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Note: As I write this, Southern California is on fire and several families have lost everything to the devastation caused by many fires, but especially the Palisades and Eaton fires. If you are able, I ask you to donate to the Black Music Action Coalition’s LA Fires Relief Fund to support Black families and businesses who have lost generations worth of wealth and abundance due to these devastating fires. You can also donate to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation to support first responders in LA, many of whom are incarcerated and severely underpaid. Thank you.

Pst, hey you. Yeah, you. Thanks for reading. Thanks for supporting my small lil substack. I know that it’s been a while. But whether you just started reading bad bvssy today or since Summer 2024, your readership means a lot to me. And give yourself a pat on the back for being here while you’re at it. ‘Cause, hey — at least you’re reading. Most of us doom-scrolling bitches can’t usually say that.

What a year it’s been! With 2024 now closed and 2025 in full swing, I wanted to catch you all up on what I’ve been enjoying and not writing about. Time to take a trip down memory lane to share some of my favorites of 2024 with you all.

Favorite Film of 2024:

Love Lies Bleeding (dir. by Rose Glass)

Undoubtedly one of, if not THE gayest movie to come out in 2024 — Love Lies Bleeding stands out amongst the many films that I loved from this past year, so many of which I have a complicated appreciation of. But my love for Love Lies Bleeding is so wonderfully uncomplicated. Just two sapphics on the run, giving us II MOST WANTED but with murder, ‘roids-induced psychosis, and shitty mullets. It’s so wonderfully stylish, silly, and sexy. Definitely one of those films that had me sitting in the theater saying “I fucking love da movies” to myself.

Rose Glass’s direction captures such a specific flavor of Cronenberg-esque body horror but making it sexier in the process. The film’s Hulk-ish ending (no spoilers, promise) is such a love letter to queers who are fatigued with tragic endings for gays on-screen. A perfect movie in spirit. In case you haven’t already, you can check out my full review here.

Other honorable mentions for films I loved this year include Challengers (Luca Guadignino), The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Benjamin Ree), Anora (Sean Baker) — just to name a few. Because there were too many movies, I’ll be releasing a separate post soon. Stay tuned.

Favorite Television Series of 2024:

Interview with the Vampire (AMC, Showrunner: Rolin Jones)

We’ve had some fun queer stories hit our TVs this year. But none have been as well-paced, as penetrating, as punchy as AMC’s Season 2 of Interview with the Vampire. Easily one of the best shows of the decade, IWTV re-adapts Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire novel for the screen — this time as a television series, splitting up the story across two seasons. Season 1 may have stuck to its guns as a tragic Gothic Horror/Romance, but Season 2 turns up the dial on gothic political intrigue with Louis and Claudia entering a deadly den of vampiric intrigue and meeting the Theatre des Vampires in 1940’s Paris. If y’all thirst for complex morality complexes, soap opera-level of dramatics, and amazing costumes — look no further than this show. Y’all, whether you’ve seen the 1994 movie starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt or not, give this show a chance. It features some incredible writing about navigating worlds of anti-blackness while embracing the abject and grotesque — as queer, as vampire, as feminine — it is oh-so-juicy. You can watch Season One on Netflix or both seasons on AMC+.

Other honorable mentions for shows I liked included Marvel’s Agatha All Along (let’s go lesbians!) and Heartstopper… it wasn’t a big TV year for me admittedly.

Favorite Book of 2024:

Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd

"Poetry was an itch to contextualize, to inform, to hinge severed limbs onto the people to whom they once belonged, to allow those people nuance."

From Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd, Rifqa is an Arabic word meaning companionship, kindness, or gentleness. It is also the name of El-Kurd’s grandmother. Rifqa captures traces of memories about Palestine, about dispossession, about grief. El-Kurd collects these traces from his family, his neighbors, chance encounters, news headlines, from lives lost. It’s a short read (100 pages), but one that reminded me that there’s resistance and a return to power in building families, creating spectacles of disruption, translating hopelessness into rage, writing poetry, making art, creating action.

I’m not a poetry girlie, but I can’t help but to admire the poetry works that I stumble upon. I love poetry’s power to evoke memories through fractured bits of language. And I believe poetry can be powerful — powerful enough to activate, to mobilize, to radicalize. For that exact reason, there’s no doubt that Rifqa was my favorite book that I read in 2024. And if you like poetry too, I hope that you give it a read so that it may possess you the way it did me.

“The youth remind me with firework spectacle: decolonization is not an abstract theory. See: The soldier with a stone in his fascist face. The colonizer car in flames. Surveillance cameras smashed. ‘Checkpoints’ emptied out of their gatekeepers I stand in awe of the hail.”

Favorite Album/EP of 2024:

What a Devastating Turn of Events (Rachel Chinouriri)

Y’all, what a great year for music. Following lockdown in 2020, I found myself stuck in endless loops, listening to the same music over and over. Thankfully, this year has been one of actively seeking out new music, discovering new sounds and artists (no thanks to Spotify’s AI-run daylists).

Rachel Chinouriri seriously stunned me with her debut record What a Devastating Turn of Events. Oscillating in time between stories of heartbreak, depression, grief — the album journeys through Chinouriri’s memories of youth in the noughties to her adult years today in the 2020s. Composed of 14 tracks, early 2000s British alt-pop (influences like Lily Allen, Kate Nash) infuse itself into the very DNA of Chinouriri’s sound, not to mention while employing a neo-soul & R&B spirit in its storytelling. What a Devastating Turn of Events captures some of Rachel’s deepest and saddest memories, bound together by whimsicality, catharsis, and a hunger for joy and life.

After the angsty and pessimistic album opener ‘Garden of Eden’ (“No matter what, your youth is gonna end / My God, it’s sinking in / There’s no point in anything.”), Chinouriri holds our hand as she walks us through her emotional landscape of growing up feeling out of place in ‘The Hills’ (“When you don’t belong, the hills will know / It’s visible, you don’t belong here”). Having grown up in Croydon, South London as part of an immigrant Zimbabwean-British family, What a Devastating Turn of Events seeks to memorialize the pain she experienced growing up, both as an outcast and as a daughter of an immigrant — while simultaneously writing a love letter to her family for being such a huge force in shaping her into the woman she is today. This album is a beautiful spell being cast to undo narratives of unbelonging — so that one may be able to set themself free.

