dani_fz

I wasn't gonna write a review for this movie but after watching it and witnessing how awful it is, I just had to let it known here that this is one of the very rare times when I've agreed with most IMDb user reviews. This movie is, indeed, an unbelievable disaster. Please all, stay as far away from it as possible.

Still, in the right hands, this movie had great potential to cement itself as a landmark Sapphic romantic drama in the vein of Shamim Sarif's awesome classics. Indeed, in a world where there is very limited Middle Eastern-centered Sapphic representation - much less Iranian - this could easily have become an instant hit and cult classic if it had presented to the viewers the content that its ads seem to pretend it is about. As it stands, the movie did have great lead characters and decent enough costumes and production design. All it needed was, well, a totally different writer and director. Baharak Saeid Monir (the director) simply butchered up this movie into the dark pits of the worst movies ever made, ever - right alongside some of the most (cinematically and morally) repugnant movies imaginable.

I just finished watching the second season of this series and while I was never going to write a review about it, its ending compelled me to do so because of how terrible it was.

First off, let me just put it out that the first season is stellar in almost every aspect (if one chooses to ignore the classist, sexist, and racist undertones within it). The story was well-written, the main plot and characters well-developed, and the subplots were quite exciting and engaging. Given how good this first season was when I watched it, I couldn't wait to watch the second season expecting to be swept off my feet as I was during my viewing of the first one. How wrong I was.

While the second season started off well with some good and convincing writing and character development, things started going downhill fast, starting from the fourth episode. This is the episode immediately following the kiss between Kitty (Anna Cathcart) and Yuri (Gia Kim) and I don't think that this post-kiss derailment was a coincidence. It feels like much of the romance-related writing following this kiss was focused on forcibly severing Kitty's relationship with girls - by inexplicably distancing her from Yuri - and forcing her into relationships with boys through a weird and unconvincing "crush" with Min Ho (Sang Heon Lee). I mean, it makes zero sense - in terms of plot and character development - how quickly Kitty just drops Yuri as both a romantic interest and confidante and suddenly just develops an unseemly obsession with being with Min Ho- especially considering how strongly Kitty had been made to declare she would only be pursuing relationships with girls "this semester" right at the start of the season. I thus can't help but notice some heteronormative influence in the direction that the writers took following the Kitty-Yuri kiss.

The other major problem with this season was the entire Stella (Audrey Huynh) subplot, which is a testament to the misogyny and classism in the writing of this series. I mean, what in the world were the writers thinking to make out a girl who was body shamed, publicly humiliated, and traumatized by an abusive multi-billion dollar corporation (while she was a young child) the psychotic villain, and the corporation that traumatized her and its psychopathic owner the victims and heroes of this girl? And all this in a series that's supposed to be, at least in part, about promoting the empowerment of women and girls? As such, I found the writing of this Stella arc to simply be pro-establishment classist misogyny all dressed up in cheap platitudes about the importance of friendship and family. It made no sense to me at all - and it infuriated me - that Stella was cast as the villain while the man and corporation that ruined her childhood were portrayed as her victims who only had to say "sorry" to "compensate" Stella for her lost childhood.

In conclusion, the classist, misogynist, and somewhat heteronormative problems plaguing the writing of the second season of this series are enough to make me hold back my recommendation of it to anyone interested in watching it. In addition, there are also racist issues that I've not delved into e.g., making the *only* main "Black" character in the series - Q (Anthony Keyvan) - be the one that excels in athletics is no doubt racist stereotyping, etc. Nonetheless, the major saving grace for this season was the development of the relationship between Q and Jin (Joshua Hyunho Lee), which I thought was well-done if one chooses to ignore the negative backstory on which it is based i.e. Jin used to Q's bully.

So, while I would strongly recommend the first season of this series to all (I rated it 8), I wouldn't do the same for the second season (rated 5). The first season was GREAT. The second season? Ruined by blatant classism and misogyny in the writing.

This short fashion video shoot for Interview Magazine should not be confused for a short film as its "plot" is quite thin and its focus is mainly on cinematography rather than narrative - with the exception that it includes a cliché message about love being able to save one's life. Nonetheless, the video is a strikingly beautiful portrait of a rare pairing of two of some of the most breathtakingly beautiful and uniquely talented actors of our times set against equally beautiful natural sceneries and mise-en-scènes. Notably, this was only the second time Amber Heard and the late Anton Yelchin (1989-2016) appeared in a "movie" together, the first having been in Nick Cassavetes' Alpha Dog six years earlier in 2006. However, it was the first and only time that Heard and Yelchin featured in a scene together, and in such an intimate manner. This, in itself, should fascinate most fans and scholars of Heard and Yelchin and should be enough reason for them to give this short video a watch. The video will also greatly interest fashion, videography, and cinematography enthusiasts as well as film students for its visual sensuality, elegance, and beauty. The only drawback to the video is its promotion of drug (including alcohol) consumption and its poor representation of women and of relationships between women and men.