#BizTrends2019: 2019 at the movies

My original article here.

15 Jan 2019



Let's take a look at what 2019 has in store in the movies, shall we?

In tribute to the creator of worlds

On 13 November 2018, we lost the great Stan Lee, the man who gave us iconic comic book characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, and Black Panther. In tribute to this storytelling icon, we’re going to kick off our 2019 at the movies with all the comic book goodness in store for us.

“Unbreakable, what, you thought they'd call me Mr. Glass?” Are we allowed to still quote Kanye West? Anyway, we kick things off with M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass. The sequel to Unbreakable (2000) and Split (2016), making up the third part of the Unbreakable series. Bruce Willis returns as the superhero David Dunn and James McAvoy in the persona of The Beast and his other split personalities. Samuel L Jackson’s Mr. Glass serves as the villain that orchestrates events. Glass hits cinemas on 18 January.



Avengers: Infinity War left many cinemagoers traumatised by Thanos’s finger snap and we need to know how the good guys will make a comeback in the sequel. From the end credits scene, we do know that Captain Marvel is going to play a part in saving the day. So while we wait for the second part of Infinity War we can get ourselves clued up on Carol Danvers’s backstory in Captain Marvel on 8 March. Then bounce right over to DC’s Captain Marvel, who can’t be called by that name, Shazam. On 5 April, we get Shazam! The comic book movie we never really asked for. But here we are and at least it means we’ll see The Rock play Black Adam’s character somewhere down the line. The Hellboy series gets a more welcome revamp with David Harbour (Stranger Things) as the Big Red Demon. The film’s coming out guns blazing with an R-rating on 12 April. We get the Infinity War sequel, Avengers: End Game, on 27 April. You know, the story we’re really looking forward to.



Ah, the X-Men film series, where I have only the vaguest idea of what the timeline is. The 12^th film in the series, Dark Phoenix comes out on 7 June with Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) reprising her role as Jean Grey and unleashing the iconic Phoenix character. Apparently, our favourite neighbourhood Spider-Man survives that whole Infinity War mess, but he’s going to make it home late for supper and poor Aunt May’s worried. Spider-Man: Far From Home comes out in theatres on 5 July. The rest of the year gives us New Mutants on 2 August and Joker on 4 October.

“Go then, there are other worlds than these . . .”

It’s always okay to quote Stephen King. There’s more to the world than just comic book movies, so let’s look into that.

Remember that amazing 2011 French film, The Intouchables? It’s a pretty great film, right? Well, now you get to see it in American as The Upside, starring Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart on 11 January. Who understands French anyway? The Lego Movie gets a sequel on 8 February and How to Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World gets a 22 February release.



Jordan Peele brings us another horror film on 15 March titled, well, Us. Plot details are still pretty hush-hush for now and the film stars Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker. Tim Burton has not just been sitting around twiddling his thumbs either and 29 March sees his take on Dumbo. The film stars Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, and Eva Green.



As I said, you can never go wrong with Stephen King and Hollywood agrees. We get two movies based on his books in the form of Pet Sematary on 5 April and It Chapter Two on 6 September. Another movie that we didn’t know we want but it turns out we really do is Pokémon: Detective Pikachu! I can’t even front, you guys, I’m in. I’ll be there on 10 May to watch Pikachu solve things.



John Wick is not done killing his way through hordes of bad guys in John Wick 3: Parabellum on 17 May. Disney is still on a roll and Aladdin gets the live action treatment on 24 May; Will Smith gets the role of Genie. A living legend, Sir Elton John gets a biographical musical film based on his life in the form of Rocketman on 31 May, the same day we have Godzilla trampling a city or two in Godzilla: King of Monsters. You still have a friend in Toy Story in its fourth installment on 21 June.



The second half of the year brings highlights such as The Lion King in its CGI format, Artemis Fowl and Frozen 2. We also get a Quentin Tarantino picture titled, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on 26 July with the Manson Family murders of 1969 serving as a backdrop. The film stars names like Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, and Dakota Fanning. We get a Star Wars Christmas again this year with Episode IX on 20 December. JJ Abrams is back in the director’s chair in the closing chapter of the new trilogy.



That's that from me. Here’s to a great 2019 at the movies. Excelsior!

#YouthMonth: Check up on your "strong friends"

My original article here.

14 June 2018

In my last two #YouthMonth articles I've admired the youth for speaking that slick talk that we do and for our creative hustles. We're pretty damn golden! This #YouthMonth I want to address something serious, something that we usually avoid talking about and something I wrangle with personally.

As I write this I’ve just found out that celebrity chef and all-around television personality, Anthony Bourdain has committed suicide. Fashion designer Kate Spade also committed suicide recently. In the last few years, the world has lost Robin Williams, Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington, and many other people to suicide. I have lost two friends to suicide in the last two years.

RIP Anthony Bourdain

CNN has confirmed the death of American chef, author, and television personality, Anthony Bourdain, who was 61 years of age...

