Author: Overcoming Adversity | Buteau’s Odyssey

After dissecting the complex structures of a seemingly “perfect” family in the 2022 film Hatching, director Hanna Bergholm examines the difficult dynamics between parents and their new child in the new movie Nightborn. Seeming at first like an idyllic woodland fairy tale in which the madly-in-love Saga (Seidi Haarla) and Jon (Rupert Grint) move into their charming inherited house (which gives a whole new meaning to the term “fixer-upper”) deep within a Finnish forest soon becomes a nightmare when their newborn baby comes home with an insatiable thirst for blood and an unsettling connection to the ominous trees and nefarious…

Novelist Dale Kushner has entertained a lifelong fascination with the psyche. In her recent book, Wild Freedom, she notes that we can learn from fairy tales and other ancient stories handed down to us over the centuries. They present a record of universal human challenges—fear, jealousy, abandonment, betrayal—and offer a map to navigating these collective struggles. When all seems lost, we can find ourselves through stories. Can fairy tales and the unconscious mind help us navigate life’s challenges?For children as well as adults, fairy tales help us make sense of our lives. They speak the language of the unconscious through…

Get ready for a LOT of internet meme horror movies in the year ahead …… whether or not audiences ACTUALLY want internet meme horrorIt’s pretty obvious why Hollywood is suddenly infatuated with internet meme horror — all you have to do is look at how much money Obsession and Backrooms made at the box office.Since the silent era Hollywood has been the epitome of a “follow the leader” industry; if one thing gets hot and makes a lot of money, you can bet your top and bottom dollar that a whole bunch of other studios are going to try their…

In horror movies, there is always a trend. If one movie comes up with an idea, there are about two more movies from Hollywood with the same theme that follow. In the 2000s, Japanese horror movies were the big ticket, and American remakes came rolling in one after the other.  I remember when Ringu made entertainment headlines. Its story about a cursed videotape was considered ridiculous at the time, and many people thought the idea was absurd. Turns out, both the Japanese original (Ringu) and Gore Verbinski’s American remake (The Ring) became two of the most terrifying films since The…

Scroll through any dating app and one wish appears more than almost any other: “You should make me laugh.” It sounds harmless—charming, even. Who doesn’t want laughter in a relationship? But listen closely to the grammar. You should make me laugh. One person performs; the other receives. One is the comedian; the other is the audience. Before the first date has even happened, the job description assigns your future partner a role: supplier of your good moods. The wish for laughter is healthy. The outsourcing hidden inside it is not. What the Research Actually Says About Laughter and Love Laughter…

I think of my mother every day. She’s there when I cook the food she used to cook for me, when I smell the flowers she loved, and when I face a tough decision at work. Her voice arrives unbidden, in moments of both strain and joy, and sometimes it feels like we talk more than we did when she was alive. Psychologists have a name for this. They call it continuing bonds theory—the idea that a healthy relationship with someone we’ve lost doesn’t end at death. We continue to carry the dead with us after their passing: in memory,…

The yellow brick road has always been a promise. Stay on it, keep walking, and it delivers you somewhere better than where you started. That is the arrangement L. Frank Baum made with readers in 1900, and it is most of why the image outlived a century of adaptation. Dorothy: The Haunting of Oz invites you to follow it to Hell. That is the line the filmmakers use to introduce the first teaser, released alongside the official poster, and it is a fair summary of what writer-director Elijah J. Alvarez appears to be building. The film is billed as a…

The Minnesota Twins acquired left-handed reliever A.J. Minter from the New York Mets on Thursday ahead of Major League Baseball trade deadline on Aug. 3, per ESPN. In exchange, the Mets received two Twins prospects: third baseman Billy Amick, ranked 21st in Minnesota’s system, and infielder Bruin Agbayani, ranked 29th, per The Athletic.Minter, 32, has posted a 1-1 record with a 2.35 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 20 strikeouts, and one hold across 23 appearances this season. He provides Minnesota with left-handed depth in high-leverage situations, addressing a roster need following Anthony Banda’s season-ending left lat strain in June.The trade signals the start…

The zombie apocalypse is about to get a lot easier to binge. On July 30 Netflix and AMC Global Media announced a multiyear global licensing agreement that gives both companies co-exclusive streaming rights to the original The Walking Dead and all six of its television spinoffs. That means Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead: Dead City, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, The Walking Dead: World Beyond and Tales of the Walking Dead all land under the same arrangement. Seven shows. 371 episodes. The expanded deal starts in 2027, when the spinoffs arrive…

The argument ends the way arguments often do now: two people in separate rooms, holding separate phones. One opens a chatbot and types out the fight. The calm, understanding reply arrives in seconds. For a moment, the machine seems more understanding than the human in the next room. No one has yet measured how often this scene occurs; the research is young. But as people use chatbots to interpret arguments, draft difficult texts, and seek comfort at 2 a.m., a new question is emerging: When does AI help partners communicate—and when does it replace communication? AI can prepare us for…