EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert (2026)

EPiC is everything its fictional counterpart by the same director isn’t.

Watching the actual Elvis Presley, in all his superhuman nature, with such effortless flare, such mastery of the stage, so much soul spraying out from his veins, made me realize it is just impossible for any actor (even Austin Butler, God bless his admirable transformation and love for his craft) to capture the King’s magic. You just HAVE to see the real thing in order to believe it.

It also made me kiss the heavens in gratitude for finally being able to experience Elvis’ story without any pointless decorations or distracting effects, albeit with all the nuance inherent to a soul as unique as his. Of course Elvis is a deeply contradictory character, and EPiC thankfully leaves moralisms out the window (or God forbid, another Tom Hanks voiceover).

This film still has me thinking about Elvis, about his life and death, about his music, about his histrionism. This is exactly how I want to feel after watching him perform.

Elvis (2022)

It’s astounding how this film approaches a three-hour runtime and offers very little insight on who Elvis Presley was as a human being. There’s plenty about him as a showman and occasionally as a musician (a scene where he directs a whole band of live performers is an absolute delight to watch), with some emotional scenes here and there, but nothing of real, raw, tangible substance.

Why the film is told from Tom Parker’s perspective, complete with the kind of voiceover that might work in a book but feels out of place in an epic of these proportions, is frankly beyond me. The audience gains nothing more than the knowledge that he was a contemptible human being, which you understand the moment you first see him on screen.

Austin Butler was so good in this role that I sometimes wished the frenetic pacing and quick cut editing got out of the way so we could revel in his performance. It does calm down in the second half, at least.

Marty Supreme (2025)

Enjoyed it through and through. Josh Safdie keeps his and his brother’s signature style (frenetic pacing and quick cut editing glazed with vintage cinematography and 80s style music) and elevates this film to above-average level. It drags a bit too much in the third act for my particular taste, though.

Timothée Chalamet delivers a histrionically convincing performance, worthy of being seen on the big screen. I don’t think it’s Oscar worthy (sorry, but Wagner Moura stole my heart among this year’s nominees), but hey, it doesn’t need to be for the character to work. And it does, in spades.

Love (2015)

Porn-with-a-plot meets arthouse cinema.

A film can be shocking, ill-inducing, daring, controversial or genre-defying and still be interesting, either because of those things or in spite of them.

Love (2015) isn’t any of those things. It’s, quite frankly, an excruciating bore.

Sinners (2025)

I have mixed feelings about this film.

On the one hand, it is a technical marvel. Production design, sound design, editing, and the soundtrack are all top notch. It’s a real treat for the senses. I also quite liked the iconic blues dance scene.

On the other hand, I didn’t particularly care for the plot. It was entertaining, from a summer blockbuster point of view, and it has a premise that sounds innovative, but I didn’t find the execution itself to be anything extraordinary. It mixes historical fiction with horror, which is a tall order, and it mostly delivers, stumbling a bit in certain parts.

(I will admit, though, that the fact that I am biased against the horror genre in general may well factor into my feelings for this movie.)

All in all, it was a sufficiently enjoyable popcorn flick with a historical fantasy twist. I do think the Oscar nomination buzz is making this film sound way more memorable than it will actually turn out to be a few years from now.

Past Lives (2023)

This film isn’t about love; it’s about life itself.

Much has been said in romantic dramas about your soulmate as your necessary love interest and your entire life’s purpose. It sounds nice and comforting precisely because it’s a fantasy. Some people come closer to that fantasy, others never even get to see it.

Whether Nora and Hae Sung are meant for each other is besides the point. Life’s ebb and flow navigates us towards making decisions in our lives, and their consequences will always contain both smiles and tears. If there’s a parallel universe (or another life, as the film suggests) where they are together, it would also likely be filled with resentment about dreams not pursued, about chances not taken. There’s no absolute truths, no definitive answers, no unquestionable happy endings. There’s just the best we can do with the information we have, and how we deal with the ripples of those inevitabilities.

The Before Trilogy explored this dynamic gorgeously as well. I find it remarkable how Celine Song managed to condense that same feeling into a single film, without any of the nuance lost in the process.

Materialists (2025)

I feel like this film has an identity crisis: there’s two films fighting for attention.

