The Desert Mermaid

I had never seen Hereditary, so I decided to watch it last night! I live-tweeted i on Twitter and on Bluesky (live-skeeted?), but tl;dr I enjoyed it immensely! It was especially fun dorking out over the Utah scenery!

I just don't understand people in horror movies who walk into horrific tableaux, like, for example, ( a shocking and spoilery scene; tw gore and child death ) and immediately start screaming actual bloody murder. Wouldn't it take you a moment to process it, to put together what sequence of events led to this moment of Bad News? Or maybe that's me. Is it the autism?

Speaking of autism, I wound up especially intrigued by the Creepy Girl.Creepy Children in horror movies always fascinate me. They're written and directed to seem neurodivergent, and as a late-diagnosed ND person I gotta say, it's kind of a revelation that ND mannerisms default to creepy for writers and directors. I mean, I've had to learn to read NT body language, so I can also understand that the flat affect and weird stims/tics* and special interests and stilted, developmentally skewed language come across and confusing--I just never notice when I'm doing it MYSELF.

I did think it was funny that in this movie the Calamitous Horror Disaster was a direct result of the worried mom pressuring her ND kid to Go Out And Socialize Like A NORMAL Kid, Jeez. I'm waiting for the Scream franchise to add that to the list of Horror Movie Rules: along with Don't Go To Irresponsible Teenage Sex Parties and Don't Drive While High, you gotta put Don't Pressure Your ND Kid To Act Neurotypical.

Anyway, I used to be impatient with demon-type movies because I thought they implied that Christianity was true in the movie universe, and my grumpy atheist ass has Issues with Biblical worldbuilding. But then I realized that these movies only posit that demons are real, just disembodied malevolent entities all floatin' around randomly terrorizing hapless dumbasses, and religion might have evolved as humans' attempt to gain some semblance of control of the monsters. I mean, look at human responses to other disasters--plague, famine, pestilience, natural disasters, predators, trauma, abuse, and neurodivergence! It makes sense that a cult would pop up trying to bargain with this! Poor, confused humans just trying to make sense of a confusing universe. That's what horror is all about, Charlie Brown!


FUN STORY: When my sister was tiny, she was sitting in her car seat munching on a box of croutons as a snack, and she dangled the box out the open window. The croutons got blown out of her hand and she dramatically screamed, "MY CROUTONS!" as they flew away. That was my first thought when That Scene happened.

We also tell a story about how my sister, in her car seat, screamed bloody murder for no apparent reason. There was a beat. Then a little gasp, and she cried out in the inexplicable Southern accent she had as a toddler, "I scared myself!"

Given these two incidents, I consider this movie to be the Little Sister Car Seat Special.


*Dammit, what is that click sound she makes called? I'm fairly sure it's a retroflex click, but the internet is cagey about clicks for some reason.

Oh, man, you guys. There is a documentary about Carroll Spinney out!

ABOUT TIME.

No, seriously, you guys. Carroll Spinney is one of the finest actors ever to appear on TV, AND YOU ALL FUCKING LOVE HIM. He is awesome. I've said it before, but I still think Carroll Spinney is BRILLIANT. Not only can he act enough to make you cry like a goddamn baby, but he can do it in a giant sweaty yellow bird suit where he can only see what's going on through a TV monitor and his right arm is holding up a giant puppet head and moving it like an actual bird would while controlling the eyes with his pinky finger. Sometimes he even roller skates that way.

Carroll Spinney is BIG BIRD.

And even if you're one of those people who thinks Big Bird is annoying, well, 1) I do not understand you, but 2) he is also Oscar the Grouch, so you still love him.

I'd have liked to hear a few more stories about actually being Big Bird in the doc, but I'm just glad he's getting some recognition. Mad respect for that guy. Check out the documentary.


DISCUSSION QUESTION: When, if ever, did you realize that Big Bird's right arm is basically a sticker? It's on a string that loosely moves it to act as a counterweight to his left arm, but yeah, he's pretty good at hiding that it doesn't really move much.

SO I SAW INTERSTELLAR Y'ALL.

I ... hmmm.

Um ...

Huh.

That sure was a movie, that was.

I guess I hadn't really considered the fact that, as a Christopher Nolan movie, the thing could conceivably be made entirely of climaxes. Or that, like pretty much all the Nolan movies I've seen, I'd come away not with a big picture, but a sort of composite of Things I Liked and Things I Didn't Like. And as far as the story goes, the bits I was interested in (I really love the humanistic message that we can transcend ourselves) were fused inextricably with bits that just kind of annoyed me (no, seriously, you are fucking with causality like you're a goddamn Star Trek episode).

It was overwrought. I got really tired of the long, drawn-out climaxes and Hans Zimmer's All-Heartstring Orchestra Score. It was a huge oversell. But then, it's not hard to sell me on OMG SPACE!--I already am all about going and checking it out.* However, I know a lot of The Public is not interested in "wasting" (FUCK YOU) money on space, so I hope it does what it was trying to and inspires some people who aren't so into our spacey future to rethink that stance, because getting to space is ultimately going to be necessary (and awesome) for us. Ultimately I think that's probably a good thing.

