The skeleton of a woolly mammoth was discovered by a woman walking her dog by a nearby gravel quarry in 1986. It was one of the most complete mammoth skeletons ever discovered in the United Kingdom. The skeleton of the adult male was unearthed accompanied by partial skeletons of several juvenile mammoths. A replica of that…
Elio Callistio, a freedman of Emperor Hadrian, would have never imagined that his then fashionable, temple-shaped sepulcher would become popular in Roman folklore. Indeed, as the sepulcher fell to ruins, it strangely started assuming the shape of a great chair or throne. Wayfarers and others who maintained seedy reputations were said to lurk in its…
An ancient imperial capital and the eastern starting point of the Silk Road, Xi’an was the first city in China to be introduced to Islam. Today, it has an estimated population of 50,000 Hui Muslims and a total of seven mosques, the most notable of which is the Great Mosque of Xi’an, perhaps the oldest…
Nature may shape the characters of Francis Lee’s rugged, working-class romances, but it’s nurture that ultimately saves them. In 2017’s “God’s Own Country,” the Yorkshire-bred writer/director made a powerful first impression with a story, set on his home turf, about the attraction that builds between two young men toiling on a sheep farm. An initial…
The holiday season is getting a little more queer with Happiest Season, the latest from co-writer/director Clea DuVall. Abby was stoked about the holidays. She was going to spend it with her girlfriend’s family, meeting everyone for the first time and taking that big step in the relationship. Then she was told that her girlfriend isn’t…
Before iPhones, there were DVDs. Before DVDs, there were Walkmans. Before Walkmans, there were cassette players. Before cassettes, vinyl, and before vinyl, Edison wax cylinders. But according to Nissan Cohen, owner and curator at the Nisco Museum, what came before all of these was by far more magnificent: intricate machines that played live music. These charming, beautifully crafted…
John Onyango has never been to culinary school, nor did he start his career as a chef in a recognized restaurant or hotel. Instead, he first cooked in a suburban food kiosk, where he served the wage earners who worked in the neighboring schools, market and local Nairobi City Council offices. But that was 25…
★★★ Directed by: Dana Ziyasheva Written by: Dana Ziyasheva Starring: Arman Darbo, Chloe Ray Warmoth, Nick Moran, Eric Roberts ,,Film Review by: ,,Jason Knight So many films have been made that depict life in different worlds. These worlds can be slightly different from the ones we live in, or completely different. Greatland is a Sci-Fi…
Big Touch contains far more than its diminutive runtime would suggest. A very short-short, the film draws its audience into several small, human moments. Written, directed, and edited by Christopher Tenzis, the film dives into just a few minutes in a woman’s life as she perceives, is perceived, and finally, seems to release perception altogether….
“We saw the world the way we wanted it to be, we did not see the owrld the way it was.” Sony Classics has unveiled an official trailer for an acclaimed documentary titled The Human Factor, which played at lots of fests last year including the Hamptons, Chicago, AFI Docs, Denver, and Telluride Film Festivals….
California has long been associated with fantasy, but few people know that centuries before Hollywood, it drew its very name from an imaginary kingdom—one ruled by a Black queen. Around 1530, when Hernán Cortés’s conquistadors, amid shipwrecks, mutinies, and the destruction of the Aztec Empire, arrived at the peninsula on Mexico’s western side, they christened…
This imposing bronze statue on the Montreux promenade features Freddie Mercury striking his iconic pose. The statue is the work of a British-based Czech sculptor Irena Sedlecka, famous for British public figures, but also for oversized Communist statues dedicated to the working man. Sedlecka first saw Mercury perform at the Live Aid concert at Wembley…
When sketch comedy finds a wide audience, it’s like lightning in a bottle. Think of how The Lonely Island used to dominate “Saturday Night Live” with their digital shorts, or how Tim Robinson made a cult Netflix hit out of his 2019 series, “I Think You Should Leave.” Netflix seeks to replicate some of Robinson’s…
Tired of the endless positive energy of our media? Ready for something a bit more gritty and dark as your entertainment? Want a movie that matches your own cynicism about the current state of affairs? Sure you are, because, ya know, not everyone gets good things in life, chum. That’s really the heart of the…
The twisted terror that can live on at the heart of one’s grief, especially when that grief is over the death of a child, has been the subject of cinematic exploration for many decades. From Donald Sutherland imagining his drowned daughter stalking him on the streets of Venice in Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, to…
A life-size and lifelike painted bronze statue of a man and his dog stand near the Morristown Green in Morristown, New Jersey. The man is Morris Frank, co-founder and first Vice President of The Seeing Eye. The dog’s harness is immediately recognizable as that of an assistance animal. The dog is Buddy, a German Shepherd…
The pizza Margherita is considered to be the classic Neapolitan pizza. While it has come to be a famous dish all over the world, some say its story began in a narrow alley in Naples. According to the popular legend, the pizza Margherita was invented in 1889 by Raffaele Esposito, chef at Pizzeria Brandi. The…
Broadway comes to Indiana in The Prom, the latest from director Ryan Murphy. Based on the Tony-nominated musical of the same name, it’s ostensibly about two queer girls who just want to go to prom together. Problem is that the PTA in their small Indiana town has banned them from doing so, and when some no…
This gem lies right off the Pacific Coast Highway in the town of Davenport, just north of Santa Cruz. The view from the roadway is inspiring, as visitors will find old pilings of a defunct pier that stretches out into the Pacific Ocean. To get to the beach, one must traverse down a sea cliff….
