Movie · Netflix · 2023

Nimona

A framed man and a kingdom's lie. The energy is a riot, and the lie is the part that matters.

Nimona is about a lie told by an institute, and the lie is real enough to care about. The film's answer is a shapeshifter who will not be told no, which a child can mistake for the moral. Older children only. Say that a false accusation is evil, and that being unable to take a form that lasts is not the same as being free. This is not a small child's cartoon.

The eight

Industry
4/10
A knight's training. The institute uses it to police a story.
Household
3/10
No household. A partnership.
Piety
2/10
The institute's holiness is a fraud. Nothing truer is put in its place.
Courage
7/10
He refuses the lie about himself at the cost of the only order that would have protected him.
Republic
5/10
A walled kingdom kept afraid of the outside. The film is right about the fear and vague about the order that should replace it.
Temperance
3/10
Loud, destructive, and pleased to be.
Truth
6/10
The official story is false, and an innocent man is the proof.
Stewardship
4/10
What it hands on is a suspicion of every wall. Some walls are load-bearing.

Live historicallyAsk who was falsely accused, and what the film offers instead of a law.

Movie · Netflix · 2000

Bring It On

A light movie that accidentally tells the truth about stolen work. The rest is a pep rally.

Torrance is the head of a machine that has been stealing from a Black squad in East Compton, and the film is sharp enough to make that the problem rather than a background joke. It is not sharp about much else. The romance is nothing. The body jokes are dated. The one scene worth a house is the one where she admits the trophies were not theirs.

Older children can watch it if you are willing to talk about credit: who did the work, and whose name went on it. Do not pretend it is a serious picture.

The eight

Industry
6/10
Practice is the plot. The theft is treated as a real offense against someone else's labor.
Household
4/10
Families are offstage. Teammates are the household, for better and worse.
Piety
2/10
No reverence. The spirit stick is the idol, and the movie half knows it.
Courage
5/10
She tells her own squad they are cheats. That costs her the room she liked.
Republic
5/10
Two schools, and the richer one has been living off the poorer one's skill.
Temperance
4/10
The film is horny in the way of its year, and proud of it.
Truth
5/10
The confession is the plot turn, not a footnote.
Stewardship
4/10
A routine is a thing you owe to the people who made it. The movie gets that far.

Live historicallyPut someone else's name on a piece of work they actually did, somewhere it will be seen.