It's no secret that everyone loves a big block bluster movie or even a sleeper hit or some kind of movie that is mainstream and easy and people have heard about it through word of mouth. These types of films can be great and I cannot deny that I really adore it when a movie becomes a sleeper hit in particular. However, there are so many fabulous movies that just slip thought the cracks of people's viewing and get missed all together because not enough people are talking about them.
Well, I am talking about them, constantly! More than likely annoyingly to a lot of people. I would recommend movies to people at last a dozen or more times a week and often people will say things to me like "I haven't even heard of that movie" or "Really? I thought that film looked a bit weird/ strange/ arty / scary for me to see." And it honestly kills me because a huge number of movies that never get seen are absolutely gold, some of the best and they not only deserve to be talked about,  they most definitely deserve to be seen as well.  
Below I have listed my top 10 'You Really Should Be Talking About This Film - and Probably Will Be After You Watch it' for each genre on Spicywatch.com. These are films that are very deserving of your time and attention and in my opinion (for what it's worth) definitely should've gotten a lot more attention than they did. They are not block busters or sleeper hits, they are mostly films that flew under the radar, which means that you could easily have missed them but you really shouldn't have. They are not new, in fact many are old and could probably be streamed on many different platforms for free these days. 
Full reviews can be found on the genre lists should you require more information.
Happy viewing!
DRAMA:

1. Ingrid Goes West 
2. Jungle 
3. Youth 
4. Locke
5. Short Term 12 
6. Don Jon 
7. Eighth Grade 
8. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
9. Brothers 
10. The Station Agent

​HORROR:

1. The Vigil
2. The Lodge
3. Saint Maud
4. Mandy 
5. Frailty
6. Here Alone
7. A Dark Song
8. The House of the Devil
9. Creep
10. Hell House LLC

ACTION/CRIME/WAR:

1. Uncut Gems
2. The King
3. Good Time
4. The Bad Batch
5. Prisoners
6. End of Watch 
7. Glory
8. Children of Men
9. The Thin Red Line
10. Blood Simple

COMEDY:

1. Instant Family
2. Fighting With My Family
3. The Breaker Upperers
4. Game Night
5. Spy
6. The Grand Seduction
7. In Bruges
8. Son of Rambow
9. Kung Pow! Enter the Fist!
10. Tucker and Dale vs Evil

SCIENCE FICTION/ FANTASY:

1. Save Yourselves!
2. Predestination 
3. Moon
4. Upgrade
5. The Endless
6. Melancholia
7. Ex Machina
8. Under the Skin
9. These Final Hours
10. Sunshine 

ART HOUSE/ MUSICAL/ INTERNATIONAL:

1. The Great Beauty
2. Me and You and Everyone We Know 
3. Once
4. A Ghost Story
5. Black is King 
6. Sightseers
7. Somewhere
8. 20,000 Days on Earth
9. Kung Fu Hustle 
10. Only Lovers Left Alive 

GRITTY/ DOCO/ CHALLENGING

1. Swallow
2. The Nightingale
3. The Tale
4. Chasing Coral
5. The Weight of Elephants
6. Tyrannosaur
7. Dogtooth
8. Metal Skin
9. Birth
10. Fishtank

ROMANCE/ MATTERS OF THE HEART:

1. Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
2. Blue Jay
3. What If
4. Man Up
5. The One I Love
6. Bright Star
7. Labor Day
8. Ruby Sparks
9. Chasing Amy
10. Your Sister's Sister

KID FRIENDLY:

1. The Willoughbys
2. Klaus
3. Isle of Dogs
4. The Little Prince
5. Kubo and the Two Strings
6. The Boy and The Beast
7. Paranorman
8. 9
9. Hoodwinked!
10. Hugo 

