Category: Reviews
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The Studio TV Show Review: Growing Up With Seth Rogen and Revisiting My Love for Film
I grew up on Seth Rogen’s movies, so watching The Studio felt like growing up alongside him in real time. What I expected to be a simple comedy turned into a funny, honest, and nostalgic look at Hollywood that brought me straight back to my film school days and the chaos of creating with a…
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One Battle After Another (2025) Film Review
This film moves across two time periods and focuses on the aftermath of a radical resistance movement after it’s been dismantled. It’s less about the movement itself and more about what’s left behind, the people, the damage, and the systems that quietly survive it. It opens very strong. The very first scene is nearly perfect,…
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Reading Beauty Sick as a Muslim Woman: A Book Review
In the book Beauty Sick, Renee Engeln talks about how modern society’s obsession with physical appearance slowly chips away at our self-worth, mental health, and even our ability to focus on what actually matters. From magazine covers to social media influencers, we’re constantly surrounded by “perfect” bodies and faces, most of which are unrealistic, edited,…
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Blink Twice (2024) – Film Review
It’s been a while since a movie really caught my attention, but Blink Twice is one of the few recent releases that genuinely stands out. In a year full of remakes and predictable thrillers, Blink Twice actually has a pulse. It has intention. It has something to say. The film seduces you the way the island seduces…
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One Day Netflix (2024) TV Series Review
One Day follows Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, who meet on the night of their university graduation. From that moment on, the series revisits their relationship on the same day each year, tracing how their lives, ambitions, and connection evolve over time. They share an undeniable connection, but as life unfolds, they are almost always…
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The Menu (2022) Film Review
I did not expect to love The Menu as much as I did. It is so unhinged, hilarious and honestly kind of cathartic. This is not a food movie. It’s a movie about power, entitlement, and the absurdity of people who confuse taste with worth. I thought it was so clever and dark. At the…
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Ramy (2019-2022) TV Show Review
When I first watched the first season of Ramy, I wasn’t Muslim.I didn’t know I would become one a few months later either. I watched it as an outsider. Curious, observant, but emotionally detached, or so I thought. Looking back, I wasn’t detached at all. I just didn’t have the language yet for what was…
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What the Health (Netflix 2017) Documentary Review
What the Health wants you to believe it’s exposing hidden truths about nutrition. It isn’t. It’s pure vegan propaganda, wrapped in a documentary format. The film starts with a conclusion and works backward to justify it. Meat is bad. Eggs are bad. Dairy is bad. Animal foods are positioned as the villain behind nearly every…
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The Beach (2003) Film Review
The Beach follows Richard, a young American backpacker traveling through Thailand who stumbles upon a secret island community living off the grid, untouched by tourists, money, or modern life. What begins as a dream of freedom and belonging slowly reveals itself to be something far darker, a closed system where idealism, denial, and fear quietly replace…
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Elite Season 1 Watched Through a Muslim Lens
Let’s be honest, Elite is chaotic, morally unhinged, and clearly written by people who think shock value equals depth. And yet… it works. I genuinely enjoyed watching it. Elite is a Spanish thriller-drama about three working-class teens who enter an ultra-wealthy private school after a scholarship program throws them into a world of privilege, power, and…
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Inglourious Basterds (2009) Film Review
Inglourious Basterds is not a war film. It doesn’t pretend to be responsible, educational, or historically faithful. And that’s exactly why it works. Quentin Tarantino isn’t interested in accuracy, he’s interested in emotional revenge. His favorite trope. This is a film about power, humiliation, storytelling, and what it feels like to watch evil finally lose control.…
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The Message (1976) Film Review
I just finished watching The Message earlier this morning, and I wasn’t expecting it to hit me the way it did. I’m currently up in the woods in North Carolina at a cabin with my husband and he recommended we watch it together since I’ve never seen it. He recommends it to me, and I…
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Scarface (1983) – My Film Review
I’m not usually a fan of violent or crime-related films. I’m actually anti-violence unless it’s in the context of fighting oppression. But Scarface is one of my biggest exceptions, and honestly, one of my favorite films as a film buff. There’s something about it that goes beyond the blood, beyond the guns, it’s entertaining, funny,…
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How The Social Network Keeps You Hooked: A Film Review
This was one of the most exciting films to come out of the 2010s,. On paper, a movie about the creation of Facebook and the fight over who actually owned it should’ve been boring. I honestly expected it to be like that. But it completely blew me away. There are so many reasons why this…
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Terrace House: The Coziest, Messiest, Most Human Reality Show Ever Made (Super Long Review)
Terrace House is a Japanese reality TV series that follows six strangers, usually three men and three women, who live together in a shared house. There’s no prize money, no forced eliminations, and no scripted challenges. Instead, the show focuses on everyday life, relationships, friendships, and personal growth as the housemates navigate work, love, and…
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Memoirs of a Geisha: My Film Review
Memoirs of a Geisha has been one of my favorite movies for as long as I can remember. Every time I rewatch it, it hits me the same way. The storytelling, the cinematography, the acting, everything feels intentional and deeply emotional. It’s one of those films where every scene feels like it was carefully thought…
