- Busan 2026: Birds in the Dark, Selvi, 1982 (October 15, 2026)
Busan has several major sections. The biggest, of course, is its Main Competition. Next is its Vision section, split into two geographic categories: Asia and Korea. Both are meant to uplift filmmakers, typically on their first or second film. This dispatch concerns a trio of works from the Asia vertical. Two hail from India; one comes from Vietnam. All of them extol unquestionable vitality.
One of Busan’s great discoveries is Shashank Walia’s sumptuous, swooning queer political romance “Birds in the Dark,” which won the festival’s Songwon Vision Audience Award.
The film begins on an arresting note: From a low angle, we see a serene Jagtar (Harwinder Singh Aujla) smoking, a shackle hugging his wrist, a cigarette resting on his lips, and the sun piercing the trees of this Indian forest to kiss his cheeks. His prisoner, Amir (Shahnawaz Bhat), lies beneath him, using his book bag as a pillow. In Walia’s overwhelmingly poignant black-and-white photography, he’s a cinematographer by trade, and the power dynamic is alluring.
As Jagtar drags Amir past dense thickets and imposing trees to a ramshackle bus, we don’t know whether he’s a cop, a bounty hunter, or what Amir’s offense could possibly be. We do, however, see the two men grow closer. The film’s title card hits at the thirty-minute mark, cementing the director’s assured control.
An undisclosed amount of time passes from Jagtar and Amir’s first meeting to the former’s return to his village and family in rural Punjab. Once a landowner, Jagtar’s property was seized by the bank, so Jagtar left in hopes of becoming a cop, only to find work as a paid informant. He re-immerses himself in his old life with friends and former flames: Raman (Navdeep Bajwa), the wealthiest man in town, was his lover; his best friend, a landless woman (Mauli Singh), wants to organize a farmer collective against exploitative, patriarchal landowners who target these workers’ wages and bodies. Amir, an Agrarian socialist from Kashmir, arrives just in time to rekindle his romantic spark with Jagtar and advise the villagers on collective action.
Spanning a year, with chapters divided by the seasons, “Birds in the Dark” moves with the propulsive energy of change. In wide panoramic shots, Walia juxtaposes the divergent treatment of vast fields: half the land is tended by hand with scythes, while the other half is mowed by industrial tractors. Many of the characters, those of a lower caste, define new roles for themselves as organizers, and Jagtar considers who he loves and in what settings he can express those ardent feelings. Engrossing and heart-shaking, “Birds in the Dark” lands with remarkable precision and soars to incredible heights.
In writer/director Sailesh Rathnakumar’s angsty woman-led melodrama “Selvi,” the film’s guilt-ridden protagonist contends with her best friend’s eroding mental health and her own secret role in that pain. Nevertheless, the film begins with almost too light a touch. Selvi (Anjali Patil) and her roommate Kavitha (Swathy Krishnan) fly kites on the beach when their other two flatmates arrive to celebrate Selvi’s birthday. Rathnakuma wraps the scene in a pop sheen, complete with a girl-ballad needle drop.
That dreamlike bubblegum tone suddenly dissolves into something meatier when, later, Selvi’s roommates find Kavitha crying; she’s attempted suicide due to her boyfriend Purushothaman (Vinoth Kishan) breaking up with her. While she convalesces in bed, trapped in a mourning fugue state, Selvi picks up her shifts. The pair are overworked in-home nurses whose agency expects much of them but gives little in return.
The strain of working doubles on behalf of Kavitha—which includes tending to an older man (Raja Krishnamoorty) with dementia whose demanding, affluent daughter-in-law lords over Selvi—is exacerbated by Selvi’s studying for her exam, which will offer her a chance to be a nurse in Singapore, the health of her father, and Kavitha’s ex-boyfriend’s persistent phone calls.
Rathnakumar’s film, which won the festival’s Hylife Vision and Taipei Film Commission Award, rests on Patil’s exhaustive performance, as she often fights the overly twitchy score to find contours for a woman carrying a weight that’ll never dissipate. Patil conveys this woman’s stress through vacant eyes and a bent posture that matches the shape of her anguished spirit.
Within her personal struggle, Rathnakumar observes the divide between rural and urban life and the emotional and physical exploitation of this caregiving profession, but one quickly senses that these themes find life more through an exceptional Patil than the conventional storytelling around her. Through her efforts, “Selvi” remains fixed in the mind and nailed to the heart.