Streaming might be the future, but physical media is still the present. It’s also awesome, depending on the title, the label, and the release, so each week we take a look at the new Blu-rays and DVDs making their way into the world. Welcome to this week in Home Video for November 10th, 2020, including our…
A little commercial break never hurt anyone. What we see too often on broadcast stations, though, is a crush of advertising that makes TV watching a chore. We’ll put up with a few spots in between an NFL touchdown or grand slam. Sitting through a two-hour movie overstuffed with ads can be brutal. Enter Pluto…
As budding filmmakers, my class of film school graduates is utterly terrified to enter the real world. Not only because of the tricky environment of finding employment and a steady or not so steady- paycheck in an artistic field like film but now because we are forced to find work in an actively hostile job…
On November 2, 1920—Election Day, 100 years ago—Moses Norman of Ocoee, Florida, joined more than 25 million Americans in going to the polls to cast his vote. Unlike most of those other voters, however, Norman was Black, and exercising his rights meant putting his safety at serious risk. Just days earlier, the Ku Klux Klan…
“So we’re headed to New Earth, at the speed of light, with an alien?!” “Yeah, we got it…” Saban Films has released an official trailer for a sci-fi action thriller now known as Breach, formerly known as Anti-Life. On the cusp of fatherhood, a junior mechanic aboard an interstellar ark heading to New Earth must…
Hoi An is an old port city in central Vietnam that flourished from the 16th to 19th-century, attracting traders from Japan, China, and Europe. Its historic district, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as the Hoi An Ancient Town, was divided between the Chinese and Japanese quarters, connected by a beautiful arched bridge. Chua…
When a ceramic relief depicting the Madonna with Child was returned to the church of Scansano in Tuscany, Italy, after five decades of absence, the town threw a solemn celebration. The local bishop, priest, prefect, mayor, and law enforcement officials all attended. On a September morning in 2020, a crowd gathered. The torso-sized relief was…
Although the Virgin birth may be the founding narrative of the Christmas holiday, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is the urtext for how we tell Christmas stories. Ebenezer Scrooge has reached archetypal status as the misanthrope who, through various difficulties in life, becomes tight-fisted, forgets the virtues of caring for others, the pleasure of communing…
The Monument to the Fallen of Dogali (Monumento ai Caduti di Dogali) is a memorial, located in Rome, dedicated to the fallen Italian soldiers of the Battle of Dogali. This battle was fought in 1887 between Italians and Ethiopia in modern-day Eritrea, during the Italian colonial expansion in East Africa. It was deemed a humiliating defeat…
Brochs are tall, round, stone houses that date back to Scotland’s Bronze Age. They were constructed from two layers of drystone walls which actually supported each other, making it possible to build these tall structures. The tallest known broch is around 42-feet (13-meters) in height. Carn Laith is thought to have belonged to a wealthy…
Also known as the “Pepperpot,” St Catherine’s Oratory stands at one of the highest points of the Isle of Wight. The 35-foot octagonal tower is Britain’s second oldest lighthouse after Dover’s Roman beacon, and as such, the Pepperpot has overseen much of the island’s history. Its creation, however, tells perhaps its most enlightening tale. In…
Writer/director Michael McCartney’s new comedy/horror thriller, Roommate Wanted, is an edgy cocktail of shocks, suspense, and satire with a fresh and diverse cast. Angelique Sabrina White shines as Maria, a pre-law student who shares a rented house with some carefree college roommates. Unhappy with her academic direction, and struggling with her romantic feelings for another…
Founded in 1884 by an erudite group of Victorians, The College of Psychic Studies has long championed education and research in consciousness studies, psychic mediumship, and the intuitive arts. The college is located in a beautifully preserved 19th-century home and is a haven for all things esoteric. The college was established in 1884 as the…
The Russian torture porn throwback “Sleepless Beauty” is a nasty endurance test, the sort of calling card genre exercise whose relentless extremity—both in terms of its explicit and psychological violence—often seems to be a goal unto itself. In this badly post-dubbed locked room thriller, unsuspecting teacher Mila (Polina Davydova) is kidnapped and broken down in…
Pianist, composer and arranger Dave Zoller died at 9:40 a.m. Central time in his home in Dallas, Texas, in a hospital bed in his living room, four feet away from his baby grand piano. His death was attended by his partner of eight years, Liz Sutherland, and his older son, Matt Zoller Seitz. Liz and Matt…
“As individuals, we have an impossible battle. As a collective, we stand a chance.” Amazon has released a final “extended preview” trailer for Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, his thrilling new anthology of five films streaming on Prime Video later this month. A few of them just premiered at the New York & London Film Festivals…
The recently concluded 45th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival was the first to have been stricken by the circumstances that the entire world has been suffering from. Despite the ongoing pandemic, the folks at the Toronto International Film Festival were able to put on an incredible show with an astounding amount of variety…