The MCU’s newest entry, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, is Ryan Coogler’s follow-up to his 2018 entry, Black Panther, which launched its star, Chadwick Boseman, to the status of beloved icon. Taken from us far too soon, Wakanda Forever is about the characters processing the loss of their king, T’Challa as much as it is about…
Tag: grief
Age of Ash (2022) – Daniel Abraham
Orbit Books invited me to take a look at the first novel in The Kithamar Trilogy, a new fantasy series from author Daniel Abraham. Fantasy novels have always been a tough in for me, I enjoy Tolkien, have delved into some Terry Pratchett, and have been known to enjoy some fantasy entries in the ‘Young…
Midsommar (2019) – Ari Aster
Writer/director Ari Aster’s follow-up to his unnerving horror film, Hereditary, is another menacing, and ominous story, Midsommar. Florence Pugh stars as Dani, a traumatised young woman, who is dealing with personal grief, and a crumbling love life, when she learns that her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor) and a number of his buddies, some are doing…
TIFF 2021: Petit Maman dir. Celine Sciamma
Director Celine Sciamma delivers a gentle pontification of loss, family and understanding in this gentle, and quiet drama. When Nelly’s (Josephine Sanz) grandmother dies, she regrets the fact that she didn’t get a chance to truly say goodbye to her. While her mother (Nina Meurisse) deals with her grief, and the job of clearing out…
TIFF 2021: Dear Evan Hansen dir. Stephen Chbosky
Mental health. Suicide. Depression. Loss. Grief. Loneliness. These issues are usually trapped in the individual, and though a number of us share in these things, it’s never a shared experience. We are held in the prison of our issues, in a society where social media presentation, the illusion of life being better than it is…
Moonlighting (1987) – I Am Curious… Maddie, and To Heiress Human
Things heat up between Maddie (Cybill Shepherd), David (Bruce Willis) and Sam (Mark Harmon) this week in the penultimate episode of the third season, I am Curious… Maddie. Written by series creator Glenn Gordon Caron and Jeff Reno from a story by Ron Osborn, Karen Hall, Roger Director and Charles H. Eglee, this episode debuted…
The Changeling (1980) – Peter Medak
Next up in DK Canada’s immensely enjoyable Monsters in the Movies, is the classic Canadian horror (shot in Vancouver and featuring some homegrown talent), The Changeling, a wonderful addition to the ghost chapter I am currently delving into. After his wife and child are killed in an accident while on vacation, composer John Russell (George…
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1998) – Honor Among Thieves, and Change of Heart
Station log: stardate unknown Rene Echevarria pens this O’Brien (Colm Meaney) episode from a story by Philip Kim. It first aired on 25 February, 1998. O’Brien is recruited by Starfleet Intelligence to infiltrate an Orion Syndicate one of the largest criminal organizations in the Alpha Quadrant, and is required to befriend the man he is…
The Babadook (2014) – Jennifer Kent
The final film in the What Else to Watch list following my screening of Picnic at Hanging Rock for DK Canada’s The Movie Book is this terrifying Australian film The Babaook. A widowed mother, Ameila (Essie Davis) and her young son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman) are put through the wringer by director/writer Jennifer Kent, as Samuel’s…
Pet Sematary (1983) – Stephen King
This week’s great Stephen King re-read brings me the horror classic, Pet Sematary, which I read in the mid-80s, shortly after I had discovered the prolific writer. I remember greatly enjoying it, and being very unnerved by King’s riff on the famed horror story The Monkey’s Paw. This time around I was entertained by it, but…
The Mind Reels 