All posts tagged: standout

Critics identify stand-out star in Spider-Man: Brand New Day in early reviews: ‘She’s devastating’

Critics identify stand-out star in Spider-Man: Brand New Day in early reviews: ‘She’s devastating’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Early reactions to Spider-Man: Brand New Day have singled out Sadie Sink as the film’s surprise stand-out, with critics describing the Stranger Things star as “devastating in her role”. Tom Holland’s latest outing as Spider-Man has also been called his “best performance” in the role. The fourth standalone Spider-Man film, which premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Monday ahead of its cinema release, sees Holland return as Peter Parker alongside Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Mark Ruffalo, and Sadie Sink in a mystery role. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, Brand New Day is set four years after Spider-Man: No Way Home and follows Peter Parker as he continues fighting crime alone after Doctor Strange’s memory spell erased him from the lives of MJ, Ned, and the rest of the world, while his spider powers begin evolving beyond his control …

6 standout Nebbiolo producers from Piedmont

6 standout Nebbiolo producers from Piedmont

Published by Sam Flores

Nebbiolo is a fussy, thick-skinned red grape. Its superpower is the ability to capture the signature of the village, hill, soil, microclimate – even the specific plot it grows on and carry those signatures through to the glass.  Nebbiolo plays in the same league as Pinot Noir: both grapes are light coloured, terroir-obsessed and perfumed. But Nebbiolo’s tannins – assertive, grippy – are very different to Pinot Noir’s finer tannins. Both wines have serious staying power.  Geologist Edmondo Bonelli led us on a field trip to Treiso, one of the communes in the Barbaresco wine-growing area, just outside Alba. The hills lay beneath a thin veil of fog – nebbia in Italian, and one possible origin of Nebbiolo’s name. Bonelli explained that the old, shallow, poor soils of the Langhe hills started forming 15 million years ago, when the hills we stood on were still underwater. Composed of limestone, marl, clay and sandstone, these soils give the wines structure and backbone. Change the composition, and the wine adapts. Roero, for example, sits on much younger sandy soils …

A Standout 250th Show Confronts Centuries of American Contradictions

A Standout 250th Show Confronts Centuries of American Contradictions

Published by Jenni Sidey

Fragments of an equestrian statue of King George III, which loomed over Bowling Green in New York City until it was toppled in 1776, open “Democracy Matters,” the inaugural exhibition in the new Tang Wing for American Democracy at the New York Historical. Most of the statue was melted down and reformed into musket balls, and several of these are on display in the opening section of the show across from four large intact pieces of the original. These are framed by an animation of silhouetted figures gathering around the statue in protest, lassoing it with a rope, and then pulling it down—a reenactment of a moment memorialized in a painting by Johannes Oertel that is also on view nearby. Related Articles Curated by Wendy Nālani E. Ikemoto for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, “Democracy Matters” explores a series of dissonances and conflicts that the nation has wrestled with since its inception. The show frames the American project as defined by a longstanding tension between impulses to maintain the status …

The 11 standout startups from YC’s Demo Day, according to VCs

The 11 standout startups from YC’s Demo Day, according to VCs

Published by skeptic

With each new season comes another YC Demo Day. On Tuesday, the Spring 2026 cohort was unveiled, filled with defense tech, robotics, AI infrastructure and developer tools, and of course, AI agents. TechCrunch spoke to eight investors to determine which ones were the hottest companies in this batch — both the ones they were watching and the startups they heard other VCs couldn’t get enough of. This list consists primarily of companies that had been flagged by at least two investors as the buzziest in the batch.  That excitement translated into larger rounds and massive price tags for some of these companies. Just when we thought YC valuations couldn’t get any higher, they surpassed all expectations. This batch had at least two startups fetching valuations of $175 million or more. Investors were also clearly willing to pay a premium for proven, repeat founders. We’ve organized the standouts alphabetically below: 9 Mothers What it’s building: AI-powered counter-drone systems  Why it’s a fav: The Russia-Ukraine conflict is showing just how lethal small drones are, with the systems …

15 standout products from High-End Vienna, the yearly showcase of glorious audiophile indulgence

15 standout products from High-End Vienna, the yearly showcase of glorious audiophile indulgence

Published by Jenni Sidey

We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more › Sign Up For Goods 🛍️ Product news, reviews, and must-have deals. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. High-End Vienna is a showcase for luxury finishes and second-mortgage price tags. The 2026 edition took place June 4-7, and featured plenty of six-figure sticker shock and sci-fi designs. But beyond the design-forward statement pieces is some actually approachable gear, as well. We’ve sifted through dozens of press releases to identify where smarter systems are headed and to celebrate old-school hi-fi brands making their heritage feel fresh, presenting all of it as a gallery of beautiful excess. The fifth generation of the Diamond Dome tweeter-topped 800 Series, Bowers & Wilkins’ latest flagship speakers celebrate the brand’s 60th anniversary. As important as the sound it produces is the resonance it …

