posterity regarding his personal life consists of rather workaday details typical of any diligent craftsman, extraordinarily prolific though he was: Concerns over employment, instrumentation, the skills (or lack thereof) of the musicians available to him, etc. Much of this also arrives to us secondhand, from the reports of his colleagues and progeny—whoever Bach was to himself, in his own words, we have very little idea of.

But after Bach came Romanticism, and the notion of a composer producing a tour de force out of the welter of his deep mourning simply strikes the modern art lover as perfectly natural; and doubly so if such a work bears the sort of solemn profundity that the last movement of the Second Partita does. Beethoven, after all, had his Immortal Beloved—why shouldn’t his Baroque predecessor have something like that, too? Never mind that the man seemed to whip up masterpieces at the drop of a hat—his duties as Thomaskantor at Leipzig obligated him to compose a new cantata every week—or that the great artists end up creating their major works out of a wide range of inspirations and emotional contexts. His wife died, and he was not there to witness her death. Hence: Chaconne. […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A shot from Sam Raimi's "Send Help," depicting Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien washed up on a beach, where she holds a knife pointed towards him. The film is being reviewed by Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

Role Reversal: Reviewing Sam Raimi’s “Send Help” (2026)

Your boss is not your friend.

You might get along with them, may even like them to a certain extent, but make no mistake: They exist on a higher plane. Their priorities differ from yours. Crack jokes with them all you want, or go bowling with them at the End of Year function, or what have you. None of that changes the fact that you are an underling. Say one wrong thing—or a few wrong things, in an untimely sequence—and all it takes is a snap of their fingers, an obligatory sit-down with HR, and you’re back on the job hunt, desperately peddling your employment profile in the virtual cold.

I’ve had some bad bosses (the micro-managing, drug-addicted kind). I’ve also worked under a few that I got along with swimmingly. Again, all more or less inconsequential: They are there to tell you what to do, and you are there to do what they tell you to do. Simple as that. Under the current socioeconomic regime, this is as hard-baked a commandment in one’s working life as the Laws of Thermodynamics are in physics. Resist these constraints at your own peril.

SEND HELP’s Bradley Preston isn’t just a bad boss. He’s an insufferable one.

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A film still from Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy," depicting the actress Michelle Williams, as reviewed by poet and film critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

Good Girl: On Kelly Reichardt’s “Wendy and Lucy” (2008)

Not every film needs to be complex in order to impress; nor is “impressiveness” a virtue one must always necessarily achieve in order to create successful art. By “impressiveness” I suppose I mean something like “bigness” or “grandiosity” or some baroque plot convolution(s) that leave a viewer struggling to put the pieces of the story in their correct order. Certainly there are many great films that operate in an almost puzzle-like manner (think of the austerely cryptic quality of Last Year at Marienbad, or Memento’s dove-tailing plot structure) but one would be remiss to forget the undeniable pleasures—and merits—of a simple story, simply told, whose only bells and whistles are certain subtleties that can be so slight one is liable to miss them on first viewing.

I was struck by this dichotomy very recently after seeing two movies, one right after the other: Bi Gan’s Resurrection (2025) and Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy (2008). Resurrection, epic in most senses of the word, bowls one over with complex film-craft illusion and a narrative so bizarre (at least to this Westerner) it borders on alienating; and though its visual language intrigues—touching the sublime, at times—Resurrection’s indulgence of unconventionality can veer into the downright silly, or is even sacrificed for the sake of some mawkish emotional beat. (A film that handles similar meta-themes and likewise explores the visual potentialities of cinema to the nth degree, but, in my view, does so far more efficiently, is Tarsem Singh’s The Fall.) […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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Timothée Chalamet's character playing ping-pong in John Safdie's "Marty Supreme", as reviewed by poet/critic Ezekiel Yu for the automachination literary magazine.

Getting A Grip: On Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme” (2025)

Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) isn’t the most terrible guy, but he isn’t a particularly good one, either. He lies often, behaves petulantly (nigh-fatally, even) when he doesn’t get his way, and can treat his family with condescension bordering on contempt. Rachel (Odessa A’zion), his married lover and childhood friend, worships the ground he walks on, but Marty seems to view her as little more than an accessory as he pursues his actual passion in life: professional table tennis.

Yes, Marty Mauser has an overriding, obsessive, feral dedication to the sport of ping pong, and he not only aims to be its greatest player, but also to help make it a major force in the American market, as it has already gained massive popularity in Asia. His only issue is that he isn’t really a legit ping pong player, at least not yet: he actually works as a shoe salesman at a shop owned by his uncle Murray (Larry “Ratso” Sloman), who, like many of Marty’s family members, would rather the young man make a respectable living doing anything else but ping pong. But the thing is, Marty Mauser isn’t just an arrogant dreamer—he is also very, very good at table tennis, and has even secured a spot to compete in the British Open and potentially snag the title of World No. 1. […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A still from Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another," as reviewed by poet and critic Ezekiel Yu.

¡Viva la Exageración! – Reviewing Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” (2025)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s title seems to echo the famous quote about history, but it could also easily be applied to raising a child. It is fitting, then, that the main action of One Battle After Another involves the hunt for a missing child, since a large part of parenting has to do with the risk of your child’s endangerment, and the consequent hope that you have given them the tools necessary for their well-being in the event that endangerment does arise.

Broaden the scope of a single child to an entire generation, and you have one of the film’s primary concerns—anxieties, even—over which many of its characters incite conflict, and/or try to secure on their own often blinkered, and ridiculous, terms. Anderson’s camera (operated by Michael Bauman, on 35mm and using VistaVision cameras) even seems to operate like a helicopter parent, tracking its subjects constantly through the American proto-dystopia, as diligent on its targets whether they are walking down hallways or on car chases through heavy traffic. And the child in question, Willa Ferguson née Charlene Calhoun (Chase Infiniti in her big screen debut), is by turns idealized and diminished by her elders until she is finally given the opportunity to dictate her fate in the film’s climax. […]

Film by Jessica Schneider
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A still from David Lynch's "Eraserhead", featuring Jack Nance with his iconic hair, as reviewed and analyzed in Jessica Schneider's retrospective analysis of the film.

Embracing the Oddness: David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” (1977)

Have you ever thought of life in terms of allegory? Where everything is an illusion, even reality itself? And secondly, is it necessary to ‘understand’ all parts of a particular something, especially if that something is reflective of one’s man’s neurosis (or not)? If you’re looking for straight answers in David Lynch’s Eraserhead, you will be disappointed. Rather, in order to welcome this film, one must first embrace the idea of allegory, sort of akin to Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. (An influence for this film.) I mean, think about it—once you come to accept that Gregor Samsa has, in fact, turned into a giant bug, the story itself is actually pretty straightforward. The same can somewhat be said for Eraserhead. Once you come to accept the distorted universe in which Henry lives, then it can sort of fall into place.

First, let’s begin with the setting. Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) lives in an industrial, dilapidated hellhole with no trees or greens, merely buildings, rain, mud, muck, and plumes of smoke. He works as a printer at a factory, lives in a crappy building with low ceilings, and has holes in his bedding, with no space to grow or bloom. In short, we can presume that he hates his life. Across from him lives an attractive, flirty woman who informs him that someone named Mary wants him to come over for dinner. (Said woman later seduces him.) When they speak, there is this aloof detachment to their voices, as though they’re moving about in a dream. Then, when Henry joins Mary (Charlotte Stewart) and her parents for dinner, conversation goes as (somewhat) such: […]