While waiting for my embroidery supplies to ship, I finished this square in the long-delayed t-quilt. I like how this turned out. I just wish I could do sashiko without hurting my thumbs. Perhaps there is a YouTube tutorial?
In another 15–20 years, I’ll get this t-quilt done.
p.s. I’ve just noticed that the top row has stitches between each hexagon and I did not add them in for the bottom row. Perhaps I will go back and do that. Someday.
Directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Shulman
Pre-review note: some people have questioned if this is a documentary or a pseudo-documentary. I’m in the camp of: Really Happened But Also Footage Recreated.
It’s quite handy when your good-looking brother provides you with the setup for an interesting documentary; in this case the brother, Nev, received a painting by an eight-year-old of a photo he’d taken. Back before the internet, perhaps a written correspondence might have developed, but in 2010* Nev connected with the girl’s mother on Facebook, and subsequently became online friends with the entire family. The strength of this documentary is not just that it coined a now-common term,** but the humanity in which all parties are portrayed.***
Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home
*When watching it’s important to transport yourself back to 2010, when we were just starting to talk about how accurate the online profiles of people are.
**Seemingly accidentally, as it’s an ancillary character telling a story that introduces the term.
***The confrontation scene in this movie could have been handled a number of ways: anger, villification, outrage. Instead it was done with compassion and resulted in an honest story that was the selling point of this film for me.
As of August 2011, the film has been hit with two lawsuits and, according to Catfish distributor Relativity Media, the film has an unrecouped balance of more than $8.5 million and will not likely ever become profitable. Both of these lawsuits have to do with songs used within the movie not being attributed to their creators.
(It’s important to do your due diligence with permissions.)
Directed by Julia Hart
Written by Julia Hart, Jordan Horowitz
The Venn diagram of this movie includes circles for dystopian* and super powers, but also includes a circle for created by a woman** and in these overlapping circles things don’t play out as one would expect.*** While there is some cat and mouse going on, plus some mystery, this is mostly a family drama, which makes for a nice superhero change. While I wasn’t convinced by a character’s choice at the end of the movie, there was a lot to like about this film.****
Cost: monthly Hulu charge ($12.99 with Disney+)
Where watched: at home
*No rain for eight years.
**Directed and co-written.
***It would be interesting to do a breakdown of the difference between movies with superheros and movies with characters with superpowers. Where does the power cross over into the hero category?
****Gugu Mbatha-Raw, for one. I’ve yet to see a bad movie with her in it.
They wanted to feature the women between the camera and their abilities as often as possible. Director Julia Hart says superhero movies, films with big effects beats, frequently put the FX first and leave characters off to the side of the screen. They instead chose to acknowledge that the characters are “extra ordinary”—a description Horowitz stole from Toussaint—and that they deserved to be front and center.