L.A. Latino International Film Festival 2026: 5 standout movies

L.A. Latino International Film Festival 2026: 5 standout movies

Published by Sam Flores

Last weekend the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) screened a diverse slate of feature films, both by U.S. Latino storytellers and those from Latin America, at the TCL Chinese Theatre complex in Hollywood. Conversations with visiting filmmakers, industry panels, multiple short film programs and the Youth Cinema Project showcase (which screened shorts made by California public school students in fifth through 12th grades) completed the expansive program highlighting Latino talent across the entertainment landscape. Here are five films we enjoyed from the selection — and that are worth keeping an eye out for in months to come, as they (hopefully) become more widely available. Unresolved trauma involving parents and their children was the common thread among many of this year’s films at LALIFF. Scene from “A Place of Absence.” A Place of Absence Searching for their missing migrant children, a caravan of Central American mothers traverses Mexico with tireless, even superhuman determination. In this heart-sore and compassionate investigation of unresolved pain, director Marialuisa Ernst makes a parallel between their plight and how her …

The Bahamian Pavilion Brings Junkanoo to Venice in a Biennale Standout

The Bahamian Pavilion Brings Junkanoo to Venice in a Biennale Standout

Published by Jenni Sidey

After a thirteen-year hiatus, the Bahamian Pavilion has returned to Venice with a proposition that is as much educational as representational: that the Caribbean nation can be reintroduced to the world through its contemporary artistic inheritance. To do so, the pavilion turns to the late master John Beadle and his former student Lavar Munroe, framing their work through one of the Bahamas’ defining cultural touchstones — Junkanoo — the whistling, crepe-costumed procession that floods the islands twice a year and persists as a visual philosophy of resiliency and reverence. For Venice, this takes shape in the transformation of the San Trovaso Art Space in Dorsoduro, where large-scale sculptural works are assembled from strips of discarded Junkanoo costumes, in line with an event defined by perpetual re-imagination. Emerging under slavery in the British American colonies, the festival belongs to what Derek Walcott, the Caribbean Nobel laureate, called “the fragments of epic memory.” Related Articles An Junkanoo costume installed in the Bahamian Pavilion in Venice. Munroe’s own costume, alongside one once worn by his daughter, is installed …

6 Standout Museums and Galleries Shows to See After Expo Chicago

6 Standout Museums and Galleries Shows to See After Expo Chicago

Published by Jenni Sidey

All eyes will be on the Windy City this month as more than 130 galleries convene for the 15th edition of Expo Chicago at Navy Pier (April 9–12), its third outing as part of the international Frieze brand, which purchased the fair (along with New York’s Armory Show) in 2023. More than 35,000 art lovers attended the 2025 edition, and this year’s visitors will take advantage of the city’s rich art scene, with longstanding commercial galleries as well as scrappy artist-run spaces and institutions large and small, from the encyclopedic Art Institute of Chicago to the avant-garde–focused Museum of Contemporary Art and academically linked institutions such as the Smart Museum of Art and the Renaissance Society, both at the University of Chicago, and (until it closes, anyway) the DePaul Art Museum at the eponymous university. Here are six shows you shouldn’t miss after touching down at O’Hare. 1. “Dancing the Revolution” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Image Credit: Adrian Boot / Urbanimage.tv This first-of-its-kind exhibition surveys the intertwined histories of Caribbean-born musical genres dancehall and …

Series Mania Hot List: 10 Standout International Shows

Series Mania Hot List: 10 Standout International Shows

Published by Daniella Wilson

Series Mania’s 2026 lineup spotlights a restless, risk-taking global TV scene including shows about a gritty outback procedural, a Belgian near-future dystopian drama, and an offbeat British comedy featuring Michael Palin and some soothsaying homunculi. Published on March 22, 2026 (clockwise from top left): ‘Anatomy of a Moment,’ ‘Dustfall,’ ‘Small Prophets,’ ‘The Best Immigrant’ Movistar+/Federation Studios/Olives Productions/Sony Pictures Television ‘Anatomy of a Moment’ Image Credit: Movistar+ Spain’s turbulent democratic transition gets a forensic, almost procedural treatment in Anatomy of a Moment, a historical drama built around the failed 1981 coup d’etat that nearly returned Spain’s neophyte democracy to Fascism. Directed by Alberto Rodríguez and based on Javier Cercas’ bestselling account, the series features Money Heist star Álvaro Morte as Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez, one of the main instigators of the coup. The Moviestar+ series is a powerful, and timely, reminder that democracy often hangs by a thread. ‘Burden of Justice’ Image Credit: DR Sales Sweden’s legal system becomes a battleground in Burden of Justice, a contemporary drama that blends courtroom tension with the moral unease …

BTS Arirang review – 5 standout moments from their comeback album

BTS Arirang review – 5 standout moments from their comeback album

Published by Sam Flores

The album’s second half explores a different sound after the No.29 reset. Swim starts it off with an alternative pop kick while Merry Go Round, produced by Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, blends dreamy synths with psychedelic pop influences, while Normal – produced by Ryan Tedder – leans into pop-rock as it reflects on life both in and out of the spotlight. Like Animals introduces a grungier edge with a sultry tone and electric guitar outro, followed by a clapback to critics in the jazzy-pop They Don’t Know ‘Bout Us, before heading into the house-infused pop track One More Night. Then, it goes into Please, a love letter to ARMYs before heading into an experimental yet cathartic end with Into The Sun.  Just like that, Arirang proves it’s the kind of album that refuses to sit still. Whatever the listener’s taste, there will be something for them. 5. AN UNMISTAKABLY BTS ALBUM Perhaps the most striking aspect of Arirang is how firmly it centres BTS as a collective. After more than three years away from the …