** "A little hand grenade of a movie - where do I begin..."

Not Even Coal In Their Christmas Stockings: British filmmaker Brett Gregory talks 'Nobody Loves You And You Don't Deserve To Exist' - his dramatic feature burrowing into the endless war plagued economic crisis. And amid reports that the fuel poverty destitute in Britain are eating animal feed and heating their meals with candles instead.

Gregory speaks to Arts Express from Manchester where he grew up, the historical epicenter of the oppressive Industrial Revolution, and the birth of Marxism in that city as well, its blueprint crafted back then by Marx and Engels in Das Kapital. While his film conveys a personal and political odyssey into the heart of what plagues Britain in the present time, from the draconian reign of Thatcher to Boris Johnson.

** "Don't touch that dial..."

Holly Plus And The Deep Fake: 'The human being never sang the song at all. Let's just consider the wild artistic and commercial implications, which are absolutely staggering - or was it the other way around." Stay tuned, and all will be revealed..

** "My love for horror started with my late mother, who loved horror. She was a civil rights activist, and in fact had a tear gas canister  thrown in her face. And I began to realize that my mother was using horror movies as a way to deal with her trauma. And anger, and fear - and racial trauma in the United States..."

The Strange History Of Black People In Horror Movies: An African American historian sorts it all out.

Plus...A poem for winter...Brecht, Borges, and 'two bald men fighting over a comb...'

She Said Review: Sex, Lies And Victim Porn

A docudrama probing the NY Times investigation into the notorious sex charges against Harvey Weinstein, 'She Said' comes off more as a self-congratulatory promo for the NY Times, than emphasis on its designated female victims. And intimating a kind of fox in the hen house cover for damage control there, related to the paper's own numerous scandals - to mention a few, the weapons of mass destruction hoax, and most recently calling for the release of Julian Assange -  without an apology for the paper's media participation in orchestrating his incarceration.

Based on the book written by the NY Times investigative reporters in question  on the case in 2017, Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, and  portrayed in the film by Cary Mulligan and Zoe Kazan respectively, She Said is directed by German filmmaker Maria Schrader and scripted by British screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz - a multi-cultural mix tending to suffer from a kind of bland, outsider looking in generic perspective, lacking in NYC charismatic local flavor.

And none of which are the film's worst qualities. Like the potential dubious objective shared with its sister genre, the documentary, She Said dabbles in victim porn as well. In other words, frequently the sense that a chosen subject focused on victimhood, may be motivated more by the filmmaker's exploitative quest for fame and glory. And no less with She Said, as a motivation accelerating through the proceedings, is a race to the finish line to publish their scandal expose ahead of Ronan Farrow's own New Yorker report (while Ronan's appeared a few days after theirs, and both later shared the Pulitzer Prize for their stories).

Then there is the elephant in the newsroom - what about workplace sexual victimization, by no means limited to Hollywood, and ignoring the simultaneous sex scandals in the media. And on a side note, while many of the scenes seemingly on repeat film those multi-millionaire actresses strutting back and forth down the aisles of that newsroom, among the faceless staff portrayed seated at work are NY Times colleagues - including yes, frustrated females, fighting for a contract and pay raises to no avail, for nearly two years. And leading to a recent 24 hour walkout strike action to demand their voices be heard.

Prairie Miller