The book begins in the present day where Matt is feeling like he’s stuck in a slump about life itself. He goes on to analyze his surroundings and where he fits in. As Matt is overanalyzing his life, his friend Scott interrupts his train of thought and invites him to go get pizza. Scott is not only his friend but his boss too. Along the way, Scott suggests that Matt should check out this woman who works at the pizza shop and as a courtesy it will count as a business expense in hopes that this will take Matt out of the darkness he’s been in. 

On their way to lunch, they decide to take the subway to the pizza shop and as they’re waiting, Matt notices a woman and he is completely drawn to her. This woman steps off the platform and into the train and when she turns around, her and Matt lock eyes and he notices it’s a familiar face which caused him to go down memory lane. As he tried to approach her before the doors closed, it was too late and she was gone in a blink of an eye.

The woman that he saw is Grace, they met back in college which took place fifteen years ago at New York University. She holds a very special place in Matt’s heart because he always felt like she was the one who got away. In that split second, Matt wished he would have been quicker on his feet. He wondered what her life was like after the years passed. 

In Grace’s point of view, she felt the same way of wishing she had noticed him prior to her entering the train. If only, she had a few more seconds to at least say hello. You definitely could tell that there is still chemistry between them. 

After their encounter, Matt arrives back at work and tries to search her name up on the internet but unfortunately he could not find any useful information. He made many attempts with no avail. 

Matt could not stop thinking about Grace, he thought about her on a daily basis and even went to the extremes of searching for her at their old hangout spots and also riding the train everyday after work for a whole month. Thankfully, Scott knew about these online ads on Craigslist by the name of “Missed Connections”. On these ads, anyone can post about their experience with someone in public that they would like to get in contact with to form a connection. 

As insane as it sounded Matt was thinking about giving it a try but he wondered deep down was she married? Does she have kids? Would he be intruding? Was the spark still there on her end? 

This book takes you through the ups and downs of each character’s lives and what their future holds. 

I highly recommend this book because it’s an attention grabber and it gives you hope for second chance love. It will definitely tug on your heart strings and make you want more. 

Did Matt write the Missed Connections Ad? Read “Before We Were Strangers” to find out.

The film provides plenty of adventure throughout Raya’s quest, as she’s trying to save her country from this apocalyptic looking world created by the Druun and factions. The soundtrack also did a good job in adding to the adventure, as well as more sentimental feelings for emotional scenes. When her father is turned to stone, I cried like I would with any parent’s death in a Disney movie. The overall plot of the movie seemed kind of predictable to me, which is kind of understandable given that it’s a Disney princess movie. Even still, I enjoyed watching the beautiful connections she made along the way, as well as seeing how she dealt with trusting others, and how it took time to learn to trust again.

I appreciate that one prominent theme in this movie was trust and how it can be difficult to handle at times. Considering their young audience, this is a good lesson to implement. Raya’s trust is quickly broken by Namaari at the beginning of the movie, and from then on, it’s difficult for her to lend out her trust to others. Each time Raya and Sisu encounter a new friend, she is very wary about them. I like how they showed the difficulty in learning to trust others after being burned. However, I think I would have liked to see Namaari apologize for breaking her trust. I think she should have earned Raya’s trust back, rather than Raya having to be the better person and sacrifice herself, without being healed with Namaari’s apology. Even then, I think the lesson of being a better person than how others might treat you is still a decent thing for younger audiences to learn, and is a good reminder for more mature audiences as well.

While some details can be connected to multiple Southeast Asian cultures, there are others that are more unique to one, like those of Cambodia and Vietnam. The movie gives off the impression that they’re all the same, and that they’re exactly like this movie. Each of the Southeast Asian cultures that influenced this movie still have their own individual qualities that differ from one another, and it would have been nice to see an accurate representation of one of them, rather than having them all melted together for one movie. Especially since a major target audience of the film is impressionable children, who most likely still haven’t learned about other cultures, the mixed representation of these cultures can send the wrong impression.

Seeing that there are more East Asian actors rather than Southeast Asian actors is a bit disappointing, considering the movie is based on Southeast Asian culture. It’s always best to have accurate representation.

Overall, the movie is still beautifully done and fun to watch. As long as viewers can come to understand the struggles of trusting others and the reality of diverse cultures within Southeast Asia, I think it is a great movie.

In Singapore and Dubai, the scene in which a gay couple shares a kiss was censored in every theatre there. Singaporean authorities stated that they cut out the scene because they wanted the movie to have a PG-13 rating. However, the kiss is not censored in America and China.

“I understand why they censored the scene, because there’s little kids watching,” sophomore Maalik Cook said, “but I think they should have still found a way to put it in the movie.”

Recently, actor John Boyega, the man who played Finn in the entire Star Wars trilogy, responded to a fan’s comment about Rey and Finn’s potential relationship on Instagram by making an out of pocket joke about it. Fans started attacking him on Instagram and Twitter, calling him disgusting and a misogynist. He responded by saying that the fans are sensitive for reacting this way over a joke and that these are just fictional characters, not real people.

