msw1996

I saw Pumzi for the first time in college around 2016, and I've thought about it ever since. It's a short film - only about 20 minutes - but it carries the weight of a feature. Every image is deliberate, haunting, and beautifully restrained.

Directed by Wanuri Kahiu, the film imagines a high-tech future built on environmental collapse. What stuck with me most is the contrast - sterile, futuristic interiors against the backdrop of a world that's long since dried out. It's striking, and it still feels eerily close to our current reality.

Even in 2009, Pumzi was ahead of its time. The way it explores surveillance, control, and ecological ruin feels even more relevant now. There's so little dialogue, and yet so much is communicated - through design, through movement, through silence.

This film is as rich texturally as it is thematically. Promising Young Woman isn't just smart - it's visceral. It lures you in with its pop songs and pastel polish, but every aesthetic choice is doing double duty. That prettiness? That's the performance of femininity. That's the mask - and this film knows exactly what it's doing with it.

Carey Mulligan is electric. You think you're just watching a woman drift through a familiar revenge arc, but the story doesn't tip its hand. It unfolds. And when the truth behind Bo Burnham's character comes out - it's gutting. You don't just learn it alongside her, you feel it with her. That betrayal hits because it's designed to. Because the film wants you to feel what it's like to believe someone might be different - and then have that hope collapse.

And just when you think the film is going to leave you with that devastation - that maybe it's about how women don't win, how the system always wins - it delivers one final twist. It's not the character who gets the catharsis. It's us. And that's the brilliance. That ache you feel at the end? That exhale? That's what makes the whole thing land.

Kevin Can F**K Himself is one of the smartest, most unexpected things I've seen on television in a long time. With only two seasons, it feels more like a tightly written miniseries or a long movie - and honestly, I wish more shows took that approach. It knows exactly what it's doing and doesn't overstay its welcome. The ending is pitch-perfect.

Yes, the 3-camera sitcom format is jarring at first - but that's the point. It's not a gimmick. It's a weapon. That laugh-track, brightly lit world is the distorted reality the main character is trapped in - and watching the show snap between that and a darker, single-camera drama is part of what makes it so effective. It's not just clever editing - it's a commentary on how we've been trained to laugh off emotional abuse and gendered power dynamics because we've seen them packaged as "entertainment" for decades.

It's a big swing - and it lands. The writing is razor-sharp, the concept is airtight, and the performances (especially Annie Murphy's) are emotionally grounded even when the format is surreal. This show isn't just critiquing sitcoms - it's deconstructing the culture that built them.

If you gave up after an episode or two because of the format, I get it. But I promise, if you stick with it, Kevin Can F**K Himself reveals itself as one of the most innovative pieces of feminist television in years.