The Girl Who Cried Pearls (2025)

Pearls are created by animals and are both precious and beautiful. They have been called mermaid's tears--the myths that surround them are the start of this short animated film from Canada that won the Academy Award in 2026 in that category. This story is told by an old man to his granddaughter, who has an eye for shiny things and who we suppose has pocketed a precious pearl herself. The story begins in his youth in Montreal, when he was a hungry orphan scavenging for food by the docks and sleeping in abandoned buildings. If one could find such a residence adjacent to one that was occupied, he explains, one might feel the heat of the fire through the wall. Naturally, sitting against the wall meant one might also hear what was going on in a house, and he talks about the time when he heard a stepmother repeatedly abusing a lonely girl. At night the girl would cry, and peering through a hole, he saw her tears, made of the purest sorrow, turn to pearls. Acquiring some of these, he took them to a pawnbroker and was paid better than he had ever been before. To get more, however, he was faced with a terrible dilemma--her unhappiness led to wealth for him, and what should he hope for? It is a classic tale of greed, the power of poverty to drive poor decisions, and a surprise ending.

Island Storm by Brian Floca and Sydney Smith

This is a picture book about a storm rolling in, building momentum to a maximum crescendo, and then gradually ebbing. The author was inspired by a storm that he experienced on one of the many islands off the coast of Maine, but it has the look and feel of a Midwest storm as well, where you can see it, feel it, and smell it brewing. The sky changes color in the blink of an eye, the atmosphere crackles with electricity, the rain tumbles down with ferocity, and the sky is black. And then just as suddenly it ebbs and within an hour the sun is out again. This is about two children who sense that beginning to happen and they purposely go out into it. The illustrations for this are spectacular, and while the author is a gifted illustrator himself, he opted for another, and these illustrations really hit the mark. It is a really well done picture book.

Diane Warren: Relentless (2025)

This documentary was nominated in the category of Best Song for the 2026 Academy Awards. It is about Diane Warren, who I had never heard of, but that is on me because she is a powerhouse in the musical world. She is sixteen-time Academy Award nominee songwriter--though never a winner, she has done quality work for movies. She’s written for more than four hundred and fifty recording artists--she started writing songs when she was a child and by adulthood she was pushing artists to consider singing her songs. She really was relentless in her pursuit of the perfect performer to showcase her work, and that persistence paid of for everyone. She’s penned nine number-one songs and had thirty-three songs on the Billboard Hot 100. Who is she? She is a loner and never married. She is stuck in her ways; for example, she writes in the same room she has from the beginning. She ownss her childhood home at least partly because it is where she started writing. SHe trusts the same people she has known for her whole life. She is set in her ways and it has served her well. Those hoping to walk away with a greater understanding of her prolific outputcommensurate with her success will do so empty-handed, though not without having been entertained.

Best Dressed by Dawn Yanagihara

I saw this at the house of a friend who was on the verge of expanding the dining options in their coffeeshop to include some sort of salad, and she chose this book as the point of inspiration. On top of that, I was about mid-way through reading Samin Nosrat's new cookbook, Good Things, which has some of the same principles, which is get a well balanced and interesting flavored dressing, and then you can use it for a number of different things--like salad greens of course, but also salads with beans, salads with grains, and also over variously cooked vegetables. I am not where I would love to be with my cooking and this concept, despite my advanced age, and I am going to try to make 2026 the year I take a noticable step forward making progress in this arena. I think this paired with Good Things may be the magic sause that makes that happen--and also maybe buying the specific ingredients for a few recipes so that I do not start off with making due.

Chasing Time (2025)

This short documentary was short listed for an Academy award in 2026, and while it did not make the final list, it is an excellent documentary all the same. Back in 2012, Jeff Orlowski documented famed photographer James Balog as he setup his Extreme Ice Survey, a series of remote cameras set to record the immediate effect of climate change on the world’s glaciers. With stunning visuals and pioneering use of time-elapsed photography, Chasing Ice served as direct evidence of the warming of the planet. Images showed millennia-old ice sheets radically transforming over just a few years, contributing to the rise of sea levels, and making manifest the way the world is undergoing fundamental transformation due to environmental changes. This film is slightly more philosophical and ruminative. Directed in collaboration with Sarah Keo, the film sees Jeff and James return to Jakobshavn Glacier to remove the camera and close a chapter in both their work and their relationship. It’s a touching film about mentor and mentee, and manages in its compact running time to provide a rich portrait of their collaboration, additional stunning views of their otherworldly locations, and an even more open-eyed look at the catastrophic changes that have occurred over the last decades in this majestic environ. It is all set in motion by James’ cancer diagnosis, which makes him aware of his own limited time frame. The story and the photography are both beautiful.

Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy

This is a very raw memoir written by an author who knows how to tell a story. She left home the moment she reached legal age and never went back. She is here to tell you why. She was born in Shillong in northeastern India to a Bengali Christian father who worked on the tea plantation, and a Malayali mother. Her father was a ne'er do well, and her mother moved to Kerala via Assam and Ooty with her and her older brother, Lalith, when her parents separated. It was a a precarious, nomadic life, living with relatives, and describes taking shelter in her maternal grandfather’s cottage in Tamil Nadu, only to be thrown out because of the property laws of the state, which did not afford daughters inheritance rights. Her mother was a teacher and she demanded even her own children call her Mrs. Roy. She starts a school that grows into a renowned institution where she models her own brand of feminism, unflinchingly confronting matters of gender and sexuality. Mrs Roy challenges the inheritance laws in the Syrian Christian community, suing her brother to obtain an equal share of her father’s estate, and wins the case Mary Roy Etc vs State of Kerala and Others, heard by the Supreme Court of India in 1986. She is sharp, restless and charismatic, a visionary ruling with an iron fist. But in her rage against the patriarchy, she also lashes out at her children. She berates her childrean for the tiniest of foibles and humiliates them in public. She was fearless in her public life but made life miserable for her children, which was confusing and damaging for them. This is unflinching in its subtle but persuasive rant against perpetuating a society that leaves women as second class citizens.

