jonathanmoya1955

[jonathanmoya1955]

Jonathan Moya vs Jonathan Moya

Jonathan Moya vs. Jonathan MoyaI know this will happen one day—I walk into a diner with my wife,during the Costa Rican stopoverof our South American cruise.The waiter says, “Table for Moya?”I say, “Yes.”Another man stands up.He says, “Si, aqui.”We stare at each other.Same first name.Same last name.Same spelling.He has two middle names.I have just one.Different heights, age, physical…

[jonathanmoya1955]

On Swift Horses: The Ache Beneath the Gallop

Sony Pictures Classics Sony Pictures Classics Daniel Minahan’s On Swift Horses unfolds— a memory half-recalled—its edges blurred, its center pulsing with longing. The film is not so much a story but a quiet reckoning, a meditation on our lives in secret and the desires that gallop beneath the surface. Anchored by Daisy Edgar-Jones’ restrained yet emotionally resonant performance as Muriel, the…

[jonathanmoya1955]

My Ghost Catalog

My Ghost Catalog There are ghosts that haunt me—that will not let me see them,only feel their essence.The ones that prod my skinwith maternal hands,announce themselves to my senseswith the scent of mangoes,pan de aqua,the chanting of forgotten lullabies,the tingling of milkdropped onto my tongue—all the light heavinessof memory.They curl beside me in sleep,cribbing me in their silence,hoping I…

[jonathanmoya1955]

The Bayou:  Gator Meth and Mourning

Vertical Vertical The Bayou” is a film that crawls out of the muck with a mouthful of teeth and a heart full of grief. Directed by Taneli Mustonen and Brad Watson, it’s a monster movie with a survival streak, a swampy fever dream that tries to balance emotional weight with reptilian chaos. It doesn’t always succeed, but it sure as hell tries. The premise is simple: a group of friends crash-land…

[jonathanmoya1955]

Recurring Dream 101

Recurring Dream 101I askthe dream again—where did I lose her?Was it in the gestures of departurecreased with our knowings?—The red scarf she removes before our boarding—just after the breeze passes through us—a quick and unspoken thing-that doesn't linger—the scarf she folds precisely, carefullyand places inside her blue windbreaker pocketlined with the warmththat shields her from all the…

[jonathanmoya1955]

Honey Don’t: Sweet, Sour, and Stabbed: A Bakersfield Ballad

Focus Features Focus Features Ethan Coen’s Honey Don’t is a cracked mirror of noir, a queer thriller that dances between menace and mischief, mystery and melodrama. It opens with a corpse in a car and ends with a flirtation at a stoplight, and in between, it spins a tale so tangled it could knot your shoelaces. Margaret Qualley’s Honey O’Donahue is the gumshoe with a heart, a libido, and a…

[jonathanmoya1955]

Eden: The Garden That Would Not Bloom

Vertical Vertical Ron Howard’s Eden is a fevered meditation on the fragility of paradise, a film that dares to ask whether utopia can survive the weight of human desire. It opens with a promise—a couple fleeing the corrosion of modernity, seeking purity on an island untouched by the world’s noise. Yet what unfolds is not a cleansing, but a slow unraveling, a study in how even the most sacred…

[jonathanmoya1955]

Night of the Zoopocalypse:  The Gum-Beast Manifesto

Viva Pictures Viva Pictures In the tradition of barnyard revolts and dystopian fables, Night of the Zoopocalypse arrives with a snarl, a growl, and a gelatinous thump. Directed with uneven but earnest flair by Richard Curtis and Roderigo Perez Castro, the film is a comic zombie romp set in the Colepepper Zoo, where the animals are not just caged—they’re emotionally cornered. The premise is…

[jonathanmoya1955]

Relay: The Echo Chamber of AshRelay:

Bleecker Street Bleecker Street David Mackenzie’s Relay is a film of quiet urgency, a thriller that trades spectacle for surveillance and gunfire for guilt. Riz Ahmed plays Ash, a fixer whose anonymity is his currency, and whose voice is never heard directly. He speaks through relay services, burner phones, and the silence of a man who has seen too much and trusts too little. The film opens in…

[jonathanmoya1955]

The Trouble With Jessica: The Trouble with Carpets, Clafoutis, and Corpse Logistics

Music Box Films Music Box Films Matt Winn’s The Trouble with Jessica opens with the kind of dinner party that makes you want to RSVP “no” just in case someone brings a memoir. The film sets its tone early: brittle banter, wine-fueled revelations, and the creeping dread that someone’s going to say something unforgivable—or die. Jessica (Indira Varma), the uninvited guest with literary baggage…

[jonathanmoya1955]

The Map that Leads to You; The Cartography of Longing

Prime Video Prime Video Lasse Hallström’s The Map That Leads to You is a film that badly wants to be your summer crush. It flirts with destiny, winks at heartbreak, and occasionally trips over its charm. Adapted from JP Monninger’s novel, it’s a story that knows its genre tropes but tries—earnestly, sometimes awkwardly—to elevate it into something archetypal. It doesn’t always succeed, but it…

[jonathanmoya1955]

Brief Encounter on Aisle Five

Brief Encounter on Aisle FiveIt is this way:She sees him first—aisle five, cereals— where the honeyed light fall softly on him— and her. The way he cradles Cheerioson the cart’s edge—firm in his handsso if they slip, they fallinto the safety of the cart,into the touch of his little girl-—lets her knowhe once belonged to her. And that daughter of his— swinging her knees, that laughter—same bell…

[jonathanmoya1955]

War of the Worlds: “War of the Wha?”: Surveillance, Aliens, and Baby Showers in the Apocalypse

Universal Universal Rich Lee’s War of the Worlds, starring Ice Cube as Will Radford, is not so much an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel as it is a bureaucratic meltdown with aliens, flash drives, and a baby shower that somehow ends the apocalypse. It’s a film that asks: what if the fate of humanity depended on a disgruntled dad, a pregnant daughter, and a gamer son with a vendetta against cloud…

[jonathanmoya1955]

Whoppers

WhoppersI keep the malted milk orbnestled inside my cheek,waiting for the next film cut—this Hershey-forged planet,slowly spinning toward legend,its lacquered chocolate shellwhispering to my molars,then sliding past my throat,down the cathedral of my gut,until my bowels, reverent and ready,release the myth in a soft, brown comet.I was watching—Odysseus Rex: The Iliad Reckoning—the inferior parody…

[jonathanmoya1955]

The Siege at Thorn High: The Thorn That Remains

Prime Video Prime Video Joko Anwar’s The Siege at Thorn High opens not with violence, but with memory. The prologue, set during the 2009 Jakarta riots, is a wound that never closes. It introduces Edwin, Silvi, and Panca as children caught in the crossfire of racial hatred. The assault that follows is not just physical—it is generational. The film does not forget this. It carries the trauma…

[jonathanmoya1955]

Night Always Comes: The Mercy of the  Clock

Netflix Netflix Vanessa Kirby’s Lynette does not walk through Night Always Comes—she scrapes, pleads, and burns through it. Her performance is a tremor held in the jaw, a woman whose body has become a ledger of debts unpaid and promises broken. The film opens with her already exhausted and cornered, and the following night is not a descent but a continuation. Benjamin Caron directs with a…

[jonathanmoya1955]

Meeting Ms Leigh:  The Stillness Between Words

Dream With Me Productions Dream With Me Productions In Meeting Ms. Leigh, director R.S. Veira crafts a quiet meditation on the nature of love, memory, and the ache of being known. It is a film that resists movement, choosing instead to linger in the spaces where conversation becomes communion. Landen Amos plays Carter, a young writer adrift in search of meaning, and Jeanine Harrington embodies…