My thoughts on Big Families

I grew up in a huge family of eleven children, and I hated it. I always have, and everyone else does. I'm not against large families, because sometimes they can turn out to be good things, but I am definitely not for it.

Of course, I am speaking completely from my experience. I know that not all families operate the same way mine does. I am just saying why I think that being in a large family isn't always a good thing.

For one thing, in my family, no one actually treats each other like family. We all just kind of act like we're a bunch of roommates who just kind of have to deal with the situation until we move out and escape the group. I mean, I don't remember the dates of most of my siblings' birthdays because, to be completely honest, when it comes to large families, there's only so many that you can keep track of. I mean, some of them have been moved out my entire life, and I don't even think I've said four sentences to my oldest brother. I know little to nothing about most of their interests or even their ages. It's always so much to keep track of on top of everybody elses. We hardly ever wish each other happy birthdays either because we forgot, or we didn't care about that particular sibling. It's sad, really. I have no idea how real families work because mine never treated each other special. Most of us have friends who are treated more like family than my actual family. 

Another thing: it has ruined basically everyone's lives. My mom parented the first few kids, waited for them to grow up, then let them raise the next batch, let them grow up, then let that batch raise the next one. Even SHE can't keep track of us. She has no idea about most of the things we do, or people we know. Nobody really cares about anyone in our family. We all have our little groups, where people do get along, but I'm not part of any of them. It's basically like eleven random people are stuck in a room and have to try to act like they are family. I wish I could see how a real family worked, since I do try to write quite a bit of fiction, but all of the families I write about are just like mine, and then when people online read some of my material, they complain that the family environment is far too unrealistic. I feel like I've been deprived of a lot of valuable memories and feelings by being in a large family.

Liberals and Tolerance

Okay. One thing that I hate about liberals is that they tend to say that they are tolerant of everyone. And, while they definitely are far more tolerant than conservatives, they are not tolerant for every single person.

For example. They aren't tolerant of Nazis. I'm not saying that Republicans are Nazis, but I'm just saying that Nazis are people who are basically universally not-tolerated. Liberals aren't tolerant of people who preach hate. They aren't tolerant of people who try to ruin people's lives. They aren't tolerant of the people who take away people's rights. They aren't tolerant of people who take advantage of others to get what they want.

So, as a message to liberals: PLEASE stop saying that you are tolerant of everyone!!! That would mean that you're okay with people like Trump, Putin, Stalin, Hitler, Jong-Un, etc. You don't condone their immoral behaviors! You cannot keep saying that you're accepting of everyone, because you clearly don't mean that!

But, as a message to conservatives: Although liberals aren't accepting of everyone, you are far worse. You segregate, you enslave, you stereotype, you hate. Liberals only hate people who are universally horrible people! You just hate anyone who doesn't agree with your narrow-minded, backwards opinions. 

So, in conclusion, liberals aren't accepting of everyone. If they were, they'd be supporting Nazis and communists. They accept people who are deserving of the same human rights as everyone else. Liberals who say that they are tolerant of everyone while hating people like Putin and Trump just make liberalism look bad for conservatives who support those kinds of people.

My Journaling Experience

I have been journaling ever since I could write (around four or five years old). Keeping a journal/diary has always been a thing in our family for a long time. We were never forced to do it; we just liked doing it. Most of our journals were just us talking about life, ranting, drawing pictures, and gluing/taping things in that we wanted to keep. It was never like the artistic stuff you'd see on Tumblr or anything. It was very basic. They turned out to be very entertaining after a few years, and it was always fun to read each others journals as well (although it was technically not aloud in our house, we would sneak into each others rooms and read the journals anyways).

I went on a bit of a journaling slump in the past year. I hardly ever wrote, and when I would write, it wouldn't be anything to interesting. It mostly just made me really depressed and so I wouldn't do it.

I also decided that I didn't want to draw or do anything BUT write in my journal, and that made it far less interesting and bland.