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Film Review
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of the rare sci-fi stories that has nothing to do with space or technology. Instead, it dives straight into the emotional architecture of the human mind. The film follows Joel and Clementine as they undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories, turning the breakup…
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American Honey (2016) Film Review
American Honey isn’t a feel-good road trip movie. It’s a portrait of lost youth with no safety net. The screenwriter Andrea Arnold strips the American dream down to its bones and shows what’s left when guidance, stability, and protection are missing. This is freedom born from neglect, not choice. The film is about a mixed-race teenage girl…
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Shameless (2012 – ) TV Series Review
Don’t get me wrong, Shameless is freaking hilarious. But it’s also stressful. Loud. Triggering. Not because I grew up like this, but because I’ve seen these dynamics up close. In people. In families. In the way adults avoid responsibility and kids quietly adapt. Shameless follows the Gallagher family, a group of siblings growing up on the South Side…
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Anima (2019) – Experimental Film Review
Watching Anima gave me goosebumps. It’s art. Disturbingly beautiful art. Anima is a Netflix Original short film, currently streaming on Netflix, with a runtime of just under 15 minutes. I’ve been a longtime fan of Thom Yorke, his music has always felt like it understands emotional confusion better than words ever could. So seeing him…
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Unfck Your Brain by Faith G. Harper (Book Review)
Honestly I’m really in my self-help books era right now. I’m craving anything that helps me understand my mind, my patterns, my healing, and the way my past still echoes through my present. What struck me most is how compassionate the book is. It doesn’t treat you like you’re broken or weak. Unfck Your Brain isn’t just a catchy…
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The Dreamers (2003) – French New Wave Cinema
Synopsis: A young American studying in Paris in 1968 strikes up a friendship with a French brother and sister. Set against the background of the ‘68 Paris student riots. I’ve always been deeply drawn to French cinema even as a child, and honestly I’m not a plot-driven viewer, I’m an atmosphere, psychology, and emotion-driven one. And…
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My Favorite Black Mirror Episodes of Season 3
I really love the science fiction genre and my taste in sci-fi is actually very distinct just like everything else about me. The tech-heavy or hard-science side of the genre really bores me unless it’s character-driven with romance arcs and plenty of other elements to give it more personality. What I’m really drawn to are…
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The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle – Book Review
I’m currently reading this book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle which centers on living in the present moment to find peace and emphasizing that things like anxiety and worry comes from dwelling on the past or future, and that true self is consciousness beyond the constant mind chatter. It’s seriously changing my life.…
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Crashing (2016) UK TV Series Review
Crashing is about a group of twenty-somethings living together as property guardians in a massive, abandoned hospital. So British lol they’re broke, directionless, emotionally messy, and way too close to each other for comfort. Basically: chaos with thin walls. It’s short, fast, awkward in the best way, and painfully funny. Every episode feels like it ends…
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Misfits (2009) – UK TV Series Review
Misfits follows a group of young adults who are forced to do community service together until a strange electrical storm strikes the city and suddenly gives them superpowers, but not the glamorous kind. Their powers reflect their deepest insecurities: invisibility, mind-reading, uncontrollable sexuality, time reversal, rage. Instead of turning them into heroes, the powers throw them…
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Kill Bill – An Unexpected Childhood Classic for Me
Kill Bill was one of those movies I never expected to love as much as I did. As a kid, I didn’t fully understand all the symbolism, the genre-blending, or the emotional weight behind The Bride’s story but it was really cool for it’s time and there was definitely something about it that grabbed me…
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Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) Film Review
A lot of us idolized Holly before we understood her. When you’re younger, she looks like freedom. No rules. No roots. Beautiful, desired, unattached. She answers to no one. She floats through life on her own terms. That kind of woman feels powerful when you’re still learning how painful attachment can be. But idolizing her is…
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Enter The Void (2009) Film Review
Set in the neon-soaked underbelly of Tokyo, the story follows Oscar, a young American drug dealer, and his sister Linda, who works as a stripper. They are emotionally fused by shared childhood trauma and an unspoken promise to never abandon each other. Early in the film, Oscar smokes DMT, a powerful psychedelic substance known for…
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Mass Effect Sci Fi RPG Video Game Review
I discovered Mass Effect almost ten years after its first release. I wasn’t looking for a video game to play per se. I was writing sci-fi stories at the time and wanted some inspiration when it came to world-building, something immersive enough to pull me into another world for a while. What I ended up…
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Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Film Review
The film follows a married couple, Bill (a doctor) and Alice Harford (a housewife). On the surface, they look like they’re doing well, until the party. A lavish, glittering night where small cracks start to show. Bill flirts comfortably with two models, almost on autopilot, while Alice lingers on the dance floor with another man a…
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Honestly, Vanessa 