One film has gorgeous stylistic choices, heartwarming music, and captivating camerawork that all serve to suggest a romantic narrative told through subtlety.

The other film has characters spelling out their feelings every five seconds and leaving absolutely zero room for nuance. You can’t soak in anything resembling meditations on the reverberations and peccadilloes of love in the Tinder age, despite the underlying script being desperate for this to happen, if you’re going to be told what to think at every corner.

There was potential here. I do sense the kernel of a much better movie hidden somewhere. If only it could have risen up, beyond all the noise...

Elite Squad (2007)

Elite Squad has the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster, with deftly directed action and nonstop thrills. However, it sits much more adequately within the film noir genre, albeit translated into deeply held Brazilian idiosyncrasies.

Having this as a pretext for viewing this film, elements start fitting into the larger puzzle. The voiceover, derided by critics as “pointless”, is actually the story’s connective tissue, in the same way noirish musings decorate our favorite hardboiled detective tales. They’re ramblings by an unreliable narrator (noticed how he keeps mentioning his family towards the end, even though we know they left him?), and they’re meant to be. Nascimento is an exquisitely contradictory character, which makes him all the more enigmatic and magnetic in his impossibility to be deciphered fully.

Those who see Elite Squad as a glorification of the police are missing the point. Film noir is known precisely for how it criticizes power, and this film embraces that formula. It’s a smartly crafted critique of the very same institution it depicts. If this was done by Netflix, it would be filled with dialogue breaks where the characters express their worldviews out loud, feeding shareable quotes that excise critical thinking.

This film denies the comfort of answers, forcing us to ask hard questions about the people we put on power and celebrate as our peacekeepers. It has to be uncomfortable to work.

Detachment (2011)

The “Doublethink” scene alone makes this film worth existing.

Every single day, I am confronted with mounting evidence that what this film portrays isn’t merely a depressing narrative. It’s a prophecy. A Greek tragedy come to life that seems inescapable.

Since caring so much about the world and its future seems masochistic and naive, detaching ourselves from reality becomes an increasingly tempting prospect, if only for a brief moment, to soothe ourselves for feeling too much.

I hope that I can still care enough to renounce detachment, to make a difference in others, if only in just a few lost souls...

That’s it for thoughts… for now!

Nota: también puedes leerlo en español, aquí.

Hand drawn, human made, deeply expressive art is a beautiful thing.

Like plenty of gamers who love story-driven video games, I played Disco Elysium and fell in love with its art style. It looks something like this, gravitating towards expressionism with a unique touch:

That's why I jumped at the opportunity to commission a headshot of myself in that very same art style, by the amazing Anastasiia Ivanova. (thanks for the heads up on her website!)

Fun fact: she even worked at ZA/UM, the original developer for Disco Elysium, as a Senior Concept/Character Artist.

She was kind enough to send over a speed painting video of her actually sketching, coloring, and perfecting the portrait:

I've lost count of how many times I've rewatched this clip. I think this is why AI art, although at times seemingly more polished, will never really strike a real chord with me.

An actual illustration has deliberate decisions in every single stroke, a certain soul within its seams. An intangible, irresistible charm.

Like the one Anastasiia displays here.

AI may give us more in less time, which can be useful in some scenarios.

In this one, though, I prefer a human touch.

If you liked the portrait, I highly encourage you to check out Anastasiia’s website. And who knows, maybe commission a portrait for yourself!

Note: this article was originally written in Spanish. I love opportunities to practice my English writing skills, and translation is in itself an act that requires interpretation and/or artistic license, so the opportunity to explore my thoughts in another language sounds too appealing to pass up.

And, since we live in an era where this sort of thing needs to be said: no, I did not use ChatGPT or any other LLM to write this piece.

I just returned from a trip that, a couple of months ago, would have been impossible to dream about, let alone believing could ever happen. In one of its ever present plot twists, life gave me the opportunity, after years of being used to work remotely, to share a week of physical presence with my new design team.

We went to an onsite event in Texas, where I could remember what it was like to feel connected to others in all sorts of non-verbal ways, how promises are tacitly built within spaces filled with shared laughs, how a certain lightness of being is achieved when you don’t take life so seriously.

Upon returning home, chatting with several of my trip buddies (who’ve also become part of my day-to-day life), one of them said something to me that hit me in unexpected ways:

Allow me to explain:

Throughout my life, the compliments I’ve received have gravitated towards the more silent and taciturn parts of me. Phrases like:

“Thank you for listening to me.”

