Tag Archives: Neve Kamilah Mazique-Ricardi

by NEVE

Welcome to our moon-synced movie review show, hosted by Saira Barbaric and NEVE. This duo of South Seattle creatives make multidisciplinary work together and individually. For this show, they’re ecstatic to join their love of astrology, ritual, and pop culture.

Stream this month’s podcast at the New Moon Movie Review official podcast website.

The short and sweet Obvious Child, directed by Gillian Robespierre and starring Jenny Slate, was released in 2014. Still, it gets its name from the 1990’s Paul Simon and Olodum (Black Brazilian drumming and performance collective/political movement, whose name means “God of Gods”) song “The Obvious Child.” “The Obvious Child” was Paul Simon’s reflection on mortality and aging, in which the singer is not only grown but has a child who’s grown. Simon asks, “Why deny the obvious child?” Given that the film Obvious Child is about an unplanned pregnancy in the life of a 20-something comedian, you might think the obvious child is the one that might have been. Still, I like to think that the obvious child is the one in the heart of Slate’s hilarious Donna. Paul Simon and Olodum’s song features in the film as well. Its freckled, speckled, peppered, stacked, happily gnashing drums accompany the scene in which Donna and her one-night stand Max (Jake Lacy) hook up for the first time and inadvertently get pregnant. It’s a very charming scene, with a lot of dancing, jumping, and playing around. Very little obvious sexy time, which I found endearing and wholesome. They were genuinely enjoying themselves, and the movie wanted us to know this. The downside to this scene and song choice is that Max owns both khakis and bongos. You do the math.

New Moon Movie Night: ‘Don’t Look Up’ Makes Me Want to Look Up All the Time

June 1, 2022 Editor

by NEVE

Stream this month’s podcast at the New Moon Movie Review official podcast website.

I knew I wanted to see Don’t Look Up (written and created by Adam McKay and David Sirota, directed by Adam McKay) because it features a Timothée Chalamet appearance. I am an unabashed Timmy fan; I make no apologies. As soon as I began watching it, too, I remembered my crushes of yesteryear: Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. They are both playing to their strengths in every way in this film. Leo is a mentally disabled and socially awkward yet unreasonably good-looking (it is spoken about this way) brainiac astronomer with a heart of gold but a bent moral compass, and perhaps a skewed view of reality. JLaw, the people’s girl, is very much the outspoken radical, the sweater punk who prefers tea to booze but resorts to smoking a bowl in times of extreme stress or delight. She is also a brainiac astronomer, and a Ph.D. student of Leo’s at Michigan State. Timothée Chalamet’s character doesn’t matter all that much, and yet he matters most of all. An article in which I will extoll Timmy’s virtues is forthcoming, but I promise I won’t waste your time here.

Arts & Culture

Friday Fiction: Crocus

April 30, 2021 Editor Leave a comment

by NEVE

In her favorite dancing grounds, beneath the wisteria tree so purple in the moonlight, a hole opened up in the earth. Out of it, a hand reached. One she recognized as easily as her own, for she once had held this hand in hers every day. Studying its lines, its rises and falls, its peaks and valleys, its shadows and swirls, the way this hand sumptuously softened in the light, how its veins ached verdantly as its pulse quickened beneath her gaze.

Now, her ex-lover was before her, yellow haired and milky skinned, skirts and boots textured with dirt, cheeks aglow with need, teeth bared, tongue discolored purple with wine.

“Come home with me,” Orcus said, in her grit-lined, silky sinister way.

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