March was Women’s History Month, so I looked for new movies that honored women and found Cabrini.[i]  It tells the true story of Frances Cabrini, whom Pope Pius XII canonized in 1950—the first U.S. citizen to receive such an honor. I admit it; I had never heard of her before I saw the movie. Here is the trailer for Cabrini:

Mother Cabrini was the youngest of thirteen children, born in a small village outside Milan, Italy. 1880 she established the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with seven other young women. She desired to travel to China, but Pope Leo XIII told her to go West instead. In 1889, Cabrini and her fellow sisters found themselves in New York City. The women immediately discovered the deplorable conditions Italian immigrants lived in. She tried establishing an orphanage and hospital but found little support from the local government or Catholic church. But with the help of a journalist, she brought attention to immigrants’ plight using the headline, “Even the Rats Have it Better” than Italian immigrant children.

The end of the movie summarizes some of Saint Mother Cabrini’s remarkable worldwide accomplishments, and she is deserving of our praise, especially during Women’s History Month:

Mother Cabrini became the Patron Saint of Immigrants. So, let’s shift gears and talk about immigration.

If you have listened to the news lately, you might feel that immigrants are overrunning America, especially at our borders. However, to fully understand the current situation, we must separate immigration from border security. In 1958, then-Senator John F. Kennedy wrote a book entitled “A Nation of Immigrants” to respond to the nation’s rising anti-immigration rhetoric. But the nation had been anti-immigration long before then. In 1924, the U.S. government enacted the National Origin Act. That law banned all immigrants from Asia. That’s right, all of them! The Act also limited the number of immigrants from every country to two percent per year of the number of immigrants living in the United States, according to the 1890 census. Why go back to 1890 in 1924? It was after 1890 that most immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe came to America. The Act was a deliberate attempt by Congress to keep out Jews, Catholics, and others seen as undesirable. But Senator Kennedy was right. We are a nation of immigrants, as almost every American can trace their roots back to an immigrant. Even Native Americans originally migrated here and were the first to do so.  

Here are a few facts[ii] about immigration in America that might surprise you:

• Although the percentage of immigrants in America is only 14 percent, that is more than three times the global percentage of 3.6 percent.
• Roughly 50 million people living in the United States were born elsewhere.
• According to a recent Gallup Poll, 160 million people worldwide would like to move to the United States permanently.
• The U.S., however, permanently admits only about one million immigrants annually and allows another three million here under temporary work programs.
• Of the one million permanently admitted each year, 60 percent are related to another U.S. citizen, 25 percent are admitted under employment preferences, and 15 percent are a mix of refugees, asylum seekers, and diversity lottery winners.
• Currently, there are about 10 million undocumented persons in America.

Why do 160 million people want to immigrate to America? For one thing, studies show that the typical immigrant can increase their earnings by 300 to 400 percent (and this is across the board, not just Asians).  

But immigration helps America as well. Immigrants are 80 percent more likely to start a new business than those born here. STEM immigrant workers were responsible for an increase of 30 to 50 percent in U.S. productivity growth between 1990 and 2010. Immigrants secure thirty-six percent of all patents. Immigrants have also founded about half of the current Fortune 500 companies. And if you watched Oppenheimer, you know that we never would have developed the atomic bomb without immigrants.

Another reason we should support immigration is because immigrants often do the jobs that Americans don’t want, such as construction, housekeeping, lawn care, and landscaping. It reminds me of what an Italian immigrant once said: “I came to America because I heard the streets here were paved with gold. But when I got here, I learned three things: the streets were not paved with gold; they were not paved at all. And I was expected to pave them.” Or, as another said in Cabrini as he protested the treatment of Italians in New York City in the 1890’s. “Don’t worry, they won’t kill me, for then, who would clean their toilets?”

Congress last passed comprehensive immigration legislation in 1990, and it has been deadlocked ever since. A bipartisan proposal could not gain the necessary votes. Somehow, Congress needs to figure out how to streamline the immigration process, allow more immigrants in, if only to work, and do a better job of securing our borders. But if we can accomplish those first two objectives, the borders will take care of themselves.

Here are a few of my favorite movies dealing with immigration:

Brooklyn (currently streaming on Max) is about a young Irish woman who migrates to New York in the 1950s. It is a love story at heart, but it shows some of the challenges facing immigrants, even when the language is the same, and the pull that the country of origin has on an immigrant. I also loved how those who immigrated earlier helped the new immigrant manage to live in their new country.  

Terminal (currently streaming on Paramount) is about a man from Eastern Europe who gets caught in red tape and bureaucracy and is not allowed to enter America. Instead, he must live in an airport terminal for nine months before he is allowed to leave. The film demonstrates how complicated the immigration process can be, even for visitors. But it also reminds us that behind all the documentation requirements are real people with exciting and sometimes heartbreaking stories.

Avalon (currently streaming on YouTube) is the fictional tale of a Polish-Jewish family that migrated to the United States early in the twentieth century. While first-generation immigrants often have one foot in America and one foot in their country of origin, their children and grandchildren more often than not become successful, fully assimilated U.S. citizens.

District 9 (currently streaming on AMC+) is science fiction, but it is an excellent analogy of how we often poorly treat those around us who are different, such as immigrants.

A Day Without a Mexican (currently available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video) is a parody of the typical day if there were no immigrants to do the labor that most Americans refuse to do themselves.

In closing, here is the final scene from Brooklyn.[iii] In it, Eilee returns to America after a trip to Ireland, where family and friends try to convince her to stay. As she helps a new immigrant on her way to America, Eilee realizes that America is where her life is now. And that is fine with her.

As we learned from watching Hamilton: “Immigrants! We get the job done!”

[i] Cabrini:

• Production Company: Francesca Film Production NY
• Director: Alejandro Monteverde
• Screenwriters: Rod Barr and Alejandro Monteverde
• Starring: Cristianna Dell’Anna, John Lythgoe and David Morse
• Release Date: March 8, 2024

[ii] Most of the facts in this blog post came from a series on immigration on the Freakonomics podcast.

