Hendra Syahnanda

*“Always do the right thing.”* A delivery guy working at a family-owned Italian pizza shop, a radio man broadcasting from a glass window, three old men sitting on their stools commenting about the community, a drunken but wise old man preaching to the young, an old woman observing from her stoop, and a boombox guy strolling and blasting "Fight The Power" on the whole neighborhood living on their mosaic, energized Saturday under a sweltering summer. All the overlapping generations and racial divisions crisscross as the heat rises, the tension rising when a dispute between a young man and the pizza owner escalates into a mutiny that blazes through the whole block. Spike Lee captures everyone’s life living their mundanity through vibrant, diverse environments and scenic street corners. This movie exudes an incredible sense of social humor, structural racism, gentrification, and systemic injustice issues in unadulterated aesthetic cinematography, then evocatively swerves into profound political sequences, transcending itself from uproarious comical sequences into a tragedy of brutality. Another thing i love is Radio Raheem’s “Love and Hate” brass knuckles and his monologue, which is an homage to Robert Mitchum’s knuckle tattoos from [The Night of the Hunter](https://boxd.it/bKsjOn). Essentially an important piece of a movie whose relevance still remains intact until this minute, purely astonishing.

Simple and minimalistic, yet rich in values and profound meaning. *Where Is The Friend's House? *beautifully captures what it feels like being a kid whose presence is so often overlooked. A wonderful and heartfelt introduction to Abbas Kiarostami.

A cosmic level horror where a single cell of a parasitic creature creates claustrophobic paranoia amongst humans that leads to suspicion and distrust. The Thing tells the terror of a group of American scientists in Antarctica when they encounter a shapeshifting extraterrestrial lifeform. Kurt Russell and the others’ performances are exceptional, the psychological tension between them as trapped scientists escalates as they find themselves unable to tell who is human and who isn’t.  Speaking of the creature, never have i been so dumbfounded by visual effects like the ones in this movie. The practical effects of the “Thing” are awfully god tier. It’s disgusting, disturbing, and i don’t think i’ve ever felt as bone-chilling when it comes to practical effects as this movie has. Between the grotesque horror and freezing atmospheric chaos, this movie successfully shuddered me to the core.