Other honorable mentions for music projects I loved this year include Mk.gee - Two Star & The Dream Police, Doechii - Alligator Bites Never Heal, CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso - BAÑO MARÍA, beabadoobee - This Is How Tomorrow Moves, and more. Because there were so many albums I loved from this past year, you can expect an incoming post about that. To read more of my thoughts on Rachel Chinouriri’s album and the other projects I loved from this past year, stay tuned.

Favorite Meme of 2024:

SATC ‘Big is moving to Paris’ Memes

I wouldn’t saaaay I’m chronically online. Okay, yes, I’m chronically online. But if anything, I’m always trying to spend less time on my phone (even if that doesn’t go according to plan some months). There’s just no way that I’m not going to enjoy and take part in the great art of memeology. (Shoutout Paula Abdul.)

A lot of the memes and videos I collect tend to be related to new music and film that I’m listening to/watching. And as such, I’ll say that my favorite meme from this past year comes down to the Sex and the City ‘Big is moving to Paris’ memes.

Honestly? Nothing quite hits like reeling from a new dystopian headline taking over my feed and scrolling to find a meme of Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha processing the news, only to be hit with Carrie’s self-obsessed ‘Big is moving to Paris’ line. The news is only going to get more disastrous and the SATC reboot is just not hitting, so I hope we can rely on more SATC memes in 2025.

(I know it’s technically my job to explain these things, but that would just sour the joke, wouldn’t it? If you have yet to see Sex and the City, you can learn more here.)

Favorite Fashion Moment of 2024:

Hunter Schaefer at Cannes Film Festival, May 2024 (Styled by Dara Allen)

I have a hard time with red carpet premieres. For the most part, they leave a bad taste in my mouth as a flagrant display of power and status from the upper class — even if not everyone who walks down them is wealthy themselves. That being said, old habits die hard, and I still find myself wowed by fashion moments on red carpets. I can’t help but love fashion, y’all — and I believe it’s imperative to remain critical of fashion corporations and the way the industry works, even if you admire the creativity and play that goes into the design and styling of it all.

This past May, Hunter Schaefer attended Cannes for the Kinds of Kindness film (the most recent Yorgos Lanthimos film), styled by Dara Allen. These past few years, I’ve been most enamored with Dara Allen’s styling. I find her concepts and her astuteness for play and form to be delectable and exciting. Rarely do I find a combination of kitch and elegance in fashion that makes me smile the way Dara’s styling does.

I was absolutely floored by this custom Armani Privè gown that Hunter Schaefer wore to the Cannes Film Festival last May. This stunning dress was an altered design from Armani Privè’s SS 2011 collection. The fabric (which I assume is liquid silk organza) is the star of the show, shining in a metallic periwinkle, but the silhouette and the gathering along the waist is so my cup of tea. I, too, dream of embodying a shiny glass bottle. Plus, pockets! YES.

And now for some personal bits.

Favorite Photo of Myself in 2024:

I took two photos of myself this entire past year that I loved unconditionally. You might think that’s sad, but honestly: there are some months where I don’t take any photos of myself. Since this was the more recent one (taken in December) — and because I felt like a Victorian coquette — you get this one. One of my goals for the new year is to have more fun dressing myself and to take more photos of myself, no matter how I’m feeling.

Favorite Place I Visited in 2024:

Right before I was hacked on Instagram (it’s a whole story for another time. My new instagram is @badbvssy), I was on O’ahu visiting my sister and other members of my family. My sister took me to visit Waimea Valley, which I was filled with such immense gratitude to be able to witness.

Waimea Valley is an incredibly sacred nature preserve and historical site on the North Shore of O’ahu. It holds O’ahu’s largest heiau temple and has a strong spiritual presence and significance. The Valley is a wide collection of trails, with sprawling paths leading up the mountain or along the main valley path. At the end of these paths is a path leading to the Waimea falls (pictured above), where visitors can swim in the lagoon if desired. Though, I felt uncomfortable swimming in such a spiritually active spot, so my ass stayed dry. Still, it was incredibly beautiful.

As a malihini (someone new to Hawaii) with family on the island, it was not lost to me how lucky I was to be able to visit Waimea. It is already a privilege to be able to be on the island due to the way the tourism industry and US imperialism has made the island inaccessible to indigenous Hawaiian people. So it meant a lot to me to be able to be on-site and to be with family I love and to sit with the trees.

Favorite Food I Ate in 2024:

I was super lucky to have been selected to participate in Toronto International Film Festival’s Media Inclusion Initiative this past Fall and I got to stay in Mississauga, just outside of Toronto, to be with family. I definitely ate food in Toronto, but ironically the best food I had was in Mississauga.

My favorite meal was from the Taiwanese restaurant Mabu Generation in Mississauga. I ordered the Mabu Egged Suyaki with Rice, which wasn’t sukiyaki exactly but rather like a hot pot broth with egg and tempura cooked in the broth. My mouth is currently watering as I’m writing this. Truly I think about this dish every few weeks. This had tempura, onions, eggs, suyaki sauce, and seaweed, along with some white rice and what I initially thought was tofu but can’t be tofu because it was far too gelatinous and sweet. I don’t think it was rakugan or any sort of Japanese confectionery. If anyone has a clue, please let a girl know!

Favorite Memories of 2024:

When I look back on 2024, the first thing that comes to mind is the hardships: friendships that ended or loved ones I lost and continue to grieve. There were a lot of chapters closed, but in the wake of loss there was also so many milestones, so many blessings, and so many tests of character and of my values.

This year:

• I got to celebrate my birthday with my friends and chosen family who I love so deeply, even despite being in the storm of tragedy. Joy and love persists even in the face of devastation!

• I got to witness my younger brother’s graduation from middle school! It was so sweet to witness his growth and give him his flowers as he continues to develop as a young person.

• I got to visit my sister in Hawaii for Christmas and spend time with my young niblings. I so love being in community with children and each visit I get, I feel us all grow closer and myself learning more about myself.

• I started volunteering at my local community garden in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago! If you’re based in Chicago and you live nearby Pilsen, feel free to join us at La Huerta Roots and Rays Garden or follow us on Instagram for community garden days later this Spring/Summer!

• I was granted the Emerging Critics Grant from Rotten Tomatoes and the Chicago Film Critics Association for my writing on Bad Bvssy! This recognition helped me feel more confident in the work I was doing as a writer.