But, uh, for my money? Erik Wernquist's three-and-a-half-minute video Wanderers was far more inspiring than this three-hour blockbuster. I am glad others have been inspired by it. But me, I'll stick with those Wanderers.



(Although I may have shrieked in excitment when, almost at the end, Matthew McConaughey ( sees a thing. ) Those things are cool.)


*Though not with Mars One. WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED that Mars One's plans do not appear to be all that well-thought-out?

I think the funniest thing about Linkara's The Hobbit reviews (which I am rewatching at the moment) is that I don't disagree with any of the critiques he has to the storyline--it's all spot-on true for how to build a good story. The extra characters, the climax, Bilbo's role in it, the second climax, etc.--none is particularly good novel technique.

--And yet, at the same time, every single thing he critiques is another reason why The Hobbit is my favorite book in the world.

Most of it boils down to one thing--that it really is Bilbo's story. It gives us his point of view, and while he's a hero, he's not a Hero. So I like that the Dwarves are kind of an amorphous mass, with one or two personality traits materializing out of it sometimes, because I have the feeling that's kind of how I'd perceive it if I was sort of accidentally dragged on this adventure. I like how he was accidentally dragged on--for all that it's nice to show him consciously deciding to change his life in the movie, I like how Gandalf actually just flusters him into joining in the book. I really like that he bitches the whole damn way--I hadn't realized how important it was that he piss and moan all the way to the Lonely Mountain until it was taken away in the movies. Yeah, he's rising to the occasion, but by god, he's not happy about it.

But what I especially like is Linkara's big complaint--the double-climax and how Bilbo plays into it.

I like that he doesn't slay the dragon. I like that his contribution was a small one--a critical piece of information that would get around to some other hero to do the job. Here in a world were we can't actually do heroic, world-saving deeds, the idea of doing a small thing that still touches off a great change is a really uplifting one.

I like the Battle of Five Armies. Aftermath is difficult and more complicated than a usual denouement is. And your friends can turn into jerks even then.

And most of all, what I like is how Bilbo tries to handle the standoff leading up to the battle. His true bravery is in his attempt to make an outcome that works out best for everyone--trying to do the right thing despite his own friends' not appreciating that. And that he tries to solve it peacefully. And that he fails--but that everyone realizes what he was trying to do, and winds up respecting the hell out of him for it. He may have changed them a little more for next time--maybe they'll try a little harder to fix things.

So, yes. It doesn't really reflect everything we're used to in a story, but it's something I really love. His story is one of the small people who don't slay dragons or move mountains. He's just the guy who flubs his way through the adventure he's dragged on, trying to do mostly the right thing as he goes. It's not the person we like to imagine ourselves as, but it's rather nice to realize that the person we actually are, for all our flaws, can be respectable, too, in our own small and admirable ways.

And that he snarks the whole time. Really, I can't overstate how important it is that he whines so much.

During the making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, one of the concerns at Disney was whether or not people could become in any way emotionally involved with cartoon characters, even if they looked human.

Now it's almost eighty years later and I just got a little misty watching Mr. Peabody & Sherman.

Just thought I'd share those two competely unrelated pieces of information with you. Enjoy them.

I feel like I trashed The Lego Movie too much in my last entry when I actually quite liked it, so I want to balance that by pointing something out: I really liked the direction they took the Chosen One storyline. Yes, it did pass up the badass female, but the final message, in which ( you find out some stuff about the prophecy ) was really great. Turning the Only You Can Save (Lego)Mankind trope inside-out like that is definitely worth some cookies.

Aw, yea, have acquired the Frozen DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack. I will now watch Frozen and "Get A Horse" nonstop for roughly the next couple of years.

And why, yes, I am translating Frozen's "Let It Go" into my own conlangs. To, uh, test them out. Yeah, that's it.

Okay, actually, this isn't really new--I've been doing Disney dubs and writing my own lyrics to songs since I was in junior high. And because I am totally fascinated by multilingual Disney songs. I can get lost for hours watching one song in multiple languages,* and I want in on that action! But this is a first for a couple of my newer languages, and I'm having a blast. Can't decide if I prefer the crazy polysynthetic Sprite Language Mark II version or the Modern OGYAFEse fossilized triconsonantal roots** with their esoteric rhymes, but they're both terribly fun to mess with.

Yeah, I know, I'm a nerd. But hey, we nerds know what we like, and there's nothing wrong with that!


*It is an eternal bummer to me that there are no official Swahili dubs. There's a Zulu dub of The Lion King, but that's as close as we get.

**Well, not quite triconsonantal roots, but rather overdone semantic derivations with the same sort of consonant radicals and ... yeah, you stopped caring, didn't you? Having a phenomenally boring hobby is a terrible burden.

Are we all sick of "Let It Go" yet? Hah! Trick question! I'm not. But I realize a lot of you might be. So, if you'd like something different, I've got it for you: please enjoy the last time Disney produced a song that I couldn't stop listening to for years.


It might help to start at 00:15 if you want to skip the little lead-in scene with the aliens.