[iii] Brooklyn:

• Production Companies: Wildgaze Films, BBC Films, and Parallel Film Productions
• Director: John Crowley
• Screenwriters: Nick Hornby and Colm Toibin
• Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, and Domhnall Gleeson
• Release Date: November 25, 2015

Those who know me well know that I’m a big musical theater fan. It started when I was eight years old, listening repeatedly to the West Side Story album while recovering from an illness, to going with my parents to musicals at the historic Pioneer Memorial Theater in Salt Lake City, to being a season ticket holder for many years at Casa Manana and Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth and Fair Park and the Winspear Opera House in Dallas. So, naturally, the story of Sherman High School’s recent production of Oklahoma caught my eye.[i]

For those who missed it, Sherman High School in North Texas decided to perform Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma as its school musical. But when the theater department cast a transgender youth as one of the leads, things got contentious. According to the school district’s administration, Oklahoma’s cast and even the musical itself were not OK.

The controversy centered around Max Hightower. School administration determined that Max, who is transgender, could not play a male part. And suddenly and unexpectedly, Max’s plight became a rallying cry for supporters of LGBT+ inclusivity and those trying to keep the imposition of Christian doctrine out of public schools.

But all Max wanted to do was do what he loved—perform.

In explaining the school district’s new policy, the district’s fine arts coordinator emailed parents, saying, “Roles will be assigned based on gender where males are cast as males and females are cast as females.” This meant that Max’s part would be taken away, and several young women lost their parts, as they were cast in male roles due to a shortage of male actors.

Max felt defeated, but Max’s mom, Amy, decided to fight back. She wrote in a Facebook post: “What Sherman ISD did today is wrong. Taking kids out of places where they feel comfortable, safe and where they fit in is wrong. Period. I’ll probably lose some friends and maybe even some family over this post and that is okay, but what I’m not going to lose is my unwavering support for my child.”

And suddenly, the story became national news.

Supporters lined up on both sides. An email to the school district superintendent supporting the school district’s decision said: “The student that lost their role in the play subscribes to an ideology that is a direct attack on the Christian values that we hold so dear. Now is a great time for men and women of faith like yourself to stand up and reclaim the name of the Lord in public education settings.”

When I heard about that email, I thought of another movie musical that takes head-on LGBT+ issues—The Prom.[ii] Although it is not based on a specific event, the people behind the musical had heard of repeated instances where same-sex couples had been banned from attending their high school proms. But many plot details came from the experiences of Constance McMillen in Mississippi, who was not allowed to bring her girlfriend to their high school prom. Like Sherman’s Oklahoma, the story gained national attention, with the ACLU suing on McMillen’s behalf. A federal court awarded her $35,000 in damages and required the school district to agree to a non-discrimination policy.

But it was not an entirely happy ending for Constance McMillen. She ended up moving to a different school due to harassment from her school peers.

The people behind The Prom had a purpose in mind. One of the film’s writers, Chad Beguelin, explained: “Our show isn’t about ostracizing people. Our show is not about telling people, ‘You are wrong.’ Again, it’s about listening and empathy and accepting…. It’s about love.” Ryan Murphy, the film’s director, posted on Instagram: “#THEPROM is for anyone who ever felt like an outsider, and for anyone who just wants to be their authentic self – which I think is a universal conceit. My greatest Christmas wish is that this movie brings a sense of hope and community to anyone who needs it in these troubling times.”

Here is one of my favorite scenes from The Prom:

I don’t have the space here to discuss the religious arguments against the LGBT+. But like The Prom, I hope we can “Love Thy Neighbor” enough to empathize and understand them and any other person marginalized by society for just being who they consider to be their authentic selves.

I admire the courage of anyone who “comes out,” admitting they are different from most of the rest of society, particularly those in groups who have been considered sinful and even perverted. Here is another scene from The Prom:

The Prom is currently streaming on Netflix.

Thankfully, most of us who are cisgender now know enough about gays and lesbians that we realize they are who they are and should be able to love who they love. But the same probably can’t be said about transgender people. At least not yet. But that might also be changing as their existence and acceptance become more widespread. Even the religion I was raised in, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a high-demand, conservative religion, has approved transgender baptisms, allows them to partake of the sacrament and hold certain positions in the Church’s organization, even though it has proclaimed from the pulpit that gender is eternal.

One of the best movies about transgender people is The Danish Girl,[iii] a fictional story inspired by Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. The film traces how Lili evolves to become a transgender pioneer. Here is the trailer:  

The Danish Girl can be rented on Amazon Prime Video.

Now, back to Oklahoma and Max.

The school board not only disallowed casting females at birth in male roles but considered the play itself to be objectionable, presumably because certain cast members had to kiss and a few lines contained sexual innuendos. But as a musical theater buff, I find it challenging to come up with a play that reflects traditional values more than Oklahoma.   

LGBT+ advocates rallied to support Max. Those supporters filled the hall at the next school board meeting, where they criticized the school board for its discrimination against transgender youth. One of Max’s classmates pointed out that Sherman High had performed Oklahoma just a few years back and did so without raising anyone’s concern. The concern only came when Max was cast. LGBT+ supporters also condemned the board for attempting to destroy one of the few refuges for these marginalized kids—the theater. They also reminded the board that men had played women’s parts in Shakespeare’s time.

Through it all, Max wondered what the school board was afraid of. He was not a monster or a protester looking for a platform. He plays the ukelele, practices American sign language, and feeds stray cats.

Under pressure, the school board reversed its position but, at first, only approved the performance of Oklahoma Jr., a stripped-down version intended for elementary and middle school performers. Ultimately, the school board changed its position again and allowed the play to go on as originally planned.

The battle for transgender acceptance and legal rights goes on in Texas and many other states. But Max got his chance to perform. His reward for his courage in all of this? Standing ovations, which is all he ever wanted in the first place.

[i] Much of the information and comments in this post about the production of Oklahoma is from an article by Talia Richman in The Dallas Morning News, January 28, 2024.

