Barricades, as we know them today, are thought to date back to the European wars of religion. According to most historians, the first barricade went up in Paris in 1588; the word derives from the French barriques, or barrels, spontaneously put together. They have been assembled from the most diverse materials, from cobblestones, tyres, newspapers, dead horses and bags of ice (during Kyiv’s Euromaidan in 2013–14), to omnibuses and e‑scooters. Their tactical logic is close to that of guerrilla warfare: the authorities have to take the barricades in order to claim victory; all that those manning them have to do to prevail is to hold them.  The 19th century was the golden age for blocking narrow, labyrinthine streets. Paris had seen barricades go up nine times in the period before the Second Empire; during the July 1830 Revolution alone, 4,000 barricades had been erected (roughly one for every 200 Parisians). These barricades would not only stop, but also trap troops; people would then throw stones from windows or pour boiling water onto the streets. Georges‑Eugène Haussmann, Napoleon III’s prefect of Paris, famously created wide boulevards to make blocking by barricade more difficult and moving the military easier, and replaced cobblestones with macadam – a surface of crushed stone. As Flaubert observed in his Dictionary of Accepted Ideas: ‘Macadam: has cancelled revolutions. No more means to make barricades. Nevertheless rather inconvenient.’   Lead image: Barricades, as we know them today, are thought to have originated in early modern France. A colour engraving attributed to Achille‑Louis Martinet depicts the defence of a barricade during the 1830 July Revolution. Credit: Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris. Above: the socialist political thinker and activist Louis Auguste Blanqui – who was imprisoned by every regime that ruled France between 1815 and 1880 – drew instructions for how to build an effective barricade Under Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann widened Paris’s streets in his 1853–70 renovation of the city, making barricading more difficult Credit: Old Books Images / Alamy ‘On one hand, [the authorities] wanted to favour the circulation of ideas,’ reactionary intellectual Louis Veuillot observed apropos the ambiguous liberalism of the latter period of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. ‘On the other, to ensure the circulation of regiments.’ But ‘anti‑insurgency hardware’, as Justinien Tribillon has called it, also served to chase the working class out of the city centre: Haussmann’s projects amounted to a gigantic form of real-estate speculation, and the 1871 Paris Commune that followed constituted not just a short‑lived anarchist experiment featuring enormous barricades; it also signalled the return of the workers to the centre and, arguably, revenge for their dispossession.    By the mid‑19th century, observers questioned whether barricades still had practical meaning. Gottfried Semper’s barricade, constructed for the 1849 Dresden uprising, had proved unconquerable, but Friedrich Engels, one‑time ‘inspector of barricades’ in the Elberfeld insurrection of the same year, already suggested that the barricades’ primary meaning was now moral rather than military – a point to be echoed by Leon Trotsky in the subsequent century. Barricades symbolised bravery and the will to hold out among insurrectionists, and, not least, determination rather to destroy one’s possessions – and one’s neighbourhood – than put up with further oppression.   Not only self‑declared revolutionaries viewed things this way: the reformist Social Democrat leader Eduard Bernstein observed that ‘the barricade fight as a political weapon of the people has been completely eliminated due to changes in weapon technology and cities’ structures’. Bernstein was also picking up on the fact that, in the era of industrialisation, contention happened at least as much on the factory floor as on the streets. The strike, not the food riot or the defence of workers’ quartiers, became the paradigmatic form of conflict. Joshua Clover has pointed out in his 2016 book Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings, that the price of labour, rather than the price of goods, caused people to confront the powerful. Blocking production grew more important than blocking the street. ‘The only weapons we have are our bodies, and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don’t turn’ Today, it is again blocking – not just people streaming along the streets in large marches – that is prominently associated with protests. Disrupting circulation is not only an important gesture in the face of climate emergency; blocking transport is a powerful form of protest in an economic system focused on logistics and just‑in‑time distribution. Members of Insulate Britain and Germany’s Last Generation super‑glue themselves to streets to stop car traffic to draw attention to the climate emergency; they have also attached themselves to airport runways. They form a human barricade of sorts, immobilising traffic by making themselves immovable.   Today’s protesters have made themselves consciously vulnerable. They in fact follow the advice of US civil rights’ Bayard Rustin who explained: ‘The only weapons we have are our bodies, and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don’t turn.’ Making oneself vulnerable might increase the chances of a majority of citizens seeing the importance of the cause which those engaged in civil disobedience are pursuing. Demonstrations – even large, unpredictable ones – are no longer sufficient. They draw too little attention and do not compel a reaction. Naomi Klein proposed the term ‘blockadia’ as ‘a roving transnational conflict zone’ in which people block extraction – be it open‑pit mines, fracking sites or tar sands pipelines – with their bodies. More often than not, these blockades are organised by local people opposing the fossil fuel industry, not environmental activists per se. Blockadia came to denote resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline as well as Canada’s First Nations‑led movement Idle No More. In cities, blocking can be accomplished with highly mobile structures. Like the barricade of the 19th century, they can be quickly assembled, yet are difficult to move; unlike old‑style barricades, they can also be quickly disassembled, removed and hidden (by those who have the engineering and architectural know‑how). Think of super tripods, intricate ‘protest beacons’ based on tensegrity principles, as well as inflatable cobblestones, pioneered by the artist‑activists of Tools for Action (and as analysed in Nick Newman’s recent volume Protest Architecture).   