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…
Mental health is a topic that has only recently begun to receive proper representation in film and television. For decades, people didn’t treat mental health seriously, thus making life more difficult for those struggling. No one knows this better than Amy McCorkle who, in 1999, suffered a bipolar breakdown while trying to pursue her dream…
In 2016, HB1523 was signed into U.S. law, making it legal to deny housing or even fire someone simply because of who they are on the basis of violations of religious beliefs. With the ink of a pen, religious beliefs became the sole and primary basis for human rights decisions and discrimination. In an instant,…
According to Piers Mitchell, a paleopathologist from the University of Cambridge, scientists have been extracting data from ancient human poop for over a century. “In the past, we’ve been able to look at a single coprolite from a single person”—that is to say, a preserved turd—“and study the microbiome of that one individual.” (The microbiome…
When I first learned about Japanese country singer Tomi Fujiyama, I marveled. Here was a young Japanese woman who took the American country music scene by storm, including performances at the Grand Old Opry. But like so many others, I probably wondered how her love of American music came about. It just illustrates the way…
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…
Early on in Rams – Jeremy Sims‘ Australian remake of the 2015 Oscar-nominated Icelandic drama of the same name – estranged brothers Colin (Sam Neill) and Les (Michael Caton) are forced to nestle together when they are the last two competitors in their remote Western Australian town’s annual prize ram contest. Despite the tension that…
Joe Rogan had to go and open up his big, Spotify-fed mouth. The podcast giant blasted his critics within the music platform eager to cancel him for sharing the “wrong” thoughts. Rogan responded, in part, by questioning why the woke staffers weren’t offended by the hateful lyrics peddled on the platform. Read moreA Guide to…
In 2015, Pablo Salvatierra was a 23-year-old Argentinian student struggling with a severe case of a skin disease called psoriasis. With no true cure on offer, his doctors had suggested a four-week fast of no solid food, followed by a permanent change in diet. It was a skinny, skinny Salvatierra who left his bedroom the…
Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; You wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” (Genesis 4:23-24, NRSV) After Cain killed his brother, he feared that someone would…
“Are you hiding something?” Trinity Creative has released an official trailer for an indie drama titled That Good Night, which originally premiered in 2017 at the Edinburgh and Shanghai Film Festivals. The film stars John Hurt (who passed away in early 2017 before this premiered at the festivals) as Ralph, a once-famous screenwriter, who is…
For reasons that are beyond obvious, martial arts cinema has always focused on characters at the peak of their physical prowess. Sitting through Ip Man 4: The Finale, it’s easy to forget that Donnie Yen is actually in his late fifties, yet still moves with the same level of finesse that he did for the…
Every autumn, a quarter million people go to Virginia’s famed Shenandoah National Park to see the spectacular fall colors of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Those traveling along Skyline Drive, the park’s main road, pass a routered wood sign pointing to Lewis Mountain. Eighty years ago, the park marker included an additional line: “Negro Area.” It…
Queerly Ever After is a bi-monthly column where I take a look at LGBT+ films that gave their characters a romantic happily-ever-after. There will be spoilers. Also, don’t forget to buy your Queerly Ever After merch right here. It is also important that I include a content warning for suicide attempts in this article. Read moreA…
★★★★ Written and Directed by: #StefanGeorgiou Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonStarring: #MatLaroche, #HannahEmanuel, #SarahNiles, #HelenaBanerjee #WillKenning and #ComfortFabian Short film review by: Brian Penn Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’Loneliness and isolation are two of the greatest enemies we face in life. The notion…
Traumatic events have a way of exploding us. They reassemble us again afterward, but we’ve changed, completely and irreversibly. In Rose Plays Julie, a dark Irish thriller from Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy, trauma, and the reconciliation with it, soaks into every scene. Lawlor and Molloy also wrote the film, which screened at Nightstream’s Virtual…
In the third episode of Lovecraft Country, the 10-part horror drama series from HBO, a character named Letitia “Leti” Lewis moves into an all-white neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago. Leti, who is played by Jurnee Smollett, is prepared for backlash from her neighbors. What she isn’t prepared for is a basement haunted by…
During the last Ice Age, the Finger Lakes region of New York was covered by a glacier over two miles thick. This wall of ice permanently sculpted the landscape, scratched rocky outcrops, and gouged deep valleys that became the Finger Lakes themselves. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe Museum of the Earth,…
Despite the incredible events that have taken place in the world since the multiple Oscars for “Parasite,” Neon is still basking in the afterglow of that history-making night, releasing another Bong Joon-ho flick for the first time in many markets today and tomorrow (10/19-20) and then putting it on VOD next week (on 10/27). The film…
I’ve never managed to review a François Ozon film without speaking, at length, about how he is one of the few truly chameleonic directors working. And, unfortunately for those of you crying out for me to offer any original insight, that isn’t going to be changing here, as the director who followed his sleazy De…