Valle Crucis was founded by Prince Madog ap Gruffydd and the “White Monks” of the Cistercian order in 1201. The name Valley Crucis derives from Latin and means Valley of the Cross. The name is thought to refer to the nearby 9th-century Pillar of Eliseg. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe Cistercians…
Sometimes it takes a personal attack to turn someone into an activist. Consider J.K. Rowling, the progressive author who took a stand against Cancel Culture when it turned on her … with a vengeance. Woke comic Sarah Silverman decried losing a film role for a problematic gag from her comedy past. Read moreA Guide to…
The woman on a dock. It’s an image used in cinema so much that it’s basically a cliché, the distant figure nearly always gazing out at the water as if contemplating possibilities, perched on the edge of a choice. It’s an image and a cliché used repeatedly in Black Bear, a mystifying little movie that,…
Nestled in the hills of Brown County, Indiana, just off of State Road 46, sits a peculiar green barn, covered in dirty socks. It’s a well known stop for hikers on the Tecumseh Trail. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonA few years ago, the young couple who own the property put a…
The Trinity Apse was founded in 1462 by the Queen Mary of Gueldres, after the death of her husband King James II. An apse is the portion of a church, usually with an arched or domed roof and containing an altar. This gothic chapel was originally located in what was then known as Waverly Valley,…
A writer tries to shake things loose in Let Them All Talk, the latest from director Steven Soderbergh. Lots of people were anxiously awaiting Alice’s next book. With decades of acclaimed work under her belt, one might assume that getting another written would be easy, but she’s quietly struggling. Sensing trouble, her agent arranges for her…
Palazzo Spada is a magnificent, yet lesser-known, palace located in the Regola district of Rome in the city’s historic center. It features an extraordinary art collection (Galleria Spada) which showcases works by the likes of Guido Reni, Titian, Guercino, Rubens, Caravaggio, and Artemisia Gentileschi to name a few. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong…
In October 2018, Davide Tanasi was off the coast of Italy, pulling teeth. His dental patients were 34 Sicilians who had been dead for the better part of 2,000 years. These Roman Christians were buried in the catacombs of St. Lucia in Syracuse, an underground city of some 8,000 dead stretched across an area about…
Brussels is notable for its whimsical public art displays, including the world-famous Manneken Pis. Lesser known is the “Bandundu Water Jazz Band” in the Flemish Brabant city of Tervuren. The installation is located about eight miles from Brussels. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonCreated by Belgian artist Tom Frantzen, this sculptural fountain…
This work first appeared on SAPIENS under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license. Read the original here. One morning in May 2019, a crowd of journalists gathered around the Biratenu bar in Jerusalem, snapping photos as a bartender poured golden, frothy beer into plastic cups. The story of the beer was both new and very old:…
Movies like this are proof that you can have your cake and eat it too. Watching movies like In Bruges, Tangerine, or 12 Monkeys is just as effective in July as they are in March, but if you want to furnish the holidays with a little bit of supplementary “cheer”, pop in one of these…
Unlike other future virtuosos, Grégoire Blanc didn’t take up his instrument after hearing a symphony, eyeing a glossy magazine, or catching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Blanc’s path to musical prowess went through science class. It was there that a teenage Blanc, now 24, learned about a curious contraption called the theremin. Consisting of two…
2020 is looking up with the return of Monster Fest to Melbourne. The festival of horror, gore, trash, and midnight madness was originally postponed due to COVID-19, but Melbournians rallied, followed the rules, wore their masks, and said “No, COVID, we want the best horror movie festival in the world to come back to the…
“Look at me. Here I am.” Magnolia Pictures has unveiled an official US trailer for Two of Us, a passionate love story drama by filmmaker Filippo Meneghetti. This is France’s official submission to the Best Foreign Film selection in the Academy Awards this year, and it originally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year….
I didn’t go home to visit family for Thanksgiving this year. Instead, I decided to spend it with J.D. Vance’s family. I didn’t plan any of this obviously, but I figured in the spirit of this holiday I should try to make it sound as lively as possible in my apartment. Ron Howard’s adaptation of…
★★★ Directed by #GabrielMascaro Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by #GabrielMascaro #RachelDaisyEllis Starring #DiraPaes Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’,,Film Review by ,,Cat McAlpine In the near future, Brazil is under Evangelical leadership. Middle-aged Joana, a devout believer in both Jesus and bureaucracy, is…
Welcome to Horrorscope, a monthly column keeping horror nerds and initiates up to date on all the genre content coming to and leaving from your favorite streaming services. Here’s a guide to all the essential horror streaming this December: Well, boils and ghouls, we made it. It’s the end of 2020. And as the days…
The Berkeley Building, affectionately known as the “Old John Hancock Building,” is a 495-foot tall, 26-story office building located in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Completed in 1947, the building was the second tallest in the city until the completion of the Prudential Tower in 1964. However, it remains an iconic Boston landmark….
It’s a miracle “Half Brothers” doesn’t name check Trump at any point during its strained 96 minutes. Then again, the high-concept comedy doesn’t have to speak the president’s name. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe farce plays out like an open borders campaign ad, albeit one that can’t stop slamming the country…
I don’t know for sure if Ammonite is simply a romance. The marketing around it is doing everything it can to tell me it is, but I feel as if writer/director Francis Lee has created something else here. It’s a slow and quiet drama, guided by a steady hand, about two vastly different but equally…
The Ralph Foster Museum on the campus of the College of the Ozarks, grew from its humble beginnings in the 1920s to become one of the Midwest’s foremost institutions of historical preservation. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe primary focus of the Ralph Foster Museum today is to collect, preserve, interpret, and…