Connect! Unite! Act! is a weekly series that seeks to create face-to-face networks in each congressional district. Groups meet regularly to socialize, get out the vote, support candidates, and engage in other local political actions that help our progressive movement grow and exert influence on the powers that be. Visit us every week to see how you can get involved! Welcome back, everyone! Last week I took on one of my favorite topics: bad, bad holiday films. This week I go back through 2021 and I look at some of the best films I had the pleasure of watching. Movies can excite us, bring us to tears, instill us with joy, or inform of us the experiences of others. It can be a documentary, a drama, a romance, a comedy, or an action thriller. Whether it’s science fiction films or horror shows, every year creative minds put their best efforts together in hopes to find and entertain an audience. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, you feel pulled into a world that can challenge your thinking or make you look at a subject matter in a completely new way. There are some films that will always stand out because of what I consider the original power in the viewing. Hoop Dreams would certainly fit that category as a film so unbelievably well-structured and so well-told that when it was snubbed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (Oscars) I could not believe it. Other films I have an emotional connection to because of the storyline, which can be sugar sweet or sad. Read more