As recently as 1991, newly independent Latvia defended itself against Soviet tanks with the popular construction of barricades, in a series of confrontations that became known as the Barikādes Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Inversely, roadblocks can be used by police authorities to stop demonstrations and gatherings from taking place – protesters are seen removing such infrastructure in Dhaka during a general strike in 1999 Credit: REUTERS / Rafiqur Rahman / Bridgeman These inflatable objects are highly flexible, but can also be protective against police batons. They pose an awkward challenge to the authorities, who often end up looking ridiculous when dealing with them, and, as one of the inventors pointed out, they are guaranteed to create a media spectacle. This was also true of the 19th‑century barricade: people posed for pictures in front of them. As Wolfgang Scheppe, a curator of Architecture of the Barricade (currently on display at the Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation in Venice), explains, these images helped the police to find Communards and mete out punishments after the end of the anarchist experiment. Much simpler structures can also be highly effective. In 2019, protesters in Hong Kong filled streets with little archways made from just three ordinary bricks: two standing upright, one resting on top. When touched, the falling top one would buttress the other two, and effectively block traffic. In line with their imperative of ‘be water’, protesters would retreat when the police appeared, but the ‘mini‑Stonehenges’ would remain and slow down the authorities. Today, elaborate architectures of protest, such as Extinction Rebellion’s ‘tensegrity towers’, are used to blockade roads and distribution networks – in this instance, Rupert Murdoch’s News UK printworks in Broxbourne, for the media group’s failure to report the climate emergency accurately Credit: Extinction Rebellion In June 2025, protests erupted in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s deportation policies. Demonstrators barricaded downtown streets using various objects, including the pink public furniture designed by design firm Rios for Gloria Molina Grand Park. LAPD are seen advancing through tear gas Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Roads which radicals might want to target are not just ones in major metropoles and fancy post‑industrial downtowns. Rather, they might block the arteries leading to ‘fulfilment centres’ and harbours with container shipping. The model is not only Occupy Wall Street, which had initially called for the erection of ‘peaceful barricades’, but also the Occupy that led to the Oakland port shutdown in 2011. In short, such roadblocks disrupt what Phil Neel has called a ‘hinterland’ that is often invisible, yet crucial for contemporary capitalism. More recently, Extinction Rebellion targeted Amazon distribution centres in three European countries in November 2021; in the UK, they aimed to disrupt half of all deliveries on a Black Friday.   Will such blockades just anger consumers who, after all, are not present but are impatiently waiting for packages at home? One of the hopes associated with the traditional barricade was always that they might create spaces where protesters, police and previously indifferent citizens get talking; French theorists even expected them to become ‘a machine to produce the people’. That could be why military technology has evolved so that the authorities do not have to get close to the barricade: tear gas was first deployed against those on barricades before it was used in the First World War; so‑called riot control vehicles can ever more easily crush barricades. The challenge, then, for anyone who wishes to block is also how to get in other people’s faces – in order to have a chance to convince them of their cause.        2025-06-11 Kristina Rapacki Share

To Universal Monsters fans, the Dark Universe is everything we’ve wanted to see come alive in a horror theme park dedicated to the terrifying and strange. Without the films, there would be no Universal Pictures or the first Universal Studios theme park, for that matter. Epic Universe’s Darkmoor is a monument to the monster legacy at the studio, and it’s befitting of all the creature comforts in store for fans. The moment you enter, Danny Elfman’s score for the land echoes through the nooks and crannies of the cobblestone streets and bounces off the brick buildings. You’ll see little homages to various characters, such as Dr. Jekyll’s Apothecary, which we wish was a real shop. There’s a number of walk around characters that share the lore of the monsters, and you might run into the bandaged form of the Invisible Man, or even the Bride and the Monster. On the attractions, the first monsters of the franchise including the Hunchback of Notre Dame (look up when the bell tolls) and the Phantom of the Opera make their presence felt. The haunting worlds of original films are canon but do get expanded on in intriguing ways. When you meet the Monster you find out he’s just the Bride’s friend, and the experiment from the James Whale movie she was made for lies dead in the queue of Monsters Unchained. To really get the sense of what those stories would have evolved to in the modern day, you actively have to pay attention to all the small details. When you get there, Ygor asks you to volunteer to help Victoria Frankenstein bring glory back to the family name on her quest to control Dracula (yeah, good luck sis). And even the vampire familiars at Das Stakehaus echo the sentiment that there’s no tying that undead man down. Over at the Burning Blade Tavern ,you get more about the villagers’ sentiments about who the real monsters are in Darkmoor: the creations or the humans who seek to overpower them? I wish I’d been able to spend more time in the area to talk to every performer to get as much lore out of them as possible because it’s dense. And we only got a few hours there to gather as much spooky intel as possible and try the food and do the Darkmoor Monster Makeup Experience. I am already itching to go back! To an extent, for the casual theme park fan, it might be a bit much to really wrap their heads around when they ride Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment. You do get to see that Victoria has continued the work of her family name in many ways including making her own version of the monster. But there’s also video clips that play of her and Ygor capturing the Creature From the Black Lagoon and the Wolf Man—there might be more clips but we went through the queue rather quickly. I imagine that she thinks that by making some sort of Monster Squad she’ll live up to her family reputation but might be in over her head. We can’t wait to see how the world continues to grow as more people visit Darkmoor. Check out the gallery below to get a taste of the fun details and Easter eggs! © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo © io9 Gizmodo Epic Universe is now open at Universal Studios Orlando. Travel and accommodations were provided for the purposes of this review. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

