Alter Floßhafen (Former Raft Port) in Augsburg, Germany

Alter Floßhafen (Former Raft Port) in Augsburg, Germany

Since the 13th-century, water from the Lech river was drained at the retaining weir known as “Hochablass” towards the city of Augsburg to drive water mills. In the past, goods were shipped along the river to supply local industries. The weir was the place to reload goods from larger to smaller rafts, with several thousand…

Columbine Memorial in Littleton, Colorado

Columbine Memorial in Littleton, Colorado

On April 20, 1999, two Columbine High School seniors entered the school heavily armed and killed 12 students and one teacher in what became one of the most tragic events in United States’ history.  Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonIn 2007, a memorial was unveiled in Clement Park behind Columbine High School….

Downfalling Short Film Review

Downfalling Short Film Review

★★ Directed by #PeterPalma Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by #PeterPalma Starring: #TommyBeswick #AimieGillan Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’Film Review by Matthew Sawyer Downfalling shows us a brief glimpse of a young man’s life as he decides whether or not to take his…

Sundance 2021: Searchers, R#J, First Date

Sundance 2021: Searchers, R#J, First Date

The NEXT slate at Sundance is intended to celebrate digital filmmaking that pushes the boundaries of cinema to strange new places. For three films in this section, that means exploring love in the time of cellular. Mobile phones have forever changed the ways of wooing worldwide. More and more, couples are meeting through dating apps….

Teaser for Japan’s Latest Reboot – Anno & Higuchi’s ‘Shin Ultraman’

Teaser for Japan’s Latest Reboot – Anno & Higuchi’s ‘Shin Ultraman’

Guess who’s back?! Toho Pictures has unveiled the first teaser trailer for the monsterverse adventure Shin Ultraman, an update on the beloved ’60s TV character from Japan. Toho convinced filmmakers Hideaki Anno & Shinji Higuchi to re-team again after making Shin Godzilla in 2016, updating the classic Ultraman character for modern times. The new Ultraman…

Deep-Fried Fingers short film review

Deep-Fried Fingers short film review

★★★★ Directed by: #DanielGreenway Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by: #DanielGreenway Starring: #DeeHarris, #RuthPownall, #DaisyHobbs Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’Film Review by: Patrick Foley Inverting animal and human relationships is hardly a new metaphor to demonstrate uncomfortable truths about animal rights, factory-farming, or…

Sundance 2021: Faya Dayi, Sabaya, Writing With Fire

Sundance 2021: Faya Dayi, Sabaya, Writing With Fire

One of the happy byproducts of Sundance’s digital incarnation is time. Space to first consider, more space to reconsider. On first blush, Jessica Beshir’s abstract anthropological directorial feature debut, “Faya Dayi,” left me underwhelmed. Bewildered. In a normal festival setting, short on time, and with other movies to see, I would have bitten the bullet…

How Animators Created the Elaborate “Ave Maria” Sequence for ‘Fantasia’

How Animators Created the Elaborate “Ave Maria” Sequence for ‘Fantasia’

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 explains why the “Ave Maria” sequence in Disney’s Fantasia was one of the most challenging filmmaking moments in animation history. Fantasia was Walt Disney’s greatest and weirdest experiment….

Sundance 2021: President, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, Flee

Sundance 2021: President, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, Flee

Fairness has been long delayed and denied in Zimbabwe. Following a military-backed coup of the country’s president-dictator Robert Mugabe after a 38-year reign, his former Vice President and successor President E.D. Mnangagwa is running for reelection against an upstart challenger, the young MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) leader Nelson Chamisa. Camilla Nielsson’s “President” retells the…

Seeking the Truth Behind Books Bound in Human Skin

Seeking the Truth Behind Books Bound in Human Skin

This story is excerpted and adapted from Megan Rosenbloom’s Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin, published in October 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In the summer of 1868, a 28-year-old Irish widow named Mary Lynch was admitted to Ward 27 of Philadelphia General Hospital….

Introducing ‘Food Grammar,’ the Unspoken Rules of Every Cuisine

Introducing ‘Food Grammar,’ the Unspoken Rules of Every Cuisine

Serve spaghetti and meatballs to an Italian, and they may question why pasta and meat are being served together. Order a samosa as an appetizer, and an Indian friend might point out, as writer Sejal Sukhadwala has, that this is similar to a British restaurant offering sandwiches as a first course. Offer an American a…

Medieval Pilgrims Apparently Tried to Ward Off the Plague With Bawdy Badges

Medieval Pilgrims Apparently Tried to Ward Off the Plague With Bawdy Badges

Editors’ note: This story contains images of metal badges depicting human genitalia. In medieval Europe, Christian pilgrims walked all the way from England to Spain (with a brief reprieve on a boat), their long robes dragging along dirty, treacherous roads where solo travelers were frequent targets of thieves. Pilgrims carried only a leather pouch holding…

Watch: ‘Flipping Georgia Blue’ Short Doc on Young Voters in Atlanta

Watch: ‘Flipping Georgia Blue’ Short Doc on Young Voters in Atlanta

“If anybody that looked like me tried anything like that we’d be shot dead.” This captivating short doc film profiles the powerful movement to flip the vote in Atlanta, Georgia this January. Flipping Georgia Blue is a short doc made by i-D and filmmaker Issey Penwarden. The story they’re focusing on is the youth movement…

ECHO: An Icelandic Christmas Movie From The Aether

ECHO: An Icelandic Christmas Movie From The Aether

Phoebe Bridgers‘ new Christmas EP, “If We Make It Through December,” features four incredible, depressing odes to the holidays and loneliness, but the most formally interesting is “7 O’Clock News / Silent Night.” In it, Bridgers and Fiona Apple harmonize “Silent Night” over Matt Berninger’s news anchor readings, a highlight reel of awful stories from…

Perfect Strangers short film review

Perfect Strangers short film review

★★★★ Directed by: Ana Barredo Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by: Ana Barredo Starring: Rhandy Torres, Noreen Lanie Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’Film Review by: Jason Knight A man and a woman begin a distant relationship during COVID-19 lockdown. The coronavirus is spreading…

Greeneville Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Greeneville, Tennessee

Greeneville Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Greeneville, Tennessee

At the start of the Civil War, the current Cumberland Presbyterian Church was still unfinished. The property had been purchased by the church from then-Senator Andrew Johnson in 1860. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonIt was designed to replace a smaller building nearby that its congregation had outgrown. Located on the facade…

SUPERNOVA: A Film that Holds You Dearly

SUPERNOVA: A Film that Holds You Dearly

Typically, I would preface the names of Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci with “award-winning actors,” but for this particular film, the more appropriate description would be “longtime friends.” These two have more chemistry with each other within the first five minutes than most other acting duos have in their entire runtimes. Supernova is a remarkable…

The Welcome Stranger Monument in Moliagul, Australia

The Welcome Stranger Monument in Moliagul, Australia

In the 1850s thousands of people traveled to Victoria, Australia in search of fortune as part of the Victorian gold rush. The first recorded discovery of gold in the Moliagul area occured in September 1852.  Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonTwo miners, John Deason and Richard Oates originally from Conwell, England, both…

The Sasquatch Outpost in Bailey, Colorado

The Sasquatch Outpost in Bailey, Colorado

Jim Myers opened the Sasquatch Outpost in 2014 and the museum followed in 2016. He originally opened a general grocery store at the location, but after talking with locals about Bigfoot sightings in the area, he decided to convert his store into what it is today. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWhen…