2017 Q1

Alcatraz is a teenager who grew up in the United States.  The US, along with the rest of the Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa, are the Hushlands, a region of the world controlled by evil librarians.  The rest of the world, the Free Kingdoms, knows about all sorts of advanced technologies, including magic glasses.

I couldn't get Johnny Cash out of my head, so I decided to see Logan.  I thought it was so-so.

For the first half of the movie, I felt like I was missing stuff because I hadn't seen all of the previous X-Men movies.  But no, it just felt that way because things went unexplained and because the movie didn't clue the audience in that they were supposed to be unexplained.

It was fairly slow for an action movie.  The action that was there wasn't stunning, and most of the movie wasn't action oriented.

In an interview, Brandon Sanderson mentioned that the inspiration behind The Rithmatist was, "What would it be like to be a muggle in Hogwarts?"

Under slavery, millions of people were uprooted from their families, discriminated against, denied basic rights, and killed.  Then slavery was outlawed, and under Jim Crow, millions of people were uprooted from their families, discriminated against, denied basic rights, and killed.  Then overt race-based discrimination was outlawed, and now with the US criminal justice system, millions of people are uprooted from their families, discriminated against, denied basic rights, and killed.  Absent cultural change, laws against discrimination don't end discrimination.  They just change its form.