This article contains some Mission: Impossible – The Final reckoning spoilers. In the most recent and supposedly final Mission: Impossible film, Ethan Hunt receives his briefing on a VHS cassette tape. That is a marvelous wink to the era in whichMission: Impossible, but these films have remained consistently at the zenith of quality blockbuster cinema. And through it all remains Tom Cruise, running, gunning, and smoldering with his various, luxuriant haircuts. Indeed, the first M:I picture was also Cruise’s first as a producer, made under the banner of Cruise/Wagner productions. Perhaps for that reason, he has stayed committed to what was once viewed as simply a “television adaptation.” It might have begun as TV IP, but in Cruise’s hands it has become a cinematic magnum opus that sequel after sequel, and decade after decade, has blossomed into one of the most inventive and satisfying spectacles ever produced in the Hollywood system. The final decade of the series’ run in particular has been groundbreaking. After five movies with five very different directors, aesthetics, and sensibilities, Christopher McQuarrie stuck around—alongside stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood. Together with Cruise, they turned the series into an old-fashioned, in-camera spectacle that harkens back to the earliest days of cinema. In the process, Cruise has added another chapter to his career, that of an onscreen daredevil like Harold Lloyd or Douglas Fairbanks. It’s been an amazing run, and honestly it’s a bit arbitrary to quantify it with any sort of ranking. But if we were going to do such a thing, here is how it should go… 8. Mission: Impossible II (2000) It’s hardly controversial to put John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II dead last. From its overabundance of slow-mo action—complete with Woo’s signature flying doves—to its use of Limp Bizkit, and even that nonsensical plot about manmade viruses that still doesn’t feel timely on the other side of 2020, MI:-2 is a relic of late ‘90s Hollywood excess. On the one hand, it’s kind of marvelous that Cruise let Woo completely tear down and rebuild a successful franchise-starter in the Hong Kong filmmaker’s own image. On the other, it’s perhaps telling of where Cruise’s ego was at that time since Woo used this opportunity to transform the original all-American Ethan Hunt into a god of celluloid marble. And make no mistake, there is something godlike to how Woo’s camera fetishizes Cruise’s sunglasses and new, luxuriant mane of jet black hair during Hunt’s big introduction where he is seen free-climbing across a rock face without rope. It would come to work as metaphor for the rest of the movie where, despite ostensibly being the leader of a team, Ethan is mostly going it alone as he does ridiculous things like have a medieval duel against his evil doppelgänger (Dougray Scott), only both men now ride motorcycles instead of horses. The onscreen team, meanwhile, stares slack-jawed as Ethan finds his inner-Arnold Schwarzenegger and massacres entire scores of faceless mercenaries in multiple shootouts. While gunplay has always been an element of modern spy thrillers, the Mission: Impossible movies work best when the characters use their wits (and the stunt team’s ingenuity) to escape elaborate, tricky situations. So there’s something banal about the way M:I-2 resembles any other late ‘90s and early ‘00s actioner that might’ve starred Nicolas Cage or Bruce Willis. Technically the plot, which involves Ethan’s reluctance to send new flame Nyah Hall (Thandiwe Newton) into the lion’s den as an informant, has classical pedigree. The movie remakes Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946) in all but name. However, the movie is so in love with its movie star deity that even the supposedly central romance is cast in ambivalent shadow. 7. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) Yes, we admit to also being surprised that what is allegedly intended to be the last Mission: Impossible movie is finishing near the very bottom of this list. Which is not to say that The Final Reckoning is a bad movie. It’s just a messy one—and disappointing too. Perhaps the expectations were too high for a film with “final” in the title. Also its reportedly eye-popping $400 million only fueled the hype. But whereas the three previous Mission films directed by Christopher McQuarrie, including Dead Reckoning, had a light playfulness about them, The Final Reckoning gets lost in its own self-importance and grandiosity. Once again we have a Mission flick determined to deify Ethan Hunt with McQuarrie’s “gambler” from the last couple movies taking on the imagery of the messiah. Now the AI fate of the world lies in his literal hands. This approach leads to many long expository sequences where characters blather endlessly about the motivations of an abstract artificial intelligence. Meanwhile far too little time is spent on the sweet spot for this series: Cruise’s chemistry with co-stars when he isn’t hanging from some death-defying height. In fact, Ethan goes it pretty much alone in this one, staring down generals, submarine captains, and American presidents—fools all to think for one instance Ethan isn’t the guy sent to redeem them for their sins. The action sequences are still jaw-dropping when they finally come, and it is always good to see co-stars Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, and an all too briefly used Ving Rhames again, but this feels less like a finale than a breaking point. If Mission does come back, it will have to be as something wildly different (and presumably less expensive). 6. Mission: Impossible III (2006) Before he transformed Star Trek and Star Wars into remarkably similar franchises, writer-director J.J. Abrams made his big screen debut by doing much the same to the Mission: Impossible franchise. With his emphasis on extreme close-ups, heavy expository dialogue dumps, and intentionally vague motivations for his villains that seem to always have something to do with the War on Terror, Abrams remade the M:I franchise in the image of his TV shows, particularly Alias. This included turning Woo’s Übermensch from the last movie into the kind of suburban everyman who scores well with the Nielsen ratings and who has a sweet girl-next-door fiancée (Michelle Monaghan). Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Your mileage may vary with this approach, but personally we found M:I-3 to be too much of a piece with mid-2000s television and lacking in a certain degree of movie magic. With that said, the movie has two fantastic aces up its sleeve. The first and most significant is a deliciously boorish performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as the franchise’s scariest villain. Abrams’ signature monologues have never been more chilling as when Hoffman cuts through Cruise’s matinee heroics like a knife and unsettles the protagonist and the audience with an unblinking declaration of ill-intent. Perhaps more impressively, during one of the franchise’s famed “mask” sequences where Ethan disguises himself as Hoffman’s baddie, the character actor subtly and convincingly mimics Cruise’s leading man charisma. That, plus introducing fan favorite Simon Pegg as Benji to the series (if in little more than a cameo), makes the movie worth a watch if not a regular revisit. According to more than a few critics in 2023, the then-newest installment in the series was also the best one. I respectfully disagree. The first half of writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise’s Dead Reckoning In terms of old school spectacle and breakneck pacing, Dead Reckoning is easily the most entertaining action movie of summer 2023’s offerings. However, when compared to the best entries in the M:I franchise, Dead Reckoning leaves something be desired. While McQuarrie’s counterintuitive instinct to script the scenes after designing the set pieces, and essentially make it up as they went along, paid off in dividends in Fallout, the narrative of Dead Reckoning’s first half is shaggy and muddled. The second act is especially disjointed when the film arrives in Venice, and the actors seem as uncertain as the script is over what exactly the film’s nefarious A.I. villain, codename: “The Entity,” wants. That this is the portion of the film which also thanklessly kills off fan favorite Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) does the movie no favors. Elsewhere in the film, Hayley Atwell proves a fantastic addition in her own right as Grace—essentially a civilian and audience surrogate who gets wrapped up in the M:I series’ craziness long enough to stare at Cruise in incredulity—but the inference that she is here to simply interchangeably replace Ilsa gives the film a sour subtext. Still, Atwell’s Grace is great, Cruise’s Ethan is as mad as ever with his stunts, and even as the rest of the ensemble feels underutilized, seeing the team back together makes this a good time—while the unexpected return of Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge is downright great. 4. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) There are many fans who will tell you that the Mission: Impossible franchise as we know it really started with this Brad Bird entry at the beginning of the 2010s, and it’s easy to see why. As the first installment made with a newly chastened Cruise—who Paramount Pictures had just spent years trying to fire from the series—it’s also the installment where the movie star remade his persona as a modern day Douglas Fairbanks. Here he becomes the guy you could count on to commit the most absurdly dangerous and ridiculous stunts for our entertainment. What a mensch. And in terms of set pieces, nothing in the series may top this movie’s second act where Cruise is asked to become a real-life Spider-Man and wall-crawl—as well as swing and skip—along the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It’s a genuine showstopper that looms over the rest of the movie. Not that there isn’t a lot to enjoy elsewhere as Bird brings a slightly more sci-fi and cartoonish cheek to the proceedings with amusing gadgets like those aforementioned “blue means glue” Spidey gloves. Even more amusingly, the damn things never seem to work properly. This is also the first Mission: Impossible movie where the whole team feels vital to the success of the adventure, including a now proper sidekick in the returning Pegg and some solid support from Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner. For a certain breed of fan that makes this the best, but we would argue the team dynamics were fleshed out a little better down the road, and in movies that have more than one stunning set piece to their name. 3. Mission: Impossible (1996) The last four entries of the series have been so good that it’s become common for folks to overlook the movie that started it all, Brian De Palma’s endlessly stylish Mission: Impossible. That’s a shame since there’s something admirably blasphemous to this day about a movie that would take an ancient pop culture property and throw the fundamentals out the window. In this case, that meant turning the original show’s hero, Jim Phelps (played by Jon Voight here), into the villain while completely rewriting the rulebook about what the concept of “Mission: Impossible” is. It’s the bold kind of creative move studios would never dare make now, but that’s what opened up the space to transform a novelty of ‘60s spymania TV into a ‘90s action classic, complete with heavy emphasis on techno espionage babble and post-Cold War politics. The movie can at times appear dated given the emphasis on floppy disks and AOL email accounts, but it’s also got a brisk energy that never goes out of style thanks to De Palma’s ability to frame a knotty script by David Koepp and Robert Towne (the latter of whom penned Chinatown) into a breathlessly paced thriller filled with paranoia, double crosses, femme fatales, and horrifying dream sequences. In other words, it’s a De Palma special! The filmmaker and Cruise also craft a series of set pieces that would become the series’ defining trademark. The finale with a fistfight atop a speeding train beneath the English Channel is great, but the quiet as a church mouse midpoint where Cruise’s hero dangles over the pressure-sensitive floor of a CIA vault—and with a drop of sweat dripping just out of reach!—is the stuff of popcorn myth. It’s how M:I also became as much a great heist series as shoot ‘em up. Plus, this movie gave us Ving Rhames’ stealth MVP hacker, Luther Stickell. 2. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) In retrospect there is something faintly low-key about Rogue Nation, as ludicrous as that might be to say about a movie that begins with its star literally clinging for dear life to the outside of a plane at take off. Yet given how grand newcomer director Christopher McQuarrie would take things in the following three Mission films, his more restrained first iteration seems charmingly small scale in comparison. Even so, it remains an action marvel in its own right, as well as the most balanced and well-structured adventure in the series. It’s the one where the project of making Ethan Hunt a tangible character began. Rightly assessing Ethan to be a “gambler” based on his inconsistent yet continuously deranged earlier appearances, McQuarrie spins a web where Hunt’s dicey lifestyle comes back to haunt him when facing a villain who turns those showboat instincts in on themselves, and which pairs Ethan for the first time against the best supporting character in the series, Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. There’s a reason Ferguson’s MI6 double (triple, quadruple?) agent was the first leading lady in the series to become a recurring character. She gives a star-making turn as a woman who is in every way Ethan’s equal while keeping him and the audience on their toes. She, alongside a returning Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, solidify the definitive Mission team, all while McQuarrie crafts elegant set pieces with classical flair, including a night at the opera that homages and one-ups Alfred Hitchcock’s influential sequence from The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), as well as a Casablanca chase between Ethan and Ilsa that’s the best motorcycle sequence in the series (if only they stopped by Rick’s). Also McQuarrie’s script ultimately figures out who Ethan Hunt truly is by letting all those around him realize he’s a madman. And Alec Baldwin’s Alan Hunley gets this gem of a line to sums the series up in total: “Hunt is uniquely trained and highly motivated, a specialist without equal, immune to any countermeasures. There is no secret he cannot extract, no security he cannot breach, no person he cannot become. He has most likely anticipated this very conversation and is waiting to strike in whatever direction we move. Sir, Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny—and he has made you his mission.” 