Kimberly Reyes

I was a 16-year-old student at the Bronx High School of Science, scribbling Concrete Blonde lyrics at my desk...

A few weeks back, when New York City announced the minuscule number of black students admitted to its elite specialized high schools, the report generated the usual dialogues around how the system is broken and what, if anything, can be done to fix it. There is no doubt that the numbers are abysmal: Only 12 black students scored high enough on the citywide test to win a seat at my alma mater, Bronx Science, and just seven to Stuyvesant. While I’m concerned for the black students continually l...

I became familiar with British filmmaker Steve McQueen’s work last year while writing a thesis on his 2008 film Hunger, based on the 1981 Irish hunger strike. Hunger is a devastating film no matter how much or how little Irish history you bring to it: the excruciating loss of life makes the viewing experience wrenchingly universal. As my thesis progressed, I trusted McQueen enough to watch his hugely successful and critically acclaimed 2013 film 12 Years a Slave. As a Black American, I’d prev...

All articles written for EW

Duran Duran are back!

George Floyd was the latest in a long line of Black Americans killed by white police officers in the United States. The horrifying video of his killing sparked worldwide protests in the middle of a pandemic with uneven mortality rates that are exposing existing inequalities. While many people around the world champion this new, impromptu, international coalition based around a racial justice reckoning, the overwhelming majority of posts I’ve seen in response to the Black Lives Matter protests...

Reviewed by Kimberly Reyes
I always resist and then ultimately succumb to the latest in antebellum narratives. As I explored in my last review, I’m particularly interested in the merging of post-colonial histories. So when I heard that Neil Jordan had written a novel about the relationship between the runaway Black American slave Tony Small and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, an Irish soldier then fighting on the side of the British during the American Revolution, I felt obliged to engage.

Kimberly Reyes explains how Wakanda Forever accomplishes all the things.
First things first, as a mutantist (a Marvel fan who believes it’s time for mutants to reclaim their place on the MCU throne) I’m over-the-moon with what Namor—heart-stoppingly played by José Tenoch Huerta Mejía—brings to the table in his MCU debut. In a film universe that has become synonymous with mutates like Iron Man, Captain America, Spiderman, and even my beloved Hulk, it’s about time that a complicated mutant, wit...

Let’s be honest, the most memorable scenes in the first two Thor films belonged to (Tom Hiddleston’s) Loki. That’s because Thor, as written, was still finding his way around his Norse godship, and the love story between his character and Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster was always awkward at best, and tiresome at worst (and Thor: The Dark World is pretty much the worst)...

Kimberly Reyes chases a demon in space between universes.

While most of my friends chose to head-bang to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Guns N’ Roses on the hour-long train ride to high school, my yellow Sports Walkman usually played something a little slower and more somber. From the Geto Boys to The Sisters of Mercy...

"Rock Steady," No Doubt's fifth album, finds the band impressively easing into its proper role as ambassador of a good time. "Hella Good," one of a number of tracks on the album produced by the accomplished Nellee Hooper (of late U2 and Bjork fame), sounds like an eighties roller-rink party. The good time flashbacks don't end there. "Don't Let Me Down," produced by Ric Ocasek, with its Cars-like bass line, spacey keyboards and layered vocals is the perfect melding of the best of what both the...

We saw this cute quiz in Buzzfeed and couldn't resist the urge to share. Teen-queen Taylor Swift has been compared to many other lovelorn writers, but this may be the first time acclaimed poet Pablo Neruda has entered the conversation. With lines like:
"Oh, losing him was blue like I'd never known. Missing him was dark grey all along."
attribution can certainly get tricky. Color imagery, mixed metaphors ... what?! Is it the Chilean wordsmith or the crafty chanteuse? Knowing Swift's affinity f...

Kimberly Reyes spent 5 days at the Dublin Film Festival and sent us on her highlights:

My Brother Is ‘Essential’

I have one brother, Alex — a tall, broad black man who is a train operator for New York City’s M.T.A. The world is finally realizing that he’s “essential.” While Alex’s uniform may protect him from extrajudicial profiling, it also endangers him, requiring him to be exposed to the coronavirus. He’s always had to be tough, but since living with his girlfriend, he’s changed. Alex now tells my parents and me that he loves us. Out loud. I remember this change in...