However, around the beginning of March, I decided to do at least two pages a day. I've broken that a few times already, yes, but it seems like one day, I'd do, like, half a page, then the next day I'd write eight pages. I have taken down all barriers on drawings and gluing things in, and, with some inspiration from the hilarious WhittyNovels, I am very much enjoying it again.

I have had the same old journal for three years now, and I really want to finish it by April 1st. It's a really nice hardcover one that I got from one of my sisters for Christmas one year. It's black, shiny, and even has a ribbon! At this point, though, it's starting to fall apart. Pages are falling out. The ribbon is just BARELY hanging on... yeah. I also have had another one just waiting for me since September. It's a spiral one, which I haven't had in YEARS, and it's also about the size of three or four standard notebooks put together. My mom got each of us four younger ones that kind of notebook at the start of the school year to use for schoolwork (need I remind you, we're homeschooled. 😒), but I decided to save mine to use as a diary, and I am really excited to use it.

Some people use journaling as therapy, as a creative outlet, or as a way to record their life story. I basically just do it because I love looking back on certain times of my life. I use journaling kind of like time capsules, and I love doing it that way. It's basically every kind of journaling combined. I talk about my life, I rant, I fantasize, I draw, I write down song lyrics and quotes, I glue stuff in that I want to keep, etc. It's really fun when you don't have any rules to keep you down. After all, journaling is supposed to be fun, not a burden. It kind of became a burden when I decided not to do anything but write, and I hated that. I don't really care what it looks like in the end as long as it's fun to look back on. :)

Rogue One Movie Review *SPOILERS!!!*

A little late to the Rogue One game but, here I am, anyways. This review will have no barriers on spoilers, so, if you haven't seen Rogue One yet, DO NOT READ!!!!

Okay, everyone else still here? Good. Now, I'll go through the things that I loved.

The effects

The special effects were definitely one of the best parts of this movie. They are the realest effects I've seen in any Star Wars film. Yeah, The Force Awakens' effects were done almost the same way, but the effects in TFA looked like "summer blockbuster" effects, where there's just so much effects, all looking clean and crisp, and being color graded to follow a strict color scheme. Rogue One's effects looked so real and physical, like they could actually be in that same space as the characters. It was very gritty, very realistic. 9/10.

The music

It seems like Star Wars fans are split about the music. It seems like either you love it or hate it. John Williams, as you probably well know, did not come back for this film, being replaced by Michael Giacchino. He only had four weeks to write the score, but the music doesn't really show it. The soundtrack is far superior to Williams' TFA score, in my opinion. Here are a few of my favorite pieces:

• Wobani Imperial Labor Camp
• Your Father Would Be Proud
• Hope
• The Imperial Suite

With "The Imperial Suite" being my favorite. It's right up there as one of the best Star Wars songs. 9/10

The political message

This film goes heavy with politics, and, unlike the prequels, it makes it interesting. It's obviously anti-Trump, with the antagonist being a white supremacist, and the main cast mostly consisting of people of color fighting against a totalitarian conservative government. People complain that Disney is going full-on feminist with both TFA and RO having female protagonists, but, the thing is, every other Star Wars movie had a male protagonist, so you must be really sexist if you're triggered about a female main character. Liberals get triggered about male main characters, yes, but it's just that we've seen them in almost every film ever made, and we'd like a little more diversity. 10/10

The humor

This movie is definitely one of the darkest Star Wars movies, but, in contrast, it is also probably the funniest, so it makes you feel a very broad range of emotions instead of just being a depressing war film. K-2SO is downright hilarious and Chirrut Imwe has a few humorous moments as well. A lot of people complain about the humor that Disney is now putting into the Star Wars films, but you guys complained about the lack of humor in the prequels, and Disney is trying not to be the prequels, so here we are. 8/10

Now for the negatives.

Tarkin and Leia

If you think I'm going to get into the ethics about resurrecting dead actors, I'm not. There's plenty of that online already. I think that if the filmmakers have permission from the actor's family, they can do whatever they want. But I'm going to talk about the effects themselves.

