Tag: end of life

Hard Miles

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 31 May 2024
No Comments on Hard Miles
Sticky post

Director – R.J. Daniel Hanna – 2023 – US – Cert. 12a – 108m

****1/2

A youth facility social worker takes a group of troubled young men on a transformative team bicycle ride – out on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Monday, September 2nd

Day-to-day life is one thing after another for Colorado medium-security correction school staff member Greg Townsend (Matthew Modine). He is in court defending, failing to get the court to see one of his charges as a human being rather than someone who committed an offence. Leaving, he finds someone has stolen his bicycle (it later gets found by the police, having sustained only minor damage). He is fielding calls from his prison-incarcerated brother about their father, who is in a care home and may not have much longer to live, and with whom Greg has not had contact for years. He is at the school, pulling boys apart as they attack each other for the most trivial remark.

However, not everything is about work and family responsibility. Greg is a cycling enthusiast, and is looking forward to taking his booked holiday of a week or more off cycling 1 000 (well, 762) miles to the Grand Canyon. Except that his boss Skip (Leslie David Baker) wants him to fill in that week, which Greg isn’t going to do.… Read the rest

Tags 1 000 miles, 762 miles, APB, backers, Based On A True Story, bike shop, care home, charity, coaching, Colorado, convict, correction, court defending, crutches, cycling, cycling enthusiast, Cynthia Kay McWilliams, Damien Diaz, desert, eating disorder, end of life, family responsibility, fathers and sons, funding, funding crisis, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Greg Townsend, high altitude, holiday, incarceration, Jackson Kelly, Jahking Guillory, landscape, leadership, leg injury, Leslie David Baker, Matthew Modine, medium-security, minibus driver, offence, offender, peloton, platoon team work, prison, R.J. Daniel Hanna, roads, school, Sean Astin, sheriff, Sierra Nevada, speed, sponsor, staff, theft, troubled young men, troubled youth, true story, US, Utah, wind resistance, work, workshop, youth offender, Zachary T. Robbins

Features Live Action Movies

Freud’s Last Session

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 10 June 2024
No Comments on Freud’s Last Session
Sticky post

Director – Matthew Brown – 2023 – UK – Cert. 12a – 108m

****

Celebrated psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud is visited in the last month of his life, living in Britain, by young Oxford don and Christian apologist CS Lewis – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 14th

September 1939. Chamberlain has issued his ultimatum to Hitler, and Britain waits to find out whether it will shortly be at war with Germany. Celebrated psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins), recently moved to Britain from Vienna to escape the Nazis, keeps turning the radio on and off in the hope of an update from the BBC. He is also expecting a visit from a young Oxford don, CS Lewis (Matthew Goode), “the Christian apologist”, with whose views he profoundly disagrees.

Lewis has written books including a parody of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress called The Pilgrim’s Regress, which is mentioned here, and the first book in his science fiction trilogy Out of the Silent Planet, which isn’t. He has however yet to either give his BBC broadcasts about the Christian faith, which will later form the basis of his most celebrated apologetic work Mere Christianity, or write his Narnia children’s fantasy novels.… Read the rest

Tags academic, Anna Freud, Anthony Hopkins, apologist, Austria, BBC, BBC radio, books, Britain, broadcast, Bunyan, celebrity, Chamberlain, Christian, Christian apologetics, Christian apologist, Christian faith, Christianity, CS Lewis, curmudgeon, debate, declaration of war, disagreement, end of life, escape, evening, fathers and daughters, Germany, health issues, history, Hitler, Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, lesbianism, LGBTQ, Liv Lisa Fries, Matthew Goode, medicine, meeting, Mere Christianity, Narnia, Nazis, Out of the Silent Planet, Oxford don, parents and children, parody, philosophy, psychoanalyst, psychology, radio, relationship, religion, science fiction, September 1939, Sigmund Freud, stage play, Stephen Campbell Moore, The Pilgrim’s Progress, The Pilgrim’s Regress, UK, ultimatum, Vienna, visit, war, welfare, World War II, World War Two, writer, WW2, young upstart

Features Live Action Movies

The Prayer
(Gan Ho-Joong,
간호중)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 24 October 2021
No Comments on The Prayer
(Gan Ho-Joong,
간호중)

Director – Min Kyu-dong – 2020 – South Korea – Cert. 12a – 108m

*****

Just how capable are caregiver androids of looking after their terminally ill patients? – thought-provoking science fiction from the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF), on now

In a vast, multi-storey building complex, end of life patients are attended by Caregivers, lifelike female androids programmed to perform all the necessary tasks of palliative care, their faces modelled after their purchaser. Manufactured by the German TRS Corporation, they come in a variety of models, including an entry-level type with only basic functions and a more advanced models which can cope better with patients’ needs.

One patient is surrounded by Christian friends of his wife loudly singing praise and worship songs, to the annoyance of those living in nearby units. Adherents of the Christian religion play quite a significant part in the narrative, with nun Sister Sabina (Ye Soo-jung) going round putting stickers wherever she can in these complexes inviting people to phone her if they want to pray.

They might well want to take up her offer. A lot of the patients’ relatives / carers could do with some sort of assistance. Mrs. Choi (Yum Hye-ran from Default, Choi Kook-hee, 2018; Memories Of Murder, Bong Joon Ho, 2003) has sold the family home to pay for a Caregiver (also Yum Hye-ran) for her dementia-stricken husband (Yoon Kyung-ho from Okja, Bong Joon Ho, 2017).… Read the rest