[ii] The Prom:

• Production Companies: Dramatic Forces, Storykey, and Netflix
• Director: Ryan Murphy
• Screenwriters: Bob Martin, Chad Beguelin, and Matt Sklar
• Starring: Meryl Streep, James Corden, and Nicole Kidman
• Release date: December 11, 2020

[iii] The Danish Girl:

• Production Companies: Working Title Films, Pretty Pictures, and ReVision Pictures
• Director: Tom Hooper
• Screenwriters: Lucinda Coxon and David Ebershoff
• Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, and Amber Heard
• Release date: January 22, 2016

One of my favorite movies of 2023 is The Boys in the Boat.[i] It tells the remarkable true story of an inexperienced eight-person rowing team from the University of Washington who competed in the 1936 Olympics against the best in the world, including the rowers from Nazi Germany, considered the best in the world—by far. The Germans had already won the gold medals in the single, two-man, and four-man team rowing events in those Olympics. The only race left was the eight-man team event for a clean sweep of all the rowing medals.

Here is the trailer for the film:

Back then, rowing was considered a major sport, and the public attended, or more likely listened to, the races on the radio, similar to how we might watch the NBA on television today. Like today, sports fans loved the underdog—those little Davids who somehow took on and conquered the goliaths of sports.

The 1936 Olympics are better known for the feats of African-American Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at those games and single-handedly crushed Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy. Owens delivers one of my two favorite quotes from the film. When asked by a teammate if he intended to show Hitler how good a black man could be, he responded, “No, I intend to show the people back home.” Nazi Germany was not the only nation with a racism problem.

My other favorite line from The Boys in the Boat comes at the very end, when the grandson of Joe Rantz, one of the members of the eight-man team, asks if he thought he one day could race with an eight-man rowing crew as he had done. Wisely, Rantz replies, “We were not an eight-man crew; we were one.”  Here is a short scene from the movie telling of the beauty of rowing. Done right, it becomes “More poetry than sport.”

The Boys in the Boat was adapted from the book by Daniel James Brown.[ii] I love the way Brown describes the importance of teamwork in a rowing team: 

“[T]he greatest paradox of the sport has to do with the psychological makeup of the people who pull the oars. Great oarsmen and oarswomen are necessarily made up of conflicting stuff…. The sport offers so many opportunities for suffering and so few opportunities for glory that only the most tenaciously self-reliant and self-motivated are likely to succeed at it. And yet, at the same time – and this is key – no other sport demands and rewards the complete abandonment of the self the way that rowing does. Great crews may have men or women of exceptional talent or strength; they may have outstanding coxswains or stroke oars or bowmen; but they have no stars. The team effort – the perfectly synchronized flow of muscle, oars, boat and water; the single, whole, unified, and beautiful symphony that a crew in motion becomes – is all that matters. Not the individual, not the self.

“And capitalizing on diversity is perhaps even more important when it comes to the characters of the oarsmen. A crew composed entirely of eight amped-up, overtly aggressive oarsmen will often degenerate into a dysfunctional brawl in a boat or exhaust itself in the first leg of a long race. Similarly, a boatload of quiet but strong introverts may never find the common core of fiery resolve that causes the boat to explode past its competitors when all seems lost. Good crews are good blends of personalities; someone to lead the charge, someone to hold something in reserve; someone to think things through; someone to charge ahead without thinking. Somehow all this must mesh. That’s the steepest challenge. Even after the right mixture is found, each man or woman in the boat must recognize his or her place in the fabric of the crew, accept it, and accept the others as they are. It is an exquisite thing when it all comes together in just the right way.”

Teamwork is not limited to sports competitions. It is hard to find any accomplishment that results from an individual acting alone. Whether it is an assembly line manufacturing automobiles, consummating a business transaction, or filming a movie with recognized stars, none of us can accomplish much by ourselves. Someone said, “One man who works with you is worth a dozen men who work for you.” I love the opening scene from the movie Apollo 13,[iii] where a successful launch involves team after team. If any one of those teams gave the “no go,” the mission would have been aborted.

Of course, the real story of Apollo 13 takes place after disaster strikes. We all know the famous line from the movie, “Houston, we have a problem.” The spacecraft undergoes massive damage from an explosion of an oxygen tank, and NASA must figure out how to get the astronauts safely back to Earth. The accurate measure of any team, whether in sports, government, or business, is how it performs under pressure – when things do not go as expected. And in life, few things go as planned. Fortunately, NASA was equal to the task, and the astronauts ultimately returned safely to Earth. Here is just one of the many scenes of the technical crew and astronauts working together to accomplish a needed task:

In my own life, my favorite sports teams I played on were those that did not have the most talent, but playing together as a team, we became more than the sum of our parts. I experienced something similar in my profession. In my career, I was fortunate to handle the legal aspects of dozens of large oil and gas transactions. But I could never have done it alone. It took a team of geologists, geophysicists, engineers, financial advisors, accountants, land personnel, and others to be an effective team. But none of us let our egos get in the way, as we realized we needed each other to be successful, and no team member was more important than any other.  

May we all experience the magic of effective teamwork, whether in sports, work, or personal relationships, as we swallow our egos, recognize, utilize, adapt to, and appreciate the abilities of others, and, working together, accomplish something great.  Or, as Helen Keller once said, “Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.”

[i] The Boys in the Boat:

• Production Companies: Tempesta Films, Lantern Entertainment, and Metro-Golden-Mayer (MGM)
• Director: George Clooney
• Writers: Daniel James Brown and Mark L. Smith
• Starring: Joel Edgerton, Callum Turner, and Peter Guinness
• Release date: December 25, 2023

[ii] Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Penguin Books (June 4, 2013).

[iii] Apollo 13:

• Production Companies: Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment
• Director: Ron Howard
• Writers:  William Broyles Jr. and A Reinert (based on the book by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger)
• Stars: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon and Ed Harris
• Release date: June 30, 1995

Part of one of my favorite songs from The Book of Mormon Musical goes like this:

• Something incredible
• I’ll do something incredible
• I wanna be the Mormon
• Who changed all of mankind
• Something I’ve foreseen
• Now that I’m nineteen
• I’ll do something incredible
• That blows God’s freaking mind

Don’t we all want to do something incredible with our lives? Maybe it’s not something that blows God’s mind, but at least it surprises those who know us well. Or, as Brook Hayes once said, “In back of every man’s achievement is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law.” But few of us ever find the success we are hoping for.

