There's a Star Trek movie curse. I'm not sure if you've ever heard; probably, but I'm going to explain it anyway. The idea is that odd numbered Star Trek films are terrible, and the even ones are terrific. They even referenced it in Leverage, so you know it must be true.
I couldn't find a clip from The Order 23 Job ("paging Dr Ralph O Khan...") but I did find that one time that Hardison made up a song about chasing down bad guys and sang it with Eliot. So there is that.
Problem with the theory anyway, all the new Star Trek movies are really good. Star Trek- awesome, Star Trek Into Darkness- also awesome? Well, I mean, hardly Wrath of Khan, like it quasiremakes, but, not Undiscovered Country either, so. Awesome movie, but either way, Star Trek Beyond- teh awesomest???
There are a lot of theories as to how this could be over on TV Tropes, whether the curse is broken whether Galaxy Quest plays into anything whether some of the movies aren't actually that great and we're somehow deluding ourselves, here: Star Trek Movie Curse (seriously the name of the trope,) but I have a far stranger idea.
Maybe Star Trek became James Bond?
Casino Royale- awesome. Quantum of Solace- boring. Skyfall- awesome. Spectre- boring. I can't explain the mechanism behind it, somethign having to do with reboot/prequels?, but that's seriously what I think (though, actually what I think is that, curses are a load of hooey anyway. But not playing along with it is no fun, so there we go.)
Jungle Book is out on DVD now, apparently. Which means that I need to update the list of all the Disney villain Disney Villain Deaths on Amazon page, since, you know, Sher Khan (spoilers???) dies by falling in that movie. Maybe some of the films that I couldn't find on Amazon Instant last time will be up now, this time, as well...
Saw Star Trek Beyond today. I'll get back to that in a bit. First, Spike Jonze.
Where the Wild Things Are isn't depressing because the sun's going to go out and the sand all used to be rocks and will one day be dust. It's depressing because the world that's shown, all the wild things that we see, they're the only ones there, the only beings living in the whole world. Small planet. Pointless lives- no jobs, no responsibilities, no reproduction. The idea of Adam and Eve alone in the world is bearable because they had a quest. The wild things don't. They live like animals, damned with human intelligence. Alone in the world, though like Adam and Eve, they don't think to question visitations of others when they occur. Angels, demons, Max the King.
What's the world of Dr Seuss, what's that like, which one is it? Empty or infinitely full? Because that also frightens me, though I can't say for which reason.
Star Trek, the future. The opposite dread of the Wild Things. Seeking out new life, boldly going where no one's gone before, that's the only opportunity to make real change. With a mankind spread amongst the stars, nothing any one person can do can affect the entire race. No matter how famous someone gets on future YouTube or whatever, they won't be a true celebrity, because only a portion of this mixed civilization, in-Federation or out-, could ever know of such a thing. A playwright could write the greatest stage play ever written, but the entire universe could pass away without her work being known by any but a small fraction of intelligent life. Y'know?
So I suppose I like the idea that our species, all the species we know, are all clinging like moss to a pebble plummeting through an abyss of ink. It's not frightening but comforting. The United Federation of Planets doesn't care about global warming or nuclear threats, because individual planets don't matter there, far far less individual lives. On our world we're actually united, any single contribution can affect difference for, everyone. But there are still strangers. Bobs and Terrys who won't be introduced us. We need our planet to be big.
I'd like to thank Apple Support operators George and Jessica for being so rad and helping me get back that iTunes credit on the failed I am Not a Serial Killer rental downloads. Apple may be a big faceless corporation of evil. And maybe there was going to be a "but" at the end there?
So yeah it turns out that that's a thing that sometimes happens, it just fails to go through for some reason, and nobody knows why and if they did they'd have fixed it already. At DQ we called that kind of thing a "known issue," which means that we know about it. And maybe there was going to be a "but" at the end there as well...
I'd also like to thank PayPal for fortuitously offering up to 75% off on movie rentals through Google Play, right when I needed some movie rental. It's almost as though companies monitor our correspondence and browsing history or something! (No "buts" there!)
75% off put a movie rental of I am Not a Serial Killer right conveniently in my price range, where it hadn't been before (except on iTunes where I already had credit, as has been explained.) I downloaded it on Saturday, watched it today, waiting until after dark of course because hello, scary movie (though thriller genre instead of horror of course.) And...
dang.
It's been a terrific year for movies, like, dang wow great year for flicks, and, dang wow, this is one of the best. I think maybe even, the single best film of the year, so far.* Am I being hyperbolic to generate buzz for the film? Probably. I don't know; it's all highly subjective of course. But there's just so much in it that I love.
The terrifying psychological uncertainty of 10 Cloverfield Lane, the understated humor of Love and Friendship, the powerhouse performances of, I guess 10 Cloverfield Lane again. (I guess I never told you that I went to go see those movies. They're great.) I'm trying to figure out how to fit Kung Fu Panda 3 or Hail Caesar or any of the superhero flicks of this year into that, though other movies not from this year do spring to mind when trying to get across the comparative emotional impact of these elements: the climax was as heart-stopping as Interstellar's, for one. Like, dang.
I've read the book, several times, and I know what happens, but I guess that here it was just different enough to keep me guessing. The book's climax is bang-bang-bang all at the same time; the film spreads out the events a little more, gives the 'tagonists time to crawl under each others' skins. Which is, so great.
The film itself isn't as scary and intense as the trailer made it seem.** I mean, it is intense (see Interstellar comparison above,) but I mean, this is pretty solidly PG-13 stuff, though only being minimally distributed so far the film hasn't (yet?) been reviewed by the MPAA. All the gore is corpse, somewhere between the bodies in Bones and the autopsy scenes of CSI or NCIS. All the black sludge is black sludge; I'm pretty sure you can get away with that in lower-rated films. The swears are well done; the nudity is all old people, with the ickier bits offscreen of course. (Seriously, Christopher Lloyd takes a bath in the film. It's so great.)
Christopher Lloyd is magnificent. Max Records balances chillingness with humanity perfectly. The film is actually kind of hilarious, without having a single "joke" in it, if you know what I mean. Like, John Cleaver, standing outside of (sort-of love-interest) Brooke's house and stalking her up through the windows? It's hilarious how creepy that is. How he doesn't even realize it. How he doesn't even realize that Brooke is clearly into him. Words can't do it justice, obviously, 'cause seriously, none of that sounds very funny but it is. Hilarious.
So yeah. Best part of all this? Google Play rentals are for 48 hours after starting the film, instead of just 24. I get to watch it again. In the dark. Tomorrow night. Oh yeah.
...Moises Arias was in Ben-Hur? dang now I've got to go see it...
Blogged about folks from my mission yesterday, so I figure today I might get a little in here too about Spencer Broadhead. All my companions were equally awesome, but like the pig says, some animals are more equal than others. Broken Toothpicks productions are a collective of artists from Utah who specializein music parody (read that: some friends got together and decided to do video projects for school, one of which a parody music video, so they made that their schtick.)
I was aware of their most popular video, Sandwiches - Savages from Pocahontas Parody, 'cause Elder Broadhead told the story of that- their goal was to hit 10,000 views ever, which it made within a few months. It was at 10,630 views when I emailed my parents about it on the mission- looks like it's at 44,820 views as of, right now.
That's not the one I want to share with you today though (though of course by all means check that one out.) Super Massive Plaque Hole, is the one, a Muse parody of course; it came out a couple months back. For some reason, this is the least-viewed video of their entire channel, but I think it's their best. So.
Hey, so I discovered this message in my gmail (account from mission) outbox, which I'd meant as one of the emails intended as a blog post, that whole failed thing that only the anecdote regarding The Zucchini resulted from. There was this too, and only now do I realize, I never actually posted that. So I'll do that now.
It turns out that Elder Rodriguez, who's in my evening zone, also watches Friendship is Magic, and since he's in my arrival group we're the same distance into the third season together.
[Here's where I'd talk about being in evening zone together, Special Projects. I guess I didn't finish writing everything in this post... no wonder why I never sent it. Anyway, Special Projects, and then both of us in some kind of crack computer squad Very Special Projects working downstairs away from the main computer lab, in a little computer lab in a restricted access area (not that exciting, just think of it as a lounge but even more boring.) Very Special Projects had a bit of a music war, over whether to play music in the background while we worked on our Very Special Projects, or not, or if so what music, all that. Some I think Celtic?, instrumental is playing at one point, and most of the elders think that there's this one section that sounds like another song.]