GRAND MOFF TARKIN: The motion capture was *good*. I never felt as though he was in the same physical space as the other characters, but there are a few shots that look fairly realistic. YouTube movie critic Chris Stuckmann said that Tarkin was just a little distracting, and I agree. There was never a single shot of Tarkin where I didn't think about the effects. 4/10

PRINCESS LEIA: Looks completely real and human. The best motion capture I have ever seen. The only problem? It really doesn't look like her. I mean, when they have side-by-side comparisons, it looks exactly like Carrie Fisher, it looks exactly like her, to the detail, but for some reason, it just... doesn't. It's really weird. 7/10

The characters

The thing about the characters is that they all felt far too passive. Yeah, they all die, but there's never really any weight to their deaths. I mean, yeah, they made me feel sad, but not, like, really sad. You never really knew much about them, which, in some cases, are really nice to add some mystery to them and make them interesting, but here, you just get a one sentence backstory for each character. They really don't have any personality, like the ones in TFA did, and nothing was really explored or explained. The acting in this movie is amazing, but the characters themselves didn't really help it. :/ 3/10

The editing

The entire pace of the movie changed so much, especially in the first two acts. Everything felt either extremely rushed, or extremely drawn out. The first act, especially, was really confusing and it kind of felt like we were being dragged around this world and jerked around so much, and you never could really acknowledge much before *GASP* OFF TO A NEW PLANET!!! It tried so hard to have this level of mystery like TFA had that it ended up ruining the movie. 2/10

So, all in all, I'd give it about 7/10. Solid movie. 

The Liberal Bias and "Fake News"

I am fully aware that most (not all) media outlets are liberal. I don't really mind, but there comes a time when I will (sort of) defend conservatives.

I don't really fully agree with how the media is now. It has problems. There are TV channels that feature news that is politically liberal, but socially conservative, or vice versa. I wish that all media outlets were socially liberal, treating every race, gender, or sexuality with respect, but more politically more diverse. Liberals are all for diversity, so why can't politics go along with it? No matter how corrupt or immoral the conservatives are, they still deserve reliable sources to get their news from. Fox News really doesn't count as reliable because of all of the fake news that they spew.

I feel as though it is easier for news to come off as liberally biased because a lot of stuff going on in the world supports the liberal views. You'd have to really dig for news that would support conservatives, that's why Fox News is so unreliable. They are always speculating and talking about theories or possibilities, and rarely actual facts. My conservative mother rarely uses actual facts to support her horrific views. She's always talking about how Hillary Clinton is a satanist, how Michelle Obama's real name is Michael and how Lady Gaga is just a transvestite. But that's how most conservatives are: they think that, since the media is liberal, all the news does is spew fake news. You must realize that these major media outlets like ABC News and CNN never report fake news. It can be biased, yes, but never would such reliable news outlets report false claims. If they would, they would be embarrassed, be sued, go off the air, I don't know. The press can technically report anything they like, but it should at least be true.

That's the thing: nowadays, when conservatives hear a fact that they heard on the news, they think it's up to their own opinion to figure out whether it's true or not. If it supports what they believe in, it's "true," and if it isn't, it's "fake news." They basically live in their own reality. A reality where they're always the victims and equality is bad, and one group of people were made by God to be slaves, and women were created just to be sex machines for men. It's sick. But, it seems like with conservatives, they're more afraid of being called racist rather than actually being racist. They like to claim that liberals are the racist ones because we favor blacks over whites. We don't. We think of everyone as equals. Here is a picture that describes exactly what I'm talking about:

This is exactly what I'm talking about. It's not racist. It's just making everyone equal, and conservatives don't like equality, apparently. Sad!