Deeply personal yet achingly hypnotic, Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp’s “1982” explores the uneasy line between creation and destruction. It follows Yen (Đỗ Thị Hải Yến), a bankrupt independent director who, along with her siblings, tries to care for her mother (Chiều Xuân), who has dementia. On the one-year anniversary of their father’s death, however, their mother suddenly and mysteriously vanishes. The three siblings band together to find her, though one might question how intense their efforts are.
They all have money problems: the spoiled youngest sister (Thùy Anh) is on the run from creditors while their only brother (Nguyễn Trường Khang) is expecting a child with his fiancée. Meanwhile, Yen is desperate to make one last film before her career slips away. Their mother’s home is worth quite a lot. You can connect the dots.
Yen’s artistic worries are somewhat inspired by Điệp’s own career. Yen, once a rising filmmaking star, made a movie a decade ago that earned her acclaim at international film festivals around the globe. She had to pause her pursuits two years later when her father’s health began failing. In this film, we see her attempting pre-production on several projects, including casting a film about Tet and a documentary about Quan họ singers, but nothing comes close to starting, let alone nearing completion.
A little over a decade ago, Điệp’s “Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere” drew similar attention, launching her to Venice and AFI Fest. She hasn’t made a feature until now. In the film’s post-screening Q&A, Điệp also revealed the film is also a love letter to her real-life mother.
However, moments in “1982” appear to defy definition. Idiosyncratic cuts weave viewers in and out of perspectives, the past and present, and dream and reality as authorities investigate what happened to their mother. Religion further muddies our perception as well, immersing us in sensorial rituals that reveal the painful truths these characters are hiding.
Yet the film’s most galvanizing moments arrive whenever Yen expounds on the obstacles to making a new film and the spiritual rot that grows from that creative void. In one of this film’s many fourth-wall breaks, bathed poetically in natural light, Yen lifts a beer to the audience and toasts us with the declaration: “Viva cinema!”
If “Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere” concerns the tension between money and life’s beginning, then “1982” is deeply conscious of money, not only life’s end but also the end of a career. And while it’s not always altogether clear if the film’s many tonal digressions all land with equal footing—though an early scene where a mysterious black-clad woman shows up with a taxidermied Bay cat is a notable finger-snap highlight—the deep excavations of Điệp’s apprehensions bind together some of the more disparate scenes into a cathartic ode to the power of cinema.
- “The Diplomat” Season 4 Finds New Ways to Up the Series’ Geopolitical and Interpersonal Stakes (October 15, 2026)
Netflix’s “The Diplomat” is not a show for the faint of heart. Its once fairly straightforward narrative premise—Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) is unexpectedly reassigned to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom after a potential terrorist attack on a British aircraft carrier—has become so convoluted it defies easy description.
Its storytelling is unabashedly bonkers, fearlessly one-upping its most ridiculous plot twists season after season with cliffhangers that would put daytime soaps to shame. (These include, but are not limited to: international conspiracies, false flag operations, car bombs, blackmail, suicide, and the shock death of a sitting president.) And, yet, somehow, it remains one of the most relentlessly entertaining series of the streaming era.
“The Diplomat’s” fourth season is a marked improvement on its third, which saw Kate’s husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), elevated to the vice presidency, and newly sworn-in President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) thrown into the deep end of international relations. The show’s geopolitics—leaders resigning, international allies feuding, and threats levied with abandon—crossed into the fully unbelievable several seasons ago, so there’s little point in critiquing how unlikely any of its narrative swerves are. Instead, we’re free to enjoy the fallout from years of dramatic set-up finally coming home to roost as the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Couples engage in an intricate dance of loyalty and betrayal.
Season 4 picks up immediately following Kate’s realization that Grace and Hal conspired to steal an alleged “apocalypse weapon” from a sunken Russian submarine in British territorial waters. As she attempts to keep the truth of this information from Prime Minister Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) and various other key members of his government, including her former fling Callum Ellis (Aidan Turner), she must also juggle a series of increasingly difficult demands from the Penn administration that test her personal morals and professional convictions in new and uncomfortable ways. (Yes, this description is intentionally vague. As with so much about this show, it’s better to go in not knowing too many plot details.)
