Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Cure Of The Black Pearl

Instant “kids’Classics

Wall-E (2008)

I loved Wall-E, so so so much. It’s accurate portrayal of the future of planet Earth, the emotions Wall-E developed for work, the planet, it’s survival and mindset and of course for EVE. Most important to the story, that’s done in a way kids and adults can understand and see, is how Wall-Es development is all done by personal growth and kindness and effort. But this movie is overall for the benefits of kids, to see how automation can destroy them in the future both by not going out or connecting with others but also by relying too much on technology (that tries to keep the humans under their control).

Along with the overall notes to humans, I love that so much of this film has no words. The lack of words isn’t because Wall-E nor EVE speak a particular language other than robot either, but because a good portion of it is in solidarity or confusion there isn’t much we can understand by words—but we see their actions which show to be just as important as words, if not more

Up (2009)

Yo! Yoooooooooo, this film was a lot darker than expected. Forget the first few minutes of pure heartbreak, where the hell did this villain come from? I know Scar tries to kills Mufasa and Cruella De Vil captured people and pups for a coat, but still—this guy could have jumped out of the screen to get us—Ring style!

This was an instant classic for kids and adults, because it’s hysterical Carl and Russell are both funny on their own, but they also thrive together as two people who would have the same relationship regardless of their individual ages. Carl is trying to hold onto his youth and have some peace and Russell is trying to be an adult while also having an adventure. While they will usually have opposing ideas and views about things based on their own agendas they do have a similar mindset and will continue to be friends long after this adventure.

PS—Minions (2015), I love, love, love this film. It’s not particularly clever or emotional, just so funny. Even for the fact that the main food they like…is food that looks just like them—what?

Deangelo

Deangelo’s Best Moment: Season Seven, Episode Twenty-Three: The Inner Circle

When he brings up positive changes as negative changes in his (first) conference room meeting post-Michael:

The he plans to leave the office at 5pm

That the company will send Darryl to business school, full ride

He’s getting Toby a new chair

Ice Cream Thursdays

Deangelo’s Second Worst Moment: Season Seven, Episode Twenty-Two: Goodbye, Michael

When he cuts out two huge corners of the cake, eats one with his hands, and then leans in close to yell “No!” at the cake.

Deangelo’s Best Line: Michael’s Last Dundies

When he see’s Meredith’s place and tells Michael “This reminds me of Katrina”

DeAngelo’s Most Memorable Moment: Season Seven, Episode Twenty-Three: The Inner Circle

His fake juggling routine

Challenges to the Future

As stated, books are great at taking the reader in and allowing them to experience something new. In the late 2000s and continued today, multiple researchers find that while the Harry Potter series focused prejudice specific to the wizarding world (blood status, class, speciesism), children who had read the series had translated the messages of equality into their own lives and lessened their prejudices of class, race, immigrants and others.

With an easy skim, two of my favorite children’s books/series are on this list: Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling (of course), and The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. While this large list of 130 of the most frequently challenged books overall (2) does not give the reasons why by looking at the titles you can see these of Cuban-stories (anti-communism, immigration), children growing up (books that mention changing bodies, sex-questions), “attacks” on religion (books with a non-Christian focus: witchcraft mostly), and challenged due to LGBTQIA+ content are again about trying to keep children “pure” and to block them from learning about the world around them. The list focused on YA novels, noted as those written for a YA audience, with a YA main character or frequently on high school reading list (3) has a similar content of banned books but with the addition of some books that to some may just be traumatizing such as The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney and Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl.

We know these stories, fiction or non-fiction, can improve young people’s mental health by knowing they are not alone with their feelings or questions, and that introducing someone to a different culture and mindset will increase communication, open-mindedness and reduce violence. I can understand not wanting to children exposed to things too early, but for most and as with my parents, what was seen as too old for me was not accurate and more of a personal desire. We must also remember that children are stronger than we think and children who grow without a diverse experiences will lose out not only because they will have less in life to enjoy but that as they interact with those who are different they have shown to be afraid and become violent.

(1)    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-everyone-should-read-harry-potter/

(2)    http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/childrensbooks

(3)    http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/YAbooks

To remake, or to definitely not remake

Films that just remake the original (Red Dawn 2012), I don’t see the point of, why wouldn’t I just watch the original? Yes, sometimes we get confused because we’re stuck in our modern world (when first seeing a Walk to Remember—it never made sense why the doctors gave up so easily but I figured it was just what’s “in the script”, until I learned that the original story was set in the 1950s).  Remakes that take the older film (Dial M for Murder, Rear Window) and bring it into a new time with technological or societal, or political changes (A Perfect Murder, Disturbia) are not ripping off the ideas of the original but re-creating it.

