Reviews

“When Breath Becomes Air”

Reading this while sitting next to mom as she gets her latest round of immunotherapy for her brain tumor.

“When Breath Becomes Air” is written by Paul Kalanithi, who was completing his training to become a neurosurgeon when he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in 2013. The memoir chronicles his life and his experience after the diagnosis, and I bought this for my mom shortly after she was diagnosed in 2015.

She didn’t read much of it, she instead read “Life of Pi” and some James Patterson books, so I recently decided to read it for myself… and I’m going to keep using the bookmark of hers I found inside.

Google Cardboard Review

Put this baby together and experienced a “poor man’s” virtual reality. Find out how you can, too, on Complex.

Wakie Review

I was woken up by strangers from around the world for a week—and then I woke up some strangers too. Read about it on Complex.

Citizenfour

My review of Citizenfour, the most important documentary you’ll see this year. Read it on Complex.

“Crips and Bloods: Made in America”

On the documentary, Crips and Bloods: Made in America:

For those of us familiar to Los Angeles and its glitz and glamour, it is known that the city is the home of two of the most vicious gangs to emerge on American soil. Through the 1960’s and 80’s, police oppression against African-Americans and other minorities caused rebellion and revenge to brew in those abused, spawning the origins of what the Bloods and Crips gangs would later become.

Blacks were terrorized by officers for walking into white affluent neighborhoods, continuing the nightmare of segregation that haunted blacks in states of the south. The pressure mounted, riots ensued, and a war began. A war against the past, a war for the future of minorities, yet a war that would later turn the people of a group against one another for the sake of survival.

Crips and Bloods: Made in America attempts to show its audience a rationalization of what it is to be a gang member in the LA area, and bring to light the suffering that at times lays torn at the roots of this ever persistent dilemma, while keeping the dream of finding harmony in the City of Angels alive.

Scroll to Top