The Diplomat. (L to R) Allison Janney as Grace Penn, Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler in episode 405 of The Diplomat. Cr. Clifton Prescod/Netflix © 2026
“The Diplomat’s” fourth outing is gloriously bingeable, thanks to a seemingly non-stop series of narrative twists, moral quandaries and personal betrayals that make its eight episodes (all of which were available for review) fly by at breakneck speed. Yet, for all its wild narrative swerves, this show remains so compelling because it’s unafraid to make the political personal. Its questions of moral compromise, professional ambition, and personal duty may play out on the biggest possible global stage, but its stories work because, at the end of the day, they’re deeply intimate, grounded in easy-to-understand emotion and relatable characters.
Season 4 thankfully course-corrects some of the worst mistakes from the show’s third outing, smartly recentering much of its emotional hook on Hal and Kate’s marriage as they try (yet again) to find a way forward together rather than letting their relationship fall apart. This rededication is, of course, complicated by their separate roles advising President Penn, as well as the fallout from the stolen nuclear-weapon situation. But for the first time in a long time, “The Diplomat” seems to remember that it’s possible to give Hal and Kate real, genuine conflict that isn’t predicated on whether one of them is about to cheat on or leave the other.
To be clear, their marriage has its share of (fairly massive) problems throughout this run of episodes, not to mention frequent disagreements about both the direction of U.S. foreign policy and their respective relationships with the new president. But there is at least a sense that the Wylers are, at long last, rowing in the same direction again, and the pair’s steadier than it used to be union offers an important counterpoint to the Penns’, which is straining under the weight of Grace’s new responsibilities.
Netflix’s decision to promote both Janney and her former The West Wing co-star Bradley Whitford to series regular status this season pays immediate dividends, and the two make excellent sparring partners for Russell and Sewell. The quartet faces multiple dramatic and strategic face-offs in a variety of combinations, which crackle with tension, frustration, concern, and fury by turns. The Penns’ relationship is, in many ways, as fraught as the Wylers’ marriage, and together they offer dual, occasionally combative depictions of the costs a life (and a love) lived so firmly in the public eye carries.
The Diplomat. Bradley Whitford as Todd Penn in episode 406 of The Diplomat. Cr. Clifton Prescod/Netflix © 2026
While Kate and Hal’s relationship remains the emotional engine driving much of this show, Todd’s attempts to figure out his role in a marriage where the whole world can claim a piece of his wife and Grace’s determination to test the limits of a power that it’s not clear she ever truly expected to wield make for equally compelling subplots.
Janney and Whitford share a rich, lived-in chemistry, making it easy to believe that their relationship has also weathered its share of storms. Maybe that hasn’t always been pretty, but like Kate and Hal, the fact that they’re still together says something about both their commitment to each other and the genuineness of their feelings. In a different world, it’s easy to see how the Penns and Wylers might have been real friends, rather than reluctant, occasionally combative, and sometimes unwilling allies.
The show’s increased focus on this central foursome does come with a few drawbacks, however. Ato Essandoh and Ali Ahn have relatively little to do this season, and most of their screen time is spent on Stuart and Eidra’s evolving personal relationship. (To his credit, Essandoh is particularly strong in the season’s final episodes, which finally remember that his character has long been this show’s most effective moral compass.) Kinnear and Turner are also largely sidelined, though the late-season arrival of former “Doctor Who” star Jodie Whittaker adds a welcome punch of energy to what might otherwise be some dully one-sided policy proceedings.
But the real reason to tune into “The Diplomat” remains Russell and Sewell. They’re dynamite together throughout a season as interested in their personal negotiations as in their professional ones. And thanks to another (fully expected yet still wildly surprising) cliffhanger, the pair are left in a unique and thrilling new position heading into the fifth season we all assume is coming. Let these two banter, bicker, betray, and bolster each other forever, I say.
All eight episodes screened for review. Premieres October 15 on Netflix.