• I was chosen to be part of OTV’s 2024 Fellowship of Global Intersectional Storytellers, where I worked on developing my short film project Not Like Other Vampires!

• Coincidentally, I also was chosen to participate in OTV’s Pitch, Please! virtual pitching event to pitch my film, where I was awarded $10k to go towards production costs of my film! This was craaaaazy. I’m so so excited to be able to share more about the film with you all in the near future!

• Additionally, I was also selected for the Toronto International Film Festival’s Media Inclusion Program, which allowed me to fly to Toronto and report on the films at TIFF! I had a really amazing time and I’m hoping to attend again soon. If you are an emerging writer and are curious about learning more about what my experience was like, don’t hesitate to reach out!

All these blessings and opportunities have been a great call to power within myself, to take ownership over my work and to move with intention and fervor in the new year. I step into 2024 with a clearer sense of who I am and which of my goals and aspirations have needed to shift to make room for my new dreams and aspirations.

In 2025, I’m aiming to:

• Get another job, girl. It’s hard out here.

• Make more pickles. Yes, bitch, you heard me. Pickle more, cook more, bake more, have more fun with food, even if that means sticking to my guns some weeks and only cooking recipes that make me happy and nourished.

• Say hello to strangers when walking on the street. I hate the sensation of living in America and not saying hello or recognizing another human’s presence when we pass on the street. I think it’s easy to psyche yourself out of saying ‘hello’, especially if you’re not feeling great. But since doing this, I’ve found that it often lifts my spirits a bit.

• Secure more funding for my film and lock down a team! If you’re a producer or work in the film industry, please feel free to DM me on Instagram at @badbvssy.

• Invest more into relationships with my neighbors and peers, so that we may be able to support each other when the days get tough.

• Create more opportunities to go on dates with my platonic friends and experience more together.

• Make art and write at my own pace, even if it means that I get less opportunities for taking too long as a creative.

• Prioritize creative play rather than creation for consumption. Share music, art, and film in interest of exploration and curiosity, rather than being concerned with cultural or creative elitism.

• I want to listen to more music, watch more movies, and read more books. I’m cultivating systems to help me do so and I’m excited to see how they work or how they can change to ensure a balance between exploring new art and still being present with those I love!

There’s always more, of course, but that’s all I got for you today. Stay tuned for newer posts and let me know what were your favorites of 2024, puh-lease. I love an ever-growing list of things to check out.

Ciao! xx Laya

TIFF24 has officially wrapped and I am officially back home in Chicago!

After a whirlwind of a fest, I’m feeling super blessed to be able to walk away with a wonderful week of amazing screenings, as well as many generative conversations with filmmakers, publicists, and film journalists alike. You can read more about my time at the festival at Hi Shelli with my introduction piece, along with some upcoming coverage of a few different films. Stay tuned for that.

Toronto International Film Festival is one of the largest public-facing film festivals in North America, with this year’s slate including 278 films across the globe.

Given its unique timing in the festival circuit, many projects premiere in Toronto with secured distributors and sales agents already attached, meaning audiences attending the festival can already have a sense of where they can next have the opportunity to watch a film they’re interested in.

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Here is a compiled list of films made up of projects that I think could be contenders for awards seasons, along with movies that I think could be relevant in pop culture and cinema, and some smaller films that I think deserve some extra eyes on them.

Anora (dir. by Sean Baker)

From the director of Tangerine and The Florida Project, Anora had my absolute favorite soundtrack of any film at this year’s festival — featuring tracks from Slayyyter, t.A.T.u., Blondie, and more. Following a Russian-American stripper in Coney Island who falls in love with the son of a Russian oligarch, Anora is as much a love story as it is a cautionary tale about young women placing their trust in men they barely know. The film promises audiences a wild and hilarious romp through a zany, modern Cinderella fantasy — one that ends in a stark but down-to-earth portrait of a young woman’s yearning for security and love in an uncertain, patriarchal world. Winner of this year’s Palme D’or at Cannes Film Festival, Anora was also named as a runner-up for TIFF’s People’s Choice Award. Whether or not this means anything to you, Anora will remain one of the most talked about films of this year and is a sure-contender for awards season. Anora is being distributed by Neon and will be released in theaters on October 18.

You can read my full review of Anora at Hi Shelli.

Hi Shelli

'Anora'—A Cautionary Tale On the Perils of Trusting Rich Men

This review is part of Guest Writer Laya Lee coverage from TIFF 2024…

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2 years ago · 11 likes · Laya Lee

Babygirl (dir. by Halina Reijn)

Following Bodies Bodies Bodies, Halina Reijn returns with new erotic romance Babygirl, starring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson. The film centers Romy (Kidman), a CEO of a Robotics tech company, as she unleashes the floodgates of her own sexual repression by beginning a dom/sub affair of sexual powerplay with her significantly younger and aggressively-forward intern, Samuel (Dickinson). While the film’s core exists in gag-worthy hotel and office sex scenes shared between its two lead actors — it’s in Nicole Kidman’s captivating portrayal of a woman juggling sexual shame and despairing desire that the film shines. Babygirl confronts audiences with a certain type of BDSM that isn’t super groundbreaking for audiences, but places a captivating push and pull emotional journey on display, able to position us alongside the protagonist’s heterosexual and wealthy worldview – in a way that has us clutching for our pearls all the same. Would recommend this one for anyone who loves an on-screen sex scene or anyone who’s also orgasmed so hard they started sobbing. Babygirl has also been picked up by A24 (lotsa A24 picks this year, as we’ve seen) and will be released in theaters on December 25!

The Substance (dir. by Coralie Fargeat)

Demi Moore appears in the newest body horror feature The Substance, playing a fading Hollywood actress turned aerobics aficionado who, on her 50th birthday, is fired by the network. Spiraling from a world that quickly discards and forgets about her, Elizabeth Sparkle (Moore) begins injecting a black market drug labeled ‘The Substance’, promised a beauty enhancement. Thus comes the birth of Sue (Margaret Qualley), a younger and seemingly ‘more beautiful’ duplicate of herself — yet, the two’s bodies and consciousnesses are tethered as ‘one’, forced to swap out with one another. Winning ‘Best Screenplay’ at Cannes earlier this year and The People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award at TIFF, The Substance surprised a lot of audiences with a thoughtfully-crafted satire, carried by a captivating performance from Demi Moore — convincing me as a powerful project in the world of feminist body horror. The Substance has been picked up for distribution by Mubi and Metropolitan Filmexport for France. The film premieres in theaters this weekend on September 20!