I did not see Dial M for Murder and A Perfect Murder on the same night as usual with remakes but over the same weekend, giving time to reset my mind and put the movies as their own. In Dial M for murder, the husband’s plans are set in motion because he discovers his wife’s affair and doesn’t want to lose his lifestyle as he has just retired and feels betrayed. The resolution mostly happens because the husband messes up, not because of the watch or even that the wife lives, that he clears up pretty quickly—and even confuses leads the wife into giving confusing information so she looks guilty (whether intentional or not). But with ample opportunity, he doesn’t clean up the messes he could have changed, that would have let him get away. This is the same with A Perfect Murder, where with a little more patience, the husband would have gotten away with it.

In A Perfect Murder while the affair is still an issue, the main reason for the murder for the husband is his money issues at work, not really caring about his wife’s betrayal but as a way to come off clean about the murder. An added level that I didn’t care for (thou mostly out of pity for the wife—thou I guess she doesn’t deserve it) is in A Perfect Murder, her boyfriend gets involved while in Dial M for Murder he fights and fights to clear her name. What I do like, is that while in Dial M for Murder the police mainly figure out what happened, in A Perfect Murder the wife figures it out—saving herself twice.

Neither movie would be the same without the aspect of the key as the switcheroo, as both were simple and, I believe, brilliant stories. In the remake, there were the updates and changes of cellphones, characters’ intention and how the crime was solved—but the main thrill and suspense was kept, but this doesn’t always happen. I’ve seen both Red Dawns, 1984 and 2012 and I didn’t really understand the point of a remake. It’s not updated to a modern time and while the characters have more camaraderie, there is also less story, somehow. It’s just not worthy of a remake, and many agree.

PS-- I love how we know everything, but don’t know how it will all piece together or turn out

                                    Alyssa Alhadeff (14)                  

                                       Scott Beigel (35)

                               Martin Duque Anguiano (14)

                                  Nicholas Dworet (17)

                                    Aaron Feis (37)

                                Jaime Guttenberg (14)

                                   Chris Hixon (49)

                                   Luke Hoyer (15)

                                 Cara Loughran (14)

                                 Gina Montalto (14)

                                Joaquin Oliver (17)

                                  Alaina Petty (14)

                              Meadow Pollack (18)

                                 Helena Ramsay (17)

                                 Alex Schachter (14)

                              Carmen Schentrup (16)

                                    Peter Wang (15)

I don’t know these people, and now I never will. But I don’t have to know them, to know that they are pleading, they are crying, they are begging 

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

let me be the last one, let my death bring more than just pain. Talk about me, talk about how I died too young for no reason at all, about how I should have been protected

PLEASE, let me be the last one to join this club

** Side note: there have been comments about how survivors have “stepped up”; they have not stepped up. That is to imply this was their battle and their responsibility to handle; what they have done, is risen above. Risen above the adults those whose jobs it is to protect them and ensure their safety but discarded them and their safety, their innocence and their futures. So thank you, not for stepping up, but for rising above the rest of us and demanding more, demanding better for yourselves and others than others have for you xoxo

Best End Moments

1.  Season Six, Episode Ten: Murder

After the end of the Murder Mystery game(s) when Michael, Andy, Dwight and Pam are all still at the office, past six, trying not to get shot by each other because they all announced how they were double agents ….and Jim has to drag her away

2. Season Eight, Episode Twenty-Two: Fundraiser

When everyone thinks Kevin doesn’t realize his dog Ruby is dead because he tells them:

She’s doesn’t do anything, just lays there all day

She barely touches her food

She doesn’t really poop

She just lies there all day

He has to prop her eyes open to watch the tv

She smells horrible

3. Season Five, Episode Twenty-Eight: Company Picnic

When Jim and Pam find out they’re expecting

4. Season Six, Episode Twenty-One: Happy Hour

Hide’s story

“In Japan, heart surgeon. Number one. Steady hand. One day, Yakuza boss need new heart. I do operation. But mistake! Yakuza boss die. Yakuza very mad. I hide fishing boat, come to America. No English, no food, no money. Darryl give me job. Now I have house, American car, and new woman. Darryl save life. My big secret: I kill Yakuza boss on purpose. I good surgeon. The best”

5. Season Five, Episode Nine: Frame Toby

Dwight’s Perfect Crime

6. Season Three, Episode One: Gay Witch Hunt

“I was gonna quit, but Jan offered me a three month paid vacation and a company car. All I had to do was sign something promising I wouldn’t sue. We’re going to Europe. Kids, sometimes it pays to be gay”

7. Season Eight, Episode Twenty-One

After Ryan somewhat pours his heart out to Kelly in the parking lot, Pam searches the waste basket to find the love poem he wrote to her because of how bad Pam expects it to be but after reading the whole thing with Jim that they are both brought to tears Jim tells the camera team “Ryan can never know”

8. Season Eight, Episode Four: Garden Party

When Jim keeps leaving and re-entering the Garden Party so Dwight has to keep announcing him and knowing that Dwight is so committed to throwing a good Garden Party that he asks Dwight who he really think the best salesman in the office is and then timing to walk back into the party so Dwight’s answer comes out as “Obviously M—Mr. James Halpert!”

