@stephenarussell
Glasgow-born, Naarm (Melbourne)-based arts journalist and award-winning critic obsessed with film, theatre and a whole lot more. Live on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nation. Snorts generally included. He/him, quite gay. Substack: Orion's Shoulder
🚨🚨🚨 10 days til 1000 WOMEN IN HORROR premieres on Shudder!
In the lead up, here's some lovely Letterboxd reviews from our fest run, this one from bona fide queen @cinemelo.bsky.social
letterboxd.com/cinemelo/fil...
There's still time to vroom vroom into cinemas and catch the way sexier (and far more interesting) than Wuthering Heights oddity that is Harry Lighton's Box Hill adaptation, Pillion, which I reviewed in this ABC round-up 🏍️ bit.ly/4bnqwx5
Joel Edgerton pops up as a well-meaning, if pretty ineffectual, water polo coach in Charlie Polinger’s nerve-wracking coming-of-age-as-creepy horror movie, The Plague bit.ly/4b4MJkF
Post your favourite Lord of the Rings character. Wrong answers only.
Absolutely shambolic. Littleproud by name...
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...
“It’s not even that we’ve turned away, but that the Labor party has currently proven itself to be inconsistent with [our] values,” Yasmin Poole tells Crikey. www.crikey.com.au/2026/03/10/a...
The massive rise in Islamophobia, consciously fuelled by large sections of the media, is a national disgrace.
I'd love to hear the PM and LOTO speak out about this and the dangers of white supremacy but ....crickets
Albanese is joining an illegal and violent war that has no exit plan and will only lead to more death and destruction for ordinary people, while defence companies, billionaires and oil giants rake in billions.
You can’t even spell the subject
Quit your job then, moron
Too many of the major comedy ‘celebrities’ are sex pests
In celebration of International Women’s Day, here’s some awesome chats with incredible filmmakers I’ve been blessed with recently ab.co/407dFd7
That was an Inspiral Carpets ref, btw.
Cos Gorton & Denton… Ergh. Nvm.
And I love you xx
It's ALWAYS a great day to read the mighty AHN xx
Hating on animals is worse than hating on the arts imho (this awards season really has unmasked some twats)
The Voice of Hind Rajab’s testimony is integral to this refusal to allow her voice to be annihilated. This reconstruction is a refusal to allow her murderers to rewrite her story with their lies bit.ly/40O8nU2
I know Hollywood has long been complicit in the myth-making of empire but this is truly horrifying. Filmmakers have fought and critiqued this vision for the USA, even from within the system, sometimes at great cost. We can never accept the idea this what art is or how it should be used. #filmsky
Adomako Aman’s Dancing in the Dark is about Black and Brown club culture.
Obvs bunch of ballroom docs where the music is integral. Strike a Pose, Paris is Burning etc
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution
Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution
Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music
Love all the responses and tryna think of some queer examples, with Queer as Punk a recent and fantastic look at religion, politics, gender, representation and music in Malaysia. Daring in spirit if not necessarily style, but gorgeous and empowered.
Tomorrow's wrap-around front page of The National.
This is the human cost.
As the UK Government talks a big game of being ready to join the US and Israel in war, over 150 families are mourning their children.
Their little girls were mostly aged 7-12.
Israel is bombarding, literally bombarding, two Middle East capitals, Beirut and Tehran, killing 100s of civilians, and yet the US and UK media continue to portray Iran as the threat to the region.
Israel has nukes, but Iran is the nuclear threat.
We live in Orwellian times.
Just your reminder that if you don't want to watch noted horrible person Kevin Spacey, the UK original House of Cards miniseries exists, is awesome, and can be watched for free (in Australia) on ABC iview.
I *will* die on this soap box I’ve stood on since childhood