Everyone has stress in their life from time to time. Some amounts of stress can be good for us, it keeps us alert, aware and on track, but too much stress can have incredibly damaging and long lasting effects on your health and wellbeing. The severity and length that you feel stressed for will depend a lot upon your ability to recognise and acknowledge your symptoms of stress before they can become too big to manage alone. 
Stress can rear it ugly head through many different physical, mental, social or emotional avenues and it will usually begin with a trigger or incident that forces your stress response to kick in.  This is commonly known as the Alarm Reaction Stage. 
The Alarm Reaction Stage refers to the initial symptoms that your body will experience when it is under stress and what you will do on auto-pilot to combat this. You may be familiar with the 'F' responses that people generally engage during the Alarm Reaction Stage. For those of you that aren't familiar with your 'F' responses they usually fit into one of these categories:
Fight - Attacking, confronting, dominating. Being angry and irritable and using insult, blame and the mistreatment of others to deal with stress. 
Flight - Run, hide, quit. Being in denial and anxious and using evasion, sabotage and purposeful rejection to deal with your stress. 
Freeze - Comply, surrender, shutdown. Being numb or empty and using detachment, rationalizing and justification to deal with your stress. 
Face - Challenge and analyse. Being calm and grounded. Using alert, aware and decisive action to deal with your stress. 
Sometimes we may use one or more of these responses when we feel stressed and that is also completely normal. Your body does these things because it is trying to keep you safe. You feel stressed, you feel anxious and your body will kick everything up a notch to keep you out of harms way. Generally before you arrive at the Face response, you will first arrive at the Resistance Stage which comes right after the Alarm Reaction Stage. 
In the Resistance Stage, after the initial shock of a stressful event and your 'F' response, your body will begin to attempt to repair itself.  It will release a lower amount of cortisol and your heart rate and blood pressure will normalize. Although your body will be in recovery, you will still be functioning on high alert. If the stressful situation diminishes your body will continue to heal itself until you are back to normal. However, if stress continues in this phase your body will attempt to learn to live with higher levels of stress and will go through changes that you're unaware of, in attempt to cope. Your body will continue to secrete the stress hormone and your blood pressure will remain elevated. You will feel irritable, frustrated and will struggle to concentrate on things. After a while you will enter the third stage of stress response - The Exhaustion Stage. 
The Exhaustion Stage is the result of prolonged or chronic stress. You will feel drained physically, emotionally and mentally to the point where your body no longer has the strength to engage your 'F' responses. You will suffer complete hopelessness and display fatigue, burnout, depression, high anxiety and an overall decreased ability to deal with even the smallest amounts of stress. Your immune system will be weakened and you'll be more prone to illness, serious diseases and ailments. 
So.... Clearly we need to have the resources and skills to be able to engage our Face 'F' response early on when dealing with a stressful scenario in order to minimise the impact to our health and wellbeing. And although it's not possible to eliminate all stress from our lives, there are things that we can do to minimise the impact that stress can have on us. 
I believe that it's vital that everyone has a sound tool kit of ways to deal with their stress, and that is going to look a little different for everyone.  Acknowledging, recognising and regularly evaluating your stress levels is a key way to ensure that you are managing your stresses before they get too large. If you do suffer from stress indicators, then it's vital that you give yourself adequate time to repair and recover during the Resistance Stage before you enter the Exhaustion Stage. 
Look at what is causing the stress that you have in your life and evaluate your need to continue with this event or action. What can you do to change things for the better? If you find that you cannot eliminate your stress then you will need to investigate methods of stress management with a health care professional which may include exercise, medication, diet, meditation and deep breathing exercises. But, whatever you do don't give up on your attempts to improve your responses to stress and do not let stress rule your life. Remember that some stress is normal but too much is not and you don't want to be a slave to your stress responses. 

