400 Words on: Wuthering Heights (2026)

or, “Rated X for Pervasive Ankle”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.


1.5 out of 5

Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” (aka. WH) is a thesis paper just waiting for a would-be advertising graduate.

Had Warner’s marketing team been forthright and sold it for what it is – a chamber piece in the vein of 2017’s “My Cousin Rachel” – I think I would have appreciated Fennell’s flourishes more, however awkwardly they abet a tame, period-correct adaptation of the Brontë novel.

Instead, WH was hustled as a Ken Russell-esque decent into debauchery, with an eye-catching trailer that spoke to the sensibilities of someone raised on the titillation of late-night cable erotica. People suck their dirty 18th century fingers, with Margot Robbie appearing to return to her bratty-nutjob roots. ‘Come Undone’, tempts the poster. Yes, please!

Expectations that stratospheric are unsustainable. While WH is as professional a product as an episode of “Bridgerton”, it lacks consistent, distinguishing texture: whether that be with more visual depictions of sexuality; singer Charli XCX’s anachronistic pop we only hear a couple of times to orchestrate montages; or the stop-motion hairwork titles, seen once & never again.

[cont’d]

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tomatoes, potatoes

A poem.


television permits us its
unassailable truths
as escapism:

generic hygienic,
purposeless youth
earn first-meets and whole Fridays with
ten-star heartbreaks in waiting –
despite the real world red flags that
demoing all your breakfast doth bring –


and they look into their eyes as the whales coo

and a fight ensues,
because each assumes what side of the tracks
the other derives,
as often occurs at the end of act two


and he’s home
middle-aging
with the before-bed Pringles in his hand ruminating,
“when was the last time that ever happened to me?”

the good parts, he means,
forgetting or not acknowledging what’s already been.


nostalgia’s in atm

ou, une merde chaude par une journée froide

A poem.


her back is to the separating wall,
left thigh over right
under the table at the unhappily married
middle-aged debutante ball,

long faces and all,
and instead of a trombone in her lap it’s her phone
and i’m not leering from around a beam.
this time.


what’s the use of this personification
except to hold on to it for later?
drooling through my pillow case at the open mystery
under those Lululemon Kirkland Signature duperies,
clasping fruitlessly to post-workout legs
like plastic cheese bricks to hot broccoli reeds


that, again, no one’s forcing me to eat

and being fun & flirty and platonic won’t do us good either
because you’re another non-native English speaker,
and i’ve changed little carnally in twenty-five years.
i’d much rather just non-verbally roll around on the floor
but it isn’t my middle-school Québec exchange anymore.
it’s life.



it’s life.
but apparently nostalgia’s all in at the mome.


Featured image “Impression of ‘Lonely woman embracing body in morning’ by Alena Shekhovtcova” illustrated by the author.

400 Words on: Kissed (1996)

or, “Misanthropic Thanatophiles in Love”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.


3.5 out of 5

“Kissed” is a bizarre but on-brand Canadian film, with Molly Parker (from Global TV’s “Doc”) in her first major appearance. It’s a drama that skews closer to video art, with a striking premise that eventually plays second-fiddle to a middling obsession plot.

But damned if it exists at all: a straight-faced movie about necrophilia. Jörg Buttgereit’s “Nekromantik” this is not – though both films share the same fleeting duration of just over an hour: an unheard-of runtime in today’s feature market. Plenty for director Lynne Stopkewich to poke her head in, make her points, and leave, in – fingers-crossed – the most memorable way possible.

In that regard, its prologue is laudable: a snapshot of heroine Sandra’s youth & learned Wiccanness: evolving from a respect for the dead, into intimacy. Getting these character beats so early made me emotionally invested in the unorthodox subject matter – as did Parker’s fearless, Genie award winning performance as the adult Sandra (Genies are the Canadian Oscars, now called the “Canadian Screen Awards”).

[cont’d]

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ain’t no way

A poem.


where did she goooo?

mah luuuv-ly?


ah wanna nooooo…
wh-r do u whar do u goooo?



“what?”

i’m talkin’ ‘boute that one renter,
you know,
with the smokin’ hot bod
and the mini pincher dog,
who we only ever saw
when they’d test the fire alarm?


the babe, not the dog.


h-h-h-ho-ho-way
h-h-h-ho-ho-way

“who’re you
yammering about now,
hm?
i told you the girl at Jasper’s funeral was
probably twelve.
it’s the GMOs in the food:
that’s why rule of sevens, dude.”

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