Author: Jay Bird

Depression is a serious medical illness where sufferers feel trapped and bombarded by overwhelmingly negative feelings. Symptoms of depression can range from a mild lack of enthusiasm to crippling negative feelings and even suicidal thoughts. Many filmmakers concerned with the human experience have portrayed various aspects of depression on screen. The movies are terrific empathic vehicle. (more…)

The movies have a lot to offer a retiree. More than just as an enjoyable way to spend a few hours, film can teach us about life and history. Retirement is simply the end of a person’s career. Living in retirement can be a great time to slow down and appreciate everything that life has to offer outside of the grind of work.

For the late film critic Roger Ebert, writing and thinking about movies was a way of thinking about life, and it was the way he enjoyed both. Ebert once wrote that, “it’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” Retirement as a subject in cinema often opens doors to ways of thinking and talking about important issues in an enjoyable way. (more…)

In dramatic terms, we are conditioned to feel sympathy for people who have long term disabilities. It’s an old screenwriting trick; if you have a character that is otherwise unlikable, strike them with a physical or mental illness and suddenly they become three dimensional.

The best example of this is Dr. Gregory House. Hugh Laurie’s otherwise unrepentant drug-addled jerk is saddled with a bum leg that causes constant pain. But David Shore’s show is a little smarter than the average one-hour network TV drama: House is fully aware he’s capable of getting away with more because people still pity him, and he Shore uses that as a springboard to explore some thematically rich ideas that normal television wouldn’t dare touch. (more…)

Ah, summer. This is the time when parents send their kids off to get their own vacation from domestic life. Children get to create beautiful summer camp memories and experience a bonding ritual in the woods. Alternatively, it’s the time when camp counsellors are picked off one by one by a masked murderer. Of course, the summer camp has long been the setting of many a slasher film. The remote location, the youthful, hormone-driven cast, the quiet of the woods just gives off the spooky atmosphere from the get-go. (more…)