- Chicago International Film Festival 2026 Preview (October 14, 2026)
As is often the case with CIFF, the team here at RogerEbert.com has seen and covered many of the films playing at the event. An increasingly impressive programming team does a stellar job of scouting events like Cannes for highlights, along with scheduling many of the same films that drew attention at Venice, Toronto, Telluride, and New York. We will be covering over a dozen films out of CIFF for the first time, along with running full reviews of “Club Kid,” “Rose,” “Clarissa,” “Behemoth!,” and more, but we thought the best way to preview this year’s event was to give you a portal to all of our coverage of CIFF 2026 films. Just looking at the list below reveals how completely the programmers of CIFF have brought home the best of the best of fest season 2026. Pick your faves. And go see a movie.
“14th”
“All of a Sudden”
“Being Heumann”
“The Beloved”
“Ben’Imana”
“Bitter Christmas”
“Bunker”
“Burgundy”
“Clarissa”
“Club Kid”
“The Debut”
“The Diary of a Chambermaid”
“The Dreamed Adventure”
“Edward Said: Between Worlds”
“Elephants in the Fog”
“Elsinore”
“Everytime”
“Fatherland”
“Gentle Monster”
“I Play Rocky”
“I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning”
“I’ll Be Gone in June”
“Ink”
“Iron Boy”
“Josephine”
“La Gradiva”
“The Liberation”
“The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd”
“A Long Winter”
“Look Back”
“The Man I Love”
“Marie Madeleine”
“Minotaur”
“Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant”
“Musk”
“Nagi Notes”
“Once Upon a Time in Harlem”
“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York”
“Paper Tiger”
“Possible Love”
“Rose”
“The Spiral”
“Tangles”
“Tender Loving Care”
“Victorian Psycho”
“Wild Horse Nine”
- “The Lowdown” Darkens and Deepens in a Terrific Second Season (October 14, 2026)
One would hope that, after the push-and-pull of trying to do the right thing, Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) would have learned a thing or two.
The prickly protagonist of “The Lowdown” strutted down Tulsa’s streets during the Season One finale after earning citywide praise for his tribute to the late Dale Washberg. His essay helped guide Dale’s brother Donald (Kyle MacLachlan) toward a path lit by moral clarity; Lee even held it together through his ex-wife Samantha’s (Kaniehtiio Horn) wedding to Johnny the amiable dentist (Rafael Casal) and a searing conversation with his daughter Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong).
So it comes as a shock, albeit a welcome one, that creator Sterlin Harjo wastes no time in the Season Two opener cutting our hero down to size. Lee proposes marriage to the most recent woman in his bed, struggles to take pride in his achievements, and, at a journalism awards banquet, makes a mushroom-gummy-and-whisky-soaked hash of accepting a prize for the Washberg essay.
But this banquet sets the stage for the entire season: Francis witnesses her father’s mess and is disgusted, launching one of two deeply moving father-child arcs. Journalists in attendance take umbrage with Lee looking down on how their publications survive—not everyone can be a truth-storian in, to quote the paddlefish caviar smugglers from season one, “‘Saturday Night Fever’ pants.”
FX’s The Lowdown — “Rupidoop” Season 2, Episode 1 — Pictured: Betty Gilpin as Ginger. CR: Shane Brown/FX
At this banquet, Lee meets Ginger Rafferty (Betty Gilpin, to whom this season belongs), a lone figure in a cool blue gown. She looks like a femme fatale right out of “Chinatown,” but in fact she’s a public defender, worried she’s being followed, even more worried that one of her clients has gone missing inside a prison. Ginger’s quest for the truth draws Lee to her, and though she can see through his swashbuckling façade like a freshly washed window, she too begins to lean on him, while declining his romantic interest, as ports in a corrupt Oklahoma storm are few and far between.
It is nothing short of a pleasure to watch Gilpin and Hawke team up. Ginger justifiably calls Lee out for his judgment errors and idiocy, but the sincerity in his eyes helps her, and us, know he’s by her side for the right reasons. In season one, Lee played the funny man, charming his way into writing assignments, walking out of editors’ offices with spare revolvers. Now Hawke and Gilpin take turns, easily switching between straight man and foil. And the latter is the rare, true theatrical clown: at multiple moments throughout this season, Gilpin elicits laughter from the viewer despite tears running down her face.
