loss | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On “Black Panther” and the Limits of Exceptionalism…

Posted on November 11, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever this weekend, it seemed as good an opportunity as any to look at what sets the film apart from so many modern superhero movies.

Wakanda Forever is a superhero movie with an absent centre, built around the loss of actor Chadwick Boseman. Writer and director Ryan Coogler leans into this, building a superhero movie that is essentially about the limits of exceptionalism and the understanding that sometimes excellence alone is not enough to prevail. In a genre that is shaped and defined by power fantasies, Wakanda Forever embraces and explores a form of powerlessness that is radical within the confines of the superhero narrative, and one that grants the movie a thoughtful resonance in light of the years since the original’s release.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: black lives matter, Black Panther, black panther: wakanda forever, chadwick boseman, grief, loss, pandemic, the escapist, wakanda forever | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Guardians of the Galaxy” as the MCU’s Best Exploration of Loss…

Posted on April 8, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist yesterday. With all the talk about how so much of the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe is about “loss”, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not a machine that is designed to deal with concepts like loss head on. After all, most of its major departures were down to contract negotiations rather than narrative priorities. Characters are often resurrected, and losses are often temporary. This is what makes Guardians of the Galaxy so compelling. Director James Gunn understands that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a space into which the audience and characters escape to avoid dealing with loss, even if it haunts them still.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: death, decay, grief, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, James Gunn, loss, the escapist, trauma | Leave a comment »

95. Into the Wild (#180)

Posted on August 25, 2018 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Jack Hodges, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode thrown in.

This time, Sean Penn’s Into the Wild.

Christopher McCandless abandoned a comfortable middle-class life in pursuit of something greater. His search would take him across the United States, impacting the lives of those he met along the way. His search would eventually lead him into the Alaskan wilderness.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 180th best movie of all-time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: Alaska, christopher mccandless, civilisation, into the wirld, jack hodges, loss, martyrdom, meaning, nature, nineties, pilgrimage, society, suffering, wilderness | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Visitor (Review)

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Darren

This February and March, we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily Tuesday through Friday for the latest review.

To my father, who is coming home.

Daddy’s home…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: ben sisko, deep space nine, ds9, fate, fathers, grief, Jake Sisko, loss, love, reset button, Sisko, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the visitor, time, time travel, visitor | 13 Comments »

Millennium – Blood Relatives (Review)

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Darren

This February and March, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the fourth season of The X-Files and the first season of Millennium.

Blood Relatives is the best episode of Millennium to air within the first half of the first season. It is an episode that seems to recognise the potential of a show like Millennium to be more than just a formulaic procedural, acknowledging that the show needs to find its own unique narratives in the same way that The X-Files did during its first season. Blood Relatives adheres rather loosely to the serial-killer-of-the-week format, but is rather more interested in the stories of the characters around the murders than in the murders themselves.

Blood Relatives is also notable as the first Millennium script written by Chip Johannessen. Johannessen would go on to become one of the defining voices of the show’s run, writing some of the best episodes of the first two seasons and steering the show through its troubled two years. Johannessen was good to Millennium, and Millennium was good to Johannessen. It transitioned the writer from shows like Married… With Children, Beverly Hills 90210 and The Monroes towards 24, Dexter and Homeland.

Not cut out for all this…

As with his next script, Force Majeure, Johannesson hones in quite beautifully on the potential of Millennium. Blood Relatives is an episode of television that is almost perfectly tailored for Millennium. While it retains the elements of a procedural, it is hard to image the episode working on something like Law & Order or CSI, more rigidly-structured television shows with clearer boundaries. Indeed, it seems like Johannessen recognised Millennium as a show spun out of Irresistible, and chose to play Blood Relatives on the same sort of themes about loss and dysfunction.

Blood Relatives is a superbly constructed piece of television, one that marks Johannessen as a talent to watch going forward.

Wading in…

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Filed under: Millennium | Tagged: bob beltcher, catherine black, children, Chip Johannessen, christ carter, death, funeral crasher, funeral crashing, Grave, grief, loss, millennium, murder, perception, voyeurism, x-files | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: My Sister’s Keeper

Posted on January 5, 2010 by Darren

Dying kids are a story device that should always be considered very carefully before you use them as a storytelling device. On one level it’s because it’s a very tough blow to deal the audience, but – on a more sophisticated level – because it can horribly misfire and seem like blatant emotional manipulation. Which, in fairness, all movie-making is – but you don’t want the audience cottoning on to that fact or you’re ruined. The illusion is shattered. Unfortunately My Sister’s Keeper isn’t smart enough to be aware of either of these risks in framing a story around a dying child suffering from cancer, so it smashes through both ideas like two large window panes before staggering blindly through the china shop of the tangental moral issues it raises. And yes, even those awkward and ham-fisted analogies I just fed you are more subtle than the movie itself.