Miriam Balanescu

London

None at Social Spider Community News

Books, film + general culture writer @BBC_Culture @Guardian @SightSoundMag @AnOtherMagazine @i_D @prospect_uk miriambalanescu(at)outlook(dot)com

Articles

How The Wedding Banquet Updates the Queer Rom-Com

1 week ago | curzon.com | Miriam Balanescu

Where many recent LGBTQ+ rom-coms have crowbarred gay characters into heteronormative frameworks, this modern remake of The Wedding Banquet focuses on authentically queer themes, writes Miriam Balanescu. In Andrew Ahn’s tender, contemporary reworking of the 1993 queer cult rom-com The Wedding Banquet, the path to happiness is by no means predictable. The gentle drama coaxes together not one couple, but two.
April: The Ferocious and Dreamlike Abortion Drama That Shook Venice

2 weeks ago | anothermag.com | Miriam Balanescu

One of cinema’s most exciting new voices, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s searing new film arrives at a time of mounting intolerance in her home country of Georgia There are few weirder ways to introduce a protagonist than as an amorphic, alien version of themselves, devoid of mouth and eyes, enveloped by darkness.
Open, Heaven — Seán Hewitt’s sensuous and decadent debut novel

3 weeks ago | ft.com | Miriam Balanescu

“Flower & Herb soon fill the air with an innumerable Dance,/ Yet all in order sweet & lovely, Men are sick with Love,” reads the epigraph...
Last Swim

1 month ago | empireonline.com | Miriam Balanescu

On exam-results day, schoolkid Ziba (Deba Hekmat) plans the perfect 24 hours with her friends as a final send-off into adulthood – but her secret illness taints the celebrations. That time when teens are on the cusp of adulthood has long proved fertile ground for filmmakers: Dazed And Confused, Superbad and Booksmart a case in point.
Elegy, Southwest — a road trip though America’s apocalyptic landscapes

1 month ago | ft.com | Miriam Balanescu

The second novel by the Australian writer Madeleine Watts, Elegy, Southwest, is astonishingly and chillingly prescient.
It's another age-gap romance

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Miriam Balanescu

The latest addition to fiction's "age-gap romance" trend takes an unconventional approach. Like Sally Rooney's Intermezzo, Kingfisher, by the young Yorkshire-based writer Rozie Kelly, parses grief with love. But, unlike Rooney's novel, there's no preamble about the protagonist's underlying trauma.
On the Clock by Claire Baglin review – a fast food novel for a refined palette

1 month ago | msn.com | Miriam Balanescu

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
On the Clock by Claire Baglin review - a fast food novel for a refined palette

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Miriam Balanescu

In recent novels set in restaurants, the breakneck speed of the action hides darker elements at work. Stéphane Larue’s The Dishwasher follows a restaurant worker whose life threatens to unravel amid his gambling addiction; in Merritt Tierce’s Love Me Back, the world of waitressing is a front for Texas’s grimy underbelly.
The Ultimate 'Sad Man in Space' Movie Ranking

2 months ago | menshealth.com | Miriam Balanescu

FOR WHAT IS mostly—as far as we know—an endless expanse of nothingness, space sure is surprisingly full of symbolic potential. Practically since cinema was invented, filmmakers have been pondering what it would be like to venture beyond planet Earth (see Georges Méliès 1902 literal trailblazer A Trip to the Moon) and have mined the territory for dramatic and emotional possibilities.
The Ultimate 'Sad Man in Space' Movie Ranking

2 months ago | yahoo.com | Miriam Balanescu

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." FOR WHAT IS mostly—as far as we know—an endless expanse of nothingness, space sure is surprisingly full of symbolic potential. Practically since cinema was invented, filmmakers have been pondering what it would be like to venture beyond planet Earth (see Georges Méliès 1902 literal trailblazer A Trip to the Moon) and have mined the territory for dramatic and emotional possibilities.