I forgot to plug the nonprofit Common Sense Media— I frequently check this before watching movies with my fam so I can get a heads up on what themes to expect and gauge whether it would be appropriate for my kid at the moment. The site has rating systems that are pretty detailed: not only info about profanity, drug use, and violence, it also has ratings for representation, gender messages, and educational value. There’s even a “Talk to Your Kids” section that has discussion suggestions specific to that movie. The site isn’t specific to movies, either— it covers books, television, games, etc.

Amazing list!! There are a bunch on here I hadn’t heard of before, so thanks for sharing!

Of those I’m familiar with, I think a heads up is warranted for couple of films in your “As Safe as Can Be” section: Office Space (one of my faves) has lots of swearing and some suggestive dialogue (the million dollar question scene comes to mind) and Groundhog Day has lots of references to suicide and one or two makeout scenes.

Also, I watched Happy Gilmore recently with my 11 year old, and she was mortified by Happy’s “Happy Place” dream sequence (I had completely forgotten about that part), so just an FYI that it gets a bit spicy (and weird).

The Princess Bride and O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Mildly annoyed that the graphic artist didn’t bother to manipulate the “mugshots” to reflect actual height. Makes it look like if anyone in Trump’s admin that is 5’8” and a half… straight to jail.

Interesting. I haven’t read Dust yet, but I thought the first two were fantastic reads. I also really like the TV adaptation so far. I agree it doesn’t fit well into the hard science fiction subgenre. I would categorize the books as soft sci-fi— focusing more on the social aspects of an isolated society with limited resources where technological advancement is restricted. I’m more of a soft-sciences nerd though, so I get it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

I’m not sure what you mean about the premise of “wool” in the story though? Are you wondering why it is important enough to be the book title? To my knowledge, the name of the first book is not solely derived from the wool pads used by the cleaners… this first book is actually a compilation of shorter novellas “woven” together (haha)(the author’s titles allude to this: Proper Gauge, Casting Off, etc). I particularly like the author’s juxtaposition between these textile-related terms/concepts and the alternate definitions that lend themselves to the dystopian setting of Mechanical and the Silo in general.

My MIL raved about Lessons in Chemistry and was excited to share it with me. I was shocked by how poorly written it was— perhaps it’s a decent story (enough people were enamored with it that it made it onto several best seller lists), but the execution was so bad I couldn’t even finish the first chapter. When asked, I ended up just telling my MIL it wasn’t my cup of tea and crossed my fingers she didn’t want to discuss plot points or anything that would make it obvious I hardly cracked the spine.

“Cuz” was early 2000s

Reminds me of reading Macbeth in high school:

My dearest cuz,/ I pray you school yourself – MACBETH, IV ii

The Yellow Stocking Tales blog has a neat list of words used by Shakespeare and how the meanings have changed over time (or haven’t changed, in the case for the word “cuz”)