To the inattentive eye, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (2020) don’t seem to have much in common. Fury Road is a gritty, big-screen action epic, and Kipo is an animated Netflix series aimed at children. The title characters appear to be polar opposites: Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) is…
The find was perplexing. In 2015, cave explorers inching through a vertical passage in northern Italy’s Marcel Loubens Cave discovered a partial human skull. The cranium was missing its jawbone, and sat upended on a slim ledge near the top of the shaft. No other human remains were found there, and there was no sign…
The crime comedy “Pixie” dissolves in the mind as you’re watching it. You’ve seen it before. And the “it” you’ve seen before is the most derivative version of “it.” Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonGather ’round, children. There was a period from roughly the mid-1990s through the early aughts when the success of “Pulp…
Turn on any television in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, or New York during summer in the early 1980s, and you were likely to catch a commercial featuring a creepy mime trapped behind an invisible wall, the shadowy figure of a hunchback rounding the corner of a darkened staircase, and a headless woman swatting away the…
Melissa Haizlip’s award-winning documentary, “Mr. Soul!”, has now been nominated for Outstanding Documentary (Film), Outstanding Breakthrough Creative (Motion Picture) and Outstanding Writing in a Documentary (Television or Motion Picture) at the 52nd NAACP Image Awards. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is the largest and most pre-eminent civil rights organization in the…
On the corner of the property of the Prophett-Chapman, Cole, & Gleason Funeral Home stands a memorial, but the subject of its dedication may surprise you. The plaque on the statue’s front reads, “This seal is for the children of Bridgewater… Never lose your imagination” Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe granite statue…
Who can’t resist a good, heartfelt film about the life of dogs? I know I can’t, and I am sure there are plenty of dog lovers who will share in the sentiment. Stray, from director Elizabeth Lo, retains the power to not only appeal to dog lovers but to a wider breadth of audiences as…
There was a point where the Walt Disney company nearly went bankrupt thanks to “The Black Cauldron.” As multiple tomes on the company’s history share, the box office failure of that 1985 animated swing at Tolkien grandeur hit the Mouse House hard. The money coming in from the theme park attendance was the only sizable…
From the very start of The Stylist, it’s a sensory experience. As we are first introduced to Claire (Najarra Townsend), she’s a quiet hairstylist, working on an out-of-towner’s hair. Even from this opening, before the movie tonally shifts into darker territory, there’s a sense of care taken with each precise stylistic choice. Claire engages, asking about the…
Situated in the center of Milan, not far from the famous Duomo, is a less renowned but equally impressive architectural monster. The Torre Velasca was constructed in 1958 and stands well of 300 feet (100 meters) tall. It has a peculiar, mushroom-like shape. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe tower is a…
★ Directed by: Joey Harlow Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by: Joey Harlow, Benn Perry Starring: Carrie Bradstreet, Benn Perry, Kevin R. Allen, Molly Cunningham, Michael James Alexander Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’Film Review by: Jason Knight A serial killer is on the…
Based on the first in a trilogy of young adult novels by Patrick Ness, “Chaos Walking” is a science fiction western set on a colonized planet where men’s thoughts can be heard by others. That’s a fertile starting place for a genre film, and the premise is intriguingly visualized by Ness, co-screenwriter Christopher Ford, and director Doug Liman (“The…
The Castle Amphitheater, sometimes called the Provo Castle, is a unique historical building found on the grounds of the Utah State Hospital in Provo, Utah. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe Castle Amphitheater was constructed between 1936-1937 and was one of around 230 public works constructed in Utah under New Deal programs. The…
“I need you to do something for me…” An early festival promo trailer has debuted for a mysterious indie thriller titled Drive All Night, marking the feature directorial debut of the Bay Area’s Peter Hsieh, most known for his stage plays. The film follows Dave, a reclusive swing-shift taxi driver, whose night takes an unexpected…
Coming off his wildly successful short Young Young Men, Noah Stratton-Twine‘s latest, Blue Ruby follows a married couple composed of two eccentric artists who come to ridiculous odds during their 30th wedding anniversary in Paris, France. Which, if you don’t know before viewing, could be a little problematic upon digestion. The film stars Channel 4’s Jo Ball, Andrew…
Iñigo Lopez de Recalde (St Ignatius) after being wounded in the defense of Pamplona against French troops and renouncing his military career, began a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. At a stop in the neighboring city of Manresa in 1522, the young Ignatius said to be wearing only a sack robe, decided to live as…
Visitors to Hove Park will find an unassuming pathway that blends into the ground seamlessly. What most don’t know is that this pathway is actually a public work of art and a maze designed to look like a giant’s fingerprint. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe public display was created in 2006…
Crossing the Streams is our series of guides looking at all the offerings hitting the big streaming services each month. This time we’re checking out the new Amazon Prime arrivals for March 2021, including some Steven Spielberg films, some stellar Westerns, and more! Amazon Prime Pick of the Month for March 2021 Read moreA Guide…
It may seem hyperbolic, but to even attempt at delineating Jacques Rivette’s 1974 masterpiece Céline and Julie Go Boating is an inevitably futile excursion. Rivette’s sprawling epic is an explosive, dizzyingly delightful adventure that remains one of the most ambitious artistic undertakings of the 20th century, placing its two leads within the unrestrictive confines of…
In Egypt, a decade of excavations at the ancient Red Sea port of Berenice (Berenike) has revealed what some researchers are calling the world’s oldest pet cemetery. Nearly 600 animals, mostly cats, but also dogs and imported monkeys, have been found buried just beyond the walls of what was, almost 2,000 years ago, a bustling…
This story is excerpted and adapted from Brandy Schillace’s Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey’s Head, the Pope’s Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul, published in March 2021 by Simon & Schuster. A grainy black-and-white film shuddered across television screens in the last days of May 1958. A man in a long…