For more than just those of us at www.deathatthemovies.com, it becomes increasingly  clear that in some way we all are riding a rising wave that has yet to crest and play itself out.. Involved as we are with a genre of motion pictures that has at its core theme our transition from life to death and whatever else may exist beyond that inevitable process, we observe that this transit state, what Tibetan Buddhists call the bardo, is indeed, even now, becoming more prominent in the collective consciousness of the American psyche. No longer avoided, the subject of death, dying and beyond constitutes a culturally pervasive conversation about the endless array of movies and television shows with zombies and vampires, a profusion of the undead.

We witness the burgeoning “Death Café’ movement spreading across America, and the recent Sundance Channel premiere of The Returned or Showtime’s Time of Death. Death is, for the nonce, a hot ticket. We can only hope and pray that this wave yields benevolent results.

Sad but true, death pervades our planet. Mankind faces extinction via the degradation of earth, devastating its own and only home while large segments of the world find that too slow and  choose to meaninglessly slaughter each other. In America, we lean to butchering truth and rationality. Looming is that symbolically ironic hope for a better future which arises at this darkest time of year, the advent of winter, Christmas-------and the rebirth it promises. So, come what may, my Christmas wish is that together we will  face what are enormous challenges with that resilient spirit within each of us that perceives and experiences an awakening of the good, the true and the beautiful -------and to one and all a very Merry Christmas and     a blessed New Year.

~ Tom Davis Genelli with the love and guidance of Lyn Davis Genelli and Amy Lenzo