“Thank you for your advice.”

“Thank you for being so understanding.”

They had become so common that I inevitably formed a self-image, a concept of who I am, of my identity, like some sort of archetype. And the thing about archetypes is they end up conditioning our behavior.

Yes, there’s been times where I make decisions or do things because “that’s what I would normally do”, because they align with a profile of myself that I have inadvertently perpetuated. In the same vein, I’ve stopped myself from doing things because they don’t go hand in hand with that mental stereotype.

Because “that’s not me.”

Among the things I didn’t allow myself to do or feel, perhaps the most significant one is joy. It’s been tough for me to adopt the idea of just smiling and looking at the funnier side of life because the version of Nando I’d built up to that point had to be “above” those things.

I had to be a grown up. Someone “serious”.

Because of all this, hearing someone say that I bring joy to what I do took me by surprise.

Truth be told, no one had ever told me that before.

The inner child

I recently read that one of the blessings of having children, within all the effort that’s required, is that it allows parents to resume activities they would have otherwise never experienced again. A sincere laugh when playing hide and seek. The fulfilling sensation of building a castle with Legos. The innocence inherent to role-playing as superheroes.

Even though I’m not planning on having children any time soon, I’ve made a conscious effort to reconnect with my inner child, to look for those moments of fun I had to say goodbye to when time forced me to grow up.

When I received this compliment about my joy, I suddenly realized that, for a whole week, I didn’t stop myself in any way. I didn’t place obstacles in my way under the pretense of expectations about how I should behave. I didn’t deny myself the opportunity to live.

I simply… was. I felt what I had to feel. I laughed and smiled and enjoyed all I wanted to enjoy.

I was happy.

Much more than I once thought I could be.

Let’s smile at life

A few months ago, I wrote the following as a Whatsapp status: Life is absurd.

My main motivation came from having read The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus.

I’m sure most of us know about Sisyphus, but for the sake of context: in Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned to push a heavy boulder up a hill, to its tallest point. Whenever he managed to achieve this objective, the boulder rolled back down to its starting point, forcing Sisyphus to push it again, and again… for eternity. It alludes to the futile nature of existence. That eternal question: what’s the point of all this?

The short version of Camus’ answer is that, if life has no meaning, if it is possible to call it absurd, then it must also be possible, even imperative, to embrace that absurd nature and live life happily.

In his own words:

I take it upon myself, then, to be like Sisyphus: happy within the absurd.

I take it upon myself to accept that joy that I, serendipitously, could embody in this recent journey through Texan lands, when I allowed myself to let go.

I take it upon myself to follow the spirit of that timeless quote by Chaplin:

Note: Three years ago, I was tasked with writing something about how I viewed technology. It was to apply for a scholarship I was interested in at the time. It never materialized, but the text just sat there gathering digital dust until I rediscovered it this morning. I find it interesting how much of it still rings true to me. So here goes.

Most people are looking for the next big thing. The next big bullshit idea that wants to “change the world”.

Or rather, the next seemingly serendipitous touch of genius that might just rake in millions of dollars in revenue, make young nerds and hipsters filthy rich and insanely powerful in the eyes of the non-believers. They want to prove everybody wrong, they desire the notoriety that comes with leading the curb in the digital age.

Take, for instance, the metaverse craze heralded by none other than probably the most important individual of the 21 century’s first decade: Mark Zuckerberg. Social media was flooded with posts, ideas, proposals, so-called “reflections” about myriads of ways in which the metaverse could be a “game-changer”. The next big idea. The next big thing.

As anyone with the least bit of common sense can tell by now, it was a colossal failure, even if Apple’s next product is dying to convince you otherwise. The truth is nobody wants an invention that replaces real life. Nobody wants to live in a simulation after being forced to interact through simulations of social life (what we precociously decided to coin as “social media”) when a potentially deadly virus threatened to end reality as we know it. Nobody wants to replace warm workplace banter with repeated instances of asking your colleague if they can even hear you through the noise of construction going on next to your room or, even worse, an unpredictably faulty wireless connection.

