Author: Walter Miedema

Black Panther is a fun, culturally savvy movie that is both critical of society and hopeful about its future. It uses all the tropes of the comic book movies that saturate the blockbuster market to offer up an empowering and positive portrayal of African culture. It will likely serve as a cultural touchstone for years to come.

How do we figure out who we are? And how do we find a space where we can truly be ourselves? It’s a learning process that goes on our whole lives. Moonlight explores these questions, through a window into three short periods of the life of a young African American man named Chiron.

You Want It Darker is Leonard Cohen’s last album of his lifetime. It treads the familiar territories of God, sex and death, but with the tone of a man who knows he’s nearing the end and has loosened his grip on them. They are all there, but not as in your face as they once were.

Communication is complicated. It always involves an attempt to mesh at least two ways of thinking that don’t line up.

Four years ago Adele brought us an album that at its core was a raw, angry, anthemic “I will survive” that reflected on the painful relationship that dominated the year that she was 21. Four years, a child, and a new stable relationship later she has given her newest album: 25.

Ex Machina takes its name from the phrase “Deus ex machina” (pronounced with a “k” not a “ch” sound). Used in ancient Greek theatre, it literally translates “God from the machine.”