The Last Showgirl (dir. by Gia Coppola)

In The Last Showgirl, Pamela Anderson returns to the silver screen in all her Pamelaissance glory — her first major leading role since releasing her memoir Love, Pamela and her biopic documentary Pamela, A Love Story. From Gia Coppola (a Coppola by a different name), The Last Showgirl follows a seasoned Las Vegas showgirl, an aging starlet, who must plan for a future she wasn’t prepared for when her show closes after a 30-year-old run. Somehow, after the very journey of public vulnerability Pamela’s been on these past couple of years, she feels like a perfect fit to steward this character and tell this story. The premise alone is captivating enough to get me to watch, yet what really makes this a must-watch for me is what Pamela Anderson has to say about the film in her interview with The Kit: “What do you do in your fifties, and you’ve kind of put your career first and you haven’t been there for your kids enough? You’re facing your adult children — we all have to face our adult children and beg for forgiveness at some point in our lives about how we did the best we could with the tools we had.” Clocking in at just under 90 minutes, The Last Showgirl just premiered in Toronto this month, but will continue its festival run this next year. Looking forward to watching it.

Nightbitch (dir. by Marielle Heller)

Amy Adams is… NIGHTBITCH. Right? Adapted from the bestselling novel, Nightbitch is an inevitable major motion picture (the execs know this, book adaptations equals $$$). Amy Adams, who won the TIFF Tribute Performer Award, plays the leading role of Mother alongside Scoot McNairy, who plays the role of Husband — yes, that’s right. New to suburban motherhood, Amy Adams’s character struggles to fit the confines of her role as a parent and wife while her husband takes frequent business trips. In struggling to find meaning in her maternal routine, she begins turning into a dog. That’s the movie.

Although I remain skeptical of the depth of what Marielle Hellers will bring to the film, I still think this film’s vague or even magical realist premise feels almost irresistible, even with some potentially corny, potentially reductive ideas surrounding feminine primality — yet I remain open to having my mind changed by the film when I get to watch it. Nightbitch has secured Searchlight Pictures as a distributor and releases in theaters on December 6.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (dir. by Rungano Nyoni)

An uncle’s dead body acts as a rude awakening for a middle class Zambian family, whose family secrets begin to surface amidst a funeral in this surrealist dramedy from Zambian Welsh director Rungano Nyoni. I was sold on this film as soon as I read ‘family secrets’ in its synopsis (but also when I saw the film’s protagonist dressed up as Missy Elliott, a scene that kickstarts the film’s opening sequence). The film thoughtfully balances an introspective protagonist and some dark and difficult themes of abuse — so major trigger warning for anyone who has a hard time listening to stories of abuse or sexual trauma. I remain surprised and impressed by the film’s easy-going humor and the significance it finds in the role of a Guinea Fowl that becomes the film’s heart. An important watch. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl has secured distribution by A24 and will be releasing in theaters this December.

You can read my full review this week at Hi Shelli.

A Mother Apart (dir. by Laurie Townshend)

This new tender, heartfelt documentary from Toronto-based filmmaker Laurie Townshend frames motherhood as a practice, and in doing so, takes us on a journey of healing and truth-seeking. A Mother Apart follows Jamaican-American poet and LGBTQIA+ activist Staceyann Chin, whose role as a mother has taken root at the heart of her identity. As Chin supports and loves her daughter, she also investigates the whereabouts of her mysterious mother who she was abandoned by at a young age. A Mother Apart is on its festival run at the moment but has secured distribution from NFB. I’m really hoping that Americans and international audiences will get access to experience this incredible film.

Rez Ball (dir. by Sydney Freeman)

The ‘Inspiring Sports Comedy Drama’ genre is so back with Netflix’s Rez Ball. From co-writers Sterlin Harjo (Reservation Dogs) and Sydney Freeman (Marvel’s Echo, Drunktown’s Finest), the film follows an ensemble of Navajo high schoolers, their community, and their basketball team the Chuska Warriors, who tragically lose their best player and teammate at the top of the film. Following this loss, the team and characters must come together to realize their dreams of a state championship. Despite it being easy to identify the formula of sport-drama storytelling, Rez Ball surprises you with its heart and honest portrayal of Navajo youth. Director Sydney Freeland thoughtfully finds ways to weave queer stories into the film, all while maintaining focus on how hard it is to chase your dreams and not let ideas of demons of scarcity or shame sabotage your drive or self-worth. TIFF is Rez Ball’s world premiere, but the film releases in select theaters on September 20 and streams on Netflix on September 27.

You can read my review of Rez Ball at the Chicago Reader.

Dead Talents Society (dir. by John Hsu)

Taiwanese supernatural satire Dead Talents Society captures a campy, hilarious, and heart-filled world of undead spirits competing to haunt the living, fighting for their chance to be seen. With an culture and industry-like economy akin 80’s-era Taiwanese talk show hosts and idol pop performers, Dead Talents Society follows The Rookie (Gingle Wang), a recently deceased teen who learns that she only has 30 days left to scare someone and get her haunting license or else she ceases to exist. She is mentored by Catherine (Sandrine Pinna), a legendary phantom diva who’s former pupil has become her new nemesis and stolen her spotlight. With help from their agent Makoto (Bo-Lin Chen), the gaggle of ghosts end up on a comedic and heart-filled mission to turn The Rookie into a terrifying Urban Legend to climb the ranks of ghouls. At it’s heart, the film is a story about the power of found family and a reminder that you don’t need to be talented or spectacular to be special and to be loved. Dead Talents Society was named as a runner-up for TIFF’s People Choice Midnight Madness Award. Currently on its festival run, the film will next play at Fantastic Fest and the Hawaii International Film Festival. However, the film has also been picked up by Sony Pictures, so fingers crossed on streaming access or a theatrical run for those of us overseas.

