Friday Film Roundup: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One, Theater Camp, and More
Friday Film Roundup: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One, Theater Camp, and More
We’re back to the blockbusters and this one isn’t like any of the others, mostly because it stars Tom Cruise. The “Mission: Impossible” franchise is undeniably one of the most impressive collections of action films ever made, thanks to Cruise’s refusal to compromise. The latest and penultimate installment, “Dead Reckoning, [...]
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is a Much-Needed Return to Form
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is a Much-Needed Return to Form
The release of “Bumblebee,” in 2018, marked a major shift in the “Transformers” franchises, which always performed well commercially but never really won favor with critics. Its spin-off, set in the late 1980s, redirected the franchise into something more character driven and intimate — well, as intimate as a “Transformers” [...]
NYC’s Afro-Latino Festival Founder Mai-Elka Prado Is Making Space for Herself
NYC’s Afro-Latino Festival Founder Mai-Elka Prado Is Making Space for Herself
After almost 10 years of working behind the scenes, Mai-Elka Prado is taking the stage for the first time. Prado is the founder and creative director of the Afro-Latino Festival, an annual celebration that pays tribute to the African roots of Latin American and Caribbean people. Through a series of [...]
The History of Mexico’s Agave Spirits
The History of Mexico’s Agave Spirits
Chef Mateo Herrera describes himself as shy and soft-spoken. The El Paso, Texas-based Indigenous chef therefore surprised himself and others when he took to his Instagram stories in September to call out Sotol Raramuri, a Ciudad Juarez-based sotol brand, for their use of Native American and Indigenous Mexican imagery in [...]
‘House of Gucci’ Follows the Controversial Dynasty’s Rise and Fall (and Rise)
‘House of Gucci’ Follows the Controversial Dynasty’s Rise and Fall (and Rise)
Ridley Scott, now an elder statesman of genre filmmaking, is motivated only by what moves him. “I’m a moviemaker, not a documentarian,” he once said, and nothing is a greater testament to that philosophy than Scott’s own body of work. Endlessly fascinated by the human experience while comfortably removed from [...]
Post-Apocalyptic Road Movie ‘Finch’ Asks What it Truly Means to Be Alive
Post-Apocalyptic Road Movie ‘Finch’ Asks What it Truly Means to Be Alive
The line separating Tom Hanks’ on- and off-screen personas has always been a little murky. That inimitable ability to split the difference between working-class Americana and American exceptionalism has long cemented Hanks as a national treasure. His behind-the-scenes work has also afforded him much of the same reputation–wherever an “important” [...]
‘Down the Garden Path’ Highlights Food Sovereignty Amidst Immokalee’s Food Desert
‘Down the Garden Path’ Highlights Food Sovereignty Amidst Immokalee’s Food Desert
On a serendipitous June afternoon in 2020, amidst a global race reckoning, Nicaraguan-born and Naples-based photographer Lisette Morales and Immokalee activist Lupita Vazquez-Reyes attended a local Black Lives Matter protest in Immokalee, Florida. In a town where locals try not to make waves, the two women knew this would be [...]