Jackie Chan and Liam Neeson have something in common. Both stars vowed to give up the action heroics as they entered their 60s. Neither one has stuck to the plan. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonChan’s latest, “Vanguard,” finds the action superstar taking baby steps toward his promise. He’s surrounded himself with…
The Lemp family is probably one of the most prestigious American families you’ve never heard of. The hard-working German immigrants made their fortune as beer brewers in 19th-century St. Louis alongside, and in competition with, the Anheuser-Busch family of Budweiser fame. However, despite their success, the Lemp family could not escape tragedy, as many died by…
Exile, filmmaker Visar Morina‘s sophomore effort, is what I’d call a truly deceiving film. Bear in mind that there aren’t mind-boggling twists here. For that matter, considering the minuscule drama or action in it, I wonder what the script of the film might have looked like. There were multiple instances when I felt chopping off…
The old stone bridge that spanned the River Oich was destroyed by flooding in 1849. To prevent a similar incident, a single-span bridge was commissioned for construction. Engineer James Dredge, along with his patented “taper principle,” was enlisted to design the new bridge. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonIn 1854, the bridge was…
Burial mounds usually dating to the 3rd to 7th-centuries can be found across Japan. While several types exist, the most curious formation is known to archaeologists as yokoana-bo, or “sidelong hole-style tomb.” The Hundred Caves of Yoshimi is a notable example of this configuration. There is another “Hundred Caves” in Utsunomiya City, but it’s not as…
In the Mbala district in Zambia, the Kalambo River forms the northern border of the country with Tanzania. Along the river is Kalambo Falls, a 725 foot (221 meters) high single-drop waterfall, making it the second-highest in Africa. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonBesides the stunning views, Kalambo Falls is an important…
“War sucks,” says one of the many white people prominently featured in “No Man’s Land.” One of his companions protests. He’s supposed to be an author, can’t he provide more insight than that? Our budding Hemingway’s rejoinder is perhaps more revealing than the creators of Hulu’s hollow, humorless new series might have intended: “It’s catchy….
A regular person must save humanity in Superintelligence, the latest from director Ben Falcone. It’s not unreasonable to question whether humanity deserves to exist right now, which perhaps makes the premise of this movie a bit more disconcerting than intended. In it, a super-powerful A.I. asks this very question, and it decides to put humans…
This piece was originally published in Undark and appears here as part of our Climate Desk collaboration. Iris Gao keeps a ginseng root in her office. It’s fixed on black velvet with three other bleached-brown specimens, all of them twisty and otherworldly and protected by glass in a shadowbox frame. This particular root, says Gao,…
Just past the ambitious, yet incongruous buildings along via Petroselli, sits an unusual house known as Casa dei Crescenzi. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe house is remarkable in that it is a well-preserved example of a medieval home, one originally owned by Niccolò de Crescenzi, son of Crescenzio and Theodora. The…
★★★ Directed by #DavidRaboy Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by #DavidRaboy Starring #OdessaYoung #MadelynCline Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’,,Film Review by ,,Hope Madden Been a while since I’ve been swimming in the dark. Who knows what nasty things are in there? It may…
Michael Twitty was leading a conversation on African diasporic food when the woman he was speaking to broke into tears. Twitty, a food writer, historian, and historical interpreter, had just explained that the word for “eat” in Wolof, a West African language, is nyam. The woman, a Massachusetts resident from an African-American and Puerto Rican…
Boxing and piano go together like… wait, they don’t go together at all. Well, now they do! Let’s get ready to inspireeee. Last Round is a fantastic animated short film made by a group of five student filmmakers at the Ecole Georges Méliès animation school outside of Paris. The story follows a promising young boxer…
Twice in the history of the James Bond film series, director Martin Campbell has found himself charged with the daunting responsibility of toppling 007 over the precipice of modernity into a brave new world. In 2006, he left an indelible stylistic bloodstain on the spy genre when he gave violent birth to the Daniel Craig…
This museum resides inside an 18th-century mansion in Dublin City Centre next to the Garden of Remembrance. The Dublin Writers Museum first opened in 1991, and is dedicated to the lives and works of some of the most renowned Irish authors. The various exhibits include books, letters, and portraits from well-known writers such as James Joyce,…
Hollywood can multitask as well as any industry. Stars, producers and screenwriters spent the last four years castigating anyone, and anything, associated with President Donald Trump. That didn’t stop them from proselytizing about open border policies, gun control and other progressive issues. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonShowtime is no different. The…
Thanks to her powerful screen presence, transformative acting ability, and timeless beauty, Margot Robbie is the rare 21st-century actor who can show up in a film set during pretty much any time period without seeming out-of-place. In Dreamland, which Robbie also produced through her LuckyChap Entertainment shingle, she’s dropped into the middle of 1930s Texas…
Constructed on land granted to John Boelson (or Jan Boelsen in some documents) in 1677 by the colonial Swedish authorities, the cottage is one of the oldest surviving residences and buildings in Philadelphia. It’s believed to have been constructed between 1678-1684 Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonComposed of wood and fieldstone in Dutch and Swedish-style,…
When Captain Alexander Ovchinnikov took over command of the ship Gobustan in Istanbul, the term “COVID-19” hadn’t been coined yet, “quarantine” was the stuff of apocalyptic science fiction, and few people outside of China knew where Wuhan was. It was December 25, 2019. Ovchinnikov, 39, was still on that ship through the summer, along with…
Commissioned as part of the 2016 Edinburgh Art Festival, “A Drama in Time” is a set of five neon artworks by Scottish artist Graham Fagen. They depict two seascapes, two sailboats, and a skeleton in the middle. Its title comes from a quote by Patrick Geddes, a city planner noted for his improvements to the…
Why did I write “The Low End Kid?” I started with a simple idea. What if the heroes we worship today end up vilified in a future society blinded by utopian morals? And to really turn things around, what if thugs become the champions who hunt the fallen heroes for money and glory? Read moreA Guide…