Click here to read my review of Logan.

You may relate to the countless individuals in the world who misunderstand autism. Well today, I will give you an easy parallel to autism: Mutants. Yes, the mutants in the X-Men universe share similarities to autism.
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Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids, Lesson #12: They May Have Very Obsessive Interests.

Each of the X-Men are abnormally strong at one skill; Logan/Wolverine possesses physical strength and endurance as well as claws used for fighting, while Professor X has phenomenal mind-bending powers. Likewise, somebody with autism could have a “freakish” advanced skill, including math, memorization, art, or anything else.

Six-Word Lessons for Autism Friendly Workplaces, Lesson #84: Autistic Employees Can Be Literal Thinkers.

In Logan, the border patrol wanted to take advantage of the mutants’ skills to become future weapons. While an autistic scenario looks a little different, abnormal traits still leave individuals on the spectrum as easily susceptible to being used by someone else. For example, others I knew in high school took advantage of my autism by mocking my ridiculous mentality to sound funny for their friends.

I didn’t even get into the whole Pokémon craze until age ten, when Ruby and Sapphire came out. Yes, I was admittedly behind on the trend, but ever since, I became so obsessed by the fantastic designs of the different creatures, I even spent countless childhood hours drawing my own Pokémon, including a region map for them to live, new battle moves, and an Elite Four.

A friend and I even had an activity every recess in fifth and sixth grade: we acted out our own Pokémon adventure, with some cartoon characters as trainers. We thought, “what Pokémon would SpongeBob have? What about the Powerpuff Girls?” Our imaginations explored all possibilities every day at those recesses.

Now after growing up, I still like to occasionally draw my own Pokémon, yet since this blog is called “Trevor’s View on HOLLYWOOD,” I want to combine my love for Pokémon with my love for movies. Then maybe later I will consider sharing my own original Pokémon creations.
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So what if some of your favorite movie characters coexisted with Pokémon? Here are 12 movie characters as Pokémon trainers:

I’ve heard the reactions: “Your opinion on movies is very mean,” “Dang, Trevor! Vicious like always!” “Have you ever given a movie above a B?” “I loved this movie. You have bad taste in movies.” Especially over Twitter and Amazon, people despised my critiquing style:

​So now, I want to take some time to defend myself if you think I’m too harsh in my assessments.

Like I said in my review, Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman work together in an effort that pays off in the end; so I for certain respect the care put into creating such an emotional feature. However, we should understand the dated representation of autism in Rain Man.
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Raymond for the most part accurately depicts the truth about autism, except more to influence Charlie’s story than to give a hopeful view of someone with extra difficulties. Raymond’s dialogue composes mostly of: “Yeah.” “Definitely.” “Uh-oh.” “I’m an excellent driver.” He must keep everything throughout the week at a strict schedule—even when in Vegas, the bed must always be next to the window.

Six-Word Lessons on Growing Up Autistic, Lesson #37: They Like to Set a Schedule.

Raymond’s mental development causes a lot of inner confusion, so he always stares into space while swaying on his feet, listening only half the time. Then whenever he senses something awful could happen to him, he erupts into dangerous outbursts and self-abuse.

Click here to read my review of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
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When around his beasts, Newt openly understands their needs, laying on them both a gentle hand and a firm discipline. However, when around people, Newt’s speech turns quiet, words and eye contact kept to a minimum. Like Newt, many autistic individuals too obsess over an abnormal strength, unfortunately at the cost of forming easy people relationships.

Six-Word Lessons on Growing Up Autistic, Lesson #19: They Have Their Own Exceptional Talents.
Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids, Lesson #21: They Have Delayed Speech and Language.

Newt proved throughout Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that he’s hard to trust because he underestimates the severity of certain situations. Newt most wants to convince the wizarding community that these fantastic beasts aren’t dangerous, and of course, they are certainly dangerous, as the Erumpent and Occamy both cause extreme property damage. Likewise, due to misunderstanding instructions or underestimating situations, some neurotypicals can have trust issues with those on the autism spectrum.

Click here to read my review of Finding Dory.
Click here to see my ranking of all of Pixar's films.

To tell the truth, I originally feared Finding Dory would become the writers taking advantage of nostalgic fan service to exploit the comedy within the famous tang’s short-term memory loss. You know what though? Finding Dory actually showed quite a bit of the tragedy behind her condition.

While the film does at times play off her disability for laughs, Dory’s disability still comes off as a hindrance in the road to her survival. Yet she eventually recalls some memories by other relatable objects or phrases, such as a path of seashells pointed back home.

