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This was an interesting and kind of comedic exploration into the things we do as part of the grieving process for those we love, but also with a tilt into the fantastical and how sometimes imagination, reconciliation with the circumstances, that will help you get through those circumstances, as inane as they are, will be a way forward. I like the fact that the film is mainly character and emotion-driven with little special effects or reliance on cheap plot/cinematic devices, and Grant Rosenmeyer did a wonderful job playing Ben. I felt a variety of emotional ups and downs with this movie, and I think it's a fun "try-watching-the-first-10-minutes-to-see-if-it-fits-with-you" kind of movie.

Bitter Melon was an interesting watch. It branches off slightly with different through-lines for different characters, and then it all comes back together through a singular family. In the runtime it has, I feel like it's not overly ambitious but hits that sweet spot of speaking to the dysfunctional dynamics that can exist within a Filipino-American family and then tilts your perception of it and the expectations you might have for the film ever so slightly so to surprise you with how stories are resolved. Some things left me wanting more, but I feel like overall it was a pretty solid film. Overall, I feel like this hit a sweet spot between the balance of making me feel a claustrophobic sense of fear at times and levity through the absurdity of certain situations encountered in the film.

So I ended up rewatching Fruit Fly yesterday after last watching it while I was in the middle of high school looking for LGBTQ+ films. I was coming to terms with the fact that I was a gay Asian teen in the American south, and Fruit Fly was one of those first few films I watched that had both Asian American and LGBTQ+ representation in it. From my recent rewatch of it 13 years after first seeing it, I have to say it feels like a cute simulacrum/snapshot/moment-in-time of some of the general zeitgeist issues of the time in that it tackles the funny nuances of gay male-straight female friendships, the search for identity and a home in both artistic and personal ways, and the concept of memory, legacy, and the tension between searching for the past while trying to remain present in the life you have now. And then, at times, these nebulous, large concepts play off of each other in chaotic enjambments that both the musical numbers and the movie's choice of San Francisco (a city that from my limited visitor and tourist's understanding is chock full of chaos and contradictions in itself) tie together and allow for these seemingly disparate topics (i.e. Scenes) to flow into each other. While the film, to me at least, feels like a piece of media from the late-2000s-early-2010s, it uses some clever and delightful ways to make use of the time in a way that doesn't make it feel like it's aged badly. It's of the time, but it makes this viewer remember some of the confusing magic and possibility I felt in the air and desire to still feel these days. It's a warm film that I think is a delightful watch, am glad it exists, and am doubly glad that it's not trying to be any grand statement but is a plucky defiance and stand for the value of art, memory, joy, taking chances, and making the most of the time you have wherever and whenever you are in life.