The meeting of a giant inhabitant of the free nature of the Arctic with people is always a bright, unusual event. Once, walrus walrus Neseyka fell ill and was forced to come to people for help. An old Indian proverb and Russian fairy tales say the same thing: if you save an animal from death, it will never forget it.
Although Christmas is a time of year for love and cheer for all, holiday cinema has not always represented diverse communities. Being a holiday with Christian origins, much of its media consists of straight white families or straight white romances. Luckily, modern years have been bringing with them plenty of POC and LGBTQ+ representation that the holidays so desperately need.
In My Octopus Teacher, documentary filmmaker Craig Foster models healthy masculinity by showing us a trusting, gentle, and emotionally fulfilling bond with an octopus.
The Forge is a moving story about a young man’s search for purpose. Through mentorship, discipline, and faith in God, his life is transformed from confusion into clarity, reminding us that true greatness is shaped in the fire of surrender and growth.
An aspect of She-Ra that I find refreshing is even though a large portion of the cast is on the LGBTQ+ Spectrum, being gay is never mentioned. While this might initially sound like a negative thing, in the show’s land of Etheria being on the gay spectrum is shown to be so common and normalized that straight isn’t the default. As much as there is to appreciate about narratives revolving around the obstacles that may come from being non-heteronormative, it’s nice to get immersed in a world where no one bats an eye at all to any sort of differing identity.
She is being made to justify why she doesn’t believe he’s a feminist, instead of him having to justify his choice to claim he is one.
During the third act, the momentum stalls, largely due to the film’s obsession with Kubrick’s visual design. But all in all, Doctor Sleep is a cinematic success, defined by rich characters and high powered emotion.