1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) If one were to rank these movies simply by virtue of set pieces and stunts, pound for pound it’s impossible to top Mission: Impossible – Fallout (forgive the pun). A virtuoso showcase in action movie bliss, there are too many giddy mic drop moments to list, but among our favorites are: Tom Cruise doing a real HALO jump out of a plane at 25,000 feet and which was captured by camera operator Craig O’Brien, who had an IMAX camera strapped to his head; the extended fight sequence between Cruise, Henry Cavill, and Liam Yang in a bathroom where the music completely drops out so we can hear every punch, kick, and that surreal moment where Cavill needs to reload his biceps like they’re shotguns; and did you see Cruise’s ankle bend the wrong way in that building to building jump?! For action junkies, there was no better adrenaline kick out of Hollywood in the 2010s than this flick, and that is in large part a credit to writer-director Christopher McQuarrie. As the first filmmaker to helm more than one M:I movie, McQuarrie had the seemingly counterintuitive innovation to meticulously hammer out all of the above action sequences as well as others—such as a motorcycle chase across the cobblestones of Paris and a helicopter climax where Cruise is really flying his chopper at low altitudes—with stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood and Cruise, and then retroactively pen a surprisingly tight and satisfying screenplay that continues to deconstruct the Ethan Hunt archetype into a man of flesh and blood. McQuarrie also reunites all the best supporting players in the series—Rhames, Pegg, and his own additions of Rebecca Ferguson as the ambiguous Ilsa Faust and Sean Harris as the dastardly Solomon Lane—into a yarn that is as zippy and sharp as you might expect from the screenwriter of The Usual Suspects, but which lets each action sequence unfurl with all the pageantry of an old school Gene Kelly musical number. Many will call this the best Mission: Impossible movie, and we won’t quibble the point.

Old Montreal, with its cobblestone streets, rich heritage, and cultural vibrancy, is more than just a neighborhood?it's a true destination. Behind this energy, SDC Vieux-Montréal brings together over 2,400 passionate members, all dedicated to elevating this historic gem. When the time came for the SDC to modernize its website, they entrusted us with this ambitious project: to create a platform that truly reflects their mission and their community. The main goal of this redesign was to develop a digital tool that embodies the energy and business diversity of Old Montreal while meeting the needs of its community. The SDC wanted a modern and functional platform that provides easy access to practical information and tools designed to support its members. Key priorities included clear navigation, a modern design, and advanced features to better serve users. sdcvieuxmontreal.com

Once this was set up, I hit the triangle button, assuming that it would start cleaning. In fact, it was mapping the first floor, which I didn’t pick up as well as I should have, so then I had to keep picking up the Freo and it might have messed up the mapping, so I just had to remap it again once I downloaded the Freo Mind app.The map editing feature is very specific, you can merge rooms, add furniture management and carpet, and create no-go zones. You can also identify the floor material by room, which is very specific and includes the following: hardwood, tile, tatami, marble, and cobblestone. Freo Mind will adjust the humidity level and suction power to each material, which makes sense because clearly marble is not the same as hardwood floors. My kitchen has laminate floors, which is not one of the features so I have it run on hardwood floors throughout. The carpet is also clearly marked on the maps.The SpecsDimensions14"L x 14"W x 4.3"HSuction power15,000 PaMop typeDual spinning and scrubbingDustbin capacity2.5LSelf-empty docYes, and self-washing and dryingMulti-floor mappingYesWorks withAlexa, Siri, and Google HomeWhile the physical setup was pretty intuitive, the app navigation was much more challenging. I really wish Narwal included a special app booklet outlining all the features, because there are a lot and I had to learn trial by error.When I added a second map for the second floor, it took me a minute to figure out how to select the area that will be cleaned. I assumed it would be the entire space that was mapped, but for some reason it was a small square that needed to be stretched out across the entire space. Still, this is a good feature because it lets me select zones, say clean my bedroom but not my son’s room if he has Legos on the floor.Photo: Yelena Mroz AlpertPhoto: Yelena Mroz AlpertBefore each cleaning, I could choose the type of vacuuming/mopping features. There is “vacuum and mop,” “vacuum then mop,” “vacuum,” and “mop.” Since the robot vacuum uses Freo Mind, a feature that uses AI technology to go back to areas with remaining dirt, the mopping requires the machine to return to the station to clean the pads. Because the base station is on the first floor, that’s not possible, so I have only used the vacuum feature upstairs.The mop combo feature is great thanks to the drying capabilities. I have definitely left my wet-dry vac with a wet roller inside the cleaning closet to find it smelling musty and icky days later. Instead of standard mop washing and drying by hand, the app tells me the mop drying progress, which is a bit long, but it is quiet and does not interfere with my daily life so I don’t even think about it. The Manage Accessories feature tells me how many hours I have until brushes and mops need replacement. (You can buy the accessories pack on Amazon for a reasonable $30 for a 15-piece set that includes a roller, mop pads and HEPA filters. Additional dust bags and disinfection detergent are also sold separately.) My first reaction was that having to buy replacement pieces is annoying, but I bet if my basic robot vac had these, it would run better, and that’s just part of the functionality.