9. Season Five, Episode Twenty-One: Two Weeks

When after Michael and Pam quit, Charles puts Kevin on “phones” and to decrease the time wasting makes Stanley his productivity czar and be ‘on top of that’

10. Season Seven, Episode Ten: China

After Andy first texts Darryl about him and Michael wearing the same tie, Darryl tells Andy to text him less. Then when Andy texts him “Megan Fox?” Darryl holds Andy to one bad text away from getting blocked. Andy maintains his “good text status” by only next texting Darryl two pigeons eating ice cream.

For nearly a decade, Diana Ramirez hadn’t been able to take a book home from the San Diego Public Library. Her borrowing privileges were suspended, she was told, because of a mere $10 in late fees, an amount that had grown to $30 over the years.

Ramirez, who is now 23 and stays in Tijuana with her mother, attends an alternative education program in San Diego that helps students earn high school diplomas. To her, the debt she owed to the library system was an onerous sum. Even worse, it removed a critical resource from her life.

“I felt disappointed in myself because I wasn’t able to check out books,” Ramirez said. “I wasn’t able to use the computers for doing my homework or filling out job applications. I didn’t own a computer, so the library was my only option to access a computer.”

In April, Ramirez finally caught a break. The San Diego Public Library wiped out all outstanding late fines for patrons, a move that followed the library system’s decision to end its overdue fines. Ramirez was among the more than 130,000 beneficiaries of the policy shift, cardholders whose library accounts were newly cleared of debt.

The changes were enacted after a city study revealed that nearly half of the library’s patrons whose accounts were blocked as a result of late fees lived in two of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. “I never realized it impacted them to that extent,” said Misty Jones, the city’s library director.

For decades, libraries have relied on fines to discourage patrons from returning books late. But a growing number of some of the country’s biggest public library systems are ditching overdue fees after finding that the penalties drive away the people who stand to benefit the most from free library resources.

From San Diego to Chicago to Boston, public libraries that have analyzed the effects of late fees on their cardholders have found that they disproportionately deter low-income residents and children.

‘We Wanted Our Patrons Back’ — Public Libraries Scrap Late Fines To Alleviate Inequity

Illustration: Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR

That’s What She Said

There are many “That’s what she said”s throughout The Office (US)--but in my opinion, these are the best.

1.      Season Four, Episode Seven: Survivor Man

Michael comes back to the office and Jim tells him the day was rough as he tried to put all the birthday’s together. Michael tells him it’s fine, rookie mistake and that he’ll figure it out. When Jim notes he doesn’t plan on being there in ten years and Michael adds “That’s what she said” after first saying “That’s what I said”

When Jim follows up with “that’s what who said” Michael tells Jim “I never know” and he just says stuff like that sometimes to lighten the tension (as he just did with Jim).

 2.      Season Three, Episode Seventeen: Cocktails

When Jan internally realizes she’s becoming more like Michael as when speaking with the documentary crew about her insecurities with dating Michael and responds to the question “why is this so hard” with “that’s what she said”

 3.      Season Three, Episode One: Gay Witch Hunt

After outing and kissing Oscar, Michael remarks that even if he didn’t create social change ‘at least they put this matter to bed’ and then responds with his typical hokes of “That’s what she said…or he said”

Angela Martin

Angela’s Best Moment: Season Three, Episode Thirteen: The Return

When she invites Oscar to join the Party Planning Committee. I believe she does this as part of an olive branch because she feels bad about what happened with Oscar on some level, but also what happened to Dwight and that maybe overall there are some changes she needs to make.

Angela’s Worst Moment: Season Five, Episode Three: Business Ethics

When during the Business Ethics meeting she tells everyone how she once reported Oscar to the I.N.S. That’s bad enough, but to follow up with she’s glad she did it—not okay.

Angela’s Best Line: Season Three, Episode Twenty-One: Women’s Appreciation

 “Sometimes, the clothes at GapKids are too flashy. So I’m forced to go to the American Girl Store and order clothes for large colonial dolls.”

Angela’s Most Memorable Moment: Season Three, Episode Eighteen: The Negotiation

When she goes around asking various coworkers about what happened with Roy and ‘the fight’, getting people to tell her what Dwight did…because it turns her on.