Welcome to Commentary Commentary, where we sit and listen to filmmakers talk about their work, then share the most interesting parts. In this edition, Rob Hunter lends his ear to a pair of filmmakers sharing their love and knowledge of Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts. The films of Ray Harryhausen have been an inspiration for…
There is a place in North Carolina where some believe you can make a phone call to those who passed on. In Marshall, just north of Asheville, resides a phone booth that contains a disconnected rotary phone. Visitors enter the booth, dial, and talk to those who they have not forgotten. The concept behind the…
In the early 20th century, a mining boom swept through Western Colorado and Eastern Utah in search of vanadium, a valuable element used to reinforce steel. Uravan began as a single mill and quickly boomed once the U.S. Vanadium Corporation discovered rich deposits in the surrounding valley. But vanadium became overshadowed by another element found…
When is an open-world game too open? Journeying through the world of Ubisoft’s “Immortals Fenyx Rising,” now available on next-gen consoles and the last generation, leads to a sense of open exploration that’s tempered by a lack of direction. There’s always something to do in this game, from major and minor story missions to the…
Aspiration gets in the way of life in Sylvie’s Love, the latest from writer/director Eugene Ashe. Sylvie has her passions, but none of them seem very practical for a Black woman in the ’50s. She knows a lot about music from her father’s record shop, and she knows a lot about TV from hours spent in…
John Eliot was a missionary who came from Cambridge, England to Boston in 1630. His major interest was the conversion of the native population of Massachusetts Bay. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThis desire led him to translate the Bible and other religious material into the Wampanoag dialect of Native Americans, who…
In north Georgia, near Blood Mountain and the southern terminus of the more than 2,000 mile long Appalachian Trail, many unsuspecting travelers are struck by the strange sight of hundreds of hiking boots. The shoes can be seen hanging from the trees outside the Walasi-Yi Interpretive Center. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonOn…
This article is part of our 2020 Rewind. Follow along as we explore the best and most interesting movies, shows, performances, and more from this very strange year. In this entry, we explore the best animated series of 2020. Despite production delays and shifting release dates due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has still delivered…
Set 200 years in our future, The Expanse is as much a sci-fi series as it is a political drama. Everyone wants to colonize the solar system and it’s a race to the start line. Earth is run by the United Nations, Mars is an independent nation terraforming its way to a greener future, and…
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 December 15th, 2020! This week’s…
“Take a trip with Ben Wheatley.” Neon has revealed a quick 30-second teaser of footage for Ben Wheatley’s new film In the Earth, which was just announced today as part of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival official selection. Wheatley already released a film earlier this year, the new take on Rebecca, but secretly shot this…
The role of women within the horror genre has been in a constant state of flux from its very fruition: early films, such as Dracula (1931) and Psycho (1960), featured satanic entities and murderers, while contemporary takes, like Paranormal Activity (2011) and Scream (1996), brought imagined hauntings and slasher films into the mix. However, all of…
The upcoming Sundance Film Festival will be going virtual next month (with satellite screenings in select cities), premiering fewer films in total than previous years. But that doesn’t make the full lineup of 72 features sound any less enticing. Even if we won’t be able to check out the films in Park City, the lineup promises the festival’s grab-bag of debut…
Rachel Brosnahan plays a woman whose loyalty and patience are tested to the breaking point in Julia Hart’s “I’m Your Woman.” Brosnahan’s Jean and her newborn baby must go into hiding after her criminal husband announces that things have become too unstable for him on streets. His confidant, Cal (Arinze Kene), takes Jean to a…
Following his 2017 zombie flick with a humane twist, The Cured, Irish filmmaker David Freyne returns with a coming-of-age tale about… well, coming out – which at first, sounds like a far cry from the flesh-eating pandemonium that preceded it. Yet, there’s one thing that both films have in common and it remains unspoken –…
For centuries, the Ukrainian city of Odessa has served as the region’s great trading port. But legend has it that it took a fabulous bribe to pave the way. The story goes that 18th-century Odessa wanted money to build their port. Unfortunately, when the new tzar Paul I took power in 1796, he diverted the…
The Basilica of San Giorgio in Velabro is a religious building located in Rome, edificated on the former swampy area of Velabro and dedicated to Saint George. The origins of the church are not clear. It’s mentioned in various Early Middle documents, but these could also be a nod to a separate building. Read moreA…
Andersonville is now a sleepy little town in southern Georgia. But during the Civil War, it was the site of the notorious Camp Sumter Prison. Here, thousands of captured Union soldiers perished, often from the miserable conditions. Today, the National Park Service maintains the National POW Museum where the prison once stood. Read moreA Guide to…
Katabatic winds scream across Cape Crozier, a snow-swept chunk of ice and rock at the edge of Antarctica. Nobody lives there. Nobody, that is, except for over 270,000 Adélie penguins. They’re klutzy, squawking, 2-foot-tall animals that waddle purposefully across the antarctic plains, biting and flapping and tripping over one another like little Monsieur Hulots. And…
Smoky Mountain Knife Works is heralded as the “World’s largest knife showplace.” The showroom covers more than 100,000 square feet and has more than a million visitors annually. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe store is home to a massive collection of museum-quality cutlery memorabilia, artifacts, and mounts—as well as a plethora…
This interesting building in the small Central Bohemian town of Slaný was constructed by architects Vratislav Růžička and Vlastibor Klimeš between 1970 and 1979. Originally, several tenement houses were located at the current site of the building. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe structure is home to an oil and gas heating…