In 2017, interior designer Lisa Koch, who had recently finished decorating The Faena in Miami, met hotelier Jeff Klein at the Sunset Tower in Los Angeles. He hired her on the spot to freshen up the Art Deco landmark: “I was extremely drawn to Lisa because she wanted to respect the soul and listen to the history and bones of the building,” says Klein, who also owns notable properties like the San Vicente Bungalows and The Jane Hotel. Two years later, Klein and his husband, producer John Goldwyn, purchased a nearby 1937 property built in the style of a 19th-century French manor—and knew Koch could transform the interiors into an inviting and transporting oasis inspired by its original architectural blueprints.Interior designer Lisa Koch sits in the curved breakfast room. “I found this French 1960s chandelier at Carlos de la Puente in New York and sent a picture of it to Jeff,” she says. “He replies yes, go ahead—so I brought it back to Los Angeles.” The house project took her almost five years to perfect. “Jeff and I are quite aesthetically aligned,” Koch says. “We didn’t come into each room with a distinct vision but rather it unfolded very naturally.” With the help of architect Ward Jewell, nearly every inch of the house was overhauled, from the climbing rose-covered stucco exterior walls and dove gray shutters to intricate arched foyers and a walk-in walnut bar. A guest house was removed to maximize space for the gardens by landscape designer Lisa Zeger, and a large swimming pool was replaced with a smaller one at the rear of the property. Unstained French oak floors sourced from an old English country estate cover every room except the kitchen and gym, with each plank laid with uneven spacing to exude the sense they’ve settled, like the house, with time. “Our intention was to respect the integrity of the property so it didn’t feel like a 1970s house Halston could have lived in,” Klein says.In the living room, pigmented plaster done by hand and applied paneling on the walls were inspired by the late-1930s architectural appeal of the original house. “We added thickness to the walls to allow for paneled casing around the French door and windows,” Koch says. Above the fireplace encased in an Italian marble mantle from Jamb hangs an inset brass-trimmed antique mirror that reflects light from the gardens. The painting on the far wall is by Jean Dubuffet, while the sofas are from Roman Thomas. In the living room, dentil crown molding, pigmented plaster, and decorative paneling were added to convey the original 1930s architecture, while the walls were thickened to include detailed casings around the French doors. An inset brass-trimmed antique mirror sits above the Italian marble mantle by Jamb, while a Jean Dubuffet painting hangs beside the grand piano. Pocket doors lead into the library, where a chandelier that belonged to Lord Mountbatten vies with Rosie Uniacke periwinkle armchairs. “We had planned on making the walnut paneling dark and bought dozens of stain samples but in order to remove the cathedral wood grain patterns we had to bleach it out multiple times,” Koch explains. “But after we lightened it, it looked much better, so it was a happy accident.” Above the fireplace, a projector unfurls from the ceiling, allowing it to double as a screening room. A 1958 pen and ink watercolor by Jean Cocteau—the first piece the couple ever bought together—stands between shelves lined with antiquarian and art books. “John is a voracious reader and very particular about organizing his books,” Klein muses.Glass pendants from Gordiola hang above a 19th-century French table in the kitchen that had once been a small room with a fireplace and two sofas. Koch completely reconfigured the space to accommodate large prep stations, two Miele dishwashers on either side of a double integrated marble sink, and a walnut paneled pantry with sawtooth adjustable shelves. It connects to a butler’s pantry equipped with open shelving and a second Subzero refrigerator. A skylight and the pitched ceiling was installed to allow natural light to pour in throughout the day. A proper corridor bar was built into a hallway next to the pantry to replace the original smaller one in the library. Paneled in walnut, the interior glass shelving sits in front of an antique mirror illuminated by backlighting. Salmon marble countertops on the sink and bar mix with colorful Murano glassware on shelves along the window. A grid of antique European maps framed in burlwood on the walls nods to Klein and Goldwyn’s love of travel and history. The kitchen was completely reconfigured with a high-pitched ceiling and a skylight, where sea green pendants from Barcelona hang above a 19th-century French table and a pantry displays Goldwyn’s collection of copper pots and pans he found in the Cotswolds, Paris, and the Hamptons. A dark hallway off the kitchen became a breakfast room with curved floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lily pond and a 1960s candelabra. “We didn’t stick to any formula, but rather purposefully chose furnishings from various centuries and provenances,” Koch says. Pieces found during their travels range from chandeliers and busts bought at Flair in Florence to antique Irish dining room chairs and 17th-century Four Seasons goddess statues salvaged from a torn down European count’s palazzo which now line the pool.Alongside the curved windowed walls of the breakfast room, Lisa Zeder installed a circular pond with floating Egyptian lotuses, lily pads, and a bubbling fountain. Climbing vines, rosemary, jasmine, and lush varieties of flowering perennials in planting beds border the Belgian antique cobblestone terrace. “We wanted every room to have views of the gardens, so the original staircase was moved and reduced into a spiral shape with a banister I found in France,” she explains. An oval ceiling oculus was added above, as well as a proper foyer where Robert Polidori’s 1986 photograph of Versailles’s interiors hangs beside an antique table with carved lion’s paw feet. Leading into the primary sitting room (which had been an office), a nook with a George Smith sofa is surrounded by prints by English artist Rose Wylie. “They were cut out of an art auction catalogue and framed in burlwood—I’m not too grand to admit that,” Klein says with a laugh. In the primary bedroom, a four-poster by Rose Tarlow flanks a Francis Bacon lithograph and working marble