Let’s Talk About: Renfield

Posted on by Roger "Dodger" Piotrowski

Robert Montague Renfield has a problem – he hates and fears his boss. For years, he’s endured severe emotional, verbal, and even physical abuse from his employer, whose aggressive nature and increasingly unreasonable demands have taken their toll on poor Renfield’s sense of self. He yearns to be free of his boss’s influence, to establish some desperately-needed boundaries, and to become empowered to be his own person. To this end, he’s joined a self-help group of individuals dealing with codependent relationships in the hopes of finding freedom, and maybe help them with their own problems along the way.

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Let’s Talk About: Evil Dead Rise

Posted on by Roger "Dodger" Piotrowski

And I thought the Overlook Hotel’s elevator had a blood spill problem…

Evil Dead Rise is a supernatural horror and standalone entry in the Evil Dead series, which has completely eschewed its campier elements in favour of the sort of tone that’s designed to traumatize you for life (to be fair, everything that happened to Ash Williams in Evil Dead II was pretty traumatizing, blunted for us only by the slapstick elements and goofy delivery).

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Let’s Talk About: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Posted on by Roger "Dodger" Piotrowski

Finally.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 is the third and (hopefully) final installment of James Gunn’s wild and colourful Guardians saga, and the first Marvel movie I can remember seeing since Endgame (I’ve seen other Marvel movies since then, of course, but this is the first one I can actually remember). The titular Guardians have come a long way since we last saw them properly in Vol. 2 (their standout appearances in the final two Avengers and recent Thor movie notwithstanding) – Peter Quill is still reeling from the loss of Gamora, Rocket Raccoon has settled into something of a leadership role, Nebula is officially one of the gang, and Groot looks like a WWE wrestler with cardboard boxes taped to him (it’s a quaint look that probably serves as a callback to the rubber-suited aliens of classic sci-fi). Everyone is a little calmer, a little wearier, and a little more mature (a little). The plot kicks off with the sudden appearance of superpowered golden boy Adam Warlock, whose destructive attempt to kidnap Rocket at the behest of an old adversary results in him dealing a near-fatal injury to everyone’s favourite anthropomorphic trash panda. Unable to operate on Rocket due to a mysterious kill switch installed in his heart by whoever created him, the Guardians waste no time in setting out to retrieve the deactivation code and save their friend’s life.

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