Kokuho (2025)

This film is nominated in the category of Make Up for the 2026 Academy Awards, and it was short listed for Best International Movie. It is set in and around the world of Kabuki, the 400-year-old theatrical form that lies near the heart of Japanese culture. Spanning half a century and running close to three hours, this quiet epic is the top-grossing Japanese live action film of all time. When we first meet the hero, Kikuo, he's 14 and playing a female role in an excerpt from a famous Kabuki play. (Men play all the roles in Kabuki.) His performance is seen by a Kabuki star, Hanai who's impressed by his talent. When Kikuo's yakuza father is murdered by a rival gang, Hanai takes him in as a protégé, teaching him to become an onnagata — a male actor who plays female roles. There is one snag. Hanai already has a son of the same age, Shunsuke, who is slated to be his artistic heir, and, in the Kabuki world, artistic status passes from father to son. The story of what transpires between Kikuo and Shunsuke a compelling story about friendship, the weight of history, the quest for perfection and the torturous road to becoming a living national treasure — which is what the word "kokuho" means. Spanning their lives, it also is a portrait of post WWII 20th century Japan, where ideas about birth and cultural inheritance, which seem quite dated. Then in Kikuo's struggle to become Japan's greatest Kabuki actor, we feel the chilly isolation of devoting yourself to an art form so demanding that it leaves little room for ordinary human connectionanything else--his connection with Shunsuke is the closest thing he has to an ordinary relationship. This is lush and gorgeous, all the while having a creepy undercurrent. Don't miss it.

Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The author's first book, which was long listed for the Booker prize, was more violent and grizzly than this one, which overall is a good thing I think. That is a sibling tale--one sister kills her abusive boyfriend, the other one cleans up the mess. In this one but there is still a family mess to mop up. This time, the problem is spiritual rather than forensic: a matrilineal curse. For generations, the women of the Falodun family have been unlucky in matters of sustained love. They find love alright– but it curdles. Marriages disintegrate; husbands cheat, or die, or disappear. And so the women return home to Lagos, rejoin their spinster kin and teach their fatherless daughters to brace themselves for betrayal. We follow the intertwined fates of three curse-bearers. There is Monife, who dies by her own hand in the novel’s opening pages, but lingers in otherworldly ways; her cousin Ebun, who becomes a mother on the day Monife is buried; and Eniiyi, Ebun’s daughter, whose resemblance to Monife is so uncanny there is talk of reincarnation. Skipping back and forth in time, the novel zones in on each young woman as she grapples with the family jinx. It is a well told tale of what amounts to generational trauma.

Classroom 4 (2025)

This short documentary was short listed in that category for the 2026 Academy awards--it did not make the final cut, but it is open source and available to for viewing by all. The documentary takes place inside the Columbia River Correctional Institution (CRCI) in Portland, where incarcerated students and Lewis & Clark undergraduates meet weekly over the course of a semester to study the history of crime and punishment in the United States. The Inside-Out course—which is part of the nationwide Inside-Out Prison Exchange program—meets in Classroom 4 at the facility. There, students explore ideas of justice, mercy, and the evolution of the carceral state. What emerges is not only a study of history but a shared experience of humanity. The course is taught by Reiko Hillyer, professor of history and department chair. Hillyer began teaching Inside-Out courses in 2012, a year after completing training through the Philadelphia-based program. Since then, she has taught the CRCI class every other year, guiding mixed cohorts of “inside” (incarcerated) and “outside” (college) students through lively weekly discussions and shared assignments. Each class usually includes 30 students—15 from CRCI and 15 from the college—who meet behind prison walls to learn, debate, and reflect as equals. It is a very good watch.

Quilt By Night

Becky Halvorsen, family medicine doctor by day and quilter by night. I first came to know her because she issued an FPP design for the Rebel Loon at the height of the violence in Minneapolis, and being a member of the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild, one of our sew on Zoom sessions had one member finishing hers, one talk about the one she had made and put on a bag to take to QuiltCon and another member piecing one that day. She was a quilt hero to us. And she make the pattern available without charge. The same is true for her rainbow heart and same with this FPP for the classic VOTE logo. She also has a lot of fun whimsical patterns on her website and in her Etsy shop, including letters, which you can use to make a VACCINES MAKE ADULTS and other things that seem obvious but are now seen as political. Here is the thing. Basic decency is now seen as radical. Lying about absolutely everything is happening on our governmental web sites. It is incumbent on all of us to speak up. And some of what is coming out of the fiber art world is absolutely amazing, so check her out, download a free pattern (she has one with stars that I am eying a scrap friendly and not too hard as FPP goes, so right up my alley), buy a pattern (I am a true amateur when it comes to FPP so I am building a library of alphabets and hers is a great one), and support democracy.