“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” [...]
Friday Film Roundup: Insidious: The Red Door, Joy Ride, Amanda, and More
Friday Film Roundup: Insidious: The Red Door, Joy Ride, Amanda, and More
This weekend is another that’s forgoing the traditional summer blockbusters to give audiences a long-awaited horror sequel and a well-received original comedy. With “Insidious: The Red Door,” fans are getting one more trip into The Further in a franchise capper that brings to a close more than 10 years worth [...]
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 [...]
Review: The New Museum’s 2021 Triennial ‘Soft Water Hard Stone’
Review: The New Museum’s 2021 Triennial ‘Soft Water Hard Stone’
Walk off the small elevator onto the New Museum’s second floor and find yourself immediately enveloped by a sound reminiscent of construction: a constant pounding — thunk, thunk, thunk — reverberating off the museum’s walls and concrete floors, penetrating and pulse-raising, suggesting the impending arrival of something bigger, a crash, [...]