Though Gilpin is certainly part of this season’s powerhouse, she’s not alone. Tommy Lee Jones, so restrained you can practically hear him breathe, adds considerable complexity as Lee Raybon Senior. Nary a happy word has left Lee Jr.’s mouth about his dad, from whom he’s been estranged for years, and the patriarch’s reappearance in his life upsets Francis, who has always been told that her grandfather was dead. This fiction, combined with Lee’s slovenly awards speech, strains her relationship with her father. She demands to get to know Lee Senior on her own terms, as does the latter; such opposition to lifelong resentment and a closely-held lie just about sends Lee Jr. over the edge.
Lee accuses his father of abandonment, tells him not to leave the bookstore or contact Francis, then storms out to resume his investigation. In his absence, Lee Senior befriends bookstore employee Deidra (Siena East), record store owner Abel Bell (Josh Fadem, who thankfully gets a bit more to do this season), and, of course, Francis.
This creates extraordinary emotional layers in the storytelling. Two fathers consider the impact their penchant for adventurous neglect has had on their respective offspring; Lee Junior slowly begins to assess how much of his rage was ever designed to protect Francis and how much is about his own pain. And though he promised to be better than his father, isn’t Lee—who once told Francis that he wanted to show up for her not by being present at parent-teacher conferences but by being someone worth admiring—just a chip off the old block?
Jones is perfectly cast. (Chalk up yet more victories for casting director Angelique Midthunder.) From Lee’s stories, the viewer would expect a caustic, abusive father, but instead we get a contemplative man who speaks only when he has something to say, who doesn’t repent the past but focuses on what he can make of the future. Every time Hawke blusters and rages, Jones seems to lower his affect further. This creates an undercurrent of humor and tension, and a power vacuum across which both characters eye each other with suspicion.
FX’s The Lowdown — “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” Season 2, Episode 2 — Pictured: Tommy Lee Jones as Frog. CR: Shane Brown/FX
But Gilpin and Jones aren’t the only casting wins here. Armstrong continues to do a crackerjack job holding her own against actors many decades her senior; it’s a hoot watching her go toe-to-toe with Hawke, especially. Casal steals every scene he’s in, and Horn remains as arresting as ever, though I wish she had a bigger role. Martha Plimpton is terrifying as a tough-as-nails county sheriff—never has a blonde Karen wig made an actress look more sinister—who shares an uneasy alliance with a venal judge (John Hawkes, always welcome). Paul Schneider devastates the audience as a heartbroken prison guard; his role reflects this season’s many reflections on how ill-equipped men are to handle loneliness.
Perhaps my favorite supporting role, however, comes courtesy of Austin Amelio, who recently starred with Hawke in the excellent film “The Weight.” I cannot reveal too much, but Amelio pairs his character’s wiry menace with a surprising fount of physical comedy.
As in season one, season two’s central mystery walks side by side with character development, riotous humor, references to a writer’s life, and even nods to “Reservation Dogs,” including some familiar faces. All of this makes for great TV on its own. But Harjo and his writers seem to realize that the megaphone in their hands is an opportunity. They take the time to explain why their characters are the way they are, because that often also explains the rotten state of the systems (prisons, academia, museums) people have built.
“The Lowdown” suggests that seeking the truth and fighting evil isn’t simple, but when you build community—friends, colleagues, neighbors, sources; hell, even lovers—taking on the bad guys can feel less like going to war and more like building the world you want to live in. Great TV is one thing. This show is in a league all its own.
Whole season screened for review. Airs Wednesdays on FX and Hulu.
- The Revolution Is My Boyfriend: On the Queercore Provocations of Bruce LaBruce (October 14, 2026)
If you like your arthouse pornography with a heaping ladle of leftist agitprop (or “agitporn,” as he’d call it), Bruce LaBruce is a name that should be on your lips. As our very own Scout Tafoya once put it, Bruce is “one of the most fearless filmmakers alive,” a man who’s spent the last thirty years making more than a dozen motion pictures both in and out of the adult filmmaking scene, pushing boundaries and wearing his politics (and his libido) on his sleeve along the way. And in Chicago, I was delighted to sample a goodly portion of them along with dozens of the city’s most discerning perverts at Lincoln Park’s Facets Chicago, formerly Facets Cinematheque, for a weekend-long retrospective called “The Revolution Is My Boyfriend: The Films of Bruce LaBruce.“
Curated by Optical Noise cofounder Raphael Jose Martinez, the retrospective was the result of five years of hard work, negotiation, and a lot of scheduling and rescheduling. For years at Facets, Martinez has delighted in building “discomfort, context, and conversation” with his Optical Noise screening series, which delights in the transgressive and out-of-the-way. This series feels like his Holy Grail of sorts, as Bruce himself came down from his native home of Canada to Chicago for three Q&As (and a host of other screenings and conversations around the city) over three days, with ten of his films screening at Facets.