What does it take to do something incredible? According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers,[i] the key to achieving world-class expertise in any skill is practicing correctly for at least 10,000 hours. In other words, lots of perfect practice makes perfect.

This past month, I watched three terrific films about people who have done incredible things.

Nyad[ii] tells the true story of Diana Nyad’s (played by Annette Benning) attempt to swim from Cuba to the United States. That’s 103 miles as the gull flies. Her first attempt at this feat was in 1978, at age 28. However, strong currents pulled her off course, and team doctors pulled her out of the ocean after swimming 78 miles. In 1979, she retired from competitive long-distance swimming after setting the world record for swimming 102 miles from North Bimini Beach in the Bahamas to Juno Beach, Florida. But over 30 years later, Nyad, now age 60, decided to try the Cuba to Florida swim again. Here is a scene from the film where she announces her intent to her best friend, Bonnie Stoll (played by Jodie Foster):

It took Nyad five attempts, but she finally completed the swim on September 2, 2013, at the age of 64, 35 years after her first attempt. The swim took her 52 hours and 54 minutes. Nyad is currently streaming on Netflix.

In The Burial,[iii] inspired by actual events, a lawyer helps a funeral home owner save his family business from a corporate giant and, in the process, exposes racial prejudice, power, and injustice. The case ultimately led to the corporation’s bankruptcy. The lawyer, Willie Gary (played by Jamie Foxx) had humble beginnings. He was one of eleven children of a poor sharecropper. But he recognized the importance of education. He began attending school two half-days a week and helped his father farm the other three days. At age 13, he helped support his family by starting a lawn service business. But he went on to college on a football scholarship and ultimately graduated from law school, the first in his family to graduate from high school and go on to college. He started the first Black law firm in Martin County, Florida, and became an expert in personal injury law. Here is a scene from the movie that convinces the family funeral business’s owner to hire Gary in his case against the corporate behemoth:

Even though contract law was not his specialty, Gary ultimately won a $500 million judgment against the corporation, although the parties settled on $175 million on appeal. The Burial is currently streaming on Prime Video.

Rustin[iv] is the true story of how Bayard Rustin (played by Colmon Domingo) organized the famous “March on Washington” supporting the Civil Rights Movement in 1963. In that march, over 200,000 people came from all over the country supporting civil rights. Making the logistics involved in such a gathering that much more difficult, Rustin was openly gay, which was seen by many back then as a perversion, meaning Rustin had to do most of his work behind the scenes. Here is the trailer for the film (which is currently streaming on Netflix):

President Obama awarded Bayard Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, posthumously in 2013.

So, how do we accomplish incredible things? Diana Nyad, after completing her remarkable swim, makes three important points:

1. Never, ever give up.
2. You’re never too old to chase your dreams.
3. Long-distance swimming looks like a solitary sport, but it takes a team (40 people accompanied Nyad on her remarkable swim).

Nyad has some good advice. But maybe we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps we should be asking, what qualifies as something incredible? In my estimation, most of us have done incredible things that we probably don’t recognize as incredible. For example, here is a list of ten things I consider to be incredible that I have failed to accomplish (but wish that I had):

• Worked thirty-plus years without ever being fired or demoted.
• Ran a marathon
• Tuned up my car
• Sang a solo in church or a play
• Built a piece of furniture with my own hands
• Pitched a no-hitter
• Got straight A’s on a report card
• Learned to tap dance
• Became a best-selling writer
• Made a high school varsity team

I love these words of Stephen Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne) (from the film The Theory of Everything): “There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.”

I would add, “No matter how small that something might be.” I email my family quotes, articles, and silly jokes each week. I hope they find them helpful as they battle life’s challenges. I end those emails with this: Do the best you can with what you’ve got.

Everyone’s challenges are different, and we shouldn’t judge our successes by comparing our lives to what others have accomplished. To someone struggling with a mental illness, such as depression, for example, just getting out of bed in the morning is accomplishing something incredible.

But I have done some incredible things—at least incredible to me. I have been happily married for 48 years—perhaps my greatest accomplishment, and certainly my wife’s for sticking with me for so long. Although I am not a best-selling author, I have written four novels and this blog, which a few people have found inspiring or at least entertaining. And although no one would ever pay to hear me perform, I have learned to play the guitar and, to a lesser extent, the piano.

In short, all of us can do (and have done) incredible things. The key is not to sell yourself short. If you examine your life, you will find plenty of things that others, knowing your circumstances, would find incredible. So, be proud of your accomplishments, whether large or small.

I close with these wise words from Owen Feltham: “The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. These may, for the most part, be summed in these two – common sense and perseverance.” Most of us have common sense and perseverance, so use them to do something incredible, doing the best you can with what you’ve got.

[i] Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008

[ii] Nyad:

• Production Companies: Black Bear
• Directors: Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
• Screenwriters: Diana Nyad and Julia Cox
• Starring: Annette Benning, Jodie Foster and Anne Marie Kempf
• Release date: November 3, 2023

[iii] The Burial:

• Production Companies: Amazon Studios, Bobby Shriver, and Double Nickel Entertainment
• Director: Maggie Betts
• Screenwriters: Doug Wright, Maggie Betts, and Jonathan Harr
• Starring: Jamie Foxx, Tommy Lee Jones, and Jurnee Smollett
• Release date: October 13, 2023

[iv] Rustin:

• Production Company: High Ground Productions
• Director: George C. Wolfe
• Screenwriters: Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black
• Starring: Colman Domingo, Chris Rock, and Glynn Turman
• Release date: November 17, 2023

I love this time of year. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas (or Hanukkah) give us something to celebrate. Sports are in full swing with the World Series (congratulations Rangers!) football, hockey, and basketball games. It is also the best time of the year for movies, as many film distributors release their best films late in the year in preparation for awards season. Oh, and it’s also time for the Austin Film Festival.

