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Us didn’t scare me, but that’s where it gets interesting
I’ll be the first to admit, I am a class-A chicken when it comes to the horror genre. I mostly watch horror films from behind the safety of cushions or pillows. In a cinema, where such fright...
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Kung Fu Hustle: Making kung fu movies great again
Here’s a bold claim: Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle is one of the greatest martial arts movies ever made. It’s also an important film, parked comfortably among the pantheon of significant wuxia and...
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Dark Phoenix: How the X-Men franchise screwed over Jean Grey
When I heard that the final film in the X-Men franchise would revolve around the character of Dark Phoenix, I was puzzled. Didn’t she have an entire film devoted to her character arc in X-Men: The Last...
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Toy Story 4 plays around with the question of purpose and happiness, in...
“You can’t teach this old toy new tricks,” Woody says at one point in Toy Story 4. Turns out you can. The filmmakers at Pixar didn’t make Woody jump higher, or have Buzz Lightyear learn subtlety. They...
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“The ARMY still holds the power”: Inside the organised chaos of the BTS fandom
Cover picture | Source: BTS official Facebook page Atiqah Sulaiman had a secret. While her friends knew her as an indie-rock chick, she hid a playlist. It was full of Korean pop (K-pop) songs that she...
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Remakes aren’t (inherently) bad. Bad remakes are the problem
I know it looks bleak. I know that it looks like the opening of a dystopian movie. We’re standing in the middle of Cinema Square, and it looks peaceful and clean and manufactured. We look left, and we...
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Deep-dive into Parasite, Part 1: Social classes tangle masterfully in Bong...
My beloved writing professor Janice Cole used to tell her class that the best way to reach a broad audience through writing is to root stories in specificity. The idea is to pay attention to the...
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Deep dive into Parasite, Part 2: A clash of parasites and what it means in...
Read PART 1 here. NO-TURNING-BACK MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD There is a pivotal scene in Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite that neatly demarcates the first act from the second and serves as a premonition for the...
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We need to talk | Joker
LM Foong: Ah, the Joker. What do we say about him? What hasn’t been said about him? One of the most iconic villains in all of pop culture history, he is the Clown Prince of Crime, the agent of chaos,...
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Halloween Special: Six unconventional picks from our crypt
Halloween is a time to be free. Free to dress up as any horror icon in order to wreak terror instead of receiving it. Free to inhale the bucketful of Reese’s peanut butter cups you pretended to buy for...
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Death Unstranding (Entry 1): Zen and the Art of Being Stranded in the...
A DeconRecon Special Feature Death Unstranding Entry One Editor’s note: Games are strange things. It’s a journey unlike movies or books or songs; each player’s experience is as integral to the story...
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Death Unstranding (Entry 2): Trikes, Likes, and Adrenaline Spikes
A DeconRecon Special Feature Death Unstranding Entry Two Editor’s note: Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding gives our writer some wheels and a life lesson. This is Entry Two of DeconRecon’s ‘Death...
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Frozen II is a movie for our era of change
At a particularly grim point in Frozen II, Anna looks pensively at Olaf and asks him to say something that will help her look on the bright side. Olaf replies, “Bright side? Um, turtles can breathe...
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Death Unstranding (Entry 3): Connecting the Knots
A DeconRecon Special Feature Death Unstranding Entry Three Editor’s note: Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding is not shy about telling a grandiose political story, but its strength is in telling small,...
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Death Unstranding (Entry 4): Channeling Norman Reedus, the Everyman
A DeconRecon Special Feature Death Unstranding Entry Four Editor’s note: And we’re back! C Nge’s Death Unstranding series picks up from a brief hiatus with an ode to the ordinary toil that brings...
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How The Rise of Skywalker showed that Star Wars is stuck in the past
Something as old, influential and perpetual as Star Wars inevitably shape into wishes. Star Wars means something to many people, and they want it to keep meaning something. So fans form expectations –...
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Birds of Hurray (And The Fantabulous Experience of Watching One Harley Quinn)
Growing up, I had mixed feelings about Harley Quinn. Specifically, I had mixed feelings about my strong feelings for Harley Quinn. A sidekick/girlfriend/groupie of the Joker, Harley Quinn first...
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Beneath The Ghost Bride’s beautiful veneer haunts the ghost of a repressive...
In most ways, The Ghost Bride – Netflix’s first Chinese-language original – is just like the Malaysian state of Malacca that it’s set in. A port city and a trade settlement since its 13th-century...
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Escape to Stardew Valley, where social distancing is discouraged | Feature
Stardew Valley begins with the player receiving a letter from their grandfather, who tells them that they are about to inherit his farm before passing on peacefully in his sleep. The player is shown...
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Why The Platform is a capitalist allegory for our time
Allegories in films have always fascinated me; they are like visual puzzles begging to be solved by the intrepid viewer. The Platform—a Spanish film directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia that is...
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