fireplace. Three sets of French doors lead out to a balcony with aerial views of the gardens, terraces, and round lily pond.A loggia with four arches was installed to allow views of the terrace and gardens below, and the exterior walls are clad in stucco. Old Belgian pavers cover the floor while a wooden ceiling gives the space both texture and intimacy. Liza Zeder Design Group designed the arrangements of plants, ferns, and trees in antique pots. The furniture is a mix of custom and vintage Baker upholstered in Pierre Frey fabric. “The loggia truly connects the interior to the exterior,” Koch says. “We didn’t want anything in here to feel like it belonged strictly inside or outside.” A sense of quiet serenity radiates from a rectangular lily pond directly across from the front entrance to the house, setting the tranquil tone of the property. Verdant hedges, vines, and lush flowering bushes of white rain lilies surround its borders. An outdoor fireplace and seating area on the south side of the house adorns the upper terrace, where grass pavers reclaimed from Belgium imbue a geometric motif. The exterior furniture is Formations and McKinnon Harris. The much-frequented spot has become a calming respite for Klein and Goldwyn and often used whenever they’re hosting friends or having parties. Goldwyn, an avid gardener who can often be found with pruning shears in his pockets, and Klein collected all of the art together by trawling through flea markets, antique stores, or auction houses. Meanwhile, in a former concrete open box with irregular walls, a loggia with four classical arches and Belgian antique pavers was built in the downstairs entry hall with lush potted plants and succulents selected by Liza Zeder. “Every night, we sit in the loggia, turn on music, and have a drink while watching the sunset,” Klein says. “The light dapples across the gardens and the smell of jasmine wafts into the house—I look forward to it everyday.”The façade of the house remains largely unchanged since it was built back in 1937. The steel troweled, unpainted stucco exterior wall finishes were designed to patina and crack with age, French ardoise slate covers the roof, and three dormers inspired by the original architectural plans were refabricated. Climbing white, orange, and pink French roses from Rose Story Farm in Carpinteria cover virtually all of the exterior walls, blooming four to five times a year. Limestone steps and dove gray wooden shutters were added while the French copper lantern hanging above the door is circa 1880. Floor to ceiling shelves and cabinetry were installed in the primary sitting room to accommodate books and photographs. Chairs and a sofa from George Smith create a cozy reading nook underneath artist Rose Wylie’s framed prints, and French doors lead to a terrace that looks out to the back gardens. Goldwyn, a producer, reads at least two books a week—from novels to European histories—as well as countless Hollywood scripts. The sitting room also includes a hidden midnight kitchen. In the dining room, curved walls cladded in linen juxtapose a late-19th-century French dining table surrounded by antique Irish chairs upholstered in burgundy leather from Hawker. Klein and Goldywn found the chandelier at Flair during a trip to Florence, while the mauve silk rug was custom designed. “We open the French doors leading to the upper terrace surrounded by flowers during dinner parties—and you can hear the peaceful murmur of the fountain in the lily pond,” Klein says. Cased in light walnut wood paneling, the library features blue armchairs by Rose Uniacke, a 19th-century Italian card table that seats four, and a sofa and coffee table from Roman Thomas. In addition to the two tall bookcases, low shelves line the side walls to accommodate the hanging of art. Perched upon the Jamb fireplace mantel is a Jean Cocteau pen and ink watercolor from 1958. On the right, three sets of French doors provide direct access to the back garden. In the primary bedroom that adjoins the sitting room, an intricately paneled octagonal coved ceiling was built to add height and scale. A very pale pink plaster was applied to the walls while the furniture is a mix of Rose Tarlow and bespoke pieces all upholstered in cream velvet fabric by Nobilis. The doors flanking the bed lead to matching closets and bathrooms, while French doors on the south wall open out to a balcony. The lithograph is by Francis Bacon and a pop-up lift for a television comes out of the custom curved desk. One of the two identical primary suite bathrooms, which connect to the walk-in closet and the primary bedroom, features walls clad in full slabs of Calacatta viola. Unstained antique French oak sourced from an old country home in England used throughout the majority of the house covers the floors. “We added a pitched ceiling for additional height along with a Jamb hanging globe,” Koch adds. All the plumbing fixtures are Waterworks while the vanity was custom made. Painted in an obsidian dark green high gloss lacquer from Fine Paints of Europe, the downstairs powder room opens into a floor-to-ceiling mirrored alcove. Koch added traditional crosshead basin taps from Lefroy Brooks to the custom-made marble and bronze vanity with an integrated marble sink. The room looks out to the front garden while full marble slabs cover the lower walls and floors, imbuing a seamless visual high impact. The sconces were found on 1stDibs. The breakfast room off the kitchen furnishes a generous view of the garden due to the installation of a curved window. “The Paul McCobb dining chairs, which originally belonged to my clients, were restored and reupholstered in ultra suede,” Koch says. A French 1960s bronze chandelier hangs above the limestone dining table and, on the opposite wall, Koch designed floor-to-ceiling cabinets to accommodate a collection of 19th-century silver and crystal glassware. A view of the back exterior of the house, which now features a loggia leading out to a rolling lawn and lush leafy gardens. To maximize the space of the gardens, a guest suite that had been added in the 1990s was removed from the north side of the house. All the landscaping and plantings were designed by Lisa Zeder Design Group. Below the terraces, Zeder set twelve linear Platanus x Acerifolia trees into beds teeming with green and white plantings—creating an homage to the style of old estate gardens in France and Italy.