If you are one of the few people who look forward to a new blog post on the first of every month, then you will have noticed this post is late. But that is because the Austin Film Festival didn’t finish until yesterday, and I wanted to give everyone a full report.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Austin Film Festival. We started going to the festival when we lived in Austin over 20 years ago. And we have gone every year since I retired five years ago. This year, my wife, Janene, and I watched 17 films in eight days, which is less than usual for us, but we had to watch the Texas Rangers play (and win!) in the World Series each night.

There is nothing like watching a film with movie people. They cry unashamedly, laugh boisterously, and cheer loudly when someone rights a wrong. They applaud at the end of every movie and stay to watch the credits.

Films at the Festival fall into several categories. First, there are the shorts, usually made by young, aspiring filmmakers who use shorts to demonstrate their yet unrecognized talent. Then there are the independent films hoping to convince distributors to pay for the rights to the movie. And then there are those films already with distributors who use the Festival to generate buzz before they release the film.

Here are four films from the Festival I recommend seeing. These movies have distributors, so look for them when released in theaters or air on a streaming service.

My favorite film at the Festival was American Fiction,[i] which reflects society’s obsession with stereotypes. In the film, a frustrated novelist (played by Jeffrey Wright) is fed up with those who profit from “Black” entertainment that relies on tired and offensive stereotypes. To prove his point, as a parody, he writes his own novel full of outrageous stereotypes, which, surprisingly, becomes a bestseller. I laughed throughout the film, but more importantly, it made me think about the unfairness of the stereotypes and labels we often are guilty of using. Here is the trailer for the film:

The Promised Land[ii] is a movie out of Denmark, so sit close so you can easily read the subtitles. Based on actual people and events, the film tells the story of Captain Ludvig Kahlen (played by Mads Mikkelsen) who, in 1755, attempts to build a colony on barren land in the name of the King of Denmark and thereby achieve wealth and title for himself. But the area’s ruthless local ruler believes the land is his, igniting a conflict that threatens the captain’s life and the family of outsiders who join him. It is a classic story of love, greed, and power. Here is the trailer for the movie:

As a baseball fan, I loved Bucky F*cking Dent.[iii] In the summer of 1978, a Boston Red Sox fan (played by David Duchovny) moves back in with his ailing father and falls in love with his father’s caretaker. But surrounding the love story and the family dynamics is the 1978 baseball season, in which the Boston Red Sox are trying to exorcise the curse of the Bambino (Babe Ruth) who sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919 for $100,000. The Red Sox hadn’t won a pennant since. In 1978, the Red Sox and the Yankees tied at the end of the season, requiring a one-game playoff to determine which team would go to the World Series. It looked like the Red Sox would finally end the curse, as they led 2-0 in the seventh inning. But Bucky Dent dashed those hopes when he hit a three-run homer. As the ball sailed over the Green Monster (Fenway Park’s famous left field fence), the Red Sox manager, Don Zimmer) reportedly gave Bucky Dent a new middle name: “Bucky F*cking Dent.” The Yankees went on to win 5 to 4. That game has special meaning for me, as I was in law school at the time and watched it with two of my closest friends, one an avid Red Sox fan, and the other an avid Yankees fan. The Red Sox finally broke the curse of the Bambino in 2004 when they came back to win the ALCS against the hated Yankees after trailing three games to none, the first team to do so in a baseball playoff series. They went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.  

I found The Holdovers[iv] quite predictable, but I still enjoyed every minute of it. The film is about a cranky teacher (played by Paul Giamatti) who is tasked to babysit students who have nowhere to go for the holidays and forms an unlikely bond with one of them. Here is the trailer for the movie:

During this most wonderful time of the year, I hope you give yourself a gift of a movie or two. I love what Forrest Whitaker said about cinema: “Cinema and the arts invite viewers to focus on a story and, in doing so, peel away its layers and peer into the depths of the human soul.” Or, as I like to say, “Everything important in life I learned at the movies.”

[i] American Fiction:

• Production Companies: 3 Arts Entertainment, MRC Film, and Media Rights Capital (MRC)
• Director: Cord Jefferson
• Screenwriters: Cord Jefferson and Percival Everett
• Starring: Jeffrey Wright, Skylar Wright, and John Ales
• Release Date: December 22, 2023

[ii] The Promised Land:

• Production Companies: Zentropa Entertainments, Zentropa International Berlin, and Zentropa International Sweden
• Director: Nikolaj Arcel
• Screenwriters: Nikolaj Arcel, Anders Thomas Jensen, and Ida Jessen
• Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Gustav Lindh, and Amanda Collin
• Release Date: February 2, 2024

[iii] Bucky F*cking Dent:

• Production Company: Yale Productions
• Director: David Duchovny
• Screenwriter: David Duchovny
• Starring: Stephanie Beatriz, David Duchovny, and Logan Marshall-Green
• Release Date: June 10, 2023

[iv] The Holdovers:

• Production Companies: Miramax and CAA Media Finance
• Director: Alexander Payne
• Screenwriter: David Hemingson
• Starring: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa
• Release Date: November 10, 2023

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” That sounds terrific when you say it quickly, but the problem is, how do we make our dreams a reality?  

In January 2000, while working as an in-house oil and gas attorney for Hunt Oil Company, my employer made a decision that rocked my world—and not in a good way. Two months before that, my boss had asked me to take a three-year rotation as the in-country attorney in Yemen. I told him the timing was not right for me and my family, as I had two kids still in high school, but I would consider accepting the assignment the next rotation. But that was not good enough, as two months later, Hunt Oil Company terminated my employment for not being a team player.  

As part of my severance package, the company sent me to a consulting firm to help me find a new job. But the consultants were less about helping me polish my resume and more about helping me discover what I wanted to do with the rest of my life—determining my dreams and passions. I had become disillusioned with law, so I thought this might be a perfect time to change careers.