I was lucky enough to attend the plurality of the festival, seeing many of Bruce’s movies for what would, for me, be the first time. I’d heard of Bruce’s many cinematic provocations—he started out in gay pornography on both sides of the camera, and helped build the queercore movement in Canada via the J.D.s zine he co-created with G.B. Jones; his politics are unabashedly leftist, anarchist, anti-colonial, and punk, and you’ll see that in ways both subtle and uproariously unsubtle in his films.
But apart from his incredible “Saint-Narcisse” in 2021 and his adorable gay zombie flick “Otto, or Up With Dead People,” so much of his work was new to me. And I’d be watching it with an audience comprised largely of fellow Chicago punks and queers; I saw sweater-clad theater gays sat next to feathered-haired polyamorous queerdos sporting combat boots and cut-off shirts. In the lobby sat tables hosted by a local leather and fetish group, and a collective of butch dyke pornographers selling their latest physical porn zine. The tattoo-to-person ratio would blow the mind of the average cinemagoer.
They chose their audience well: To watch a Bruce LaBruce movie, let alone multiple in the same day, is to expose yourself to so many other people’s exposures. No taboo is left untouched, from incest to group sex to fisting to force-femming. In Bruce’s first feature, “No Skin Off My Ass,” a hairdresser (LaBruce) falls in love with a skinhead (Klaus von Brücker, LaBruce’s partner at the time); we see everything from unsimulated sex to an improvised nipple piercing with a safety pin. 2024’s “The Visitor” explores all manner of kinks in up-close detail, from incest within an entire family to suspension play to race play. Even his most “palatable” and sexless movie, 2013’s “Gerontophilia,” uses the auspices of indie rom-com cinema to explore a young man’s granddaddy fetish with an old queen (Walter Borden) he meets at a nursing home.
And don’t get me started on “Hustler White,” LaBruce’s incredible (and funny; all of his films are funny!) exploration of LA’s gay hustler scene in the early 1990s, which offers Black gangbangs right alongside mummy fetishes and a scene where a one-legged gigolo makes… creative use of his stump. “Otto” features a zombie going balls-deep in a wound he created in his latest victim. Boundaries are pushed, even for we experienced degenerates; I won’t lie and say I didn’t look away from the screen at certain points, most notably a scene in 2018’s “The Misandrists” in which a male revolutionary is given compulsory gender-reassignment surgery, complete with graphic real vaginoplasty footage.
His prodding is not just penile, but political; nary will you see a Bruce LaBruce film that doesn’t position such sexual liberation as part of a broader liberatory politic that seeks to free everyone from the prisons of heteronormativity, capitalism, and patriarchy. As his career has progressed, those messages have pushed further to the forefront, right down to works like “The Raspberry Reich” and “The Visitor” flashing text like “Make (Revolutionary) Love Not (Imperialist) War” subliminally over scenes of people getting railed. Multiple films talk about the Baader-Meinhof Group, and his 2004 opus “The Raspberry Reich” takes direct inspiration from them in its group of horny revolutionaries. His editing style is frenetic, almost schizophrenic, with “Enter the Void”-like strobing effects that take on the rhythms of hypno porn before that was popular. It feels like indoctrination, in the best and most liberating way.
But suffused through each of Bruce’s movies, one after the other after the other, amid all the exposed cocks and unabashed cumshots and deliberate vulgarity, there’s an underlying sweetness and care for his characters that sets him apart from the average pornographer. There are no villains in Bruce LaBruce movies, only temporarily unturned allies in the fight against unjust systems. He has empathy for every character, even (or especially) as they make choices that render them selfish, or unlikable, or short-sighted. “Hustler White,” my favorite of his, is maybe the sweetest of his pictures, treating the work of hustlers like central figure Montgomery Ward (real-life sex worker Tony Ward) with all the romance of a Preston Sturges picture. The happiest endings—and I mean that in all the ways that entails—often include most of our onscreen characters having coupled, or throupled, or otherwise sat in a big old orgiastic pile of revolutionary love. These are not just bodies to be gazed at or lusted after, but people, whose sex and identities and flesh are intertwined with their selfhood and politics.
