Jay Leal Blog
All Articles
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All Articles 〰️
Small Things Like These and the Hero Empath
Let’s start here: Small Things Like These might not be my favorite movie of 2024 anymore—The Brutalist and Anora edged it out after some recent rewatches—but it still holds a special place.
Returning to Past Lives
So many threads woven together. Leaving native land, spiritual kinship, love. It’s one of my favorite movies and was my favorite of 2023.
Ewan Mitchell’s Darkness in "High Life": A Performance to Reexamine
I look back at 2018’s High Life—what stood out to me most is that Ewan Mitchell's has been portraying the darkest aspects of human nature long before becoming Aemond Targaryan in HOTD.
Gladiator Review: Gladiator 2 is Happening, Let's Look Back at the Original
Examining the performances of the lead actors, the characters they play, and how the movie has stood the test of time 23 years after its release.
What do we call the deliberate destruction of land, water, and infrastructure during war? The term “ecocide” has circulated for decades in legal debates, but it is not yet codified as an international crime. As environmental data from Gaza mounts, the question is no longer abstract. It is structural.