The southern Swedish island of Öja was a strategic location the Baltic Sea when it came to the country’s shoreline defense. Fearing a Russian invasion by sea during the Cold War, the military decided to replace many of the old shore defenses with a new system: the ERSTA artillery battery. In the 1970s, the military…
On Canova Drive in New Smyrna Beach, a grave lies in the middle of the street. The memorial is dedicated to Charles Dummett, a teenager who died in 1860. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe son of Douglas D. Dummett, a landowner, and Leandra “Anna” Fernandez, an enslaved woman, Charles Dummett died…
For her debut feature film, the British director Jennifer Sheridan decided to make a vampire movie. Or did she? Is the unsettling, deeply felt horror/drama Rose: A Love Story really a vampire film? Or even a horror movie? It isn’t that scary or that gory, and the focus for the most part is on a bickering couple….
Just north of Paliza Canyon and the Paliza Group Campground are a few unique features of high desert geology. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonUnlike other hoodoos, these volcanic rock formations are filled with eroded holes that resemble distorted human faces. Those who have happened upon this elusive area dubbed the space,…
Twenty years ago, Harrison Ford played a murderous villain in Robert Zemeckis’ gaslighting supernatural thriller “What Lies Beneath.” The success of Ford’s performance as the manipulative Dr. Norman Spencer hinged on viewers’ expectations of his two most common character types: The upright father figure seen in projects like “The Mosquito Coast,” “Patriot Games,” and “Air…
It wasn’t like the last time I’d visited the British Film Institute. The buildings were all the same, massive cubes of concrete sitting along the bank of the Thames. Their façades were aglow with pink and blue lights, as I remembered them last time, glinting off of the river as we crossed Waterloo Bridge. But…
The Battle of Gettysburg was the deadliest conflict of the Civil War with more than 20,000 casualties. However, only one was a non-combatant. Jennie Wade was just 20 years old when she was struck by a stray bullet inside this house on July 3, 1863. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWade lived…
Over the last few months, critics and film enthusiasts alike have traversed the country, the world even, without traveling a single mile. Festivals have been reimagined virtually for a reality that prevents us from physically convening. In truth, as convenient as they are, home viewing can never fully substitute for the real experience, but festivals…
★★★ Directed by: Ambz Negro Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by: Ambz Negro Starring: David Farrell, Paulie Kren Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’,,Film Review by: ,,Jason Knight Sometimes it can be difficult for people to deal with their inner struggles. A young man…
“This is terrible!” says the director, appearing onscreen for the first time after the sequence of haphazardly shot, the off-kilter dialogue of the opening minutes of the film. Only the first delightful surprise of experimental fiction-documentary Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, this unexpected commentary sets the stage for a spectacular and very odd 75 minutes. A Bad Idea? Symbiopsychotaxiplasm:…
“You guys shot the wrong man, didn’t you?!” Dark Star Films has debuted a new official US trailer for the New Zealand dark comedy called Lowdown Dirty Criminals, made by filmmaker Paul Murphy (Second Hand Wedding and Love Birds). This already opened in New Zealand & Australia a few months ago, and should make its…
Atlas Obscura and Epic Magazine have teamed up for Monster Mythology, an ongoing series about things that go bump in the night around the world—their origins, their evolution, their modern cultural relevance. Imagine you are on your own, deep in Colombia’s central Andean region. Perhaps you are cutting down lumber in the lush forests, or…
Atlas Obscura and Epic Magazine have teamed up for Monster Mythology, an ongoing series about things that go bump in the night around the world—their origins, their evolution, their modern cultural relevance. You’re a banker, living in a cottage in Dublin. It’s autumn and the wind is brisk but pleasant, so you decide to take…
Atlas Obscura and Epic Magazine have teamed up for Monster Mythology, an ongoing series about things that go bump in the night around the world—their origins, their evolution, their modern cultural relevance. As night settles across Togo and Ghana, the adze, it is said, slips through keyholes, under windows, around doors. They fly to the…
The 2016 presidential race permanently changed the jokes told after the nightly news. Late night comedians, fearing a Donald Trump victory, shifted their content aggressively to the Left. Jokes got massaged or simply nudged aside for talking points ripped out of a New York Times op-ed. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonIn…
Exorcisms have been a topic of horror films for decades. Even the most famous of these, William Friedkin‘s The Exorcist, spawned two sequels, two prequels, and a TV series that ran for two seasons. It’s a tall order for any other exorcism films to compete with, indie or not! The Last Exorcist has a decent…
Dinesh D’Souza is on trial once again with his new film, Trump Card, a visual overload consistent with his record so far. As a propagandist, he’s not so much Leni Riefenstahl but Michael Moore. In the same way, Moore perhaps wishes he had the journalistic integrity and style of Alex Gibney – damning, classy and…
Almost everyone in Japan knows of the 17th-century swordsman Miyamoto Musashi and the legendary duel between him and his rival, Sasaki Kojirō. Musashi allegedly arrived at the duel purposefully late, wielding a wooden sword made out of an oar. Enraged by this disrespect, Kojirō lost his calm and was struck on the forehead, knocked unconscious,…
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…
After losing year-long friendships with composer Richard Wagner and philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer over intellectual quarrels around the mid-1870s, the mental and emotional health of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche started to deteriorate. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonIn search of a cure for his ails and his ever-increasing migraines, Nietzsche started to roam the…
Trajan is considered one of the greatest Roman emperors, having expanded the empire to its largest size. While leading the conquest of Dacia, he ordered the construction of a large forum around 105 CE. The most integral part of the forum was a market. It’s believed the project was designed by Apollodorus of Damascus, an…