Fans of the group Swans will know exactly what I’m driving at because if you ask someone, “do you like Swans?” and the reply is never the simple reaction you get when you talk about other bands. A Swans fan will never say, “well, the early stuff is cool..” or ” yeah they had some…
A little over 3,000 years ago, a roughly 40-year-old man was laid to rest in a cemetery in what is now the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. He was wearing fancy pants. Possibly the oldest trousers in the world, they had an enlarged crotch area, indicating he spent a lot of time on…
Records show that this area was originally inhabited around 1793, but Badbea is most famous for the remains of the clearance village. Here lie the ruins of former homes perched on the steep slopes above the cliff tops of Berriedale. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonBadbea village was settled during the 18th…
Morgan Crisp listened in horror as members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians lambasted her newly launched craft beer brand, 7 Clans. Around 650 out of 14,000 active members had petitioned the tribal council to force the company to change its name and that of its flagship brew, MotherTown Blonde Ale. Both allude to…
Beyond the Horizon (Le milieu de l’horizon) is the kind of film in which nothing major happens but everything is happening in plain sight. Also, the script observes the characters instead of dictating their moves. It’s laid back, from the setting to the filmmaking technique, nothing is extrinsic. Neither does it try to adhere to…
Welcome to How’d They Do That?, a bi-monthly column that unpacks moments of movie magic and celebrates the technical wizards who pulled them off. This entry looks into the feature-length continuous shot in Russian Ark. In more ways than one, Russian Ark is a singular film. Created under uniquely restrictive circumstances and committing to a…
“This Christmas, give something only you can give.” Nothing like a big warm holiday hug. Coca Cola Great Britain has unveiled their annual holiday commercial and this one is special – primarily because it’s made by Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi. The “Coca-Cola Christmas Commercial 2020” is a 2-1/2 min adventure about a hard-working…
Queerly Ever After is a bi-monthly column where I take a look at LGBT+ films that gave their characters a romantic happily-ever-after. There will be spoilers. Also, don’t forget to buy your Queerly Ever After merch right here. In Nils Bökamp’s You & I, Jonas (Eric Klotzsch), a German twenty-something photographer who has recently broken up…
Wisconsin’s Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa made history when tribal members Curtis and Linda Basina launched Copper Crow Distillery in 2018. The husband-and-wife team became the first Native Americans to make distilled spirits on a reservation in nearly 200 years. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonTo do it, they first…
On September 20, the sun began to rise at the South Pole. It took 30 hours for the sun’s disk to clear the horizon, and weeks later, it is still climbing toward noon. And for the first time in a decade, Robert Schwarz, a.k.a. The Iceman, was not there to see it. “When the sun…
One of the best ways to admire Bologna is by looking up. Visitors will find towers hidden between palaces, amazing architectural designs, and faces. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonPalazzo Salina Amorini Bolognini in Piazza Santo Stefano is an exquisite example of Bolognese Renaissance taste. The first stone was set in 1517,…
Several months ago, Atlas Obscura invited you to come along with us as we journeyed—digitally—across all 50 U.S. states (and Washington, D.C.) in pursuit of the unsung wonders scattered across the country. That was July. The COVID-19 pandemic was raging, and we hoped that a virtual journey would sate readers’ hunger for travel while many…
The phrase “book burning” evokes dictators demanding certain thoughts be expunged from society. Literal book burnings date back centuries, but the invention of the printing press made the practice more commonplace in the modern era. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe Nazis embraced the concept in the 1930s, incinerating roughly 25,000 “un-German” books”…
It’s easy to bemoan the fact crime dramas can often feel by-the-book and unoriginal. If there’s not something comforting in them — specifically in the more intimate space of television — then they can be out and out monotonous. Part of the problem comes from a genre being so saturated due to popularity and commercial…
The little valley of the Côa River in northern Portugal is home to an amazing collection of Paleolithic rock art. Thousands of figures of horses, bovines, and other animals, along with human and abstract figures were created beginning perhaps 22,000 years ago. The tradition continued throughout the Stone Age and into the Bronze Age. Read…
Prior to 1914, Valour Road was known as Pine Street. The street was lined with small family homes in what was then the far western suburbs of Winnipeg. When World War I erupted, many of the young men from the area went off to fight. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonOn April…
Following the end of World War II until 1952, Japan was occupied by the United States. Japan’s southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, however, continued to be under U.S. military control until 1972. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonDue to this situation, cars drove on the right in Okinawa in contrast to the main…
It’s a trial about way more than art in The Last Vermeer, the debut of director Dan Friedkin. Of all the terrible things the Nazis did, hoarding of art is pretty low on the list, but it had an unmistakable impact on the distribution and preservation of these invaluable pieces of culture. As with all things,…
Tucked in a nondescript corner of a beautiful cemetery in South Minneapolis, lies the final resting place of one of the most significant Democratic politicians of the mid-20th-century. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonHubert Horatio Humphrey was a politician from Minnesota who served as Mayor of Minneapolis, Senator from Minnesota, and Vice…
Don’t let the wide, creepy shots fool you—in Sean Durkin’s “The Nest,” there aren’t any supernatural forces haunting the O’Hara family. Running out of money, or perhaps his excesses, Rory (Jude Law) decides it’s time to pack up his wife and two children and move back to England. His spouse, Allison (Carrie Coon) isn’t exactly…
Watching “The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special” is like watching a puppet show organized by a major toy store chain (if such things still exist). The voice actors are enthusiastic, but don’t sound quite right—none of the featured characters are voiced by their original cast members, with the exception of Anthony Daniels, Kelly Marie Tran,…