Es Campur Newsstand Amanda Tjhin

Today marks the beginning of December, and Es Campur Newsstand is bringing in movies with winter in them. Huang gets the first pick this month, and she chose her all-time favorite movie - Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster. Amanda took 6 hours to watch the movie, but Huang insists that it's the greatest movie ever made. Listen to find out why!

For the last Rom-Com of the month, it's Amanda's time to pick. 500 Days of Summer was one of the films that kicked off her love for the medium. It's what she would call a realistic portrayal of a relationship.  Adeline and Amanda touched on topics such as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, idealism of the perfect one, and toxicity in relationships. 

This week is Adeline's turn to choose. She chose Penelope because it is one of her favorites as a kid. Amanda has never seen Penelope. This episode discusses Amanda and Adeline's opposing opinions about the film. 

In our journey in marathoning rom-coms this month, we picked one of Amanda's favorite. Saving Face is a lesbian-centric film featuring an all Chinese cast. It ventures the topics of saving face, filial piety, and a lot of other topics that are relevant to growing up in a Chinese neighborhood. Adeline and Amanda discuss the hardships of growing up in a conservative country and the toxicity of Chinese parenting. 

Amanda and Adeline are opening the month of November with a Hong Kong cult classic. This film franchise started in the year 1992 and continues to be produced annually on Chinese New Year. We decided that November would be a good month to review Rom-Coms due to its tendency to be overlooked.  Analyzing these films would be an exciting adventure!

We close our Horror October with Satan's Slaves, a horror film from Indonesia by Joko Anwar. In this 2nd episode of Es Campur Newsstand,  Adeline and Amanda tried to give a very truthful perspective on this famous film.