I too feel deprived of the same conveniences as my peers due to mental drawbacks; it often takes me longer to register a person’s transparent emotions, and I sometimes say something unintentionally offensive to another. As a teenager, you could almost wonder if I had any control at all over my inappropriate verbal comments. My autism especially made it a challenge for me to understand the rules of friendship; today I am still figuring out the science behind it.

Look at IMDb's Top 250. ​You may notice that out of everything that British director Christopher Nolan has directed for the silver screen, only two of his nine feature-length films failed to make it in here. In the top 100, six of those seven features made it in there. In the top 50, five of those six features made it in there. In the top 25, two of those five features made it in there. In the top 5, one of this features made the number four spot. 

Does this imaginative director deserve that much praise? In my opinion, absolutely not. If you ask me, he is the most overrated director working in Hollywood today, and perhaps the most overrated director of all time. But nobody can deny his influence on the fusion between art house and blockbuster entertainment. In a time when those two approaches to filmmaking are never even showcased in the same theater, Nolan knew how to find common ground. Therefore, I would like to tribute his work in honor of his newest WWII thriller Dunkirk, by ranking every one of his nine feature-length productions.

​So without further ado, let the list commence!

Click here to read my review of La La Land.

Everybody has a dream. La La Land tells us about two star-crossed lovers whose contradicting dreams challenged their relationship and their priorities. It makes you wonder, what’s most important? Your loved ones or your dreams?

Various people may abandon family time to get a promotion they always wanted, and others may miss out on grandpa’s birthday party to continue soccer practice motivated by possibly becoming the “world’s greatest soccer player.” While different for everybody, we all pine after one specific title to obtain before we die. Well let me tell you, even anyone with autism have dreams.

In fact, dreams for those on the spectrum can be more vividly realized, including what will happen in the future and when. These dreams could even start when they were very little.

Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids, Lesson #49: What Were Your Strongest School Subjects?

We're now midway through 2017 (!) so now seems like an appropriate point to reflect on the movies we have already come across. We've hit plenty of highs and unexpected surprises, such as Get Out, saw some hits that met our expectations, such as Logan, were disappointed by some we hoped would be good, such as The Circle, and there were lots that were just as bad as we expected, such as Fifty Shades Darker. Some bloggers would do a "Top 10 of the year so far" list, but I'd prefer to save that for the end of the year. I'll even get it out of the way now: my favorite movie of the year so far was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, but the one I thought was the best made was Your Name.

Now, I am going to go through everything that just came out and see which ones already have a shot at getting nominated at the 90th Annual Academy Awards. I know it's still way too early to guess what will gain Oscar glory, as it's not that season just yet, but let's not forget that the Academy has favored movies from the early half of the year plenty of times before, and particularly in the technical categories, there were plenty from these past six months that have a chance of getting nominated or even winning something!

From what I could tell, if anything was nominated early in the year, it was from a director the Academy has already acknowledged more than once (whether it's Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel or Michael Bay for 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi) or something that already gained plenty of public interest (like The Silence of the Lambs or Mad Max: Fury Road). I'm not going to mention anything that hasn't premiered yet, because how are we supposed to know as of now that Alexander Payne's Downsizing won't disappoint? This is only formulated from present-day speculation.

So without further ado, here is everything from the early half of 2017 that has a shot at winning Oscar gold:

Click here to read my review of Moonlight.

​Moonlight shows us all the troubles that one boy goes through as he grows up feeling like he’s a homosexual. It is always a confusing place to be when you are young, when you feel uncontrollable romantic desires towards someone of the same sex, and yet are not mature enough to know what to make of it, especially when the other kids at school pick on you because they can sense that you are different.

So imagine how much harder it would be if somebody on the autism spectrum grew up thinking that they were gay or a lesbian?

Six-Word Lessons for Autism Friendly Workplaces, Lesson #31: Discrimination Can Surface in Various Forms.

Just like in Moonlight, a boy can become a fast subject of bullying because he’s different in two different ways: skin color and sexual orientation. But in the case of this movie, he’s in an all-Black school, but still has one of these differences from the crowd. Yet imagine if he was in another school of mostly White students, how much more the bullying would get to him? In that same way, anybody who is both autistic and gay would become a walking dartboard for bullies. Yet it’s different in the case of being autistic rather than being Black because those on the spectrum have a harder time putting their concerns into words.