blank page(s) on my coffee table

A sequel to the iconic piece of all time, "Top Gun: Maverick" Finally, a nostalgia that works. my early 20s were spent exploring my mom's personal life. turns out that during 24 years of my life, her oldest doesn't really understand where my mom is coming from. but after watching Top Gun for the first time in 2022, finally, i could say that everything is in its place, and make total sense why she became who she is. I mean, growing up through puberty by witnessing Tom Cruise in his 20s playing pilot? One can only guess and it's up to you to interpret it in a good or bad way.  after 36 years, the original and legendary Top Gun finally has its sequel. It is set decades after the first one in 1986 following the death of Goose (played by Anthony Edwards), the best friend and partner of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (played by Tom Cruise). In the sequel, Maverick, in the present day works as a test pilot turned into a teacher/trainer after having been pressured by ...

  "Turning Red", a love letter to every girl's early crisis the first sentence I mumbled after I got to the end credit of this movie is, "huh. the amount of money I would give to have this movie existed when I was in middle school"  from that sentence alone, you'll get what I meant.  if you haven't got the chance to watch this movie yet, the chance is you already hear or know the premise of the movie.  this movie tells a story about Meilin "Mei" Lee (voiceover by Rosalie Chiang) whom one day woke up as a red panda. While she's trying to figure it all out all morning before school what has happened during her sleep, she figured that she'll turn into a giant, cute, and fluffy panda every time she overwhelms with emotion. Or basically every time her feelings and emotions are in overdrive. By the time she was able to adapt to her new condition, she finally found a way to deal with her new nature and accept what she has become, her concerned...

 well hello internet  it's been so long  with the 95th Oscars Ceremony around the corner, this is me having another attempt to compose my thoughts on the movies i personally watched that belong listed in the categories nomination.  all upcoming posts would be personal opinions, so keep in mind that i'm also open to hearing other opinions and perspectives.  please reach out to me in the comment, or on my socials. down below are my social handles.  @submilkyway on twitter  @friendofdawn on instagram. peace,  maria

Billi (plays by Awkwafina) is a Chinese-American living in New York. She grew up in China until she was 2 years old and then moved to the US, so both cultures pretty much coalesce and being part of her identity. But, when she knew the information about her Nai Nai (played by Zhao Shu-Zhen) dying of cancer, her beliefs and her identity are being challenged. In Chinese, there’s a saying quoted that “ When people get cancer, they die. It's not the cancer that kills them; it's the fear.” The family wants to keep it a secret and Billi’s parent expect her not to tell Nai Nai and forbid her to come with them to China. The whole family finally plan a wedding for Billi’s cousin (who also lives outside China hence his detachedness from his Chinese identity) so they have a reason to come to China to visit Nai Nai. This is a movie about grief and family that also presents the authentic cultural distinction between how the west and the east perceive ideas. I appreciate and admire how litt...

The second movie on the list of Richard Brody’s Top 36 movies of 2020. I didn’t plan on watching them in chronological order but I’ve heard a lot of things about this movie so I decided to watch it on Netflix.              I went into the movie blind. I didn’t watch the trailer, I feel that it’s important to watch since it’s released when the Black Lives Matter movement in the US is gotten louder and its message amplified throughout the world. I’ve been planning to get reading material or anything that can provide me with knowledge and a brief history about racism against black people and person of colour in the US. And being Indonesian, I acknowledge that racism is also happening in the country where I live in. With the movement finally getting the attention that it deserves, I kind of in a quest of gaining myself the nuances and what’s happening in the past that getting us to this point where crimes and inhuman acts based on race, gender, people’s ...

A movie by Miranda July. The first movie on Richard Brody's 36 Top 2020 Movies.  The first movie on the list and the one that I most anticipated. I watched the trailer before it came out and I was just hooked immediately. The movie tells about a family of 3, the daughter, Old Dolio Dyne portrayed by Evan Rachel Wood, the dad–Richard Jenkins, and the mother – Debra Winger. As a family, their dynamics more like partners in crime rather not unusually portrayed in films. The Dynes basically live on coupons, eat leftovers and scavenging. Their home is an office whose walls occasionally leaked pink foams rented to them by a man work in a factory. The movie opens with a heist in a post-office. Old Dolio rolling around the front of the post office, entering the crime scene, and taking mails and looking for the items in it that can be turned into money. Earlier, I mentioned that the Dynes rented an office to be their home and the fact that they haven’t paid their due bill for the rented o...