Looking back, there are a few mistakes I made while traveling internationally with my grandma. Emily Schlorf 2025-05-13T14:12:01Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? In summer 2024, I traveled with my grandma, mom, and sister to Montreal. I wish I'd thought more about my grandma's physical needs when planning the itinerary. It would've been nice to have more downtime in our schedule, too. Despite living 1,800 miles apart, my 81-year-old grandma and I have always been close. We share a love for "Downton Abbey," cross-stitch, and strong coffee, and I couldn't imagine spending weeks in the summer anywhere but her sunny kitchen table in central Minnesota.Of course, I'd be naive to assume my time with her is unlimited. That's one reason my grandma, mom, sister, and I decided to embark on a trip to Montreal together last summer.Although I'm grateful we were able to take this trip, it could have gone a lot smoother had I known these three things about traveling with an older relative. The itinerary should have reflected everyone's physical needs, not just my own I should've considered how long it would take my grandma to get to excursions like our afternoon tea. Emily Schlorf I'm the most frequent traveler in my family, so I took on all the planning myself and approached the task the same way I do for solo travel: leaving no stone unturned.I thought my grandma would be well-prepared for the long days, given that she walks 3 miles a day and eats a far more balanced diet than I do.What I failed to consider, though, was how difficult it would be for her to walk on the uneven cobblestone streets. On our first day in the city, we nearly missed an afternoon tea reservation since I didn't factor in the slower pace we'd have to take to accommodate my grandma's careful steps.I also didn't realize just how exhausting a full-day Three Pines tour would be. Although fantastic — with stops at a monastery, local museum, and five-star resort for lunch — our visit to the villages that inspired the fictional location of my grandma's favorite mystery series was nine hours long. My family and I went on a nine-hour tour of Three Pines. Emily Schlorf As the day progressed, we took turns snoozing in the back seat of our tour guide's van. Upon arriving back at the bed and breakfast, my grandma exclaimed how long of a day it was; and I didn't disagree.Similarly, I didn't consider my grandma's physical limitations when choosing restaurants. Although they weren't lacking in ambiance — picture patios swallowed in bougainvillea and cool, brutalist interiors overlooking Lake Saint Louis — the dim lighting and small font sizes made it challenging for her to read the menu.My mom, sister, and I mitigated my grandma's vision issues by taking turns reading the menu aloud, line by line, but that got old fast.In retrospect, I wish I'd shown up equipped with solutions, such as finding the menu online so she could zoom in on my phone or reminding her to bring her readers, to improve everyone's dining experience. A long trip means extended time away from routinesEveryone gets to a point on vacation when they're ready to return home, but I would argue that the feeling is stronger for older adults like my grandma, who travel once or twice a year and may be used to a strict daily routine.Although my grandma never expressed this feeling to me outright, I noticed as the days went on, she became less game for her granddaughters' plans.For example, on our last evening, my sister and I wanted to check out the shops lining Saint-Laurent Boulevard, but my grandma preferred to have takeout in the hotel.We compromised, and my sister and I walked to the boulevard to pick up dinner, but we ditched our shopping plan since we felt bad keeping my mom and grandma waiting.I wish we'd had more downtime together One of my favorite memories from the trip was when we spontaneously visited a speakeasy. Emily Schlorf Instead of jam-packing every day with new experiences, I wish I'd taken my foot off the gas as the trip progressed — for my grandma's sake as well as my own.As we reached days five and six of the trip, my excitement for the activities I planned dwindled, and I found myself wishing I hadn't planned them at all.Besides, the memories I cherish most from the trip weren't the museums or guided tours, they were the unplanned ones: a shared bottle of wine with our bed and breakfast hosts, a visit to an outdoor antique market, and a nightcap at a speakeasy.Despite the challenges, I'd love to travel with my grandma again I would love to go on another trip with my grandma. Emily Schlorf To anyone contemplating a multigenerational trip, I say do it, but be more considerate than I was. Take time to plan the trip together, think of everyone's needs, and be content with slowing down.Strolling through the city hand-in-hand with my grandma, I learned that it's OK to leave some stones unturned, because the real joy comes from who you're turning them with. Recommended video