A Myriad of Reviews (and other minor updates)

Taking a Film Analysis class now, which involves watching a movie every Wednesday. Not sure how many I'll be writing a blog post about, but regardless I thought I would mention it.

Also at the very bottom of the blog there's now the catalog thing of all my posts ever broken down in year/month (same thing that's on Andrew's/Eric's/Mom's blogs). Honestly not sure why I've never added it until now. It's pretty cool.

Onto reviews/thoughts of varying lengths about various media that I've consumed recently:

Alloy of Law/Shadows of Self/Bands of Mourning:

Soooo good! Honestly a lot better than I remember. Especially Shadows of Self. I feel like I've always underrated it because the theme isn't what I wanted it to be. 

In other words, after reading the original trilogy, which is (especially the third book) a little bleaker, you get a super fun, refreshing, light-hearted Alloy of Law. And it's fantastic. But then Shadows of Self comes along, and it's darker, sadder, less light-hearted etc. And I kind of wanted more of the light-hearted stuff.

But when I remove my pre-expectations and just go in with a fresh mindset and take the book for what it is, it is so good. I loved it. Better than Alloy of Law?? Not sure yet, I'll have to ponder on that one.

Another thing that surprised me:

In the past, Bands of Mourning has always been my favorite in the series with Shadows of Self being my least favorite. I think those might have switched spots?

I think I always loved Bands of Mourning because of what it introduces to the world/magic systems. But based simply off my enjoyment level of reading it, I think I'd put the other two above it, which rather surprises me.

So pumped for The Lost Metal.

Thor: Love and Thunder:

'Twas alright. I think it's better than what I've heard from other people. For example, I prefer it over Thor: The Dark World. But definitely not my favorite film, and you would be hard pressed to find me watching it again at any given point ever.

Knives Out:

Pretty fantastic. There was quite a bit of language, which was unfortunate. Excited for Glass Onion.

It's A Wonderful Life:

Watched this on my mission. For some reason, the whole mission was given permission to watch it. My companion and I were playing Skull King with a couple other Elders, so I was only half paying attention to it and thought it was alright.

Soooo glad I got to watch it again the other day in Film Analysis class. Super good, super heartwarming. I loved it.

The Grapes of Wrath:

Watched this in film analysis class. I found it incredibly boring. Casey dying was sad. Besides that, I didn't feel invested at all. Things just kind of happened and then the movie ended. I felt like there was little resolution. 

Characters felt shallow, so I didn't care what happened to them.

Plot acted like it was going to go places, and then nothing happened. That cycle repeated several times.

In concept, the movie should make me feel sad because of the hard things this family was going through.

In practice, I felt no connection to them. 

If you wanted to watch the movie to be sad, I could simply spend 5 minutes reading about the dust bowl/great depression and it would make me sadder than watching 2 hours of this film.

If you want this as a historical piece, then go watch a historical piece.

The only reason I could see someone enjoying this is if they've had personal experiences with similar events. The movie will allow them to relive/remember what those days were like, and that can bring a lot of powerful emotions. I can see it being really powerful for them.

Besides that, I don't understand why someone would enjoy/want to watch this movie.

Pretty harsh review, haha. Hope I'm not making anyone upset.

Spy x Family:

Super fun anime :) Heartwarming. Surprisingly tense at some points, although I didn't actually like those moments because I felt it distracted from the overarching fun-going tone the anime has. Maybe those moments were only tense for me, idk.

Excited for future seasons!

My Hero Academia:

Top Tier anime right here. 9.5/10 overall, I think. It is a long-running show with over a hundred episodes and more to come, which can be intimidating. But it's a blast.

My Rankings of the Seasons: 3rd or 4th, 2nd, 1st, 5th

More to God's Plan

I wrote this a long while ago. On my mission, I'm pretty sure. Don't know why I never published it. Perhaps I was going to add more to it. Regardless, here it is now:

So I've been pondering about God's will/God's plan for us. It's a topic I have a lot of thoughts on, especially since it's a testimony that has grown largely on my mission. That our Father in Heaven does have a plan for each one of us and is in the details. This is something I've seen so clearly on my mission.

I wanted to write about an insight I had in 1st Nephi that I've never thought/heard of before.

So. Story goes down as thus:

Lehi dreams a dream, or in other words, he has a vision. His family needs to leave Jerusalem.

Laman and Lemuel are confused and frustrated as I'm sure many of us would be. They are definitely not excited to leave behind everything based off a dream their father had.

Then, if you recall, they leave behind all their treasures. Something I'm sure Laman and Lemuel were, once again very confused and frustrated about. The Book of Mormon Video on this shows it quite well, I think. "But Father, we may need them for trade! Or for... drinking."

They travel out into the wilderness. Lehi is told they need the Brass Plates (I'm sure Laman/Lemuel were frustrated and confused yet again. Why didn't the Lord just remind us when we were back in Jerusalem? But that question breaks off into a larger topic that I don't want to focus on here.), so the sons travel back.

They try to get the brass plates once. But fail.

But Nephi then has a fantastic idea! Trade all their treasures they left behind for the brass plates.

This is the part that I want to focus on and received an insight for that I had never thought of/heard of before.

In my imagined version of the events that took place, in those moments things started to click in Laman/Lemuel's head.

"Ahhh, this makes so much sense now! No wonder the Lord commanded us not to bring all of our treasures to the wilderness. He saw the beginning from the end and realized we would need them to get the brass plates!" (For purposes of this scenario, we're ignoring the question of why weren't they just reminded in the first place to get the plates.)

"Man, Heavenly Father does have a plan for us. This small detail comes back around and is now pivotal to the progression of our journey. Tender Mercy indeed :)"

Okay, okay. Here's the thing. As you may know (I'm assuming a vast vast majority of the people who will read this post know the basic events of this story in the Book of Mormon, but I suppose there may be someone who doesn't), it didn't exactly pan out that way.

"Laban, here are all these treasures. Our Father and Heaven commanded us to leave them here because he knew we would need to offer them to you. All we request is the Brass Plates."

"Behold, thou art a robber! I will slay thee!" (I think he actually says that during the first attempt to get the plates, but it works well here too and I like the line.)

"?¿?¿?¿? What about the plan that we thought God had for us???"

There are many times in our lives, I think, where we feel like we know God's plan for us. With our mortal brains, we connect of few of the lines that we see and we feel we understand the whole picture.

But then there come many times in our lives, I think, where we realize those plans that we thought were God's never really were, or, rather, are part of an even bigger plan God has that we don't fully know yet. Does understanding of why always come with that realization? Not as often as we may like.

And so frustration and confusion can so easily come.

It's important that we take a deep breath and be still.

That is easier said then done, but I testify that God is our Loving Heavenly Father and that he does have a plan for us.

Whether clear or not, the plan exists and I know that to be true.

I'll end with these simple scriptures that help me.

"Be still and know that I am God".

Psalm 46:10, Doctrine and Covenants 101:16