Jon

Good pho mai body, good pho mai soul. Pho Mai’s broth was excellent, featuring diverse flavor complexity and a full body. The most prominent critique was the meat quality. They used processed meat cuts instead of fresh steak fillets. Overall it was a good bowl, but the head chef has to make a couple adjustments.

American Fiction was a clever, unique, and well-acted comedy that had me smiling throughout. The humor was timely too, primarily poking fun at white people controlling the black narrative. The plot was too good to fail and the side characters had their own humor and plot twists to add to the film. The ending was fun too, but it didn’t give me full closure with everything that happened throughout this story.

Pho: 4/5 Movie: 4/5 Phomovie: 4/5

Ege

Pho Mai had great pho: flavorful broth, crispy tofu… What more can I ask for? 5 out of 5. Too bad I cannot include the bahn mi in this review, that would bring the score to a 6 out of 5. That sauce? Honestly the best thing in the world.

American Fiction explores racial identities in today’s US through hilarious moments. While I appreciate one of the central themes of the movie (that when it comes to racial identities, one size doesn’t fit all), I believe a lot of nuance was lost through the over-simplification of its secondary characters for the sake of humor: the only other black writer in the movie is an alleged opportunist capitalizing on the low-income black subculture while coming from an affluent background, the white writers and publishers are dumb and pandering and only care about diversity to save face. Even Cliff, Monk’s brother who recently got out of the closet, ends up becoming a token black gay character trapped in tragic and cliche back story, which ironically parallels Monk’s critique of the state of black literature in the US. While Monk navigates his work and private life with these characters, he never really meaningfully and genuinely interacts with them but rather keeps on being snarky, which makes me wonder if these side characters – who are merely caricatures of the political and identity grounds they represent – exist only to prove Monk’s viewpoint. Only two scenes come close to remedying this but unfortunately they are cut too short. One is when Monk is having a discussion with Sintara, and the other is when he is arguing with Coraline. I will only talk about the first conflict here since I don’t want to make this review longer than it should be. Upon being challenged by Monk, Sintara asserts that her book is a genuine work of literature. She is telling real stories and just because she doesn’t come from that background it doesn’t mean she cannot write about it. She also rightfully accuses Monk of downgrading the lived experiences of poor black people. Too bad this scene doesn’t last long enough to convince the audience that Sintara has a valid point. By the end of the movie, we still remember her in negative terms. This lack of nuance that plagues American Fiction culminates in the final scenes when the movie takes a meta-turn and accepts that it cannot find aa coherent ending to the story. When your characters and plots lines get overly simplistic, when the conflict your protagonist has with himself and those who challenge him is not explored enough, how can you come up with a satisfactory ending to your story that will not be too cliche? That’s why Monk keeps on suggesting grandiose Hollywood endings tot he movie producer but cannot come up with a genuine one. Overall, I give 3 to American Fiction for its criticism of the publishing industry, its funny moments, its superb acting, and for the interesting questions it asks, despite failing to explore those questions with a genuine approach.

Pho: 5/5 Movie: 3/5 Phomovie: 4/5

Aaron