Charles, your post this morning was way too humble.

As the proud “editor” of your weekly Police Beat column (you wrote a great column as always this week), I must say major mazel tov on today’s NYT review in anticipation of your film’s NYC debut tonight. You say the review is “by no means cold.” I say the review is by all means hot.

What strikes me about the the NYT review is this: the reviewer spills a lot of ink in a short piece quoting the script. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like reviewers don’t typically drop so many quotes into movie reviews.

And why does the NYT zoom in on the script? Because Charles Tonderai Mudede is a poet.

From this morning’s NYT review:

When the film opens, Z is staring at a dead man floating in the water, but his mind is elsewhere, drifting on eddies of paranoia. “You said we didn’t have anything in common,” he addresses the absent woman in voice-over. “You like wheat grass. … I like Peking duck. And so it goes.” Over the course of this short, fast film, Z will experience all the joy and pain of a relationship with a woman who is as mysterious to him as he sometimes seems in return.

Relationships are cruel,” Z says. “Therefore the world is cruel.” Here, amid bodies at rest and in restless motion, an officer of the peace finds lines of connection that both jaggedly disturb and sometimes unite.

“Your tree,” Z sternly tells her, “is dead, and if it’s not chopped down it will continue to harm and disturb the living.”

Note to Charles: Again, the review is hot— not “by no means cold.” I quote the text message I got this morning from Martian Face Jenny who, presently, is visiting Manhattan and intends to see the movie tonight: “Rave review for police beat in today’s ny times!”