Living with Dignity in My Own Breathing

cw: sexual assault and a bunch of horrible shit What does it mean to live with dignity? To keep fighting even when it’s gone nowhere? To live in obscurity, defining life on your own terms? To have your life stolen by racists to give to someone else? That is what I think of when I watch “My Own Breathing”, the third and final film in a trilogy about girls forced into sex slavery for Japanese soldiers during World War 2.

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Monsters, Inc. Thoughts

Monsters, Inc. weaves together 3+ stories that are all excellent. I took these notes but have little interest in expanding them. The phenomenal parental arc of Sully energy arc corruption/kidnapping arc Fossil fuels really do hurt kids. The story is even smarter now than it was 20 years ago. mike and sully as PARENTS not really a joke at the end they fight, they make up ‘you’re still not listening’ kid all that matters

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Public Domain Day and what could have been

Every January until Disney starts writing checks to Senators, a new crop of cultural treasures enters the public domain. The original Winnie-the-Pooh short stories and illustrations are public domain. You can write, animate, film etc. a new Pooh story or reinterpretation and Disney can’t stop you. Tigger is copyrighted a few more years, and you have to be careful to not incorporate later, still-copyrighted elements of the characters. Steamboat Willie, the first widely-released Mickey Mouse short, is set to go public domain in 2024.

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The 7 Most Underrated Movies I Saw in 2021

2021 was a wild and not good year for my movie watching. I spent most of it inside and spent a lot of that time watching movies. I would have liked to spend more time out and about. I also cut way back on games for a few reasons. And outside of some notable exceptions, I wasn’t watching much TV either. So I saw more movies this year (139ish) than ever, even one summer in high school when I wasn’t working.

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Loving The Polar Express as a Christmas-hater

I am not a Christmas person. Losing snow (thanks, climate change), a need for presents, Christianity, close family, and Santa is a quintuple whammy I’ve never been able to rescue the holiday from. And though I saw the movie and book as a kid, I don’t remember either being great. I think I saw both soon after I stopped believing in Santa so The Polar Express was pointless. A kid wants to believe in Santa, but obviously Santa’s fake so the central conflict doesn’t matter.

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