Here (2024)

Rotten Tomatoes

Here (2024): Heartwarming story about generations of families who lived in a single house. Story keeps jumping around in time. Some families get short shrift. Too much story telescoped into short scenes to feel the emotional pull of any. Feels like a gimmick. C-

Netflix

A Catalyst, Just Not the One Imagined

Source: Google Street View.

Staycation Coffee's current home

Catalyst: "a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction"

Example usage: "I'll be honest, I think this is a catalyst type project that will spur on to bigger, better things." — Mayor Bob Dubey, speaking of Polk Street Apartments.

City leaders have a fondness for the term "catalyst project." It's a buzzword that makes them sound knowledgable about the future. Do they ever go back and measure the performance of past catalyst projects?

The Wheel Award for Excellence in Motion Pictures

Source: DALL-E.

The Academy Awards will be given out Sunday, March 2, 2025. I've seen all the nominees for Best Picture. That means my opinion means something. Right? Regardless, I've ranked the movies in order of my preference for "Best Picture."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science uses ranked choice voting (RCV) to ensure that the winner has broad support throughout the Academy members. I wish US political elections used something similar (see proportional voting). But that's for another post.

My personal ranked choice of the Oscar nominees is based on the grades I gave the movies immediately after seeing them. In case of ties, I ordered them by my judgment today. Note this is not my prediction of which movie will win (Anora) but how I would vote, if I had a vote.

The envelope please. The winner of "The Wheel Award for Excellence in Motion Pictures" goes to...

Oscar Snubs

The 2025 Oscar nominations snub some worthy movies, as always. This year, the lowest grade The Wheel gave to a "Best Picture" nomination was a "B-". Eight movies received a better grade than that but weren't nominated for "Best Picture." The list of Oscar snubs of 2025 are...

Charter Review: Articles 5, 14

Artist: John Trumbull.

On February 20, 2025, the Richardson Charter Review Commission continued their review of the Richardson Charter, covering Articles 5 (Recall) and 14 (Initiative and Referendum).

(Still no video by the City to link you to. Mayor Bob Dubey slammed the door on that, saying, "Initially, I'll be honest, I said I don't think we even really need to discuss that." Forced to discuss it, and vote on it, he supplied the tie-breaking vote to reject video recording.)