Learning You Deserve Rights

I saw a review complaining about how political this documentary became. And it made me mad, because what that person wanted was to see these people have a summer of belonging and not have to confront the fact that life has no place for them. Last week, the woman who lives across the street from me told me that too many people are cheating the system to get on disability. I pointed out to her that…

Werner He Ain't

Hacky jokes aside--seriously, if there are fifteen people before you who made the joke, maybe it's not as clever as you think it is--this is the story of one man who anthropomorphizes the hell out of an octopus. Yes, the octopus grew accustomed to his place in her environment. That'll happen. Octopuses (octopi is actually bad Latin, and if we were using that for pluralization it should properly be octopodes) are smart animals. It's definitely more than…

Another Lost Father Figure

Dear Roger,

It's not like you'd be surprised it wasn't nominated. I think we could have shared a grim smile, if you'd still been able to smile. No, of course Steve James wasn't nominated for Best Documentary Feature for this, even though it's better than Finding Vivian Maier. Leaving aside that there seems to always be one mediocre film nominated in the category, every year, we could share a grumble about Hoop Dreams. If you'd still…