Or, if you’re one of those who could, probably feeling like oracles in a classic Greek tragedy, foresee the metaverse was destined to deprecation from the ideation stage, let’s take a more recent and still somewhat present example: artificial intelligence, led by the now cultural ubiquity of Open AI’s rockstar tool, Chat GPT. Once again, self-called thinkers (please don’t indulge in their delusion of thinking they actually “influence” someone… or something) flooded virtual discussion boards, trying to sell their AI-based products as being ahead of the curb. We’ve all seen them, posts that start with something like: here are 10 ways you can use AI to boost your productivity! Hold up, you can actually earn passive income with AI! Of course, they’re no different from the typical undergraduate sales pitch: smart talk, naive execution. Unfulfilled promises of being the next big idea. The next big thing.

Come to think of it, why are we so obsessed with even finding the next big thing in the first place? Henry David Thoreau’s words about Maine and Texas come to mind. Do we actually need a next big thing? From a financial point of view, and by that I mean anyone who wants to make it in the industry, the answer is yes, probably. The truth, though, is that zeitgeists like social media don’t really happen by following the herd.

What all these candidates for “the next big thing” seem to have in common is that they want to radically change the way we work, live, socialize, communicate, exist. Perhaps they’re motivated by how the last big idea, social media itself, virtually revolutionized the way we do all these things. Do we really need to revolutionize life, though?

Let me tell you a story. Back when everyone was forced to live in the confines of their home offices, I remember I couldn’t stop thinking about dating. How was I supposed to meet someone, let alone someone I actually liked, if I was restricted to being closed off from the world? I tried dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Coffee Meets Bagel, OK Cupid… you can probably name a few as well. What I found was that, although they were laudable initiatives, none of them actually replicated the spontaneous experience of meeting someone for the first time.

In my innocence, I thought I identified a void in the tech world, and started brainstorming different ideas as to how a new platform could potentially harness the secret power of romantic spontaneity. Perhaps an app that ditches the whole swiping phenomenon and randomizes encounters, taking advantage of behavioral guidelines? Or maybe it can force in person encounters before anything else happens?

As I went down this rabbit hole, I couldn’t find a satisfying alternative. Here’s my theory as to why: there is no alternative. We just cannot replace regular human interaction. It is so full of minute but impactful details, things like body language, tone inflection, the way we move our hair when we talk, or the way we perk up when we hear a song we like. The list of examples is endless. I could witness these instances first hand through my experience in filmmaking, an art arguably dedicated to documenting the human condition itself.

I am convinced that this small example, seemingly restricted to the romantic world, actually bleeds into all other aspects of our life. We shouldn’t be looking for ways to replace life, but rather to enhance it. We don’t actually want ways to replace interaction, or difficult conversations, or challenges that scare us but are necessary for us to grow. We should actually be laser-focused on these opportunities.

I don’t think the next big thing is a new app, or a new platform, or a new tech invention that changes our reality. I think the next big thing is seeking meaning in all our endeavors. If I am going to be part of this world, I want to be able to help other find that meaning in the human condition itself, not in spite of it.

So… let’s get to it!

Note: I regularly post thoughts like this on my Letterboxd, in case you’re interested!

The Secret Agent (2025)

I’ll be honest: the first half of this film was a bit tough to sit through given its slower pace. I’m glad I stuck with it because the latter half is astounding and makes all the preceding slowburn worth it.

Colombia is no stranger to the value of collective memory, so I can see why a film set in the middle of the Brazilian military dictatorship chooses to focus on a man’s pursuit for his roots. Building those memories, as individuals and as nationals, is essential to our foundation as human beings. And the pursuit doesn’t end with Armando; as the film depicts later on, subsequent generations are also interested in the past, in the echoes of clarity they may offer.

Wagner Moura had already impressed me in Narcos, but here he earned my utmost respect. There is something he does towards the end of the film that I won’t spoil, but it speaks to his adaptivity as a performer and his intelligence at understanding the nuance of how people, and those related to them, behave. He deserves the Oscar this year, even if he probably won’t get it (one can only dream!)

Maria Full Of Grace (2004)

I realized a few days ago I had never seen the film that gave my country its only acting Academy Award nomination, in the form of Catalina Sandino Moreno.