The Piano Lesson (dir. by Malcolm Washington)

Adapted from the 1987 play by August Wilson, The Piano Lesson follows the Charles family and their lives, set in the aftermath of the Great Depression. At the heart of the story is their prized heirloom piano — an intricate piece of family history, which carries their family history, with carvings made from an enslaved ancestor. With a star-studded cast featuring Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Michael Potts, and Erykah Badu — the film’s epic decade-spanning story is sure to carry some magnificent performances and pose some thoughtful questions about authorship, preservation of family history, and legacy. The film, produced by director Malcom Washington’s father, Denzel Washington (it’s a family affair), will next be opening the Chicago International Film Festival on October 16. The Piano Lesson also officially releases in select theaters on November 8 and will be streaming on Netflix on November 22.

We Live in Time (dir. by John Crowley)

One thing about me is I’m a hopeless Florence Pugh stan. I dunno what it is about this white girl, but I can’t not watch everything she’s in. If she can get me to watch Dune, then she can get me to watch a John Crowley film for sure.

We Live in Time is a romance film about the unpredictability of life and love. The film features Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield) who fall in love following a surprise road accident that kicks off their romance. We Live in Time follows the protagonists’ journey through several decades as they seek to become parents and their efforts to keep their family together through an unexpected diagnosis. With an inventive approach to story structure, director John Crowley and screenwriter Nick Payne aim to explore what it means to make the most out of our time on this earth, promising audiences some beautiful joyful moments and tears. There will be tears when you watch this movie. The film has been picked up for distribution by A24 (US release) and StudioCanal (worldwide sales) and will premiere in theaters on October 11.

Emilia Pérez (dir. by Jacques Audiard)

I must honestly say that Emilia Pérez was one of the most transphobic movies I’ve seen in a long time. So why can’t I stop thinking about it? Branded as a pop opera meets narco thriller meets gender affirmation drama (okay, miss girl), Emilia Pérez is a pulpy musical opera about its titular character (Karla Sofía Gascón), a kingpin turned queenpin who fakes her death, with the help of a Mexico City defense attorney (Zoe Saldaña), to transition as a trans woman. The film is a story about rebirth, one where the topic of transition and transformation is handled so sloppily that it remains downright offensive. Yet, for what the film lacks in thoughtfulness or care regarding trans stories, it offers up instead a genuine interest in the arcs of its ensemble cast of women — all seeking to remold their lives in the face of their oppressive pasts. The film has a lot of novelty for its indulgent genre-merging and I will honestly say that I love its spectacle, its silliness, and its soap opera antics — making this a complicated addition to this list. Regardless of its problems and harmful trans tropes (referring to Emilia as half-man-half-woman, along with a sensationalized musical number about gender affirming surgeries), I’m certain this film will be at the forefront of trans cinema for the next couple of years whether we like it or not. Emilia Pérez is being distributed by both Pathé and Netflix. It will be released in theaters on November 1 and be available for streaming on Netflix on November 13 in the US, Canada, and the UK.

You can read my full review of Emilia Pérez at Hi Shelli.

Hi Shelli

‘Emilia Pérez’ Is A Fun, Pulpy Misstep In Trans Cinematic Representation

This review is part of Guest Writer Laya Lee’s coverage of TIFF 2024…

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2 years ago · 3 likes · Laya Lee

Really Happy Someday (dir. by J Stevens)

Really Happy Someday is a special, unique story on transition and the work that goes into finding your voice again, both physically and spiritually. The Canadian drama centers on Z (played by Breton Lalama), a stage actor rising in Toronto’s music theatre scene, who bombs an audition, after the changes in his voice caused by Hormonal Replacement Therapy. Really Happy Someday zones in on its protagonist as he seeks support from his vocal coach Shelly (Ali Garrison) to regain control over his instrument. Though the film is a narrative piece, it is in some ways also part-documentary — featuring vocal lessons on-screen that are honest and true recordings of Lalama actually honing his voice and making strides in reclaiming agency over his voice. Directed by J Stevens, Lalama and Stevens worked together to write and produce the film together, drawing from personal experiences of navigating transition. This one’s for trans folks who are looking for their stories on screen, for theatre kids and performers alike. Really Happy Someday just premiered at this year’s TIFF, and I hope that the film continues its festival circuit around the world, so that queer audiences can find themselves on screen once more.

Will & Harper (dir. by Josh Greenbaum)

In 2022, Harper Steele sent out an email coming out as a trans woman to all of her friends, one of whom included her longtime friend and collaborator Will Ferrell. When met with shock, Will Ferrell realized that he had to learn about trans people and his old friend — so he proposed making a road trip documentary with his old friend Harper. Though it took some convincing for Harper Steele, Will & Harper is both a wholesome buddy road trip documentary, as well as a conversation starter for audiences everywhere on what trans identity is and what transition means. Harper Steele positions herself in very vulnerable positions throughout the film and in promotion of the film, allowing cis audiences a look into her life before transition and her life as a white trans woman navigating America. I don’t particularly think this film is for trans people — and neither does Harper Steele, she’s made it very clear in discussing the film: this is not a trans film, this is a Will Ferrell film about their friendship together. And while that may be true, I do think this film will go on to be incredibly significant in opening and changing moderate voters’ opinions of trans people. After all, less than 1 in 3 American voters know someone who is transgender, and while I don’t particularly find myself interested in being in dialogue with transphobes or folks who are ignorant to transness, someone has to be facilitating that dialogue — and I’m grateful it’s Will Ferrell and Harper Steele. Will & Harper is distributed by Netflix and is now in select theaters. The film will be available for streaming on Netflix on September 27.

The Paradise of Thorns (dir. by Naruebet Kuno)

One of my most anticipated releases of this year, The Paradise of Thorns is a Thai drama about an unmarried gay couple, Sek and Thongkam, whose life of tending to the durian orchard that they built together is disrupted when Sek passes in a tragic accident. Because the couple’s relationship is not recognized by the government, the durian orchard is seized by Sek’s mother. In the face of losing his life and the love of his life, Thongham fights to reclaim what he and Sek built from the ground up, unwilling to lose the last piece of his partner he has left. The Paradise of Thorns seeks to make meaning out of Thailand’s past, present, and future in the face of the country’s recently passed same-sex marriage bill, which is the first in all of Southeast Asia. Weighing grief, self-determination, freedom, and justice — the film is carried by both an incredible vision from filmmaker Naruebet Kuno and brilliant performances from Jeff Satur and Engfa Waraha. The Paradise of Thorns is distributed by GDH 559, and I’m eagerly hoping for a theatrical or streaming release here in the United States.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this list of films, consider checking out my coverage at Hi Shelli!

