Issue 4

— “A man whom both the waters and the wind In that vast tennis court hath made the ball For them to play upon entreats you pity him.” Pericles, Pericles, Act II, Scene 1 This past spring, in the midst of performing a three-month run of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, I found myself where I would any other Friday morning before acting class – on the tennis court bickering with my coach Mish.  He always knows exactly what to say to fuel the fire in my game. Whether it’s words of e

The first Jafar Panahi film I ever saw was This Is Not a Film , back in 2016. I was a senior in college and just starting to take film seriously. I had enrolled in a class called World Cinema: a course built around the international greats. Watching for the first time was thrilling but intimidating. I’d grown up fascinated by the art a country would ban, the kind of work that must have meant something powerful if an entire government tried to suppress it. I thought of books l

Spoilers ahead for Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl” and Alfonso Cuarón’s “Y Tu Mamá También” I had my first orgasm induced by a partner, for the very first time, just a few months ago. When I saw “Babygirl”, directed by Halina Reijn in theatres, I had not yet had that experience. Sex before had been a pleasurable, albeit fixed, event. Now, to clarify, I don’t believe orgasm is an indicator for “good sex”- in fact, I have no interest in telling you what I think “good sex” is, for the

(Spoilers Ahead) Legend says, mourners can be hired by the day to attend funerals and memorial services. Depending on the country, they have different names: wailers, moirologists, bossistus etc. In the same way mourning customs have differed since time immemorial, so does the depiction of grief in movies. Think The Host , Demolition , The Descendants , and now On Becoming A Guinea Fowl -  the latest Rungano Nyoni film, starring Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, and Henry B.J.

This petition seeks to overturn the ruling of public opinion that has found Barry ’s supporting lead, Sally Reed, guilty of being an unlikable woman. The court of viewers, critics, and pop culture (hereafter referred to as The People ) previously deemed her irredeemable. I request a reconsideration on the grounds of cultural double standards and character context. Found guilty in the spring of 2018, Sally Reed was charged with narcissism, hypocrisy, and emotional instability.