Film · Prime Video · 2016

The BFG

A protector, a child, and a clear line about who eats whom. Dahl, softened, still sound.

The BFG's greatness is not his size. It is that he refuses the diet of the other giants. Sophie is an orphan who has had to be sharp, and the film lets her be sharp without making every adult a clown. The queen, of all people, is competent. The man-eating giants are not misunderstood. They are hungry for the wrong thing, and they are stopped.

Dreams are bottled and delivered. That is whimsy. The moral is plain: strength is for guarding, not for swallowing. A child who can handle a mild fright can watch it. Sit with them.

The eight

Industry
6/10
Dream-catching is a craft. The queen's household actually functions.
Household
7/10
An orphan finds a guardian. He learns to be one.
Piety
4/10
Wonder, and a palace that still has duties.
Courage
8/10
The small girl and the gentle giant both go toward the eaters.
Republic
6/10
They appeal to a real authority instead of becoming vigilantes forever.
Temperance
8/10
Appetite is the other giants' whole character, and it is condemned.
Truth
7/10
He tells her the truth about what they eat.
Stewardship
8/10
A strong creature spends his strength on a child.

Live historicallyBe the large person in the room who is careful with the small one.

Film · Prime Video · 1942

Casablanca

Keep it. A private wound is not a reason to sit out the fight.

Rick's neutrality is a costume for a hurt. Ilsa did not leave for a whim, and the film is adult enough to say so without making either of them a villain of the heart. The letters of transit are a public good disguised as a plot device. When he gives them up, he is not choosing loneliness as a style. He is putting a marriage and a resistance ahead of a feeling that was real and is no longer his to spend.

Watch it with anyone old enough to understand a goodbye. Then refuse the poster version, where the love is the point. The love is the test. The point is that he gets on the right side of a war.

The eight

Industry
6/10
A cafe is a real business in a city of exiles.
Household
5/10
He honors a marriage that is not his.
Piety
4/10
Cynicism cracks. Little explicit faith.
Courage
8/10
He walks into the risk he had refused.
Republic
8/10
A occupied city, and a man who stops pretending it is only a nightclub.
Temperance
7/10
Feeling governed at the last minute.
Truth
8/10
Ilsa's reason is allowed to be true.
Stewardship
8/10
He hands the future to people who can use it.

Live historicallyDo one thing this week that helps someone you will not get credit for.