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The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths review – a powerful portrait of loss and violence

The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths review – a powerful portrait of loss and violence

The death of a friend and the attempted murder of her husband Salman Rushdie loom large in the poet’s moving memoir The night before her wedding to Salman Rushdie in 2021, the American poet and novelist Rachel Eliza Griffiths was fretting about her best friend. Kamilah Aisha Moon was due to read a poem at the ceremony, but no one had heard from her. Her phone was going straight to voicemail and staff at her hotel said she hadn’t checked in. “We’ll find her. She wouldn’t miss your wedding,” Griffiths’s sister, Melissa, assured her. But the next afternoon, in the middle of her wedding reception, Griffiths learned that Moon had died alone at home in Atlanta of unknown causes. On hearing the news she collapsed, hit her head on a table and blacked out. Paramedics pried open her eyes to shine a torch on them: “A particle of light that is so distant from the world I once knew.” For Griffiths, 47, the death of her best friend and “chosen sister” was one in a series of upheavals stretching across a decade. It began with the death of her mother, who was her greatest cheerleader and fiercest critic. She had instilled in her daughter the importance of “independence above everything. I was raised not to lose myself in the stories of others, especially men.” Continue reading...

Bulk review – Ben Wheatley’s quirky sci-fi brings small-budget charm to big questions

Bulk review – Ben Wheatley’s quirky sci-fi brings small-budget charm to big questions

Wheatley’s engaging tale sends Sam Riley’s tough-guy reporter to the home of a reclusive oligarch who has invented a ‘Brain Collider’ On a modest budget, director Ben Wheatley gives us a retro sci-fi with much tongue-in-cheek paranoia, questioning of reality and proliferation of multiverses, and featuring comic-book dialogue that’s been re-recorded, giving the whole thing a sheen of dreamlike unreality. There’s also a lot of quirky lo-fi special effects work with Airfix models. Bulk is a movie indebted to a mountain of pop culture references listed in Wheatley’s own handwriting in block capitals over the closing credits. Space: 1999 is one – it is good to see it there, and see it reflected in the preceding film – and with the monochrome cinematography, Dutch angles and looming closeups there’s a bit of John Frankenheimer and a little of Chris Petit. The film is massively self-indulgent, often funny, rescued from its not infrequent longueurs by its stars, those very likable performers Alexandra Maria Lara and Sam Riley, who are a real-life married couple. Continue reading...

Watch Trump lose his rag and flip off the brave soul who taunted him about the Epstein Files during a factory visit. Give that heckler a medal

Watch Trump lose his rag and flip off the brave soul who taunted him about the Epstein Files during a factory visit. Give that heckler a medal

The thin-skinned man-baby in the Oval Office – although far more often at Mar-a-Lago – is surrounded by sycophants who have convinced him that he’s the people’s hero. It must, therefore, be particularly jarring for him when he bounces off the rough wall of reality, such as when he was booed at an NFL game. […] The post Watch Trump lose his rag and flip off the brave soul who taunted him about the Epstein Files during a factory visit. Give that heckler a medal appeared first on The Poke .

'No to regression and trickery' - Hundreds march against new labour reforms in Lisbon

'No to regression and trickery' - Hundreds march against new labour reforms in Lisbon

"Hundreds of workers flooded the streets of Lisbon on Tuesday to protest 'Trabalho XX,' the new labour package introduced by the Portuguese government. Footage shows demonstrators moving through the city with union banners while chanting, 'the labour package favours capital.' Protesters later gathered outside the Portuguese Assembly, where union leaders addressed the crowd amid heavy police presence. "On December 11th, the workers said no to the labour package. They said no to this attack on rights. They said no to this regression - to this trickery imposed by this government," exclaimed Tiago Oliveira, Secretary-General of the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP). "After the general strike, after this excellent response, the government thought it could sweep it under the rug and get away with it! It is very mistaken, we will not allow it," he stressed. The bill seeks to amend more than 100 articles of the nation's labour law, with Prime Minister Luis Montenegro arguing the changes are needed to boost economic growth and raise wages. "They think that we are people who don't deserve to be valued, that what we earn," claimed Carlos Piraca, a protester. "I'm here alongside other workers that were able to come to this protest action so that we can at least be considered Portuguese, considering that the 'good Portuguese' don't consider us Portuguese." Critics warn that the proposals would extend working hours, normalise precarious contracts and make dismissals easier, shifting power decisively toward employers. Protesters claim the reforms would deepen inequality and push workers further into precarious conditions. "This labour package is a setback on things that come from before the 25th of April. [...] These people want to go back to times even worse than the time of fascism," said Joao Veio, accusing the government of 'instilling fear' and weakening the right to strike. The demonstration was organised by Portugal's two main unions, CGTP and UGT, following a nationwide strike over the proposed reforms."