The show takes a while to build up steam, but once it does, you can sense the tension in certain scenes -- thanks to the directing. Shots where the camera is following a character power-walking down a hallway or frantically looking for something capture the feeling of stress that comes from constantly flying around by the seat of your pants when the stakes are high. Holmes was like the blind leading the blind, and from the first episode, the show hints that it all comes crashing down  -- like watching a train accident in slow motion.

The film’s fractured narrative structure increases a feeling of disorientation; past and present selves run parallel to underscore that these planes of existence are inextricable; this has all been preordained; the story has already been told, and Aurora is merely moving toward her fate. Dialogue is delivered with a consciously unnatural cadence, which brings tension to every exchange, as if there is a subtext to every word which has to be deciphered.

I mention all this because it smacks of how on a recent Friday night my wife and I ate at a seafood restaurant, and when it came time to pay our bill, the server, throwing us both for a loop, asked if we wanted separate checks. It was as if we weren’t really together -- just as Putin seemed to be disconnected from the individual on the other side of the conference room. My wife and I both smiled sheepishly at the server’s question, but then my wife blurted out, laughing, “Excuse me?”

Driver’s success is predicated on his ability and willingness to portray emotionally vulnerable men. His career choices indicate his enjoyment of exploring the psychosis of flawed individuals. Take, for example, his Oscar-nominated performances in BlackkKlansman and Marriage Story. Spike Lee’s BlackkKlansman showcased Driver’s deadpan comedic timing, as well as his ability to subtly bring to life the character’s internal conflicts about racism. His character’s body language shifts from that of indifference to that of frustration as he witnesses racism and injustice.

In a speech on Feb. 21, 2022, Putin recognized the occupied territories in Ukraine of Donetsk and Luhansk and moved Russian forces into them. In his view, Ukraine’s independence is an anomaly – it’s a state that should not exist. Putin sees his military moves as a way of correcting this divergence. Largely absent from his discussion was his earlier emphatic grievance that an eventual spread of NATO to Ukraine threatens Russia’s security.

Later my father put on a gray sweater. We ate chili by a fire. We talked about baseball. My father smiled. He was growing a beard. One day he would be smiling in the Denver Airport of Death, but today he was smiling under normal non-death conditions; breathing without making fearful choking faces, with his bowl of chili, and his facial hair, that together signified peerless health and stability or something like stability.

Gore can a powerful visual tool when employed properly. While I wouldn’t say its use of gore is great, Scream 2022 employs its violence competently – especially, for the typical horror film. Overall, Scream 2022 is a fun time, and a joy for pop culture aficionados. I wouldn’t say the film is brilliant, but it does have wit and charm in spades, and serves as an excellent critique of a subgenre that has only just started, and is already being overdone.

Once these areas were established, Buettner and his team studied and identified the lifestyle characteristics that might explain the longevity of those living in each location, including their diets, levels of physical activity, social networks, views on life’s purpose and more. His findings are fascinating, but to make things even better, they are simple and often fun to achieve, particularly with the help of his most recent book, Blue Zones Challenge.

Another show inclusion that reflects the same spirit is Lee Krasner’s Still Life (1938). The influence of Hans Hoffman, the renowned early teacher and modern artist, is undeniable. He stretched the importance of negative space. Colors swirl, speeding in all directions at once in this work. The same could be said about Untitled (1942), from Charmion von Wiegand.

The adaptation translates this perfectly, instead of treating us to panels showing the things Vonnegut describes, the authors instead do what Vonnegut did and tell us a bit about the creation of the original work. Part of what makes the execution of this graphic novel so brilliant is that the authors do not pretend to write as Vonnegut, but narrate this portion as themselves, similarly to how Vonnegut narrates Billy Pilgrim’s story.