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Live from TIFF, It’s...'Hi Laya'?!

Hello dear Shellian readers…

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2 years ago · 5 likes · Laya Lee

Or another one of my reviews:

Bad Bvssy Digest is a new section of bad bvssy: a roundup of moments & cultural touchstones (or in this case, new habits) that I’m obsessed with. We’re kicking off the segment softly with a post today about sleep hygiene

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I think my brain has a leak. Perhaps you might relate? After [redacted] amount of hours on TikTok and Instagram, I think my brain is succumbing to inevitable singularity, leading to a bad case of brain rot. I’ve been having a lot of ‘off’ days lately, where I can’t seem to get enough done. Usually, this is caused by sleepless nights spent in front of screens. These are days where my brain feels mushy and soggy and my hand always seems to mindlessly reach for my phone. Many days I detest having my phone, detest feeling attached to the overwhelming and constant influx of information coming from screens. But I’m trying to embrace this technology as a tool that allows me to connect with others and stay informed — rather than just an oppressive device that colonizes my attention span. To do this, I have been trying to introduce some new boundaries in my sleep schedule to set me and my work up for a good night’s sleep.

Some general practices I’ve been into:

Alarm Clocks

• I’ve gotten an alarm clock to use in place of my phone. I’m trying to practice not scrolling first thing in the morning. This only works if I charge my phone in another room though… Chai and Pilates sometimes help too.

Designated Message Times

• I try to block out time at the top of my work day or before bedtime to get through all the messages I’ve been avoiding responding to. I am naturally a notoriously bad texter, as many of my friends know. However, while I reject the idea that I should be available to everyone at any time of the day, I also try to hold myself to a higher expectation of responding to others in a timely manner. To do this while simultaneously protecting my ‘me’ time, I block out an hour at the top of every day, every other day, or sometimes just 30 minutes after I shower to respond to messages.

Running, Stretching, and Showering before Dinner or Bedtime

• I started running a month ago. My practice is pretty irregular. One week I’m running everyday and the next I’m running once or twice. So on and so forth. I tend to do a lot of my runs before dinner or before bedtime. Do I recommend it? Hell no. Sometimes the adrenaline from my run keeps me up at night. And sure, it’s not advisable running when it’s dark, mostly for safety reasons... but I love how tender my body feels when I’m laying in bed. Helps me fall right asleep.

Blue Light Glasses

• A good friend gifted me some transparent blue light frames a long time ago but I have a bad habit of not wearing them when I’m on my computer at night. We are rebuilding that habit now. I have not been great about sleeping at a reasonable time lately. So from here on out, babes: No Screens after 11pm. I’m just trying to manifest honestly. I don’t need anymore late nights playing Overwatch 2 or CK3. Let’s get you (me) to bed, grandma.

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Late Night Musings on the Notes App or Telegram App:

• Now I know that the whole point of this is to get off our phones at night, but some nights my brain is too active and I need to dump it somewhere. I am naturally a very digital person. Perhaps the better suggestion is to journal before bed. But I grew up on Myspace, Xanga, and Tumblr. My brain is built for late night typing. Last year, I wrote all of my journal entries in the early morning by hand in my notebook. It was very unlike me, and it was a life-changing practice. But these days, after the hustle and bustle of a long day, what I need is to dump all my creative ideas into my Notes app on my phone (or my saved messages on Telegram), where I know I’ll find them soon.

Altar Time:

• Some difficult days, I carry a heaviness in my chest and a buzzing in my head. I just feel out of sorts, maybe even lost or confused. This heaviness is often resolved by some quiet time spent in front of my altar space near my bed. We all have complex relationships with our ancestors, and having a designated space has been really pivotal for me to build a relationship with loved ones who have passed on. This is a perfect space for me to reflect, to cry, to reach out, and have life breathed back into me.

These are the changes I am making to be a more well-rested bitch who isn’t chained to her phone all day. This is all to say: that’s all I got.

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Sike!!! And now, we have announcement time!

Super honored that since starting this Substack, I’ve been selected for a couple of wonderful opportunities:

• In less than a week, I’ll be in Toronto for TIFF 2024! Thanks to the festival for sponsoring my attendance and granting me access through their Media Inclusion Initiative. You can expect some incoming posts about the films I’ll be seeing while attending.
  

• Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to attend Chicago’s Film Critics Festival at the Music Box and saw some of the most notable films I’ve gotten to see this year. More on those films later. Thanks to Rotten Tomatoes and the Chicago Critics Film Association for recognizing me as one of this year’s Emerging Critics, and for sponsoring my attendance to the festival!
  

• And finally, I was also selected as a Fellow for Open Television’s 2024 Global Cohort of Intersectional Storytellers. So sick! Now, what does that mean? Through my time in this fellowship, I’m focused on developing a film project called Not Like Other Vampires. I’m not quite ready to talk details just yet, but I just wanted to share an exciting update to plant the seed. I’m super excited to be able to bring more insight on the project to everyone soon.

Wishing you an abundant end to your summer,
L A Y A

It’s my favorite time of the year. Pride month and Gemini season both now are coming to a close1 and summer is in full swing. In addition to being a summer baby, both of my parents happen to be from hot climates. Naturally, I’ve inherited from them an adoration for summertime, in which the sun’s warmth feels like home. Here in Chicago, we gruel through the difficult months of winter to emerge from our hibernation born anew, ready to reconnect with loved ones who we haven’t seen in months. These are the days with the most lively memories for me, the days which hold the most joy. I’ve always associated summer with an abundance and infinite possibility2. But today I write to you at the beginning of a somber summer: one that’s informed by a world on fire and waves of violence & loss that have been difficult to process for myself and many around the world.

I just lost a dear friend recently. I’m sure that one day, I will feel ready to openly and publicly remind the world of how special she was and all that I learned from her. But that day isn’t today, and this piece is not an obituary. Yet, I can’t not talk about the difficulty of what it means to move through grief. After all, its very nature is one that cuts through all of life’s plans, expectations, and dreams. Life suddenly feels on pause. It’s important to honor this grief work because it affects how I’m thinking, how I’m moving through the world, and *especially* how I’m struggling to write. 

