The Public (2018)

Source: IMDb

What is it?

The 2018 drama movie The Public by Emilio Estevez.

What is it about?

This is how the IMDb describes this movie:

In “the public” an unusually bitter Arctic blast has made its way to downtown Cincinnati and the front doors of the public library where the action of the film takes place.

The story revolves around the library patrons, many of whom are homeless, mentally ill and marginalized, as well as an exhausted and overwhelmed staff of librarians who often build emotional connections and a sense of obligation to care for those regular patrons.

At odds with library officials over how to handle the extreme weather event, the Patrons turn the building into a homeless shelter for the night by staging an “Occupy” sit in.

What begins as an act of civil disobedience becomes a stand off with police and a rush-to-judgment media constantly speculating about what’s really happening.

This David versus Goliath story tackles some of our nation’s most challenging issues, homelessness and mental illness and sets the drama inside one of the last bastions of democracy-in-action: your public library.

What do I like about it and what would other people like about it?

I like that the movie involved a public library and library workers, homelessness and how it relates to public libraries, some of the cast, the comedy, that it was a better and higher quality film than I had expected, and that the movie had a message that it managed to get across with seriousness and some comedy; and I think that other people will like this as well.

Final Thoughts

This was my first time ever attending a screening for a movie, I saw it during our work trip at a library conference recently, and the director Emilio Estevez was there (hiding in the back watching our reactions until the movie was over apparently) and he had a question and answer session with our audience immediately after the movie.

This was possibly the best session that I went to at the library conference and I am glad that I stayed for the question and answer session, and I would like to thank Mr. Estevez for screening this movie at the library conference and for answering our questions.

I think that more people should watch this movie, I hope that it will get a distributor eventually, and I hope that libraries like The BP Library where I work will get this movie and help spread the word about it.

This movie was better and better directed and better acted and better filmed and was funnier than I had expected, and it had a larger cast of actors and actresses who(m) I recognized than I had expected.

This movie also captured some of the experiences of working at a library more accurately than I had expected, and it did a better job portraying people who are homeless as normal people just like everyone else with good and bad and in-between things about them and their lives.

Whenever it gets released one day I would recommend watching it.

The end,

-John Jr

Police Officer(s) Walking Around At A Conference

Source: Wikimedia Commons

I had remembered part of a dream before these dreams, but I focused on voice recording the dreams after it first so I can not remember the dream before it now at this time but I will type it here later if I remember.

This is actually a set of connected dreams that kept continuing every time I got awakened by my alarms and / or when I would wake up to check the time and then go back to sleep.

I am not sure if I was in the dreams or not but I do know that a woman and a man were in them, and one or both of them were possibly police officers.

They kept talking about (sometimes by phone and sometimes in person) and going to a conference at a convention center, maybe a library conference, and they would be walking around and talking at the conference in the main halls of the convention center.

That is all that I can remember of these dreams at this time.

The end,

-John Jr