On the Nature of Being, Creation, & Beauty: Annihilation ("Movie Monday")
"Movie Monday"... A biology professor delivers her beginning-of-term lecture on the amazing replicative ability of a single cell… the building block of the entire universe A soldier—MIA and presumed dead—suddenly reappears… somehow altered by whatever experience he’s been through over the past year. And, a mysterious phenomenon—referred to as “the Shimmer”, due to its glimmering appearance—threatens to consume anything—and everyone —in its path… creating seemingly-impossible hybrids from that which it absorbs. So begins Alex Garland’s 2018 film, Annihilation . _ When biologist Lena’s (played by Natalie Portman) husband Kane (Oscar Isaacs) returns, she quickly goes straight from that shock to another, as he starts convulsing and spewing blood within minutes of his surprise appearance. It’s only after he’s been spirited away to a military hospital that she—and we—begin to find out what’s really going on: Kane—along with many others before him—was sent on a re