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AI’s Black Box Is Getting a Window. Somebody Still Has to Look Through It“It Stars C. Thomas Howell. No.” Why AI Gets Stuck in a LoopShould You Query or Self-Publish Your Memoir If You’re Not Famous?Judge the Writing, Not the Tool: What the AI Pile-Ons Get WrongThiago Ferreira: Thinkers, Not DoersYana Semova: Let AI Do the AdminLisa Hamilton-Smith: Unstoppable, AI AssistedSuperman Day: The $130 Contract Behind the CapeRaymond Chandler Day: The Novelist Who Started at FiftyJohn Steinbeck Day: The Reporter Who Wrote the NovelInternational Translation Day: The Invisible AuthorsMaya Angelou Day: The Dare That Became a MemoirNational Podcast Day: The Interview Is the Raw MaterialKurt Vonnegut Day: The Book That Took Twenty YearsTell a Fairy Tale Day: The Stories Everybody EditedHarry Potter’s Birthday: The Book Twelve Publishers MissedHarper Lee Day: The Draft Her Editor Saw ThroughGene Roddenberry Day: The Pilot Who Pitched the StarsRoald Dahl Day: Six Pencils and a Grudge Against Grown-UpsInternational Literacy Day: The Readers Books LoseJack Kerouac Day: The Scroll and the Last AddressElmore Leonard Day: Leave Out the Part Readers SkipEncourage a Young Writer Day: The Adult Who Read the PagesBack to the Future Day: The Script Where Everything Pays OffNational Library Lovers Month: The Building a Town Pays ForAlice’s Day: The Story Told on a Rowing BoatRobert E. Howard Day: The Texan Who Built ConanStephen King Day: The Daily Two ThousandEmily Dickinson Day: The Poems in the DrawerIan Fleming Day: Two Thousand Words a MorningFyodor Dostoevsky Day: The Novels Written Against the ClockZora Neale Hurston Day: The Ear She TrainedF. Scott Fitzgerald Day: The Masterpiece That FloppedElmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, and Which Ones I BreakShould Your Novel Have a Prologue? When a Cold Open Earns Its Place“People Who Use AI Deserve to Be Castrated”: When the Sentence Outruns the CrimeHow Famous Memoirs Were Really Written: What the Collaborators DidThe Bell JarOpen: An AutobiographyBeneath a Scarlet SkyFlorida RoadkillCampus BattlefieldLifeThe Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One ReadsThe Sage of SagittariusDid I Ever Tell You This?: A MemoirPa’anAmerican SoldierIt Doesn’t Take a HeroMake Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World

Genre: Musical

Films that burst into song and dare you to object. Musical reviews judging the numbers, the book, and whether the singing serves the story.

Rachel Zegler as Snow White in the 2025 remake, wearing a dark dress in a forest setting with digital dwarf charactersFamily

Snow White (2025) Review

Snow White (2025) rates 2 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The remake that ended the remake program. It cost somewhere around two hundred and seventy million dollars, spent two years being argued about before anybody saw it, and…

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Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta stand close together in a scene from the 1978 film Grease, dressed in 1950s clothing.Comedy

Grease (1978) Review

Grease (1978) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A six million dollar musical that took close to four hundred million and never stopped playing. The songs are permanent, the leads are twenty-nine and twenty-three playing seventeen, and…

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A young couple dancing together at a resort, the man in dark clothes and the woman in a dress, circa 1960s setting.Dance

Dirty Dancing (1987) Review

Dirty Dancing (1987) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A film about class and an illegal abortion, marketed as a summer romance. Made for five million dollars by people nobody expected anything from, and still running forty…

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Marilyn Monroe in a stunning pink gown, seated and gazing directly at the camera with a slight smile. TITLE: Marilyn MonroeComedy

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) Review

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Two women on a transatlantic crossing, one openly interested in money and honest about it. Sharper about the economics of marriage than any film of 1953 had…

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White Christmas (1954) film posterChristmas

White Christmas (1954)

White Christmas is Michael Curtiz's 1954 American musical depicting two World War II Army veterans turned singing act, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, who follow a sister act to a Vermont inn and discover the inn belongs to their former…

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Holiday Inn (1942) film posterChristmas

Holiday Inn (1942)

A singer retires to a Connecticut farm and converts it into an inn that only opens on holidays, leading to a rivalry with his former dance partner. Holiday Inn is Mark Sandrich's 1942 American musical depicting Jim Hardy, a singer…

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Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) film posterChristmas

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

An American family in 1903 St. Louis faces upheaval when the father announces a move to New York, with Christmas as the season of crisis. Meet Me in St. Louis is Vincente Minnelli's 1944 American musical depicting the upper-middle-class Smith…

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The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) film posterChristmas

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Michael Caine plays Scrooge opposite Kermit, Miss Piggy, and the Muppet ensemble in a sincere adaptation of Dickens. The Muppet Christmas Carol is Brian Henson's 1992 American adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella, with Michael Caine playing Ebenezer Scrooge among…

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