Of what I’ve learned of writing lately, I find it to be a practice of major responsibility. It always requires a level of commitment to complete honesty about who I am (and how that changes), what I’m witnessing in the world around me, and how I’m moving through it as a consequence. This practice can be all-consuming at times, which I think is why it’s important to pause at times to take stock and listen.

In times like these — characterized by the horrors we’re witnessing in the Congo, in Palestine, in Sudan – it can feel like escapism when I turn to write about anything other than the genocide and apartheid we are witnessing around us and in the world. The difficulty I’ve had stomaching this violence has caused me to pause. The recent growth of islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment in the West has returned us to a post-9/11 world where the political zeitgeist is characterized by fear and a growing right-wing nationalism that seeks to further benefit the West’s imperialist & economic conquest of the Middle East. It feels folly at times for us to sit and talk about pop culture and entertainment when we should be disrupting these agendas and oppressive systems in whatever ways needed.

I’ve pondered a lot about escapism lately, both fondly and critically. Lately escapism feels cowardly, like dissociation. I don’t mean for that to sound harsh or like a reactive diss. If you know me, you know that I play a lot of video games, I read a lot of comics, and out of anyone, I should know that doses of escapism are necessary for our spirits – if not to regulate our nervous systems, then to dream of better worlds, better futures. Yet I struggle to carry my grief with me. These days, I feel that when I take a moment to escape, it feels like I’m letting others down. I’m not sure if this is completely fair, but this is how I’m showing up lately. 

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One of my first run-ins with grief came when I lost a parent at a young age – perhaps too young. It feels impossible to fathom what losing someone means in our world when you’re ten years of age. I fully embraced the delusion that I was stuck in an ongoing dream that, in several months, I would wake up from. Nothing was real around me for those first couple of years after my farther’s passing, until one day it became clear that there was no returning to ‘normalcy’. This was my life and my parent was gone. From loss comes a lot of change and fear. You no longer feel like who you once knew yourself to be, you’re afraid of being seen in this state of ‘broken-ness’. The world feels uglier and lonelier without our loved ones in it. We’re riddled with that fear of a life without them and the uncertainty of not knowing if we’re strong enough to continue on ‘alone’. To move with these feelings of grief is to sit with the tattered and broken pieces of who you once were to reconfigure who you can be now in a world shaped differently by this loss.

However, if there’s anything I learned in my early encounters with loss, it’s that there’s no clear-set path to recovering from losing a loved one. I mean, for some, understanding the stages of grief (i.e. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance, etc.) can be super helpful as a tool. For me though, I’ve always found the process of grieving to be too nonlinear to be captured by this framework. I hate to admit it, but there are losses that I moved on from after a short period of days. There are losses that I never took time to grieve, that caught up with me several years later. And there are losses that I continue to carry with me every year, every day, every moment. We are complex humans, with complex memories, and grief is nothing if not a testament to our multifaceted love.

And yet, this work is painful, difficult to move through. It is necessary to take breaks from it, to find comfort and joy in our loved ones who are still with us, even in time alone. But I urge us all to consider the importance of being present and to move carefully through dissociation. By dissociating ourselves from the pain we feel from grief, we run the risk of forgetting them and distancing ourselves from the memories that made them so special to us. We keep our loved ones alive through the ways they’ve touched us, molded us, shaped us to move through the world with our hearts tethered to one another. (Have y’all not seen Coco?)

It amazes me how much time it takes to steward life. I am forever in awe of the work that goes into caring for children, animals, or even plantlife. In building families, architecture, ecosystems, communities, art – it can take years, ages, eons. And it startles me how quickly it can all be taken away through violence or destruction or chaos. Perhaps this is a reminder of the sacredness of life and the gift of creation. Maybe this reminder is exactly why, in the face of loss, we continue on and are called to choose to love and open our hearts once again.

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Each time I lose someone, what stands out to me the most is how time moves differently. In ‘grief time’, time will never seem to be on your side. I notice huge losses of time, perhaps due to periods of dissociation and spending so much time in my thoughts and my feelings. Part of the pain of losing someone is realizing that there are no more memories to be made together3. For our lost ones, our memories of them are frozen in time. Yet the world will keep turning, urging us to put down our grief and move with it. What an agonizing task. 

You may not be a spiritual person, but I personally do believe that our spirits are still felt after our departure from this plane of existence. When our loved ones leave us, their presence will leave a void in our life and our hearts. This void never shrinks. It is always kept alive by the love bestowed upon us by their spirits. The grief we feel also doesn’t shrink with time. Rather, we continue to grow around it, as we heal and invite more change, more love, more joy, and more possibilities into our lives.

Even when we take the time we need, it never will feel like there’s enough time to fully process the pain of losing someone special. Truthfully, I’ve learned that part of loving others means we’ll never fully reach a point of full recovery in mourning. Because life happens, grief will continue to wash over us, again and again as we go through life. This is a consequence of loving others, a part of the cycle of love. To love is to grieve, because everything around us will one day come to an end. An uncomfortable but ultimate truth. It is a reminder that all life is temporary and that one day, we will leave this earth for another destiny, and those left behind will inherit our memories together and the love we shared. If there is any takeaway to grief, let it be that this anguish we go through in losing someone is to honor them as a teacher in love and life, in hopes that in due time, we can share what they’ve taught us about ourselves and the world we live in so that their love (and ours) can be preserved and shared with the universe once again.

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The film opens with a harsh portrait of a 1989 American gym, drifting across a sea of sweating bodies on ellipticals, swole muscles pumping iron, and tenets of Gym scripture reading: “NO PAIN NO GAIN”, “ONLY LOSERS QUIT”, and “PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY” – slogans reminiscent of the fitness craze obsession of the era—my worst nightmare. Glass sets this story amidst a sea of aching desperation, everyday people seeking to push their bodies beyond the max in chase of something better, something idealized. The sequence comes to an end with a grody visual of a shit-clogged toilet in the gym bathroom: a promise of more unsettling visuals to come. Lou (played by Kirsten Stewart) is the gym manager on call, stuck with a long list of grunt work and responsible for unclogging said toilet. Lou is a small-town recluse whose primary ambitions lie in quitting smoking – which honestly, good for her. Her days are spent smuggling steroids to juiced up gym bros and avoiding the obsessive (and unhinged) Daisy (played by Anna Baryshnikov), along with a pair of FBI agents who have taken interest in her father, Lou Sr. (played by Ed Harris), the town’s local gun-running crime boss. Lou no longer speaks to her father and is desperate to be rid of him. In fact, the only thing keeping her in town is her concern for her battered sister Beth (played by Jena Malone), a complacent housewife who delusionally pines after her hot-and-cold abusive husband JJ (played by Dave Franco) – who, by the way, sports one of the most criminal-offense-worthy mullets I’ve seen since my days in art school.