"Pleasantville" and society *spoilers*

Pleasantville is a 1998 sci-fi/fantasy/comedy work of art. It's hilarious, it has probably the best cinematography out of all of cinema (thanks to the brilliant DP, John Lindley), has a creative, thought provoking story, and it will change the way you look at the world. That's a lot. It's an extremely underrated film, and it deserves more attention than it receives. There's literally nothing wrong with this movie. But, out of all of that, it also has a strong, positive message to society. A message that many people who see Pleasantville will get mad about.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay. The movie is about a brother and sister, David (Tobey Maguire), and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon). David is a retro-TV nerd and Jennifer is the most popular girl in school. One night, there's a marathon of a fictional TV sitcom named Pleasantville, and David wants to watch that, but Jennifer wants to watch MTV. They get in a fight, and they break the remote. For inexplicable reasons, Don Knotts immediately shows up as a TV repairman with a new remote. After he leaves, they fight again, and accidentally press a button on the new remote, and are put inside the Pleasantville TV show. They are really confused and want to get out, but Don Knotts won't let them. David basically leads Jennifer through this black and white world, but soon Jennifer starts introducing the made-for-TV city to not-acceptable-for-1950s-TV stuff: sex. But now, since this town is introduced to new things, their entire world is beginning to change. It's not so "pleasant" anymore. The basketball team loses, for one thing, but the main thing is that COLOR is introduced, and they are shocked. At first, when people start turning to color, they think it's a virus, but soon it spreads everywhere, not just to people, but to flowers and cars. Now, Mayor Big Bob is angry at all of this and forbids color in his city, so all colored people must hide from his wrath. Then, there's a bit of a revolution, and suddenly *BOOM* the entire city is color!

There's not a single black person in the movie to show how ill-diverse the 1950s were, yet they were represented so well. The main message of the movie is that even though a person is a different color than you, they're still a person. But, of course, the low-ish average rating of the movie on IMDb is because of all of the triggered conservatives blasting about how liberal the movie is. Really, it's not like the movie is saying that conservatives are bad, in fact they never state anything about race or politics in the movie. These conservatives are angry that... that... *gasps* black people are people too!

I'm just going to summarize a few reviews from IMDb: There's one guy who said that it was too preachy for him, and he'd never let his children watch it until they weren't impressionable. There's another who claimed that it made them "sick and disgusted." There's yet another who claims that it's the most racist and sexist movie they had ever seen. One said it was made by "liberal bitches."

HAHA. I just came across this gem from a Jason Rodriguez:

this movie was a waste of 3 bucks it was so boring and it wasn't even funny. it was a disgrace to movies and I don't know why there were great reviews for the stupid worthless movie which was so dumb and liberal

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I just wanted to share it with you guys who should happen to come across this blog. LOL. I give this movie 5/5. Loved it. Loved the message. Loved the cinematography. One of the best films ever made. Flawless.

"The Godfather" Movie review

This is almost always hailed as the greatest film of all time. My thoughts?

Now, all art is up to your own opinion about whether it's good or not. Movies are art, and are subject to that as well. All of my opinions are my opinion, and yours are yours. It seems like such an obvious statement, but it's something to keep in mind while you read this review.

I feel so guilty, because I really didn't enjoy this movie. It had its moments, but it was very slow-paced and boring. I mean, the performances were cinematically perfect, the story was perfect, everything seemed absolutely flawless, except for the pacing. Maybe it was because I am young and really didn't care for a movie about crime and the Mafia and everything, but I felt as though this movie was an essential film for any budding filmmaker, so I watched it, and kept watching it. Again, it had its moments, and basically everything was so flawless, but maybe it was that perfection that bored me? Maybe it's the fact that while I'm watching a movie, I'm always catching little flaws like "Oh, that line was so poorly acted" or "Ooh, I can see the camera in that reflection there." And I always want humor in a movie to keep it entertaining, and The Godfather was a very dark, serious film that never made me laugh one bit. But, then again, Schindler's List never made me laugh, but it's, in my opinion, one of the greatest films ever made. But, that's because it conveyed emotions inside of me. It made me feel. It's not that The Godfather never made me emotional, it had some moments that made my eyes well up with tears, but most of it was drawn-out conversations. Maybe I'll appreciate this film when I'm older.