I find it incredible this was her first screen credit. Some people just seem destined for certain leading roles, which certainly applies to her here. Acting in Colombia tends to be very melodramatic, owing to our huge soap opera induced televised world, but Sandino Moreno achieves something much more nuanced, without outright denying the (admittedly) best qualities of what her Colombian roots bring to her acting by mere cultural inheritance.

As others have said before me, Joshua Marston beautifully brings the human aspect of drug trafficking to the spotlight, which seems much more poignant now than it seemed back then, what with all the glorification of narco culture through Netflix and the like.

Ghost In The Shell (1995)

This film is tough to review. I usually don’t consider a movie’s influence in subsequent cinema as inherent to its charm. That’s a consequence of its reach and, while it speaks to how many people watched it, it doesn’t really say anything about its quality. Is it really that good?

For me, it is precisely the type of film I would usually loathe: light in plot, heavy in monologues and somewhat pretentious in its themes, in that “you’re too dumb to understand” kind of way.

And yet... it has stayed with me since I watched it. I didn’t particularly enjoy sitting through it, but I have enjoyed all the discourse, both internally in my brain and externally with others, that has resulted from it. I love how it made me discover the cyberpunk genre and allowed me to bask in its existentialism. I adore how it fueled endless nights of longing, looking out my windows at the city lights, with the certainty of life’s absurdity present in the air, like that smell of tobacco you can never really get rid of.

I enjoy everything around it more than I enjoy it in and of itself. It has made me reevaluate why I even watch cinema at all. Perhaps that’s more of a compliment than mere enjoyment could ever be.

Akira (1988)

The animation alone makes this worth the watch, and all the inevitable rewatches.

It’s interesting to see how Katsuhiro Otomo deals with themes of mass destruction and the implications of unleashing an unstoppable force of annihilation upon humanity. Works like Frankenstein have explored this beforehand, and Japan having certainly felt this fear firsthand with the atomic bomb, you could say Akira is, in a way, a “Modern Prometheus” tale, albeit without a clear creator to blame besides the foils of how the human race itself reacts to the knowledge of such power.

I watched this back in high school and remember dismissing it prematurely, as it didn’t really follow my idea of how a story structure “should” work. Now I can say maturity has allowed me to dwell in the poignancy of its subtext.

A true classic that everyone should experience at least once, hopefully more than once.

The Rip (2026)

Solid action flick, pumped up just a bit by the better-than-usual-for-a-Netflix-movie performances of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

Joe Carnahan usually directs good action, so no surprise there.

Also, I will admit I got Colombian pride at seeing Catalina Sandino Moreno owning her role here, even adding some expressions from Bogotá into the mix (loved when she said “en la buena pa la pelá”).

Rental Family (2025)

Feel-good movie with a Japanese twist. I have a soft spot for Japan in general, so this film was right up my alley.

I like that it’s an easy-to-watch film, so more audiences will be able to enjoy the gorgeous sights in Tokyo without having to endure a more densely packed storyline (as can be the case with filmmakers like Kore-eda or Hamaguchi, whose work I still love).

I sensed subtextual ties with certain psychological practices, particularly Jacob L. Moreno’s psychodrama. It explores the blurred lines between reality and fiction, albeit in a lighthearted way.

Brendan Fraser leans into his wholesome persona with ease, with the welcome surprise of hearing him speaking Japanese.

Akira Emoto gives a standout performance as Kikuo Hasegawa.

How To Have Sex (2023)

Brutally honest portrait of sexual assault. I don’t think there’s anything I could say that describes the very palpable sense of dread present throughout the experience of watching this.

Never has the phrase “I’m only kidding” frustrated me as much as in this film.

Rashomon (1950)

I really appreciate how this film influenced many others when it comes to storytelling and perspectives. It’s called a classic for a good reason.

The thing is... so many other films have improved so radically on this genre, Rashomon feels like a drag by today’s standards. I am glad it’s been properly documented and extensively dissected, but it’s not a very enjoyable watch, I must say. Things like the endlessly theatrical overacting and extensive sequences of people walking through the woods (through admittedly gorgeously shot monochrome images) really turned me off.

Oh well. Glad to have given it a try!

Harakiri (1962)

Watching this film, I was reminded of the themes typical to film noir: the unjust power structures and the hypocrisy that upholds them, how history is written through lies that negate urgent realities and desperate needs for adaptation, the way in which even the hardest hearts succumb to what some perceive as imperfections but others accept as what can only be described as our deeply human necessities (desire? love?).