"He Mele No Lilo" is not really a Disney song; as best as I can make out, Mark Keali'i Ho'omalu arranged a couple of traditional Hawaiian mele for the hula dance at the beginning of the movie. But hot damn, those are some lovely mele, and JESUS what an arrangement, with the Kamehameha Schools Children's Choir. I actually love this song so much that when it first came out I tracked down the lyrics--yes, the Hawaiian lyrics--and learned them. (It's one of the things that inspired me to study Hawaiian.)

It doesn't seem to carry the same clout as "Let It Go," but it got a similar religious experience reaction out of me. And since I've noticed that a few people are starting to catch up on the Lilo & Stitch love (another movie about sisters! And this one has aliens as well!), well, I figured I'd help y'all along.

We're a little heavy on the animation this quarter. For reasons!

What I Learned Since The Autumn Equinox

• Groucho Marx had some excellent writing, but his delivery needed work. You could say they were "rapid-fire" jokes, but I say he didn't give you time to get them.


• Looking up where to buy a simple pepper sprayer in case the stupid asshole pit bull next door breaks through the neighbors' poorly-maintained fence will lead you into an internet rabbit hole of super-paranoid home security products.


• Amtrak bunks are fun to use, but don't really help one sleep too well.


• You are required to sit with others on train dining cars.


• Sea Salt Caramel Cocoa is the New Thing.


• Birds are a very good indicator of the exact instant your fruit should be harvested. And you are on your own if you miss that instant.


• Sherlock is a pretty awesome show.


• Wine presses are fun to operate!


• Lauren MacMullan was the first woman to direct a Disney animated theatrical film. Good thing it was the unbelievably awesome "Get a Horse"!


• I was missing the concept of sisterly love as true love in Disney movies. And I didn't even know it.


• Twitter is a site capable of both great beauty and great horror. Social justice and mob rule both abound.


• Before being a full silent cinematic movie, Gertie the Dinosaur was meant as a Vaudeville act in which its creator, Winsor McKay, would play the part of her trainer.


• Some cats do play fetch.


• Studio Ghibli, in its previous incarnations, was responsible for the animation on those godawfully animated Rankin/Bass specials, including The Hobbit. Ghibli has come a long way.


• People with spinal cord injuries have to be careful not to scoot when transferring, since they can't feel if they catch on something or tear their skin.


• Pumpkins will ripen on your counter if it gets too cold to leave them outside.


• Columbus Day can be celebrated as the much less annoying Indigenous Peoples Day.


• And not all 15th- and 16th-Century Spaniards were mass-murdering fuckheads. That's nice to know.


• Selfies could be as old as art itself.


• When trying to create Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, one of the big concerns in selling it was whether audiences could actually become emotionally invested in cartoon characters. Oh, if only they knew.


• Another concern was that they had never actually made realistic cartoon characters--until this point they were all rubber-hose stretch-and-squash little funny animals. One of the reasons The Prince doesn't make much of an appearance was that they were still not entirely sure how to animate men without making them look stupid. (The Dwarfs don't count; they were squashy cartoon characters.)*


• Last thing about Snow White: the artists (or, as they're referred to in this interesting old-timey How A Cartoon Is Made short, "pretty girls") responsible for cel coloration decided that Snow White needed makeup--and so they simply applied their own blush to the cels. Disney reportedly worried that they might not know how to apply it correctly, which got him the Are You Fucking Kidding Me stare it deserved.

*I can see why Tolkien resented Disney. Here he's trying to make unVictorian, respectable Dwarves, and just a year later out come these goddamn doofuses. Singing about the washing-up, no less!** IT'S NOT LIKE THE DWARVES IN THE HOBBIT EVER SANG ABOUT THE WASHING-UP, RIGHT?! ... Oh, right.

**By the way, according to my DVD chapter menu, that song is entitled "Bluddle-Uddle-Um-Dum." You're welcome.

Okay, so The Desolation of Smaug was mostly unnecessary, and unlike the LotR movies it made the story LESS cohesive than its source material, but it was pretty darn fun.

Especially Smaug. Most of the changes from the book, while understandable from a cinematic adaptation's point of view, made it work LESS well--but I admit I like the moment when ( that one thing happens ) You really get a moment of "Damn, this hobbit is in over his head and he is terrified and he will ROCK IT ANYWAY." And I know Smaug really gets more screen time than he does in the book, but god dammit they had a big CGI DRAGON and they were gonna USE it.

Mostly it was really entertaining to see how much fun Peter Jackson and team were having. I squeaked and giggled at all their nods to the Middle Earth lore. And even the super dumb moments were usually so awesome that it didn't matter that they were, in fact, super dumb.* (The audience had the funniest reaction to the movie's little nod to Legolas and Gimli's future friendship. It was this I See What You Did There groan followed by a laugh at our own response.)

Although I did want to hang out with the spiders for longer. I wanted Bilbo's moment of kickassery to last. And anyway I was looking forward to those spiders, dangit.


*And a couple that they actually managed to NOT make super dumb despite all probabilities--for example, ( that one thing ) was actually rather sweet and well-played. And probably not going to end well, if we're gonna follow the book.