LaBruce may believe in all of these punk aesthetics and shouted political subtexts, but he also understands the comedy and absurdity beneath such bohemian certitude. “Raspberry Reich”‘s Gudrun (frequent LaBruce collaborator Susanne Sachsse, who also joined him on Saturday) is a hilariously controlling madwoman, humiliating her numerous male subservients in ways both radical and raucous, right down to insisting that they all have sex with each other, despite some of them being straight. This is the kind of film that will film someone jerking off for about fifteen minutes in front of a wall mural of Che Guevara (a move that, LaBruce told us in the Q&A, led to a million-dollar lawsuit from Alberto Korda, who shot that famous photo).
And all the while, it’s easy to see why cinephiles love his work: Not only is it stylistically daring, especially considering the budgets and resources he’s had to work with (both in Canada’s indie scene and in Germany, where he’s produced many of his most recent works), it’s also steeped in homages to classic cinema. “No Skin Off My Ass” is such an ode to Robert Altman’s “That Cold Day in the Park” that it simply lifts footage of the opening sequence for its own. His followup, the slept-on “Super 8 1/2,” is his self-reflexive response to that film’s cult success, and the expectations that came from being a gay pornographer suddenly thrust into the limelight in ways that blew up his relationships. “The Misandrists” feels like a play on “The Beguiled” (specifically Sofia Coppola’s version), and “The Visitor” is an overt take on Pasolini’s “Teorema,” where a stranger arrives at the home of a bourgeois family to destroy them through seduction. There are films where you’ll hear Fellini and Cahiers du cinema name-dropped within minutes of an unsimulated cumshot, often from Bruce himself.
In a world where queer rights are actively under attack from the current administration, and what queer culture is allowed to exist feeling neatly confined to homonormative models that fit cleanly into consumer capitalism, watching a Bruce LaBruce film feels like a splash of water to the face. Or, well, any number of other fluids, if you’re one of his stars. And walking out of that three-day experience, finding community with arthouse punks celebrating (and mingling with) one of that movement’s central figures, is one I’ll never forget.
- Final US Trailer for India's 'Ramayana' Humongous Fantasy Action Epic (October 15, 2026)
"Before history existed, men walked among gods. And the world existed in perfect order." Sony Pictures launched a final epic English-language trailer for the Indian action movie Ramayana, a religious fantasy adventure inspired by the Hindu legend of Rama. In theaters in November worldwide - including in the US. We posted the original Indian main trailer a few months ago. Ramayana is a two-part film series and is one of the most ambitious cinematic undertakings ever from India, crafted for a global audience – including an epic score composed by Oscar-winners Hans Zimmer & A.R. Rahman. The story was written thousands of years ago and influenced countless stories in all mediums ever since. The goal of this 2-part movie is to tell this iconic story via the ambition, scale, emotion & grandiose storytelling of classics Lords of the Rings, Avatar, Gladiator. With Ranbir Kapoor as Ram - his life, focusing on his exile and victory over the evil demon king Ravana, is chronicled in the epic Ramayana story. He's celebrated during festivals like Diwali & Ram Navami. "I will not hesitate to destroy him." Also with Yash as the bad guy Ravana, Sai Pallavi as Sita, Ravi Dubey, Sunny Deol, Kajal Aggarwal, Arun Govil, Indira Krishnan, Lara Dutta. This looks totally bonkers! Massive, massive scale and tons of vibrant footage. Yes it's mostly CGI but still – this should be as entertaining as RRR and all the major Indian action movies recently. Take 'em down, Rama! 🏹 // Continue Reading ›
- Full Trailer for Netflix's Animated 'Steps' Movie About Cinderella Sisters (October 15, 2026)