They thought that it sounded like Yellow Submarine, but there was another song that I thought it sounded more like, and it was niggling at the back of my mind. I realized it was "You Gotta Share, You Gotta Care," and Elder Rodriguez said he knew that song, and in fact he knew what show it was from, and I said, great, but he said no, he watches it too. When his apartment came over for... [something? I think interapartmental council, but I don't have all my journals with me currently to double-check. Anyway, there, it turned out that Elder Fish too, I guess is what I was going for so, is also that, so] there's a lot of... [brony? friendship? magic?] if you know where to look for it.
[I was probably going to write something here about how it's weird but also I guess fine but also kind of limiting I suppose too] that our relationship is based around coming out at the same time and both liking that show. We're both in the same place, although he's one episode ahead of me. [Maybe I was going to mention here the time he synopsed the episode for me by the vending machines during break time? That's basically the story.]
So. Under normal circumstances, this would be the post where I give you all of my impressions about the I am Not a Serial Killer movie, now that it's available for rental and is being distributed to cinemas (the of course ideal way to go see it.) So iTunes is of course doing that weird thing where it refuses to play your rental...
Allegedly restarting will do something about that, allegedly deauthorizing the account and then reauthorizing it will do something about that, allegedly opening up the mini-player will do something about that... I've tried all those, uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes three times, juggling between computers and accounts, seeing if QuickTime would work like it's also supposed to... Twelve hours, two downloads of HD and one download of SD later, and I'm thinking maybe I should rent over Amazon or Google Play or Vudu instead... but I don't have credit in any of those things, I do have credit in iTunes, and outside of that I can barely afford a, I don't know, something cheap, I'm pretty broke right now. It's great that I'm actually patronizing the film (or, errr, providing patronage to?) but it'd still be nice to be able to give my honest view or recommendation on the subject so that I can spread the word in actual good faith. Though I already know how much I'm going to love it anyway... I don't know, actually seeing the thing would at least facilitate honest recommendation.
I've read the books though? And though I haven't seen it, I'm predisposed to it, no matter what I was totally going to recommend it in this post anyway...
It's like SeaFall. The response is beginning to come in, and, at least in the early stages of the game (cover your ears!) it's like sure it's introducing new rules and stuff as it goes, but there's not really much legacy-ing in the first handful of games? But that actually sounds intriguing, and makes the experience better, more intriguing, for me. The game's focus is on exploration, and development, and in-game triggers are caused by actual player choices, seems like, players dictating the story more than the story dictating players. Leisurely yet exciting, and once again definitely not something to be binged?
So, John Wayne Cleaver. Support it. If that's your, you know, kind of thing. Though I seriously haven't seen it...
Movie night unable to be I am Not a Serial Killer, I watched North by Northwest instead.
Great music, courtesy of who else but Bernard Herrmann. Saul Bass on the title sequence, excellent per the usual. Ernest Lehman, of course, one of the all-time greatest screenwriters. Alfred Hitchcock at the top of his considerable game. The cast are fantastic as well obviously.
Is that... is that Cary Grant's real accent? Since when? I mean, I guess it has been awhile since I last saw anything he's in, but you figure I'd remember something like that. It reminds me exactly of Tony Curtis's putting on of that ridiculously affected "Shell Oil Jr" voice in Some Like it Hot in his billionaire disguise... actually come to think of it there's just as much makeouts in that movie too... Marilyn Monroe versus Eva Marie Saint, though, that's a tough call...
Day later EDIT: Also, just remembered, don't both movies have a line where a male character mentions some variation of, "it must be my womanly intuition," under radically different circumstances but there is that too.
Fire the Lazar! (actual proposal for flag of New Zealand) (among others)
I guess I never told anyone, but now that it's on the internet with my brother's latest blog post, I can officially confirm that, after my experiments with beard, I've got a moustache now? Which are legal here. And are either always very nice looking or the worst tackiest thing ever, but you can never know which yours will be until you grow it, you know?
