Movie talk

As soon Riz Ahmed takes the stage at the start of Mogul Mowgli, you know you’re about to see something special. From this moment it is clear that this will be a film with energy and bite, and that plugs into the supercharged power of its star. Ahmed plays Zed, a British-Pakistani rapper who is about…

Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” is a deliciously unstable comedy. This new installment in the misadventures of Cohen’s ignorant yet fearless Kazakhstani journalist Borat Sagdiyev is filled with risqué (and just plain risky) jokes. Some land. Others explode in the film’s own face like a baggy-pants comedian’s prop cigar. That’s all true to the…

About 40 miles off the coast of Poland, nearly 300 feet below the surface of the Baltic Sea, a beam of light cut through the cold water and fell onto the metal hulk of a ship. As the light panned across the wreck in September 2020, it cast long shadows across the seafloor. For the…

Deep in the woods, there are cubes. Enormous, ominous chrome cubes, with dozens of cables jutting out of them like potato batteries. The cubes are the most arresting images in Noah Hutton’s Lapsis. A smart sci-fi chiller showing at Nightstream’s Virtual Film Festival, Lapsis has more on its mind than just tech. Those chrome blocks…

If you were driving through the English countryside sometime in October 2020, you may have spotted a man in a full suit of medieval armor, marching along the side of the road. It was neither a present-day Don Quixote nor a lost LARPer. It was simply Lewis Kirkbride, a 38-year-old charity worker from Durham, in…

Scandinavian Heritage Park is believed to be the only park dedicated to the five Nordic countries. The heritage park is operated by the Scandinavian Heritage Association and the Norsk Høstfest. The Norsk Høstfest is the largest Nordic festival in North America. The centerpiece of the park is the Gol Stave Church Museum.  Read moreA Guide…

The first film since Molly’s Game from director Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7 finally arrived on Netflix last week after a nearly decade-long delay that pointed to a cancellation many years ago. Yet, in the midst of our tense political climate in these past few years, Aaron Sorkin decided to step behind…

Icelandic composer Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson lived in Edinburgh during the 1870s, as the Scottish capital represented more opportunities for a fledgling musician than his home country. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonHe resided in a Georgian-style townhouse in the city’s New Town, however, he probably never imagined that one of his pieces composed…

Diversity only goes so far in today’s woke landscape. Yes, Hollywood and major media platforms like Netflix routinely attempt to bring more people of color into the entertainment industry. The moves come after decades of inadequate representation. In many ways the cultural wave is a worthy one. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThere’s…

This piece was originally published in High Country News and appears here as part of our Climate Desk collaboration. Centuries-old sycamore trees tower over the dry riverbed of Harshaw Creek, in the Patagonia Mountains of southern Arizona. Where houses once stood, flat, barren earth stretches to the base of nearby low, oak-covered hills. A crumbling…

October is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “31 days of horror.” Don’t bother looking it up; it’s true. Most people take that to mean highlighting one horror movie a day, but here at FSR, we’ve taken that up a spooky notch or nine by celebrating each day with a top ten list. This article about…

The Wren’s Eggs are located along Blackhead path in the coastal seaside town of Whitehead on the East Antrim coastline. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonBlackhead Path is one of many coastal cliff walks along the Islandmagee peninsula including The Gobbins and Skernaghan Point. Blackhead Path leads visitors along a coastal pathway…

The Lake of Cutilia also known as the Paterno Lake was sacred to the Sabine people. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonRoman historians described a floating island with a temple dedicated to the oracular cult of the Sabine Goddess Vacuna, a fertility goddess who protected the waters. The lake was later exploited…

The bright lights of Hollywood turn on Appalachia in Hillbilly Elegy, the latest from director Ron Howard. J.D. Vance is one of the few people that got out. Out of his hometown, out of the vacuum of poverty, out of the living generations of his family led. Now a law student with the world opening up…

When thinking of animals that reflect the breadth and diversity that is Edinburgh, there’s a plethora of species to choose from, from the mythical unicorn, which is the nation’s symbolic animal, to Greyfriars Bobby, a famed Skye terrier who is the city’s mascot. There is also Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be cloned, or  Wojtek…

In the north of Saint Petersburg lies an astoundingly large and somber memorial complex dedicated mostly to the victims of the Siege of Leningrad carried out by Nazi soldiers during World War II. This siege—considered a genocide by some historians—was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history. It was also perhaps the costliest…

Thanks to our friends at Roadshow Films, Film Inquiry is happy to announce that we’ve got 5 in-season double passes to give away for Rams to our Australian readers! Jeremy Sims’ faithful and empathetic adaptation of Grímur Hákonarson’s Oscar-nominated Icelandic drama Rams has sneak previews across the weekend of October 23-25, with the film releasing in cinemas everywhere in…

Streaming might be the future, but physical media is still the present. It’s also awesome, depending on the title, the label, and the release, so each week we take a look at the new Blu-rays and DVDs making their way into the world. Welcome to this week in Home Video for October 20th, 2020 including our…

In and around Amiens in the French Picardy region, a stretch of floating farmland poses an unusual challenge to local farmers and gardeners. Les Hortillonnages d’Amiens are an age-old, 300-hectare area of marshland where vegetables and flowers grow on gardens connected by 40 miles of canal. One legend claims that the Hortillonnages date back to…

When Joe Cornish’s Attack The Block arrived in cinemas back in 2011, it quickly became a cult favourite but struggled to make big numbers at the box office. Had it been released today in the wake of greater calls for diversity, it’s easy to imagine the film getting much more mainstream fanfare. After all, Attack…

Filmmaker Steve McQueen’s latest project, the five-part Small Axe anthology, takes its name from a West Indian proverb that says “if you are the big tree, we are the small axe.” In other words, voices that may seem small on their own can challenge more powerful ones when they are raised together. It’s hard to…