"We can't give up! Even when it feels like I hate you – just know I love you." Netflix has debuted their main official trailer for their next animated movie titled Steps (aka Stepsisters), made by Netflix Animation Studios only for release via streaming. Arriving to watch just before Thanksgiving this fall. "Think you know Cinderella's 'evil' stepsisters? Think again." Steps is a reinvention of the Cinderella story about her other sisters. Blamed for magical mischief at the Royal Ball, stepsister Lilith turns her other step-sister into a frog and causes the kingdom to be run by a mean girl. She must partner with Cinderella to save the kingdom and prove that even "villains" deserve happily ever afters, too. Sure why not. This does look like a fun remix. The voice cast stars Ali Wong as Lilith, Amanda Seyfried as Cinderella, Stephanie Hsu as Margot, Nikki Glaser as the evil Priscilla, Daniel Radcliffe as The Prince, Young Mazino, Luis "Damian Priest" Martínez, Peter Dinklage, and Bette Midler as The Fairy Godmother. With a score by Kris Bowers (Oscar nominee for The Wild Robot). If you're into all this emotional footage, Steps is coming up to watch in a few weeks on Netflix. Otherwise you can also just rewatch the classic Disney Cinderella movie anytime. 🏰 // Continue Reading ›
- Jason Statham & His Bees Return in 'The Beekeeper 2' Action Trailer (October 15, 2026)
"You were the most dangerous operative they've ever created... But now the Beekeeper have gone rouge. And you are the only one who can stop them." Miramax has revealed the official trailer for the action movie sequel The Beekeeper 2, bringing back Jason Statham and his bees for more action shenanigans. The original Beekeeper movie opened in early 2024 and it became a cult hit - not exactly the biggest box office success, but everyone who watched it enjoyed it because it's such ridiculously fun action. This time around, The Beekeeper 2 is directed by Indonesian action master Timo Tjahjanto (of May the Devil Take You, The Night Comes for Us, The Big 4, Macabre, Killers, Headshot, The Shadow Strays, & Nobody 2). "He’s been busy." Now a wanted man, former government assassin Adam Clay continues his vendetta against those who wronged him. He has to save the US president and stop the Beekeeper organization from going rogue and taking over the government. This one stars Jason Statham, Pom Klementieff, Jeremy Irons, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Bobby Naderi, Jemma Redgrave, Yara Shahidi, and Adam Copeland. Buzz on. // Continue Reading ›
- Trigger's 'Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2' Sci-Fi Anime Series Full Trailer (October 14, 2026)
"Whatever she did to me – it felt good." Dive into the next Edgerunner anime series! Netflix has revealed their main official trailer for the sci-fi anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, the next season set in the Cyberpunk universe. Before this we've posted three other teaser trailers for this series as they show how insane & trippy this new series look so far. Available for viewing starting next week on Netflix. This intense futuristic action anime series is set fully in the world of (the video game) Cyberpunk 2077 - it's produced by TRIGGER under the supervision of CD Projekt RED. Featuring a bunch of characters from the first series and even more new ones. It's a continuation of the original Edgerunners anime series which first launched on Netflix in 2022 (watch the trailer). Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 will also mark the directorial debut of Kai Ikarashi, with Ichigo Kanno as lead character designer, and Bartosz Sztybor back as showrunner on this sci-fi thriller. A raw chronicle of redemption and revenge. In a city that thrives in the spotlight of violence, one question remains: when the world is blinded by spectacle, what extremes do you have to go to make your story matter? Not for everyone but I dig the happy hardcore techno music used in this final trailer. Jack in. // Continue Reading ›
- Full Trailer for 'Bass X Machina' Brian Tyree Henry's Steampunk Anime (October 14, 2026)
"I'm trying to stop a war!" Netflix revealed their main official trailer for their anime series is titled Bass X Machina. Created by animation artist / director LeSean Thomas, this series is a full-on steampunk western anime featuring Brian Tyree Henry as the lead voice actor & exec producer. In a lawless Steampunk West filled with outlaws, machines, and supernatural threats, a father must serve as judge, jury, and executioner to protect his family while risking the loss of those he loves most. Knowing that every act of justice meant to protect his family may ultimately cost him the very people he's fighting to save. This new series stars Brian Tyree Henry as Bass, along with Tati Gabrielle, Currie Graham, Cree Summer, Chaske Spencer, Starletta DuPois, and featuring Janelle Monáe as Glory. Available to watch in November – anime geeks this is for you! An animated spin on the real tale of he-really-did-exist bounty hunter Bass Reeves, whose story also was turned into the live-action Lawmen: Bass Reeves series. Yep - this looks awesome! I'm all in. // Continue Reading ›