The consultants kept preaching to me to find my passion, and the money would follow. My desires at the time were teaching and fiction writing. I had written a novel that I thought was pretty good and had that confirmed by almost every person who read it. But those that mattered most (book agents and publishers) showed zero interest. And I knew I couldn’t live off their rejection letters.

So, I looked at teaching. I found a potential opportunity to teach research and writing at SMU Law School, but I withdrew my application when I learned the annual salary for this full-time position was only $36,000. It was better than eating rejection letters from agents and publishers, but not much.

As a last resort, I looked at teaching high school. I called the Plano ISD, and they told me that with my advanced degree, my starting salary would be $45,000—surprisingly better than a law professor but not much. But I would need a teaching certificate if I couldn’t teach science or math. I didn’t have one, so I would have to spend a year returning to school to get that certificate to make a measly $45,000 yearly. And during that year, my family would have to eat class notes and tests—they would not taste any better than those rejection letters.

So much for pursuing my passions. So, I stuck with the law and am glad I did, as subsequent jobs renewed my interest in my original career path. But two recent fact-based movies illustrated that pursuing your passion can work, but it often isn’t easy.

Gran Turismo[i] tells the true story of a Nissan marketing executive, Danny Moore, who convinces Nissan to establish a GT academy to turn a team of gamers into actual race car drivers. The gamers chosen for the academy were experts at the racing simulation game Gran Turismo. One of these gamers was Jann Mardenborough, a clothing store employee whose passion was auto racing, but his only experience was through the Gran Turismo simulation. Not surprisingly, his father, a former professional footballer, thought his son’s passion was a waste of time. But ultimately, Mardenborough proves all the doubters wrong. He becomes certified by the racing circuit, and Mardenborough and his teammates even reach the podium at the 24 hours of Le Mans. Mardenborough continues to race today, having competed in over 200 races and even was a stunt double in the film.

A Million Miles Away[ii] is the true story of Jose Hernandez, a Hispanic migrant worker who dreams of being an astronaut for NASA. Most people laughed at his dream, but somehow, Hernandez’s passion led him to join the space shuttle mission STS 128, which remained on board the International Space Station for 13 days. Hernandez became the first migrant farmworker to travel to space. He celebrated his heritage by eating tacos there.

How did Mardenborough and Hernandez reach their dreams when so many of us try and fail to reach ours? Both of them had the support of family, friends, or mentors. Hernandez’s elementary school teacher believed in him, and he credited her with changing his life. His parents put off buying a house to pay for his college. His wife put her dreams on hold so Hernandez could pursue his. Likewise, Mardenborough’s mentor, Jack Salter, who had once been in similar shoes, ultimately believed in him.

In addition to the support of others, both Mardenborough and Hernandez trained hard to master the skills that would make them successful. Here is a scene from Gran Turismo showing Mardenborough’s training on real cars:

Hernandez had similar training, as depicted in this scene from A Million Miles Away:

But perhaps the most remarkable attribute Hernandez and Mardenborough had was perseverance in the face of failure. Thomas Jefferson once said, “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” Despite hitting roadblocks at every turn, Mardenborough and Hernandez worked hard to create their own luck. NASA rejected Hernandez eleven times before they accepted him into the space program. During those eleven years of rejection, Hernandez didn’t pout. Instead, he followed the advice of Albert Einstein: “You have to learn the rules of the game and then play them better than anyone else.” Hernandez worked on the things that would set him apart from other candidates. He obtained his master’s degree in electrical engineering; he became a pilot with 800 flight hours under his belt; he became a certified SCUBA diver; he ran the San Francisco marathon, and he learned Russian. Or, as one of his NASA trainers said, “Tenacity is a superpower.”

Mardenborough, like Hernandez, had to learn to deal with failure, and perhaps his greatest failure occurred when he was involved in a serious accident in one of his races. Here is my favorite scene from Gran Turismo:

Any recipe for success includes having a goal, getting support from those who love us, learning the necessary skills for success, hard work, and tenacity, especially in the face of failure. Most of us don’t have dreams as big as going into space or racing at several hundred miles per hour or something similar. And even if we did, most of us couldn’t develop the requisite skills to make that happen. But, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.” Not all of us can be racecar drivers, astronauts, or professional athletes. But there is nothing wrong with striving to be the best employee, father, mother, spouse, or citizen we can be. Regardless of our goals, to succeed at them, we need to follow the recipe of success used by Jann Mardenborough and Jose Hernandez.

And maybe our success should be measured by just getting through life. Or, as I like to say, do the best you can with what you’ve got. If you do that, then take a bow, for you have overcome your world, regardless of what that world throws at you.

[i] Gran Turismo:

• Production Companies: Columbia Pictures, PlayStation Productions, and 2.0 Entertainment
• Director: Neill Blomkamp
• Screenwriters: Jason Hall, Zach Baylin, and Alex Tse
• Starring: David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, and Archie Madekwe
• Release date: August 25, 2023

[ii] A Million Miles Away:

• Production Companies: Amazon Studios, Redrum, and Select Films
• Director: Alejandra Márquez Abella
• Screenwriters: Bettina Gilois, Hernán Jiménez, and Alejandra Márquez Abella
• Starring: Michael Peña, Rosa Salazar, and Julio Cesar Cedillo
• Release date: September 15, 2023

The number one movie of the summer this year is about a doll. Worldwide, Barbie[i] has made over a billion dollars and counting. That much despite the film being banned in Algeria, Kuwait, and Lebanon for encouraging “damaging morals.” And we’re talking about a doll here.

But Barbie was never intended to be a kids’ movie. Its co-writer and director, Greta Gerwig, wanted to make a film about women’s roles in our society. And perhaps the role of men as well. The film starts by turning patriarchy on its head. In Barbie’s world, men are almost an afterthought. It’s always Barbie … and Ken. Ken has nearly no existence without Barbie. Or, as the tagline for the film says, “She’s everything. He’s just Ken.” When asked what message she wanted Barbie to leave its audiences, Gerwig said she intended a negotiation of what a woman should be. In Barbie’s world, “You can be anything,” but reality leaves most women realizing that, unlike Barbie, they could never be perfect enough.