I'm still not sure. I think it makes me look like Adam. For some reason? Even though looking at it, it looks nothing like his moustache when he grew one... I don't know. Either that, or Joaquin Phoenix.
Stick It!'s Facebook page hasn't gained a single "like" since last Saturday. There's still time to get on it... remember that the project won't receive any Kickstarter funding at all unless they meet their minimum goal... While they HAVE gained a backer or two since Saturday, I find it just insane how nonetheless the ratio of "likers" to actual backers remains 20:1. 20:1...!
Kickstarter here! Here! Here! Here! Click it and fund it! It's a cool project! I'm not even personally involved in production of any of these stickers! Of course I would be, if the project actually manages to receive all its funding...
Following the golden rule has only wound me up flat broke. But it's benefited other folks, so...
Hey! though. Other stuff you should totally support, which I would as well were I, you know, anywhere near Hollywood or any of the other theaters showing it... But the I am Not a Serial Killer movie, starring Max Records Laura Fraser Christopher Lloyd, has been picked up for distribution in actual non-movie-festival cinemas! But only a few at first, and if it does well IFC is going to expand.
I really want to see this do well. It premieres tomorrow at two locations (remember it's past midnight in my timezone, so that's Friday) one in NYC and one in LA, expanding to 5 more locations next weekend, and, yeah, I'll just let you read about it here:
So, petition your local places to pick it up, if it's not on the list of initial locations I guess? Generate buzz. Hype. The whole 9. It's also being released to VOD, which is probably much more accessible and every little bit helps nonetheless.
Now that I've finally got iTunes downloaded to 2.0, I think I'll look for it there...
Don't really have Zootopia Watch anymore, now that the film's, actually watchable. Still need some feature to monitor Zooty products and merchandise, though. I'm feeling just so, ZO-M-Goodness, then, about this new, Zootopia Crime Files, app...
Just realized that that'd be a good name for a blog in itself: ZOMGoodness. Z, with the double meaning of the misspelling of OMG as zomg (when the finger hits the z key instead of shift accidentally, frequently recreated ironically,) slash, z as in Zootopia; that, combined with Clawhauser's "O-M-Goodness!," just... Good name, what am I talking about. It's a great name. Maybe I'll do that, actually. It's just soo good. Maybe not just as a blog either but a full-blown website itself...
Alright, looking at it, doing not only a quick Googling but also a quick Yahooing and even a quick Binging... There are a small handful of ZOMGoodnesses out there, a twitter a tumblr a blogspot a couple livejournals, but nothing Zootopia related... the most recently anything's been updated in here is 2013, so, yeah, I'd say not.
Let's see... blogspot hosting custom basic domains, $12/ year; wordpress domains... a lot of shiny options, premium hosting being $8.25/ month... a *tad* pricier, but I've always rather admired the flexibility provided by Wordpress's service package... and besides, the domain as a blogspot was already snatched up (and immediately abandoned) exactly one decade (and 24 days) ago, and the way blogger's hosting domain services work is, you apparently need to register your domain as a .blogspot first, before customizing from there?
So, $99 a year... billing only at the end of the year, and, to be fair, it is waaay less than I spend on the Adobe CC suite, even at student pricing... hm...
I could really do this...
What ZCF is is a hidden-object app where you investigate crime scenes (just like, vandalism and property damage and stuff, nothing so dramatic geez) and gather clues to solve cases- finding the hidden objects quickly enough allows you to rake in points toward stars, which you can spend on things relevant to continuing the investigation, such as questioning suspects and examining clues.
It's... it's tougher than it sounds. Finding hidden objects is not my superpower, apparently.
On the scale of actually fun vs merely addicting (are they really mutually exclusive there's gotta be a better way to rank apps I really don't have the means to know where to begin in checking any other solutions to this problem) it's... it's playing as dang Nick and Judy, partner police officers to the municipality of Zootopia, as they team up to solve cases in what're like probably canonical adventures I guess, sometime after the movie to be sure but its relationship to Stinky Cheese Caper I'm really not deep enough in the game to be able to gauge... It's, just, a blast.