Perhaps this movie’s most significant departure from film noir is in its protagonist, who’s mission isn’t to redeem himself, but to go to great lengths just so he can mock the ruling class, exposing the absurdity of the system he lives in.

As a Colombian, I find it endearing how this film’s themes overlap with the most significant work my country ever put on the silver screen, “The Strategy of the Snail”, in the way both challenge authority through the lens of their specific culture. Both manage to transcend their specific boundaries and resonate universally, but of course, Harakiri did it first and did it best.

That’s it for thoughts… for now!

With that in mind, here's a quick succession of thoughts on films I have watched recently (and others not so recently but I just felt like sharing):

Note: I regularly post thoughts like this on my Letterboxd, in case you’re interested!

The Housemaid (2025)

The plot is so clumsily told and full of cliches, I could tell how it was going to end 5 minutes in. No, that is not a flex.

Sorry, but Sydney Sweeney can't act if her life depended on it. I haven't seen this level of terrible acting since Gal Gadot doing the same intense stare in every movie she's in. Michele Morrone apparently only knows how to pose as if he was in a Gucci photoshoot.

The saving grace goes to Amanda Seyfried, who actually did the best she could with the horrible material she was given. I suppose there was some intention to tell a female-empowering story. This is not it. Please watch Thelma & Louise instead.

Perfect Days (2023)

Why do the Japanese have a word specifically for the shadows created by the sunlight hitting leaves that move with the wind? What is it about komorebi that fascinates us?

I’d venture most people would find it boring. Some people, however, understand that it’s not meant to be understood, that if you look at it long enough, a sudden wave of emotions will gently caress your soul, perhaps even contradictory ones. Some people choose to keep looking anyway, because there’s nothing quite like it.

Hirayama is one of those people, and I’m glad to have had the blessing of witnessing a slice of his life.

Frankenstein (2025)

A visual spectacle, as is to be expected from Del Toro. Loved all the Creature storyline.

May be an unpopular opinion, but I think Oscar Isaac was miscast as Victor Frankenstein. He doesn’t convince me as a mad genius well enough, kinda took me out of the film for a bit.

Fortunately, Jacob Elordi’s turn as the Creature salvaged the film as a whole for me.

A House of Dynamite (2025)

One of the most pretentious films I have ever seen.

It tries to do something interesting with the whole “different perspectives” song and dance, but it never really gets anywhere substantial. It desperately wants you to reflect on nuclear war but denies you the tools to do so, resorting to telling you what to think and feel straight to your face instead of… you know, showing you something so you can make up your mind. Idris Elba’s POTUS even wastes precious seconds of decision making, in the face of nuclear annihilation, so he can reminisce about a podcast he heard once where the film’s title is explained.

Oh well… this IS a Netflix film, after all.

Sentimental Value (2025)

In a rather dull year for films, Joachim Trier stands as a shining beacon of seemingly unfaltering filmmaking prowess.

I felt a meta-narrative quality to the film that had me thinking about the tension between artistic pursuits and our personal bonds, filial or not. Is a complete dedication to a craft as visceral as filmmaking mutually exclusive with the emotional obligations of family?

Like in “The Worst Person In The World” before it, the ending doesn’t feel like it offers any definitive answers. I’m not even sure they exist. It does, however, leave you with a profound sense of hope.

PD: I adore the cinematography in this film.

A Poet (2025)

As a Colombian used to stories about drug trafficking and armed conflict, this film is a welcome departure from those themes, choosing instead to focus on fatherly love and the power of poetry in our daily lives.

Embers of Victor Gaviria’s hyperrealism show up in interesting ways.

Jeannette’s “Corazón de Poeta” lives rent free in my head.

Sexual Drive (2021)

A peculiar tryptich of vignettes dealing with sexual-like frustrations in everyday life. Felt like a Murakami short story collection brought to film.

A fun watch overall!

The Worst Person In The World (2021)

I grew up believing that melancholy and longing for simpler times only happened at old age. After all, it is what western cinema has always depicted: silver-haired, alcoholic, action-oriented men devoid of words to express what they feel.

This film, on the other hand, discards that myth and strives for something real, almost viscerally so. It’s unsurprising some audiences find it slow; it feels more like a fragment of a biographical observational documentary than a tightly structured fiction, and yet still allowing itself moments of magical realism, which paradoxically speak even more to our inner, most uncomfortably realistic versions of ourselves.

