Author: Overcoming Adversity | Buteau’s Odyssey

Revenge is a dish best served cold… and violently bloody. The next most satisfying tale of vengeance, “Penny Lane is Dead,” from writer/director Mia’kate Russell, made its international premiere at Fantasia Festival’s 30th annual edition. Australia. Summer. 1986. Penny Lane (Bailey Spalding; “Scrublands” TV series) just got accepted in a prestigious university and is ready to celebrate all night, at her home, with her best friends, Toni (Tahlee Fereday; “Blue Canaries” (2023)) and Amy (Alexandra Jensen; “Talk to Me” (2022)). Unfortunately, she also invited her rebellious, out-of-touch cousin, Kat (Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn; “Year Of” TV series), thinking she wouldn’t show up,…

My father was a gambler. He did not see his behavior as reckless. He had many highs and as many lows. I felt every one. His gambling took different forms. He defied legal advice and, when I was thirteen, lost everything. We abruptly moved across the country to live with my older sister and her husband. She had endured similar rocky times alongside my brother when they were young. I’m hesitant to say that what I lived through was worse, but I know this much is true: Dad’s recklessness had progressed alongside his denial. My father covered up his shame…

After bringing blood-soaked story arcs and cult-centric carnage to life onscreen in The Sacrifice Game, director Jenn Wexler brings her keen eye for immersive, high-stakes storytelling to The Last Temptation of Becky, the latest film in the must-see franchise starring Lulu Wilson as the title character you definitely don’t want to cross, especially if you’re a neo-Nazi who messes with her family and friends. Featuring Becky working as a CIA agent with a knack for improvisation (and bludgeoning someone with a suitcase when the situation calls for it), The Last Temptation of Becky takes the franchise’s innovative survivor to Poland…

Joe D’amato’s Caligula: The Untold Story from 1982 doesn’t hide its obvious inspiration.Revisiting Caligula: The Untold Story from 1982!Caligula: The Untold Story is an unusual movie. Despite being filled with violence, nudity and virtually every kind of perverse torture you can imagine, it still feels like a watered down movie. Of course, that’s because it’s riding on the coattails of 1979’s Caligula, one of the most infamous exploitation movies of all time.Compared to practically any movie besides Tinto Brass’s ‘79 degenerate art house classic, Caligula: The Untold Story would feel downright extreme. But when you’re imitating a gore-soaked historical epic…

I’m about to make a statement that may cause some of you to stop reading and shake your head. Here it is: You don’t need to be sexually attracted to your partner to have great sex. As a psychotherapist, I’ve shared that idea with countless clients over the years. Almost every time, the reaction is the same. A puzzled look or nervous laughter. I ask my clients to stay with me because I’m not suggesting that attraction doesn’t matter. I’m suggesting something far more interesting. Sexual attraction is only one pathway to arousal. It is not the only one. Meaningful…

Johnny Depp gets swallowed by his own bed in the first trailer for Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol. Wes Craven pulled him into a mattress back in 1984, in his first screen role, and A Nightmare on Elm Street turned that bed into a geyser. More than forty years later, Ti West sends him back under. The shot lasts a second or two, easy to miss, and it says plenty about what kind of Christmas movie Paramount thinks it is selling. Paramount dropped the footage Thursday as part of its San Diego Comic-Con push, one day after a first poster introduced…

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.” —Aldous Huxley In the span of three months, psychedelic medicine crossed two important thresholds. In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order making it federal policy to accelerate psychedelic research and “appropriate drug approvals” for serious mental illness. Then, in July, Eli Lilly agreed to acquire AtaiBeckley, a biotechnology company developing psychedelic and psychedelic-derived treatments. These developments are understandably being read as validation of the field. But they validate two things more clearly than they validate the medicines themselves: that the federal government wants development to move…

The only constant in life is change, and in the NFL, that can mean a million different things. One of those changes could be a team’s appearance, and we’ve already seen multiple teams announce new jerseys for next season.Here are the teams that have released a new uniform and/or rebranded their entire look for the 2026 NFL season:New York JetsThe New York Jets have declared a whiteout.Gang Green will be wearing a white helmet with a base white jersey and pants in its 2026 home opener against the Green Bay Packers. On that note, the Jets have asked their fans…

Height is one of the most important physical characteristics when it comes to attracting romantic partners and seeing off potential rivals. Psychologists have long known that taller people are perceived as more attractive, dominant, and competent. Taller people are more likely to be promoted to management roles and elected to public office. These effects are particularly strong for men. Because tallness carries a privilege, psychologists have also investigated whether a person’s height affects the way that person thinks and feels. There is evidence that shorter men and men who claim to be taller than they really are tend to be…

This was the week the studios opened their fall books, and they did it the way everyone does in late July. They pointed their biggest trailers at San Diego Comic-Con and let the timing do the shouting. Three major genre trailers arrived inside seven days, two of them built around characters audiences already know, and nearly every release date they carried lands between mid-September and Halloween. Last week the story was the genre reselling its own past. This week the story was studios stacking the autumn calendar and betting most of it on faces you recognize. One name even showed…