As far as addicting goes though of course, the game does offer you incentives to space out your gameplay (and thus come back again and again, form a habit of it, and (the app thus being a part of your life, so it doesn't feel as weird) make sweet sweet in-app purchases, which make the appmakers tons of money, is I guess the psychology behind why apps tend to have features built in to prohibit bingeing.) The forensics lab in the game (where you take your evidence needing to be forensic'd) is of course staffed by a sloth, so you may have to wait anywhere from a couple of minutes to a small handful of hours in order to get your results back... unless you want to spend the in-game currency (bucks, as in the film) to, somehow, lubricate the gears of progress. Examining the scenes themselves you can get backup (hints highlighting items in the scene) in the form of ZPD officers- Chief Bogo offers 5 hints but can only be used again after a refractory period of 8 hours, and others down the line with dwindling in-betweens but also dwindling number of hints offered, until you get to Clawhauser, who's always available but not very useful (only offering one hint.) The end of obsolescence doesn't appear to be lubricatible, but is definitely something that can drag you back over and over again.
How does this game and these mechanics compare with other hidden-object apps? I wouldn't know, of course, because I spend my time doing productive things all day, dangit~!
What I do have as a frame of reference is Marvel Puzzle Quest. That game, that game is addicting.
Blake "Workaholic" Anderson on Coco:
Marvel Puzzle Quest has kind of been losing some of its lustre for me (I still return to it over and over, just not as exclusively)- the first couple of weeks of storyline play I was scoring quite high against fellow players, usually ending up in the top ten of events- now I'm struggling to crack 400. It probably has to deal with event times, more players playing events which don't start and end at disheavenly hours of the morning, but...
That's really one of the compelling aspects of that, the Marvel Avengers Alliance universe, that keeps you coming back for more- the challenges and events and rewards you can receive from doing well (read: spending a lot of time) on those. Or just making in-app purchases, you know, that's pretty cool too... you whale.
Zootopia Crime Files does have room for in-app purchases, of course- get yo'se'f some bucks! The "Actually Free" feature means that Amazon foots the bill! You don't really actually need the bucks, of course... they're not like Hero Points in MPQ, which are essential but deucedly difficult to get in any significant quantity any other way.
Any downsides to the game?
I saw the reviews before downloading, read them while doing so- 4 stars even average.on Amazon... 4.5 is good enough you can ignore the disgruntled critics; 4 is no cause for concern, but it is most certainly cause for curiosity. The major problem of the app seems to be... load times. Load times, even with all that level grinding you have to do if you want to collect all the stars to advance the case. It's probably something that's going to be patched some point in the future, but for now, it's true, this is a screen you're going to be seeing a lot of:
Pictured: a frequent sight
Not that that's a bad thing. I mean, look at that screen. Myself I think the load screen passes too quickly; it's a glorious bit of art and of graphic design, and I just want to keep on staring at it... The silhouette, the lighting effects, the colors and values... the lines, I mean, just look at the lines... The way the line of Nick's necktie sweeps down from his face, echoed by the tail but countered by the competing lines of his arm and leg to create a sense of dynamism... Deliberate usage of tangents to flatten the image to create a crisp graphic feel against the masterful handling of the three-dimensionality of the forms- while also creating really interesting negative shapes...
The silhouette of the above image, with tangents circled in red so that you can appreciate what the heck I'm talking about.
But if you really feel that the loading screen is idling away your time (which is, better spent idling away your time actually playing apps?), you know, you could always multitask. Just, I don't know, put on a podcast in the background. That's what I do.
As I've said, I've had, a lot of time to listen to podcasts, lately. Also getting in listening to scriptures too of course. Stuff like that.
Somehow we got it stuck in our minds that that's what it's all about, what a story is, or whatever. Where do you get your ideas, we may ask of an artist. Or say to our writer friends, hey, I have an idea for a book, will you write it? I'll split the profits with you...
We hate bad films, you see, because we see too much of ourselves in them. It's too tender, the reminder that these professionals still have the capability, to one extent or another or for one reason or another, to produce terrible work. Of course, working as a team, you can always blame someone else.
Who is there to blame if you, alone, produce a magnum opus of unparalleled majesty and breathtakingly unique scope and vision... that, everyone else can plainly see, is still actually quite terrible?