The result is what I consider to be the most profound depiction of mid-20s existential dread and yearning for meaning I have personally experienced.

Joker (2019)

Yes, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy do what this film tries to do, but better.

Yes, you should watch those and not this wildly overrated sadness porn fantasy.

No, mental illness is not that cut and dry. I thought we had transcended the point of misrepresenting mental conditions as inextricably linked to heinous acts of violence, but hey, here we are.

Brother (2000)

Ending with this classic I rewatched last February.

Hana-Bi is Kitano’s finest, but Brother is the film I enjoy the most out of his filmography.

I vividly remember supplementing my first watch with a small BTS documentary on YouTube, where Kitano explained how efficiently he worked when shooting. If an actor wasn’t giving him what he wanted after a couple of takes, he changed the camera positioning to be behind the actor. Editing the film was a much more enjoyable and freeing process for him as a filmmaker.

You can feel it when watching Brother. Violent scenes play out with quick cuts and creative sound design. Flashbacks eschew basic transitions and opt to trust the audience can figure out the timeline for themselves. Kitano understands, both at a very instinctive level and as a consequence of his quirks, that a visual medium isn’t about what you show but about what you choose to hide. Images can be expository, but they can also be especially suggestive, if done right.

The ending always manages to tug at my heartstrings precisely because of this. The last image before the credits roll leaves a lingering aroma, an echo of feelings that populate your soul like no other artform can.

Well, that’s it for thoughts… for now!

Let me get this out of the way: this isn’t a review. I don’t really like reviews. I used to love them back when looking for reference points on what I could consume, on what would be the recommended media for my oh-so-weird taste at the time. Nowadays, I think I have developed enough of an instinct, a particular scent, in order to trust myself when something catches my eye.

This is what happened when I stumbled upon ’s newsletter, and found out about Metallic Realms.

I impulsively purchased the book and anxiously waited for it to arrive at my humble abode in Barranquilla, Colombia (hardly a literature hub, let alone a science fiction one). I was afraid that, like other books before it, I would start reading it and leave it halfway, in no small part thanks to my dwindling attention span these days (something I have focused on correcting these past few years).

However, this book hooked me from the get go. Surprisingly so. So much that finishing it wasn’t really an effort. It was something I couldn’t help doing. An obligation to my soul, to my inner child.

Look, a run of the mill review will give you a plot synopsis of the book, throw a bunch of labels at you (Striking! Amazing! Intense! Raw!) and finish up with a very arbitrarily defined rating system in an attempt to quantify quality. I know this sounds like a complaint, but it really isn’t. It’s how the game is played, and hey, if we’re measuring Metallic Realms by this metric, it seems to be doing pretty well, and deservedly so!

What I’m writing here isn’t really a review. It’s more of a thought out reaction to what it made me feel.

I’m not really sure if it’s meant as an accurate depiction of science fiction geekdom, a satire full of hyperbole, or perhaps a carefully measured mix of both. What I know is that it made me feel seen, to an almost uncomfortable degree.

See, growing up as a geeked out, physically stale but cerebrally overstimulated introvert in a city like Barranquilla can quickly become an exercise in resilience. Sure, the usual bullying and mocking scenarios play out much like they do in coming-of-age fiction, but I think the resilience I talk about goes deeper than that. It has to do with our place in the world.

Barranquilla is a city that favors the explicit, the act of screaming out your points to make them stick, the colorful rituals of dancing until your muscles disintegrate in the unfathomable year-long heat of a coastal town that desperately wants to be seen as a landmark of third-world urban development. It is hardly the space for an introspective, taciturn and reflective individual to flourish. I can see now, with the astounding clarity that looking back can give you, that I came of age against overwhelming odds, against social forces that were constantly threatening with sucking up what little I had to claim as my identity.

Luckily, my life would eventually take happier turns and I can now say that I feel content where I am, with who I am, and with what I am. I can pronounce my love for underground fiction with passion and without the fear of judgement that permeated my adolescence.

Those memories do come back sometimes, though, especially in times as nostalgic as Christmas. And they come hand in hand with a lot of the emotions that characterized those days where a youthful Nando asked himself whether his personality had a place at all in this world.