Sometimes things don't turn out the way that we hoped they would.  And one of the hardest things to accept in this life (for me) is disappointment. Usually when things or people disappoint me I get quite depressed about it and then end up feeling disappointed in myself. It's a vicious cycle that I have identified within myself and every time that I go through this, it leaves me feeling extremely flat and drained. 
Unfortunately, this week I have arrived at this station. It's not a station that I have arrived at over the last year or so because I have made so many consistent and valiant efforts to prioritise my own wellbeing and mental wellness, so I am actually really disappointed to find myself here again. However, in spite of all of my hard work to remain positive and mindful since I had my operation this time last year, my wellspring of positivity has run dry for the first time. 
It actually pains me to say this, but I feel as though I have completely run dry. I feel tired and overwhelmed and teary. I feel let down by the people around me. I feel taken for granted and stretched out. I feel alone, despondent and lost. And most of all I feel really, really angry at myself for feeling any of these things because none of these things are genuine or true and my rational thinking mind knows that but for some reason my heart aches and my soul is uneasy. I am melancholic and some ghostly feelings of wanted to flee are rising within me again and I have to fight the urge to run. 
The strangest part of all are the weird dreams that I am having about dying. I have been having a reoccurring dream where I look down at myself mid-dream and suddenly realise that I am haemorrhaging buckets and buckets of blood onto the ground without even knowing that I am cut or injured. And this blood appears to be coming from deep within me but I don't know how it started or why I am even bleeding. As you would image these dreams are desperately upsetting and I always wake up from them in a state of shock. 
Are these dreams associated with my feelings of emptiness and despondency? More than likely, and perhaps these feelings of emptiness are being presented to remind me of just how full and abundant my life really is. Perhaps the blood is symbolic of my life force draining away without me even realising it was; perhaps this drain has been happening for a while and I have only now become aware of it because the well has ran dry.
​Benjamin Franklin once said - When the well's dry, we know the worth of water. And this is so very true because we do take our health and wellbeing for granted, especially our support people and our security and it is not until they are removed that we get a very clear picture of what it feels like to be without them.  Just as Johnny Diesel once sang 'you never miss your water 'til you're dry.' And now that my well feels like it has dried up I need to dig deeper to find some wet earth again and to reignite the flow of positive energy. 
One thing that all of my self help endeavours has given to me is the knowledge to understand that no state, no matter how glum or all-encompassing it may feel, is permanent or unchangeable. I also know that it is completely normal and very human to stumble and fall every now and again. It is what keeps us balanced and grateful and aware that nothing is forever, guaranteed or without its flaws and fragilities.
So if I want to cry I shall and if I want to rest I shall and if I need to heal I will. I will do these things in my own time and at my own pace; for only I can colour my rainbow, etch my silver lining and refill my own wellspring. I am responsible for me, my wellbeing and my mindset and I do not have to hold on to any of these thoughts or feelings, I just have to open my hand and let them go and the well will begin to flow again. 
​It's time to exhale completely.... and then inhale again. 

THE DRY 
Release Date: 2020
Rating: MA 15+
Running Time: 117 mins
An Australian drama mystery based on the novel of the same name by Jane Harper and a sweet return to great Australian cinema for me. It's been a while since I have seen such an excellent depiction of the harsh, dry Aussie landscape and The Dry manages to captures it; and the attitudes of small rural communities in Victoria with a plausible authenticity. 
Federal Agent Aaron Falk (Eric Bana) returns to his home town under the request of his childhood friend's parents. They are seeking Falk's help in the investigation around their son's death and the strange and unsettling circumstances that surround it. Falk reluctantly tries to solve the mystery of the heinous crime but finds himself dragged back into another local drama that forced him to flee the town many years ago. 
Eric Bana is brilliant as Falk and it was so good to see him back on screen again after such a long hiatus. He is well supported by Genevieve O'Reilly, John Polson and Miranda Tapsell but it cannot be denied that The Dry  is definitely held up by Bana's performance. 
Amidst the complexities of the crimes being unveiled throughout the film are some really solid messages about small town loyalties and the need for secrecy and acceptance in tight knit rural communities. The struggles of the farmers and labourers are also touched upon and the unforgiving and dangerous Aussie landscape provides a perfectly formidable backdrop to all of the drama.
FINAL SAY: The biggest secrets can never stay hidden. 
3 Chilli Peppers ​