That negotiation of what a woman could (should?) be is best described in this monologue from Gloria (played by America Ferrera):

“It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow, we’re always doing it wrong.

“You have to be thin but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that, but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory, and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

“I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.”

If you are one of the few people who have not seen the movie yet, here is its trailer:

At the end of the film, the creator of Barbie the doll tells Barbie, “We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far we’ve come.”

How far have women come? Growing up, society taught me that fathers were to preside in the home. Mothers were to conceive, bear, nourish, love, and train their children. Women who enjoy good health were to have children early and never curtail the number of children for personal or selfish reasons. Too many mothers worked away from home to furnish sweaters, music lessons, trips, and fun for their children. Too many women spent their time socializing, politicking, and in public service when they should be home to teach and train their children. And God never intended that married women should compete with men in employment. Some argued that numerous divorces could be traced directly back to when the wife left the home and went out into the world of employment.

I honor women who have chosen to be stay-at-home mothers, and no work is more challenging and more critical. But I also believe what Barbie has tried to teach us: a woman can be anything—and society should allow her to follow her dreams. And men should help them by handling their fair share of raising children and doing housework. Or, as one wise woman once said, “Don’t marry a man who doesn’t vacuum.”[ii]

The film Charming the Hearts of Men,[iii] inspired by actual events, tells the story of Grace Gordon (played by Anna Friel), a single woman who returns to the South in 1964 but finds her options are limited because of discrimination against women. She can’t get credit in her own name or find a job since a woman’s place was in the home. But she inspired a Congressman to make a small change in the Civil Rights Act that changed everything for women. The original drafters of the Civil Rights Act did not want to include women in the legislation, as that would be too much to pass Congress. But at the last minute, Congress added the “sex” amendment. It prohibited employers from discriminating based on sex, along with “race, color, religion or national origin.” Although events surrounding the amendment didn’t happen exactly as portrayed in the film, the rest, as they say, is history. Here is the trailer for the film (currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video):

Since the prohibition against discrimination based on sex, progress has been slow but steady. The film Being Mary Tyler Moore[iv] (currently streaming on Max), although a documentary about the life of Ms. Moore, traces advancements in women’s rights. Here is the trailer for the movie:

In response to some of the teachings I received in childhood, Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystic, said:

“I think there’s a terrible contempt for women still in our society, implicit in this glorified image of women only as sex objects. Implicit in this glorified insistence that women’s fulfillment is motherhood and only motherhood. Cows can have babies, but women have minds as well as breasts, as well as sexual organs. And women are made to feel guilty if they really use their minds. We don’t know, we don’t know, you know. We really don’t know what women can do, what women can be.”

In the movie, Mary Tyler Moore (quoting Betty Friedan) said in an interview with David Susskind in 1966: “Women are, or should be, human beings first, women second, wives and mothers third. It should fall in that order.”

Although not her first job in the entertainment business, Mary became well known for playing Laura Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show. But she wanted her character to be a real woman, not the perfect woman generally portrayed in other TV shows of the day. She was the first TV wife and mother to wear pants. More importantly, Laura Petrie was perhaps the television’s first “real” woman. In the words of Mary Tyler Moore, “She broke down and cried; she used ploys to get her way. She was nasty and short-tempered. And she was also sweet and soft.” And when it came to the comedy, she was on equal footing with her husband, Rob Petrie.

But that was just the start. In 1970, Mary revolutionized TV women as Mary Richards in the Mary Tyler Moore Show. And it didn’t go unnoticed. Gloria Steinem said this in 1975:

“Just consider what visitors from outer space might think if they were confronted with the last twenty years of television and films as the only evidence of what American women were like. It would be quite clear we slept with false eyelashes and full make-up and indeed spend all of our lives with such ornamentation on us. Some of us would be taken to be sex-crazed; others, totally puritanical. Most of us would be man junkies, very strange creatures who were thought to need men for our identities. If we lived alone, we would almost have to be widows, at least until recently on television. That’s begun to change.”

That change began five years earlier when the lead character in The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a single woman. It had been done once before in Marlo Thomas’s That Girl, but the theme was when would Thomas’s character find her man. Mary Richards was different. She was an independent woman who respected men but didn’t need one to validate her self-worth. 

As the creator of Barbie encouraged, we look back at how far women have come but wonder why it has taken us so long and why we still have such a long way to go. And about Ken? By the end of Barbie, he realizes that he is a person of worth, too. Or, as his t-shirt explains, “I am Ken-ough!” even without Barbie.

This is a timely message for all of us.

[i] Barbie:

• Production Companies: Warner Bros, Heyday Films, and LuckyChap Entertainment
• Director: Greta Gerwig
• Screenwriters: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach
• Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and Issa Rae
• Release date: July 21, 2023

[ii] Jessica Valenti in “Don’t Marry a Man Who Doesn’t Vacuum,” published in Medium (February 13, 2020).

[iii] Charming the Hearts of Men:

• Production Companies: High Hopes Productions and Talent One
• Director: S.E. DeRose
• Screenwriter: S.E. DeRose
• Starring: Anna Friel, Kelsey Grammer, and Starletta DePois
• Release date: August 13, 2021

[iv] Being Mary Tyler Moore:

• Production Companies: Fifth Season, Good Trouble Studios, HBO Documentary Films
• Director: James Adolphus
• Screenwriters: James L. Brooks, Allan Burns, and Susan Silver
• Starring: Mary Tyler Moore, James L. Brooks, and Rob Reiner
• Release date: May 26, 2023

When I was 15, I went with a friend to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey. I didn’t understand most of it. But I understood the part about Hal, the rogue computer. Computers were in their infancy back then, and although Hal made a good story, it was science fiction.

Nine years later, I took my young family to see Star Wars: A New Hope. We liked the two droids, C3PO and R2D2, although we knew they were actors disguised as thinking and feeling robots. Then this past month, my family saw Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One. I do not love action movies, as I find the chase and fight scenes drag on too long. But I admire Tom Cruise and the stunts he can still do at age 61. As we left the theater, my family began discussing the film. I commented that the movie was entertaining, but an artificially intelligent entity taking over the world seemed far-fetched. I then stopped myself, realizing the future is now.  