BY JUANITA PIENAAR 8 JUN 2018

When I was growing up most of the suicide stories on the news were people who were in debt or whose lives were ruined on a tragic Shakespearean scale. Depression, in its many forms, existed then too and many people who suffered from it did commit suicide but it wasn’t reported much and was surrounded by stigma. While there's still a stigma around depression and other forms of mental illness today, we’re moving forward and recognising it and talking about it.

Royce da 5'9"

The vocal generation

Young people are dealing with a lot of things and, contrary to what older people believe, life is difficult. We're standing on the shoulders of giants like umama uWinnie Mandela and we're trying our best to build the sort of society they envisioned and fought for. The older generation was made of tougher stuff, the stuff of legends really, but they did sweep some issues under the ol' rug and we're trying deal with those issues today. After apartheid, we didn't have the tough conversations we needed to and that can be seen in the racism and inequality that still plague us and we're plagued by sexism and homophobia.

We're the generation that is starting to speak up about things like the sexual abuse that women have been dealing with and continue to deal with. Our Truth and Reconciliation Commision is taking people to task and having them take responsibility everywhere we can, whether it's on Twitter, in the workplace or our universities. We're trying to build a nation here and every topic, no matter how uncomfortable, is on the agenda. Depression is definitely on the agenda because we need to take care of our mental health as much as we take care of our physical health so that we can get on with the business of nation-building.

Popular music dealing with depression

I've been listening to a lot of the new releases in popular music over the last months and I've noticed depression as a running theme with a lot of new albums, especially in hip-hop. J. Cole dropped KOD (Kids on Drugs, King OverDose or Kill Our Demons) in April and explores drug addiction in the music business and just in normal life as a result of modern society's pressures and depression. He goes on to recommend meditation over medication. The ever-controversial Kanye West has been seemingly losing his mind more than usual on Twitter making comments about slavery being a choice and praising a very problematic Trump. I've always been a fan of Ye's music because of its poignant tones of existential crisis. The dude was clearly busy in the studio whilst being crazy on Twitter, though, working on three projects: Pusha T's Daytona, his own Ye and his collaboration with Kid Cudi, Kids See Ghosts. 



On the latter two projects, Kanye gets into his struggles with mental health (the text on the cover reads: I hate being Bi-Polar it's awesome) and Kid Cudi's struggles with depression and suicidal urges have been in the public sphere for years. In a 2014 interview Kid Cudi stated, "I’ve dealt with suicide for the past five years. There wasn’t a week or a day that didn’t go by where I was just like, ‘You know, I wanna check out.’ I know what that feels like, I know it comes from loneliness, I know it comes from not having self-worth, not loving yourself." He checked himself into rehabilitation for depression and suicidal urges in 2016.

What really got me thinking about depression and mental health more than I usually do, though, was Royce da 5'9"'s Book of Ryan. He has a song on there, Strong Friend, in which he explores depression and suicide in some detail, especially among friends we think of as strong. These strong friends are usually the ones that are hurting the most and are barely holding it together. They keep their pain to themselves because of the stigma associated with mental illness. He encourages people, especially black people, to seek out help and for us to check on our friends more and not to think they're okay because they look okay on the outside. At the end of the song he quotes other personalities (and himself) in the entertainment business who've committed suicide or addressed mental illness:



Depression and other mental illnesses are serious and we have to address them the same way in which we would a disease that afflicts our bodies. Life is difficult for young people and many of us are strong and it amazes me how so many of us overcome almost insurmountable challenges in the pursuit of our dreams. Young people hustle hard but we must also take care of ourselves and our friends. Instead of making it difficult for people who struggle with depression we should create an environment where people can come and talk to us about their struggles. I love how people are sharing information on job opportunities, information on where to get psychiatric help, ways for women to access safe abortion clinics or pretty much anything helpful on Twitter in the form of RT to save a life. That's exactly how we should look out for each other. Check up on your friends this #YouthMonth and beyond, even if they seem to be strong on the outside.

Check out The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), they are SA’s largest Mental Health Advocacy Group.

You can find them on:
Twitter: @TheSADAG (RT to save a life), 0800 21 22 23 or 0800 12 13 14 (24Hrs) or sadag.org.

Audio Slave: Under the Covers

I think I should stop listening to Dia Frampton and Ed Sheeran cover other people's songs because at this rate I'm going to stop listening to other musicians entirely! This whole week all I've been doing is listening to many of my favourite songs covered by them.

Dia Frampton even covers R. Kelly's Remix to Ignition with her band, Meg & Dia, and it sounds super cool. The first time I heard her Dia was performing Kanye West's Heartless and that just won me over entirely. I wanted to marry her and raise 2.5 children and a dog with her right there and there. Well she was way over there in the US and I was over here in SA but still, we could've made it work.

Ed Sheeran is just amazing! I love his music. I'm about that life entirely. I listened to his cover of Bon Iver's Skinny Love and dug it with two spades. Then he also just goes and kills Rihanna's We Found Love. It's also cool that he reminds me of one of my best friends, Chris McWade.

Dia and Ed can sing all the songs in the world and I'll be okay with that.