May 31, 2013 - Now You See Me comes out today (well, technically yesterday cuz my paranoia made me rush out and see it immediately to assess my opinion). I've been extremely nervous about this film as its been marketed as something remarkably similar to something I wrote six years ago and worse is being produced by people who allegedly read that script a suspiciously short time before Now You See Me apparantly appeared as a screenplay. There are a lot of similarities but honestly the vast majority of them can be written off as coincidence (father issues, corrupt businessmen, middle aged characters providing comedic relief, and older people providing exposition really aren't that uncommon (if it sounds it, I should note I'm 100% not being sarcastic)), which means I think I can safely not worry about elevating my concerns to legal complaints and can continue not having to talk to the people I first developed this project with (whom I haven't spoken to in years). Basically I just think I saved myself a ton of stress and am feeling quite relieved.

Meanwhile, El Salvador just reversed a ruling preventing a woman from receiving a medically necessary abortion. I think I mentioned that El Salavador was one of the initial choices for the country where Vanessa was killed (ultimately opting for Nicaragua which has equally strict laws instead). Perhaps access to abortion will now improve in such areas now that more of the risks of keeping abortion illegal have been publicized.

Also Fox News had these horrendous things to say reacting to information indicating that women represented the primary source of income in 40% of households. In theory this number should be able to push 50% and accurately reflect the gender ratio, but honestly, the real story here is that we're still in a society that finds it necessary to record this data which is problematic in its own right.

-D