A delicious gin with an amazing cause
Richland has all the trappings of a picturesque American small town.
It has diners, high school football, town parades and a smattering of hometown heroes and their kids and their kids’ kids. All this rests on contaminated land, from improper nuclear waste storage from the power plant that has driven the economy for the past half century. As it happens, the plant supplied plutonium for the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War.
Director Irene Lusztig’s documentary “Richland” takes a look at the legacy of the nuclear history in the eponymous town.
Pierce under the facade of many towns in America and you’ll find a radioactive underbelly. There are unsavory and complex histories to contend with, dominating industries with questionable practices and deep ideological rifts between its denizens. So this isn’t a film just about a nuclear town. It captures a disturbance felt all over the country. Its subject town’s focal point, uranium enrichment, happens to be a great metaphor: it brings energy, death, destruction, longevity, decay, prosperity, blight, advancement, regress. You can use that array of terms for plenty of institutions that backbone the history of many towns in this country.
Richland carries baggage that sounds familiar to many places. Beyond the scope of nuclear debate, there are salient moments to today’s public conversation writ large. For example, high schoolers and their parents debate the appropriateness of having a mushroom cloud mascot for their school team “The Bombers.”
The film captures so well the universal essence of small industry town life. And it gives breath to all its nuances and perspectives by letting its inhabitants speak for themselves. We’re not subjected to lectures from proselytizing pro or anti nuclear talking heads. Instead, we sit down at a diner table or a high school quad or living room and hear what people have to say about Richland, until we get an illuminating mosaic of thoughtful positions and the people behind them.
“Richland” premiered at Tribeca Film Festival June 11.
When we think of a Western, several images come to mind.
A tumbleweed rolling through a dusty town. The hero has to be the first to draw his gun. John Wayne rides off on his horse into the great wide somewhere. These stories tend to have one thing in common: a man in his natural habitat. The Old West towns, the wide open plains, the badlands are all considered to be rightfully possessed by the hero who roams them—and that hero is always a man.
Then Callie Khouri’s screenplay for Thelma & Louise flipped the script on the genre forever.
In lieu of the Western genre’s signature cowboy, Thelma & Louise featured two anti-heroes cursed by their femininity. Instead of a horse, audiences got a blue 1966 Ford Thunderbird. The scenery of mountains, oil rigs, deserts, and canyons were deserving of the genre—but served the purpose of being their escape instead of their domain.
Allison Ponthier’s electrifying set lit up the audience from the first chord as her euphoric energy filled the room.
It’s not just a normal meal when you visit SERRA in Manhattan. It is a moment that creates a perfect summer memory.
It’s officially summer and we have fallen in love this season with some entertainment fun to remember.
Growing apart, even among the most brief of friendships, makes us lovesick for the memories of what once was, and calls us to mourn the potential of what could have been.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning play will run for 14 weeks at the American Airlines Theatre.
Amazon Prime brought Lagos to NYC for an exclusive screening of their first original African movie: “Gangs of Lagos”.
On Tuesday March 13th, at 6pm I had the pleasure of attending the ZUZ Spring Summer collection preview, filled with glitz, glamour and a wine tasting to top everything off. This was my first time viewing Zuz and the collection, so it was quite the treat. This winter has been awfully cold and viewing all the spring dresses, definitely gave my fashion inspiration and hopefulness for a fun and colorful Spring/summer to come!