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Reviews

“Atypical” Season 2 Highlights

Warning: major spoilers for “Atypical” Season 1 and 2 below! Netflix original show Atypical, created by Robia Rashid, quickly became one of my  favourite shows almost immediately into watching Season 1 (released in 2017). It presented itself as a world that you can both escape to as well as relate to, which is something I always enjoy. Atypical balances real, raw content with quirky fun, all wrapped up into half-hour episodes in relatively short seasons; a tactic that always leaves you wanting more. Of course, the main reason why I love this show is because of the representation. Focusing on…

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Books

Book Review: “Warlight” by Michael Ondaatje

The Trauma of the Post-War Generation In the second review from the Man Booker longlist, Warlight by Michael Ondaatje proved a much more intense read than the crime-thriller Snap by Linda Bauer. A Canadian writer born in Sri Lanka, Ondaatje is an author of high regard, having won the Man Booker prize once before for his internationally acclaimed novel, The English Patient, and similarly winning the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018 (the prize conceived to celebrate 50 years of the Man Booker which awards one book per decade a prize) for the same novel. To all those who know…

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Music

Classic Rock Playlist

With the end of summer means the start up of the drudgery of work days or school days. There are days when I am stressed out beyond belief and just in need of a good outlet, something that requires more than just calming music and soothing environment. That is exactly when I pull out this playlist and start belting my heart out. My favourite way to listen is to get on the road, go for a drive with the music up and the windows down. In this playlist you’ll find two straight hours of some of the best classic rock…

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Reflections

5 Best Guilty Pleasure Shows

As much as I love to watch shows and films that are considered truly artful and thought-provoking, I love just as much to sit down and mindlessly watch what might be considered “bad” television. Of course, the term “bad” is completely subjective, so I should really be saying that some shows are perhaps not of the best quality in terms of content, continuity, and let’s just throw it out there, acting. There’s something incredibly relaxing about not having to focus too much on the details of a show, though, which make these “guilty pleasure” shows so great. Here are five…

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Movies

The Past and Present of BlacKkKlansman

Last weekend, I went to an open air cinema to watch Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. I had heard nothing about the film, except for a rather vague explanation from my brother who was watching the film with me, and was frankly slightly apprehensive about watching the movie. The reason simply being that it’s not usually the style of film I would watch. BlacKkKlansman, a modern age Blaxploitation style film, is a telling of the real life (“based upon some fo’ real, fo’ real shit”) infiltration of the Klu Klux Klan by an African American cop, Ron Stallworth (played impeccably by John…

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Movies

“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” Film Review

Warning: Major Spoilers below! When I first watched the trailer for the new Netflix film To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (based on a novel of the same name), I wasn’t sure what to think. Personally, I am not a massive fan of overly sappy movies or shows because I find sappiness to be disingenuous most of the times, or romanticized to a point of unbelievability. That’s sort of how this film came across, but what caught my eye was that the main character was a PoC (actress Lana Condor is of Vietnamese ethnicity, playing half-Korean character Lara Jean…

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