On a charming residential street in Nob Hill, an otherworldly structure arises from a corner lot. Slightly obscured by mature trees, indigenous flora, and corrugated metal fences, the locally-dubbed Spaceship House is actually the home and studio of eclectic architect Bart Prince. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonBorn in New Mexico, Prince…
Last December, it felt like every day was a banquet at the sharehouse where I live in Tokyo. On the Sunday before Christmas, we snacked on snow crab shabu-shabu. On Christmas Eve, we sliced up a whole smoked chicken. On New Year’s Day, we savored wagyu sirloin steaks. And throughout, we savored top-quality shochu and…
If “Harriet” could hear, she might pick up the sound of ping-pong balls skittering across a table. If she could smell, she might detect a range of lunches being reheated in a nearby microwave. If her eyes could see, she might let them wander a busted Pac-Man machine, a TV, and a campus bookstore, decorated…
The year 2021 will find special mention in the annals of Berlinale history for giving us the first-ever virtually programmed edition of the largest film festival in the world. Something else is also unique about this year as May 2nd will mark the birth centenary of an auteur whose name pops up more than any…
“Welcome to the serial killer podcast. Today we have something very exclusive.” Holy hell this is insanely scary. Meet Jimmy is an excellent 7-minute horror short from Dutch filmmaker David-Jan Bronsgeest. It originally premiered in 2018 at the Nederlands Film Festival and it’s finally available to watch online via Short of the Week. Jennifer is…
★★★★ Directed by #ChrisMcKim Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonFilm Review by Hope Madden Maybe you don’t know who David Wojnarowicz is. Maybe you have no idea how to pronounce his name. It might be safer to butcher the provocative late artist’s last name (voy-nah-ROYH-vitch) than to read the title of director…
If there was one core argument Woody Allen made in his defense during the course of litigation against him, it would be fair to say it was the “woman scorned” argument. There has been an implication by some on Allen‘s side – including Allen himself – that the accusations of sexual abuse were a proxy…
In 1918, the Russian Imperial Romanov family was executed by Communist revolutionaries. After the royal family was murdered, there were rumors that one of the Romanov children had escaped. These rumors often centered around 17-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia, which led to many women claiming to be Anastasia and therefore connected to the Russian royal lineage….
Hulu’s “Sasquatch” is a modern true-crime doc of a rare breed: rarely have they felt as nerve-racking, dangerous, and truly scary. It is not all about Bigfoot, one must say right off the bat, because I suspect that most people wouldn’t want to get into a series that’s about Bigfoot hunters unless it had a…
As we wait for the world to emerge from the shadow of shut down and for places and venues to being to open again, the film world is continuing to evolve and adapt to an unprecedented time. With cinemas still closed but the appetite for art and escape still needed, maybe now more than ever,…
Lanleff’s temple is a pink sandstone ruin located in Lanleff, Brittany. It is a round church, reminiscent of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe exact age of this building is unknown. The earliest known references to the building is from 1148 when the Lord…
Say what you will about Disney+’s “WandaVision.” The mercurial series felt nothing like the preceding MCU movies that made Marvel the Hollywood behemoth it is today. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonIt’s why “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” feels both familiar and welcome. The new series opens with the kind of…
Standing at nearly 200 feet (60 meters) tall and just southwest of the Austrått manor entrance is an unusual four-sided pyramid. According to a few historical records, the structure was erected in 1665 by the Austrått manor’s owner Ove Bjelke in memory of his father Jens Bjelke. Ove Bjelke was one of Norway’s richest and…
Dark Matter Oddities & Artisan Collective located in the French Quarter is an offbeat home to both the beautiful and macabre. The shop contains a curated combination of strange antiques, locally hand-crafted artwork, and small-batch artisan products. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonA small group of artists produces an array of taxidermy,…
A teenage boy is out of his depth in Concrete Cowboy, the feature debut of co-writer and director Ricky Staub. Cole knew going to live with his father would be awkward. The two lived in different cities and barely knew each other, but nothing could prepare him for finding out he’d also be sharing quarters with a…
The Museum Club, known locally as “The Zoo”, is a Route 66 icon. It began as a taxidermy museum/shop in 1931 when taxidermist Dean Eldredge purchased federal land just outside Flagstaff, Arizona. He constructed what he believed was “the largest log cabin in the nation.” The upper floor and roof are supported by several massive…
This former stately home had a fragmented history before it was renovated into a luxury hotel. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonConstruction on the home began in the 1840s. However, work ceased when the owner died and the structure stood incomplete for many years. That is until local businessman, José Francisco da…
★★★ Directed by #BradFurman Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by #RandallSullivan #ChristianContreras Starring #JohnnyDepp #ForestWhitaker Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’Film Review by George Wolf After nearly three years of lawsuits, allegations, finger-pointing and false starts, City of Lies lands in theaters as an…
“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is rhetoric intended to prop up the promise of the American Dream while ignoring the systematic prejudices that prohibit it from coming true for all Americans. Three films within SXSW 2021’s Narrative Feature Competition grapple with this hypocrisy with varying degrees of self-awareness and success. They are “Women Is…
I’m just going to say this right up front: Ninjababy is one of the most creative, innovative films I’ve seen this year. This film rocks! For whatever foolish reasons, I was resistant to watching this one when it first premiered at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival. Then I finally caught up with it at the…
Mike Leigh has shown throughout his long career that even at our most mundane we, humans, are entertaining. His characters are obnoxious, whiny, pretentious, awkward, and belligerent – personality traits that in real life are predisposed to irritate. But it is through these people that we witness the nature of Leigh’s empathy. By 1971, with…