REEL | Daisy Edgar-Jones Gambles 'On Swift Horses'

"Everything's looking real prosperous around here."

Sony Pictures Classics / Mongrel Media

Rising stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi play in-laws, Muriel and Julius, on similar paths apart in veteran television director Daniel Minahan's monochromatic, mid-'50s period queer romantic drama about post-Korean War relocation in the still unconquered American West. On Swift Horses' dual parallel romances represent the constrained and repressed cultural identity of the time, based on Kansas author Shannon Pufahl's novel of the same name, as adapted by screenwriter Bryce Kass.

GENRE | From the South Till 'Sinners' – Michael B. Jordan Saves

"Y'all ready to sweat till y'all stink?"

Warner Bros. Pictures / Proximity Media

Frequent Scorsese/De Niro-style collaborators, writer/director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan, reteam in their ultra-sexy period vampire saga, Sinners. Set over the course of a single day and night in 1932 Clarksdale, Mississippi in the thick of the Jim Crow-era Deep South, the supernatural gothic horror fantasia harkens back to the influences of the period's Black culture of jazzy blues music (later appropriated by white musicians) in the aftermath of the First World War.

REEL | A Queer Romantic Comedy of Errors – 'The Wedding Banquet'

"Queer theory takes the joy out of being gay!"

Bleecker Street / VVS Films

Thirty years later, Korean-American indie filmmaker Andrew Ahn remakes Ang Lee's seminal 1993 Taiwanese queer romantic comedy, The Wedding Banquet, into a fresh take on modern romance featuring a delightful cast of Asian actors. Shot in Vancouver but set in Seattle (because of course), the film centres on two LGBTQ couples comically trying to solve each another's familial, financial, and romantic problems in the silliest ways possible.

REEL | 'The Ballad of Wallis Island' Reflects on the Past

"Some things you just can't get back."

Focus Features

British comedy duo Tom Basden and Tim Key write and star in the cozy relationship comedy The Ballad of Wallis Island. Based on their 2007 short film, The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island, the big-hearted film revolves around an eccentric but lonely double lottery winning superfan widower tricking his favourite folk rock musical duo, "McGwyer & Mortimer," into reuniting together on the eponymous remote island for a private concert unbeknownst to half of them.

SCREEN | Elizabeth Olsen Observes 'The Assessment'

"Because this society needs people who know what it is to love a child."

Magnolia Pictures / ShivHans Pictures

The appealing trio of Elizabeth Olsen, Alicia Vikander, and Himesh Patel star in French music video director Fleur Fortuné's discomforting sci-fi chamber drama, The Assessment, about a vaguely utopian near-future with strict rules around parenthood. Vikander plays an "assessor" who must judge Olsen and Patel's couple and their potential viability of raising a child over the course of seven long days.

REEL | Wrestling with the Past – 'Queen of the Ring' Slams

"Bad times don't last but bad guys do!"

Sumerian Pictures / Sherry Media Group

Queen of the Ring, the 1930-50s biographical sports drama from writer/director Ash Avildsen (son of Rocky director John G. Avildsen) based on the non-fiction book, The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend by Jeff Leen, stars Vancouver native Emily Bett Rickards as legendary trailblazing wrestler Mildred Burke in a physically impressive lead performance surrounded by an otherwise midcard-level historical biopic.

REEL | Michael Cera Makes A Detour to 'Sacramento'

"Anger's just sadness with nowhere to go."

Vertical Entertainment / Game Theory Films

Actor Michael Angarano helms his sophomore directorial effort in the endearing road trip buddy comedy Sacramento. Starring him and Michael Cera as estranged best friends whose lives are headed in seemingly opposite directions in adulthood, the indie film follows their impromptu six-hour drive to the Californian capital city from Los Angeles to reconnect.

GENRE | Pedro Pascal Slashes Four 'Freaky Tales' in 1980s Oakland

"Oakland in '87 was hella wild."

Lionsgate / Entertainment One

Freaky Tales, a neon-soaked throwback action-comedy from indie writing and directing team Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, stars Pedro Pascal as the centrepiece of the third of four interlocking stories set before, during, and immediately after game four of the second round of the NBA playoffs between the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers in Oakland in 1987. It's a stylishly violent tribute to the East Bay's diverse neighbourhood charm and sense of community but reminiscent of something like The Warriors.

GATHER | Baiting Ziwe x 'What It Means to Be American' x UBC

"I rarely get asked to do [racism] p*rn."

Photo credit | Si Ming Zheng

UBC—(March 13, 2025) Talented mononymous Nigerian-American late night comedian/interviewer and Black Friend author Ziwe (Fumudoh) brought her stylishly hilarious insights to the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts as part of the 2025 Phil Lind Initiative's accidentally hyper topical ongoing speaker series on the politics of What It Means to Be "American": Navigating Identity in a Changing Nation.