Notices by Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)

So far, Republicans are so torn about this new American Pope.

On one hand, they’re all “USA! USA!”

On the other hand, some are pissed off he’s “liberal” and apparently rebuked JD Vance on Twitter just a few weeks ago.

Now watching the Canadian federal election results.

So far, the Liberals are winning, but only Newfoundland is being counted. And the East Coast is highly likely to sway Liberal.

I expect the Liberals to win, but I also expect this to be tight—and I don’t take anything for granted. For all I know, this can a minority government in either direction.

Folks, I’m asking you all to donate to this GoFundMe.

Nearly an entire family was murdered in the 2025 Vancouver car attack that occurred last Saturday. Only the 16-year-old son survives. He needs help.

I personally know these victims—they’re fellow members of Vancouver Rackets Club. They were active members of the local badminton community. Great people. Unbelievable tragedy.

Please, if you can, donate—and if you can’t, boost this message so others can help.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/lone-survivor-from-lapu-lapu-festival-tragedy-vancouver-bc

Watching Independence Day for the first time since I was a kid.

And wow—it’s dumber than I remembered.

Jeff Goldblum uploads a virus to an alien mothership… by connecting to their WiFi? These are alien invaders with tech centuries ahead of ours, and they didn’t think to install a firewall? No encryption? No protocol mismatch?

Also, how exactly is he interfacing with their system? Are these aliens running Mac OS? Did the ship just handshake with TCP/IP like, “Sure, we’ll talk to this 1990s PowerBook”?

Yeah, seems legit.

My wife keeps saying I should talk to someone who isn’t on a forum about Shinto-inspired bullet hell games.

So I’m looking at the response to the Switch 2, and the response looks mixed.

People complain that it’s not OLED, backwards compatibility may be iffy, and the price of AAA games has gone up.

However, it outputs in 4K, has magnetic joy-cons, and you can use them as mice.

Of course Canadians don’t want Canada to become the 51 state!

Even in Alberta, the most right wing province in Canada, only 13% of people there are pro-annexationist.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2025/03/26/canadians-overwhelmingly-oppose-becoming-the-51st-u-s-state-poll/

Tesla – that’s right, the same company Trump was shilling for two days ago – is now begging the U.S. to back off from tariffs because it’s a threat to its business.

Things are getting quite hot for Elon Musk. 🥵

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-raises-alarm-trump-tariffs-203411586.html

Freeway (1996) is one of the darkest but also funniest films I’ve ever seen, and it’s the movie that made Reese Witherspoon a star.

And this is shocking stuff. It’s Reese Witherspoon like you’ve never seen her. I don’t think she’d ever take on a role like this again. She was 19 when the movie was released, and she displays an impressive range—really hits the high notes—that few actors ever achieve in their entire careers.

Let’s be real: this movie isn’t high art. It can be lowbrow at times. But it has something to say.

Freeway is an urban retelling of Little Red Riding Hood—except here, Little Red Riding Hood is Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon), a 14-year-old girl who can’t read. Her mother is constantly turning tricks on the corner outside their house, and her stepdad is a drug addict who won’t stop trying to have his way with her. But when her mom gets arrested, and shortly after, her stepdad too, Vanessa is left alone. She’s about to be taken in by Child Protective Services when she gets an idea: she’ll go live with her grandmother instead. So, stepping out on her social worker, she heads down the freeway—and that’s where she meets Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland), who exudes an impressive menace. And, as his last name implies, he’s the wolf in this retelling.

As you can probably imagine, Vanessa and Bob collide in a battle of wills. But Vanessa, a victim of the system, does things no 14-year-old in a healthy environment would ever do. This film is as much about her descent into criminality as it is about the world that made her this way. Because Freeway makes a point: girls like Vanessa don’t just happen. They are created. They are products of an unjust world. We already know what kind of person Vanessa is going to become because the system makes her. When you grow up like that, you’re just trying to survive. And sometimes, the only thing keeping you alive is your will to live. That’s what this film is about.

Now, I have to mention the supporting cast—because they’re amazing. Brooke Shields plays Bob Wolverton’s wife, Mimi, and wow, is she obnoxious. I wanted to slap her a few times. Brittany Murphy has a short but memorable role—she grabbed my attention right away, and honestly, it’s too bad she didn’t get a longer career. RIP, Brittany Murphy. Wolfgang Bodison and Dan Hedaya play the detectives, and they are riveting.

Now, to say this film is offensive is an understatement. It is wildly offensive. If I had known some of the scenes that were coming, I might not have watched it at all. At one point, Vanessa utters the N-word, and I was furious that the scene even made it into the movie. It was inexcusable. There is no situation where a white person should ever say that word, and it came with a hard R. Had I known, I wouldn’t have watched the film.

And yet—I have never seen a movie like this before, and I don’t think a movie like this will ever be made again. I don’t think Reese Witherspoon will ever play a character like this again. It’s kitschy, maybe even trashy. There were moments where I laughed and immediately felt like I was going to hell for laughing—but it was funny. Especially when Vanessa, pointing a gun at someone, drawls in her thick Southern accent (I think it’s Southern, not sure if it’s Texan—my ear for American accents isn’t great):

“Do you accept Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior?”

Come on. That’s funny.

Do I regret watching this movie? No. Did I laugh? Yes. Did it give me a lot to think about? Absolutely. Is Reese Witherspoon an incredible actress? No doubt.

But the one thing that keeps me from recommending this film is that N-word scene. I just don’t think there’s ever a reason for that word to be said.

All I can say is, I wish more films like Freeway could be made. It’s just too bad about that N-word, though.

https://youtu.be/C5aNEQ-xP48

@movies