Where do we go from here? This is what Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber ask us to consider in Pieces of a Woman. It’s never vocalized, nor does it act as anything more than a looming question mark, but its presence is felt. This query is dissected frame by frame, glance by glance, by Martha…
Brandon Cronenberg‘s excellent sophomore feature, Possessor, wants you to know what kind of movie it is right off the bat. It opens with a disturbing image of an unnamed young woman sticking a black, metal rod into her head. A few moments later, she goes to a party and walks up to a businessman then…
Between Allan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” and Herb Alpert’s “The Lonely Bull,” I was able to terrorize my sister to no end. This first song is self-explanatory. It’s fashioned as a humorous novelty. The second one isn’t as obvious. In fact, it had nothing to do with the quality of the song itself but…
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 drum beats whether you hear it or not in Sound of Metal, the narrative feature debut of co-writer/director Darius Marder. Ruben’s life was right where he wanted it. Having overcome drug addiction, he was able to fully invest in his relationship with his girlfriend, Lou, and their heavy metal band. An RV and an endless…
This year’s virtual experience at film festivals brings a lot of pros and cons, but to be honest, I’m just glad I get to see some great movies despite theaters being closed. This year’s New York Film Festival started out with a bang, showcasing a whole slate of movies that really experimented with form and…
We’ve all imagined how we’d handle the end of the world. Perhaps you think you’d fight heroically to the bitter end against the zombies or aliens, or perhaps you don’t want any part of that and plan on giving up immediately. Either way, we’ve all thought about it, and you’ve probably landed on some clean…
Tis the season: the spooky season! Yes, alongside pumpkin-spiced everything and the arrival of cool weather, many a film lover is feeling entitled to a good scare. The early autumn, leading up to Halloween, conjures up images of hayrides and cocoa and spooky stories shared around a campfire. For many of us, our first brush…
Some people spend their days arguing over the merits of Netflix, but the rest of us are too busy enjoying new movies, engaging series, and fun specials. It’s just one more way to re-watch the movies we already love and find new ones to cherish, and this month sees some of both hitting the service. The…
A teenage girl faces crossroads in Yellow Rose, the latest from co-writer and director Diane Paragas. Your teenage years are all about deciding where you want your life to go, but most people don’t have the complications Rose faces. As an undocumented immigrant, her dream of playing country music seems especially out of reach, and…
The name’s Bond. Bondathon. With twenty-four official James Bond films to conquer before No Time To Die hits theaters, Bond fan Anna Swanson and Bond newbie Meg Shields are diving deep on 007. Martinis shaken and beluga caviar in hand, the Double Take duo are making their way through the Bond corpus by era, so…
Darren Lynn Bousman is a director best known for his work within the Saw-franchise, but alongside Saw II, III, and IV, Bousman has left his mark on the horror genre with films like Mother’s Day and St. Agatha as well as the iconic cult-classic Repo! The Genetic Opera. Death Of Me, Bousman’s new film starring…
In the tradition of One Thousand and One Nights, Ivorian filmmaker Philippe Lacôte’s latest narrative feature, Night of the Kings, is an ode to the power of storytelling to transport and transform. Set inside a fictionalized version of a real prison in Abidjan that Lacôte visited as a child when his mother was held there…
In a world where much of the focus is on national and international politics, the specifics of local governments remain a mystery. While we, as citizens, have some say in who takes these primary seats of office, those who keep our cities alive go beyond elected officials. What exactly happens at our local hubs and…
Darren Lynn Bousman is perhaps best known for directing three Saw sequels as well as next year’s eagerly anticipated Spiral: From The Book Of Saw. Before Spiral is unleashed onto the world, Bousman brings us Death Of Me, a mystical, Thailand-set thriller. A Storm Is Coming Starring Maggie Q and Luke Hemsworth, Death Of Me…
In the No Time To Die Countdown, Jake Tropila takes a look back at every Bond film – official and unofficial – in anticipation of the release of the latest entry. Now, this is more like it. In 1974, The Man with the Golden Gun turned out to be a box office disappointment, at least…
Since the shift from cable TV to streaming services, we’ve seen an explosion of complex television shows that require the type of chronological viewing unique to our era. Serial TV shows thrive over their more formulaic, episodic counterparts, and they proliferate over myriad streaming services. With this saturation of affordable on-demand content, TV shows have…
After reaching critical acclaim with works such as A Private War and Oscar-nominated Cartel Land, director Matthew Heineman takes somewhat of a left turn to document the homecoming of Colombia’s biggest reggae superstar, J Balvín. The Boy From Medellín follows the singer as he prepares to play the biggest concert of his life to a…
Amidst the rapturous critical reception that Terrence Malick’s Badlands received upon its 1974 release, one dissenting voice stood out. While Vincent Canby called Malick’s feature debut “a most important and exciting film” in the New York Times, Pauline Kael turned in a scathing review at the New Yorker, breathing fire at everything from the performances…
The names Pedro Almodóvar and Tilda Swinton are individually enough to spark interest in the vast majority of film lovers. (If they don’t, then I honestly question your taste.) But both of those names, together, on the same project? Which happens to be the first-ever English-language film from the renowned Spanish auteur, responsible for such…
Films claimed to be shot in one long, continuous take are often wondrous technical achievements, from Hitchcock’s Rope to Sam Mendes’ war epic 1917. Most of these contain several hidden cuts in order to preserve the illusion and to make it logistically easier to achieve. source: Shout! Studios Rolling a camera for 90 minutes uninterrupted…