While I didn't do every item in the Fun & Leisure section of our Best Of cover package, I did the majority of them (and a few random items in the other sections).

Best Of: Fun & Leisure

Best New Movie Theater
Cinema de Lux Ridge Hill
29 Fitzgerald St, Yonkers
(800) 315-4000
nationalamusements.com
The screens are big. The floors aren’t sticky. The sound is good. The seats are comfy. There’s a Ben & Jerry’s in the lobby. It shows classic movies on Mondays for only $2. But what really gets us excited about—and willing to pay the parking fee for—Cinema de Lux in Ridge Hill are the martinis. The on-site Studio 3 Restaurant & Bar takes the awkwardness out of where to go to discuss the movie afterward—you can stay right there, order a few drinks, some appetizers, a burger, a wrap, or a dessert, and argue about whether The Dark Knight Rises lived up to the hype.

New to Neu
The Neuberger Museum of Art gets a new executive director

When you think back on your experience in Cleveland, what makes you most proud? I made the contemporary art inside the Cleveland Museum as important as the other areas that are represented there. Before that, it was more focused on Old Masters and historical art. We showed that the Cleveland Museum can connect to living artists.

What are you going to miss most about Cleveland? I get very attached to communities. When you work in an institution, you first and foremost serve a community. Leaving is heartbreaking, but it’s a growing pain.

 
Culture, Etc.
Rufus Wainwright, Chris Isaak, a Dark Shadows festival, and more.

In honor of the upcoming 2012 Olympics, I check in on some past Olympic venues.

Old Olympic Venues You Can Still Visit

Tennispalatsi

Helsinki, Finland

Summer 1952

Not all sports arenas continue to host athletic events once the torch has left town. After the 1952 summer Olympics in Helsinki, the city repurposed some of its sports complexes into museums. The Olympic Stadium is now the Sports Museum of Finland (pictured) and the Tennis Palace is an exhibition space for the Helsinki City Art Museum as well as a movie theater.

Click through to see the rest of the slideshow at the Condé Nast Traveler.

Photo courtesy of the Sports Museum of Finland

Summer Fun

For June's cover story, I examined all of the ways to enjoy Westchester County in the summer. This includes biking, archery, going to a driving range, exercising outdoors, kayaking, joining adult-centered leagues for childhood games like kickballl and frisbee, charity walks and swims, aqua zumba, mega yoga, troubleshooting sunburns and mosquito bites, eating seasonal food, sampling ethnic barbecue, drinking fresh fruit-infused cocktails, eating ice-cream floats, going on picnics, finding cold-brewed coffee, taking one-off bartending classes, geoaching, finding the best arts events, playing in an all-inclusive orchestra, visiting a new arts venue, volunteering at local farms, gardening, finding free events, taking day trips, shopping sidewalk sales, wearing stylish sunglasses and flip-flops, and visiting the Summertime Hall of Fame. Phew!

Click through to read the story, or download the PDF above.

I asked local, independent booksellers to recommend books to read this summer.

Summer Reading

Motherland
Amy Sohn
August 14
Amy Sohn achieved infamy for her Park Slope-baiting Prospect Park West, and she once again has her sights on the rich and feckless. Motherland follows characters from Brooklyn, Cape Cod, and Manhattan through connected stories of infidelity, ambition, and reinvention. Of course, no Westchesterites can relate.

Click through to read the rest of the article online, or download the PDF above.

Home Theater
The Artist, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Wanderlust, and Safe House

Culture, Etc.
Michael Bolton, George M., Books Without Borders, the Caramoor International Music Festival

Of all of the slideshow assignments I've received from the Condé Nast Traveler to date, so far this has been my favorite to research and write. It's inspired a new travel goal: to visit as many World's Fair sites as possible.

15 Amazing Structures Originally Built for World's Fairs

The Crystal Palace
1851 Great Exhibition; London, England

 

Old Forts Make Cool Hotels—See These Photos for Proof

For the Condé Nast Traveler website, I created a slideshow old forts that are now hotels, from the Victorian-looking officers' quarters in San Francisco to a Kasbah in Morocco.

Cap Rocat

Mallorca, Spain

On a secluded peninsula in the Bay of Palma, Cap Rocat is a 19th-century military fortress that's been transformed into a 24-room hotel. You have to cross a drawbridge to enter, and the old "bunker," or gunpowder depot, is now the setting for cocktails or private events. But to get the best views of the bay, you should leave the bunker and peek out over the fortress walls on the rooftop terrace.

Click through to see the rest of the slideshow at the Condé Nast Traveler's website.

 

Photo courtesy of Cap Rocat

Dark Night, Dark Sea, Dark Wetsuits, 'Dark Tide'

The rest of Dark Tide picks up a year later, and clarity does not come with the passage of time. Mathieson, still saddled with guilt, has traded free-diving with sharks for a life as a safe-and-boring (and financially strapped) seal-watching tour guide. Her estranged husband and former documentarian Jeff (Olivier Martinez) returns with a proposition to make her some money and get her back in the water, taking a wealthy adrenaline junkie, Brady (Ralph Brown), and his son out to go swimming with sharks. Though Mathieson is angry with Jeff, haunted by Themba, opposed to shark tours, certain that the dive would be too dangerous for the inexperienced visitors, wary that mating season would make the sharks quick to bite, and hostile to the idea that she should give into the whims of a craven thrillseeker just for his money, she agrees to take him, anyway.

No, it doesn’t make sense. And it just gets murkier from there until the visuals of movie become as confused as the narrative, eventually devolving into an indistinguishable group of people in black wetsuits swimming on a black ocean against a black sky in a tumultuous rainstorm. Yes, that’s the climax of the movie—and it is near-impossible to follow.

 

Click through to read the rest of the review at PopMatters.

There's a Lot of Moviemaking Going on in W.E.

"...The jumps in time are not the only trick in Madonna’s directorial grab-bag. There’s a lot of moviemaking going on in W./E.. Madonna cuts a lot. She incorporates both 16 mm and Super 8 film. She pulls in tight on her subjects, honing in on faces, eyes, feet, and knicknacks with a not-so-steady steadicam. As the emotions get more and more heightened in the movie, the close-ups get closer, and the images shakier.

On top of all of those flourishes, she pans the camera constantly (usually as music swells in the background). In the one behind-the-scenes look included on the Blu-Ray—the sole extra feature, which lacks even a commentary—Madonna explains that her background in dance influenced her camera swirls and swoops, as she is inspired by “movement”. The intention definitely comes across, as she circles the camera around her subjects until it becomes almost dizzying.

Yet while the shooting style of the movie is very fluid, the look of the film also comes across as extremely stiff. Sure, half of the appeal of the movie is seeing Arianne Phillips’ costumes, especially with respect to Simpson, known for being a fashion plate in her day. (Phillips was nominated for an Oscar for her efforts.) But both Simpson and Winthrop are styled to within an inch of their lives. You never see errant locks of hair; their outfits are perfect. The extra feature included in the Blu-Ray notes that each woman has 30 to 40 costume changes throughout the film.

Their living quarters are similarly impeccably art-directed, thereby giving off the impression that no one actually lives in them. Madonna can move the camera as much as she wants—in the end, it still comes across like she’s filming carefully assembled magazine photo shoots."

Click through to read the rest of the review at PopMatters.