Lou’s status quo is disrupted when she meets Jackie (played by Katy O’Brian), a fearless vagabond, hitchhiker, and hunky bodybuilder who drifts through town seeking work and a space to train for an upcoming competition in Las Vegas. The two kick start their fated romance afterhours in the gym when Lou offers Jackie her first try at steroids via injection, an intimacy that entangles the two for the remainder of the runtime. Though dangerous, the eroticism of foreplay via needles and hormonal biohacking isn’t lost on all audiences, especially not on queer and trans viewers. The scene is informed by a transsexually-coded spirit of gender-fuckery that the two characters carry deeply within them. Their passionate affair is held together by the promise in one another that life beyond patriarchal femininity is possible and life-affirming, even in this seedy town.

Their tryst ramps up in what my friend Chile (who watched alongside me in the theater) called the “fastest U-Haul I’ve ever seen”. After the two move in together, the film drives their relationship forward with an alluring and sordid portrait of their romance: heavy on mouth-watering montages filled with gun worship, chocolate and sweat dripping on skin, frantic sex, and bodybuilder show(wo)manship set in grungy living rooms. But when the couple finally settle into their love for one another, Lou’s family baggage begins to rear its head. Jackie starts working for Lou Sr. at the local gun range and abusive brother-in-law JJ leaves Beth in a gruesome state (having her bedridden in the hospital). Our protagonists begin to spiral through a series of unfortunate events, amplified by bad ‘roid rage, a string of violent murders, and a haphazard plot put together by Lou to expose the trail of bodies left behind by her father that have haunted her since her youth.

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Love Lies Bleeding carries with it a pulpy yet grounded treatment of period storytelling – with amazing costumes and hair that are so unchic that they’re alluring, along with a masterfully crafted score helping to boldly welcome the viewer into its world. Avoiding caricaturing the 80s time period, the film instead focuses its attention on characterizing its setting of “Small-Seedy-Town”, New Mexico to contextualize the  dysfunction, hunger, and anxiety that drives the chaotic decision-making of the film’s lived-in characters. But what stands out the most is the film’s immersive sound design and mind-altering score from Clint Mansel. Mansel’s sound is woven into the film’s DNA, acting as an all-consuming parasite that psychically tethers you to the disturbing psychosis that O’Brian’s Jackie begins to experience in the second half of the film. Mansel’s sound is vital to the storytelling here. It is an all-consuming heartbeat that intensifies as the stakes grow for our flawed heroes, allowing us to spiral along with them.

Despite its grim and slimy texture, the film is able to deliver on its dark humor, which becomes most evident in the running gag of Lou’s attempts to quit smoking throughout the film. Truly tragic, Stewart’s character is constantly being laughed at by this universe’s God, with packs of cigarettes falling out of pockets and purses from dead bodies that she keeps accidentally finding herself responsible for cleaning up. Indeed, Lou constantly gets the short end of the stick throughout the movie, and (except for when her toxic masculinity begins to show) you consistently feel sorry for her. Yet, it’s Stewart’s comic timing and her skillfully handled commitment to a frantic yet goofy delivery of her lines that inserts the fun and joy into what should otherwise be a hard-to-watch movie. Stewart’s praise for her work both on and off of Love Lies Bleeding is deserved and worth singing, yet the honest-to-God standouts of the film is Katy O’Brian’s performance as the juiced-up Jackie with a heart of gold. Her oiled musculature captures audiences on the film poster, yet I stayed for O’Brian’s characterization of Jackie’s free spirit. In addition, Anna Baryshnikov’s underrated performance as Daisy deserves all the shoutouts. Despite playing a relatively smaller character in the film, Baryshnikov’s Daisy is stressful. She’s lived-in, she’s tragic, and often, she’s painful to watch as she naively trails after Lou, dancing in circles whilst being gaslit by our protagonists & hilariously screwing up their plans left and right.

And yet, the film isn’t without its own set of issues. Glass’s direction and Mansel’s sound design are both exceptional storytelling devices, yet the plotting leaves you with many pressing questions that unfortunately go unanswered. At times it can feel that Glass prioritizes sensationalist visual storytelling over fleshing out the needed time to spend getting to really understand the film’s ensemble of unique characters. It works in favor of hooking an audience, but it’s most apparent when you leave the favor confused on what the fuck just happened. (For example: somehow Jackie has a little sibling that we find out about in the last half-hour of the film?) This isn’t always a problem for me though, given the film’s stronger choices and a masterful tactic in ‘showing, not telling’. Besides, pages left unturned often allow more room for the audience to fill in the blanks. 

Glass’s Neo-Noir pastiche leans heavily on referencing genre predecessors but all with the intention of queering audience expectations. When faced with ongoing tropes of punishing women onscreen and the threat of a certain ‘sapphic doom’, Glass rejects realism in favor of a utopic queer finale that grants every yearning gay kid’s dream of a glamorous escape from their hometown, frolicking freely with chosen family and your head in the clouds. This choice of a magical realist twist (IFYKYK 🤫) won’t pay off with all audiences and for that reason alone, it’s a bold decision from Rose Glass and Weronika Tofilska (who both co-wrote the film’s screenplay). But one reason it pays off with me is that it stands out as a defiant ‘fuck-you’ to the genre’s treatment of transgressive women. The film’s deus ex machina ending may work against it for some, but for myself and many queer audiences, it screams as a love letter to stubborn lesbians who dare to dream big, leaving behind old narratives of powerless women, in efforts to carve out a new path, much like 1991’s Thelma & Louise.

Love Lies Bleeding is one violent and unhinged romp, one that will have you gagged, mind-blown, and stressed-the-fuck-out. With its lead characters running desperately toward freedom and chasing glimmers of a better life, the film feels like a spiritual successor to the Wachowski sisters’ 1996 Bound and even the 1995 erotic thriller Showgirls, landing itself as one of the most stylish and insane movies I’ve seen in a long time.

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