“I don’t like the tweets because he’s putting a bad light on the movie and the cast,”Cook said.  “He is ruining the movie for those who have not seen it.”

When Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker debuted Dec. 19, it was number one in the box office sales for the first four weeks of release. But after those four weeks, it quickly dropped from $177.4 million to $15.2 million. A month later, it dropped to $8.4 million. It currently holds the record for the biggest fifth-weekend drop in the entire Star Wars franchise and the biggest plummet for any movie that has ever made at least $175 million on opening weekend sales, leaving many wondering what could possibly be next for the Star Wars series in the future.

“I support the Hong Kong police. You can all attack me now. What a shame for Hong Kong,” Yifei is reported to have written. (https://www.refinery29.com)

The controversy reflects the thoughts by some Chinese that the military police continue to use excessive force during peaceful demonstration marches and on protestors seeking government reform. Hong Kong is entering its sixteenth weekend of protest as police warn violence continues to escalate beyond control.

According to the U.S. Department of State’s website (https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-china/), the “United States seeks a constructive, results-oriented relationship with China” and “seeks progress on areas of disagreement such as China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and lack of respect for human rights and religious freedom.”

“The fact the actress is supporting such violence is very heartbreaking and hard to hear because instead of using her voice for much more important things, she decides to support a system that is unfair and not right,” sophomore Sal Pathan said. “The protestors should keep up their protest against whatever the police and so many other people are trying to suppress.”

Reports of excessive police action in cities across America and abroad plague news sources regularly. While emphasis at home has resulted in new laws that protect officers and add transparency of their actions to citizens, watch groups continue to criticize government entities. It is this current issue that fuels the controversy.

Geometry teacher Richard Li-Chiang Ho said, “The protesting and making this issue as big as possible are very understandable because what the Chinese government in Hong Kong is wrong by going back on they’re word but from a finical perspective view it is not smart to boycott the movie the protests are seeking against this injustice”.

With a March 2020 release date, a potential boycott world wide seems more likely to happen.

“What would a boycott accomplish? I plan on seeing Mulan when it comes out,” senior Maddie Vansickle said. “What the actress believes in and what the movie portrays has nothing to do with each other, really. She is just doing her job as an actress. People should not take offense to other people’s personal opinions.”

As for the movie, Mulan is a heartwarming tale that takes place during the Han dynasty when women were subjected to the household and had to do what they were told. Mulan, out of respect for her ill warrior father, impersonates a man to serve in her father’s place during the war. The main conflict exists with Mulan who feels she is unable to do what she feels is right because of the way women are viewed in Chinese society. It is this feeling that drives her to go against the Chinese system to break the cycle of tradition.

Breaking with hundreds of years of Chinese tradition to bring about constructive, inclusive change remains the focal point of Mulan‘s animation and live action film history.

The Sony-Disney deal maintained that Sony would only get money from their own Spider-Man movies and the MCU Spider-Man movies. This means that they didn’t get any money off of the three films that Spider-Man appeared in: Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. Disney and Sony both appeared fine with this deal until Disney came up to Sony with a new deal. This new deal consisted of a 50/50 deal which said that Disney would not only make money off of the MCU Spider-Man, but they also wanted to have a percentage of the Sony Spider-Man movies. Sony refused the deal, which resulted in the split.

Sony confirmed that Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios and film producer for “Spider-Man: Far From Home”, would no longer involve himself with the Spider-Man movies from here on out.

“I’m feeling about Spider-Man gratitude and joy. We got to make five films within the MCU with Spider-Man: two standalone films and three with the Avengers,” Feige said. “It was a dream that I never thought would happen. It was never meant to last forever.”

After a little bit of silence, Spider-Man: Far From Home actor Tom Holland finally spoke on the split.

“I’ve truly had the time of my life, and in so many respects, they have made my dreams come true as an actor,” Holland said. “The legacy and future of Spidey rests in Sony’s safe hands.”

The Russo Brothers, directors of Avengers: Infinity War”and Avengers: Endgame, spoke about the ordeal too. The featured character appeared in both of their latest, money-making films.

“I think that’s why Joe and I are not so surprised that there’s been a falling out, because it was so hard to make it happen in the first place,” Anthony Russo said. “It was always a complicated marriage. We’re thrilled that we got to introduce a new version of Spider-Man to the world and we’re grateful for the time we had with the character. In terms of how it moves forward, we can’t comment beyond saying it’s complicated.”

Spider-Man fans erupted in outrage after news broke of the deal.  Angry and frustrated commentators littered social media in the immediate days after.

“I think that Spider-Man is a great hero and he has shown a lot of growth in the MCU on his journey to becoming the next Iron Man,” said animation student Jonathan Sanchez. “So they’re leaving us on a cliffhanger by taking him out of the MCU.”

While Spiderman’s fate remains uncertain, the pressure put on by social media could perhaps breathe new life for Peter Parker.