Reading Metallic Realms triggered those memories. I have, at different points in my adolescence and early adulthood, been both Mike Lincoln and Taras K. Castle. I know what it feels like to dedicate every fiber of my being to the development of a project where its members hardly recognized my efforts, where my worst sin was perhaps caring too much. I also know what it feels like to be so focused on creation, on the act of trying to bring other worlds to life, to the point of quickly slipping into frequent bouts of melancholy and self-loathing, that I miss the blessings of loving company I have right in front of me.

2025 was a year in which I strengthened my bonds with people I love very dearly, both in my family and in my small but emotionally profound social circles. Metallic Realms brought me back to a time where those weren’t guaranteed, where the future I imagined looked bleak. It makes me happy, then, that the book ends with a hopeful note:

Yet while I may not know what my future holds, I have hope. Because I have characters who inspire me. Bold characters. Dashing characters. Characters who are ready to face any challenge that arises in a world of wonder, meaning, and adventure. I have the crew of the good ship Star Rot and the entire Metallic Realms.

And now you do too.

Perhaps some readers will interpret Mike’s last written words as the lasting echoes of a delusional individual. I can certainly picture people in my hometown coming to this conclusion. I, on the other hand, choose to believe that Mike will find the solace he desires. I believe his dedication will eventually be rewarded, against all odds. I believe his desperate, and very human, need for the tender warmth of genuine company will be satisfied.

I believe this because the young Nando eventually found it too.

A few days ago, I suddenly remembered I had taken it upon myself to resume watching Twin Peaks. I have repeatedly run away from this show for a multitude of reasons, most significant among them the fact that, as a filmmaking student, it became increasingly hard with each passing year to stop rationalizing whichever audiovisual product I consumed. For a while, I thought that analyzing art like this would allow me to decipher the why behind its magic, the secret formula that defined its success. This was, partially at least, my motivation when I created Nandología: to try and understand the creative process in all its intricacies. However, I never felt I was able to hit the quintessence of the creative act. I’ve come close, several times, but never quite there.

Nowadays, I dwell in the realm of digital product design, which has unexpectedly allowed me a certain distance, both emotional and philosophical, from the silver screen. Thanks to recommendations from souls I’ve met along the way (thank you Judit ), I decided to give Twin Peaks another go.

This time, something very peculiar happened. I couldn’t stop watching it. Some sort of magnetism kept me glued to the screen, even now while I start combing through the show’s second season.

I probably should get this out of the way: a lot of what happens in this show makes very little sense, in a narrative structure kind of way. My self from five years ago would have quit viewing before the end of the pilot episode. This isn’t a criticism of the show, mind you, but of the inadvertent restrictions I placed upon myself when consuming… well, any kind of art, really.

What is it about this show that makes it so seductive? There are so many interesting video essays in YouTube that tackle this topic much better than my non-native English speaking brain could ever hope to do, so I won’t attempt to give an over-analytical spin to this text. Personally, however, I feel like its allure has everything to do with the central creative force behind its making: David Lynch himself.

Lynch was, in many ways, a unique filmmaker. Praise for directors tends to evolve into a love letter of their methods, but it is precisely the lack of method what entices me about Lynch’s filmography. Reading his book Catching The Big Fish, I was surprised to learn just how many of the best elements of Twin Peaks were brought to life by pure chance (the casting of Killer Bob being paramount among them). Lynch didn’t view these necessarily as chance, but as acts of synchronicity. Happy accidents that take the initial script, the initial idea, to a better place.

As a creative myself, I find it very hard to let go, to surrender control, to let the chips fall where they may. I am usually very methodical in everything I do, which of course results in an undo amount of anxiety and tension. Experiencing something like Twin Peaks with the knowledge that it allowed itself to be spontaneous, to embrace randomness and contradiction, makes it easier to believe that letting go is not only possible but the ideal way to approach art (and perhaps life itself as well). Not everything needs to make sense from the beginning. Creation is less about understanding and more about feeling.

I love Twin Peaks because, even when I don’t understand everything that’s going on, I enjoy it in the most profound way. It connects with my soul in ways other works hardly ever come close to achieving. Perhaps it carries its creator’s spirit, someone who understood that the art of creation has everything to do with the art of listening, with paying attention to what life brings.