The world is swiftly transforming because of artificial intelligence. And the revolution is just beginning. In 2017, a Brookings Institute survey of business executives found that only 17 percent knew what artificial intelligence was, let alone how it would change every aspect of our lives. Early computers were capable only of making predetermined responses. Or, as computer geeks called it, “garbage in, garbage out.” But using artificial intelligence algorithms, today’s machines take information from various sources, analyze it immediately, and make decisions based on the analysis of those data. What’s more, today’s computers can learn and adapt as it makes decisions.

And now, AI is everywhere, from finance, health care, law, and national security to transportation. As a lawyer, I first experienced AI in connection with lawsuits. Part of every lawsuit is discovery, where the parties exchange documents related to the case. Traditionally, an army of lawyers and paralegals would need to review each page of every document to find a smoking gun or two that would turn the case in their favor. And so, one of the tricks litigators often employed was to bury the other side in documents, making finding that smoking gun nearly impossible. But now, documents are digitally scanned, and machines search for keywords in the documents. What used to take weeks to complete, discovery can be accomplished in a few hours.

As a writer, I also use AI. Sitting on my bookshelf gathering dust are three reference books I used to use constantly: The Dictionary of Concise Writing, Woe is I (the best grammar book ever written), and Punctuation Plain & Simple. These books sit unopened on my bookshelf now because AI helps me write concisely and corrects my spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. But I haven’t let AI take over completely—at least not yet. My AI program makes suggestions, and I decide whether or not to incorporate them.

But as AI improves, the need for humans decreases. And that is one of the biggest fears about AI—eliminating jobs usually filled by a living, breathing person. Do we need mortgage brokers when a machine can predict a borrower’s creditworthiness more accurately? Do we need financial advisors when devices can create plans tailored to any individual? Do we need truck or taxi drivers when vehicles can now drive themselves and do it safer than humans? And those are just a few examples.

We are in the middle of labor disputes with Hollywood actors and writers. The actors are concerned (in part) with how AI can generate extras in films, removing a source of income for many lower-tired actors trying to make names for themselves. And writers worry about how AI might replace them altogether. My son-in-law had to speak in Church last month. So, primarily out of curiosity, my daughter asked an AI program to write his talk. The program wrote a very acceptable sermon covering most of the principles of the assigned topic.  All my son-in-law had to do was expand a few items with personal examples to fill the time allotted for his talk. I was impressed by what I read, and at first blush, if my daughter hadn’t tipped me off, I would not have known a computer wrote it. Similarly, how does anyone know AI didn’t write this blog?

But like most developing technology, AI can be used for evil as well as good. Technology has caused a change in our relationships. Now, instead of interacting with people face-to-face, we rely on social media and texting for our relationships. The film Her[i] takes it to an extreme as the lead character Theodore (played by Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with Samantha—the voice on his phone (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Here is a crazy scene from the movie:

But maybe it’s not as crazy as it seems. Now, we often consider Siri and Alexa to be our friends. Is it much of a leap to consider them a lover?

But the more harmful fear is what happens to humanity if our future versions of AI, like the computer Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey, run amok. In Ex Machina,[ii] Caleb, a young programmer (played by Domhnall Gleeson), is hired to evaluate the human qualities of an AI humanoid named Ava (played by Alicia Vikander). Check out this scene:

Spoiler Alert! Ava’s human characteristics are so good that Caleb falls in love with her. But it’s all a sham. Ava doesn’t want love, she wants freedom—to escape the confines of her creator’s home.

Falling in love with an operating system’s voice or a humanoid is tame compared to the crisis Tom Cruise facings in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One—the potential destruction of humankind. Which brings me to another movie I recently saw. Oppenheimer[iii] is the story of how Robert Oppenheimer led a team of scientists tasked with creating the world’s most devastating weapon of mass destruction—the atomic bomb. But the heart of the story is the moral conflict Oppenheimer experiences in creating such a weapon and how the government throws him under the bus when it no longer needs him. On the one hand, he is excited over the prospect of testing theories of physics and mathematics and their practical applications in ending the second world war. And he knew he was in an arms race with Nazi Germany over who could develop it first. But there is (or at least should be) accountability with every creation. After the devastation his invention caused at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Robert Oppenheimer said, “We thought of the legend of Prometheus, of that deep sense of guilt in man’s new powers that reflects his recognition of evil, and his long knowledge of it.”

Similarly, Geoffrey Hinton, widely considered one of the pioneers of AI, and knowing the evils that could result from it, said, “I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.”

Here is the trailer for Oppenheimer:

Very little in this life is black or white. It will be no different with artificial intelligence. I hold out hope that AI will be smart enough to learn the dark consequences of the evil side of AI, as we have about nuclear weapons.

One of my favorite movies is the 1983 film, War Games,[iv] where a computer controlling nuclear weapons learns about mutual assured destruction from playing tic-tac-toe—a game that no one ever wins. Please check out this scene:

I hope artificial intelligence will do the same—before it’s too late.

[i] Her:

• Production Companies: Annapurna Pictures and Stage 6 Films
• Director: Spike Jonze
• Screenwriter: Spike Jonze
• Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Scarlett Johansson
• Release Date: January 10, 2014

[ii] Ex Machina:

• Production Companies: A24, Universal Pictures, and Film4
• Director: Alex Garland
• Screenwriter: Alex Garland
• Starring:  Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, and Oscar Isaac
• Release Date: April 24, 2015

[iii] Oppenheimer:

• Production Companies: Universal Pictures, Atlas Entertainment, and Gadget Films
• Director: Christopher Nolan
• Screenwriters: Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird, and Martin Sherwin
• Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, and Matt Damon
• Release Date: July 21, 2023

[iv] War Games:

• Production Companies: United Artists and Sherwood Productions
• Director: John Badham
• Screenwriters: Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes, and Walon Green
• Starring: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, and John Wood
• Release Date: June 3, 1983