The 12th chapter of “The Mandalorian” begins with, you guessed it, a detour. What else can you expect for a show that wants to be busy but also do its world-building and plot development in increments? At least this pit-stop back to square one comes with old friends Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) and Cara Dunne (Gina Carano)—characters…
★★★★★ Directed by: #SergioPablos & #CarlosMartinezLopez Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by: #SergioPablos, #JimMahoney & #ZachLewis Starring: #JasonSchwartzman, #JKSimmons, #RashidaJones, #JoanCusack & #WillSasso Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’Film Review by Connor Slatkoff Sharpe It’s almost that time of year again. Cold spells are…
While Darius Marder‘s significant debut as a director is titled Sound of Metal, there’s an old Simon & Garfunkel tune I know that may fit the bill a bit better. The film, which follows a passioned drummer (Riz Ahmed) who loses himself soon after losing his hearing, spends a great deal of time in silence….
In 1861, photographer Carleton E. Watkins lugged his custom-made oversized camera, designed to shoot on unusually large glass plate negatives, measuring 18 by 22 inches, to Yosemite in California. It was roughly 2,000 pounds of photography equipment that went with him, on the backs of mules, through the challenging terrain. His “mammoth” photos, using a…
Once upon a time a new George Clooney movie mattered. Later, the same could be said of a Clooney directorial project. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonNow? Yes, the press will crank up the publicity machine for Clooney’s new Netflix film, “The Midnight Sky,” debuting Dec. 23. Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves…
“The handler of phoenix, vicious and relentless killer!” Whoa!! A trailer has emerged from the Tokyo Film Festival for a Korean action comedy film titled Slate, marking the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Jo Bareun. This is world premiering at TFF this year but has no other release dates set yet and hasn’t shown up…
“I thought I had it all…” Freestyle Digital Media has debuted a trailer for the indie documentary Doin’ My Drugs, from filmmaker Tyler Q. Rosen. The title is a reference not to drugs, but to medicine, as the doc is about a musician who has HIV. This first premiered at the CPH:DOX Film Festival last…
Today, Greenwich is generally associated with the prime meridian, but this was not always the case. In fact, before Greenwich, the Ferro meridian was known as the original prime meridian since the times of ancient Greece. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe idea of using the westernmost point in the world for…
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is a celebration of three real-life Black artists and legends. There’s the blues singer, often referred to as the “Mother of the Blues,” whose name and song give the film its title. There’s the author, August Wilson who, inspired by Rainey and the era she found fame in, crafted his 1984…
The Sounding is a tribute to William Shakespeare first and foremost, though that adoration often gets in the way of its storytelling. It’s also a passion project from Catherine Eaton, who directs, produces, and co-writes, adapted to a feature from Eaton’s 2015 short. (Though it played at festivals back in 2017, the film is only…
On the edge of the town of Craven Arms in Shropshire, England, this moated structure was constructed during the 13th-century by a rich wool merchant known as Laurence of Ludlow. Laurence also obtained a license from the king to fortify the manor house by crenelating the walls as a means of protection against marauding Welsh…
Oklahoma City-based designer and sculptor Hugh Meade crafted this sculpture dubbed “Intersection Point Zero,” a double intersecting arch of rusted steel and bright aluminum. It was designed as a specific place marker for human concepts such as “logical thinking” and “creativity,” much like the Greenwich Prime Meridian is a globally recognized marker for time. The…
The author’s book of poetry about Malinda Russell, Grimoire, was published in September 2020. From the moment I held the reprint of Mrs. Malinda Russell’s A Domestic Cookbook: Containing A Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen, I was smitten. The 39-page volume is the first known cookbook written by a Black woman: Russell…
Ōya stone is an igneous green tuff renowned for its warm texture and flexibility, famously used by Frank Lloyd Wright to build the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. It was the same material used to create the Venus of Gyoza and is a specialty of Utsunomiya City, quarried in its namesake town of Ōya. Read moreA Guide to…
COVID-19 has struck many major industries hard, but the toll the virus has taken on cinemas is impossible to ignore. The financial ruin facing many large chains, like AMC and Cineworld, is well-documented, but our arthouses, independent cinemas, and local theater chains have been left to scramble. Faced with major revenue loss, most of these…
A short ferry ride east of London, a picturesque lawn welcomes visitors to the sprawling grounds of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. At night, a bright green beam of light projects over the lawn, illuminating the Prime Meridian from the Greenwich Observatory up the hill. Five hundred years ago, this scene looked quite different….
Shortly after Greece won independence from the Ottomans, the need to start organized commerce arose quickly. With Nafplio operating as the capital of the new Hellenic State, a new customs house was determined to be a high priority. A facility was constructed to handle the higher level of traffic then entering the port. Read moreA…
As we approach this season of Thanksgiving, we are finding new ways for families to gather around cooking and enjoying food together. We are pleased to highlight JoAnn Seagren’s virtual meals, complete with enticing recipes, and Giò Crisafulli‘s philosophical musings on a proper mealtime. To ease the stress of not being together physically, Chris Lautenslager suggests a…
★★★★ Directed by #DariusMarder Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by #DariusMarder Starring #RizAhmed #OliviaCooke Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’,,Film Review by ,,Hope Madden Riz Ahmed is a guy who can do anything. He can be funny (Four Lions), pathetic (Nightcrawler), tragic (Sisters Brothers),…
It’s difficult to imagine today what colonial, Prussian-era Berlin looked like, as one walks around the city’s central district, now dominated by the block-shaped architecture of the old East Germany. But that’s exactly what activists and community organizers are trying to get people to do, to see Germany as it was when the country was…
A plot device popularized by the likes of Shakespeare and Chaucer, a frame narrative effectively encases a story within another story. Often, a work involving a frame narrative will initially present a certain set of characters, one of whom will proceed to tell an intricate tale that forms the framed narrative. This framed story usually…