Actually there is always someone else who can be blamed, but you're still the one in charge of the final buck. So the answer is, no one.
And yet we still see people totally terribly un-self-aware. Doubly puzzling, seeing how self-absorbed we know they must be.
It is the idea they worship, the idea they chase. Confound craftsmanship, tarnate hard work, damnate mastery of the practice- it is the idea above all that others will see, the idea above all that will cause everyone to worship me.
...
I forget the rest.
Translated from the original Spanish. (No, not really.)
...Mmm, just realized, having your post titled as a pun off of the name of a song that only exists in your own head probably doesn't make the most sense in the world. How 'bout that drywall, though [change-of-topic indicator we used on my mission.]
So my bro started a blog today, posting up (weekly it looks like) the entries to his (daily) "tender mercies" journal. http://currantbush-ryan.blogspot.com/
One entry so far.
Speaking of, though, my (older) other brother also started a blog, last month, which I don't think I actually got around to featuring here: http://agamedesignersblog.blogspot.com/
It's about... game design. As you can tell.
For completeness's sake (I already linked to it once... I think?) my other (younger) brother also has a blog, where (at least) he links to my blog, in today's post, as a continuation/response of the discussion about, how the heck we gunna play SeaFall?, in my post of a week ago: https://whateveriwant7.blogspot.com/
He talks about, dang I guess a lot of the same things that Andrew talks about... board games, cosmere stuff. High school (Alex with attending it, Andrew with, teaching it. Or, well, "Preparatory Academy," whatever that means; might actually be some kind of middle school function instead...)
Alright, I checked. I did link to the blog previously... in one of the posts from last year I haven't gotten around to posting yet.
Also while I'm at it, remember that you can still follow the mission of my Art 101 teacher and his wife, to Lyon, France. http://geddesmission.blogspot.com/
So I guess I'm deferred unless I get a physical to investigate that ten-pound weight loss, whether there's anything wrong with me or something... and thus I tried setting up an appointment today with the health center, but got put on hold for an hour and a half (oh nooo my precious minutes!), just a solid hour of Mozart's March in D second movement (Köchel 335) over and over, at the end of which an automated voice tells me that like the system is down or whatever, and probably had been down the whole time I don't know. I'm just a hapless sumgun, ent I.
It's totally my lack of doughnuts this week, though.
I found this fascinating book on fur from 1904 today, here if you want to read the whole thing I guess? but it probably won't be as fascinating to you as it was to me. Seriously, I've looked in encyclopedias for this kind of thing, Wikipedia, everything, but I guess you need a more in-depth source when looking for information on a topic that... I guess a lot of people aren't that curious about, or you'd expect there'd be more there? Just in the first paragraph I learned more than I'd even been taught my whole life. The paragraphs are very very long of course; the three excerpts below are all from the first paragraph, which takes up the majority of three pages.
I don't know; I guess I've just always loved fur.There's nothing in the world like it. On the hoof (or paw or whatever) or off. It's never bothered me how we need to kill to get it; we eat meat, don't we, and I just see it as sort of romantic how you'd live on longer than that being killed for just that instead. It's such a personal topic to me, sacred even (go so far as to say another form of spirituality) that I feel kind of weird sharing this, but, hey look facts:
Fur is the term generally and quite indiscriminately used to designate the hirsute growth covering almost completely the bodies of many species of animals, embracing a majority of the otherwise diverse quadrupeds dwelling in comparative peace, by stealth, or by strenuous endeavor in forests, vales, or marshes; upon isles of the sea and ranges of eternal snow; and throughout the more or less densely settled tracts and wild wastes of temperate and frigid zones. But this definition, or comprehension, of fur is incorrect, whether it is considered as a study in natural history, or from a commercial standpoint, as this growth upon the skins of animals is distinctly dual in character, consisting of both hair and fur. Hair has a smooth surface, is round, tubular or hollow nearly throughout its length, rather brittle when quite dry; and generally remarkably hard. It varies considerably in development, ranging in length from about one-half inch or less upon certain canines, to six or eight inches upon some monkeys, goats, and the Polar bear....
The harp seal, born on the ice on the coast of Labrador, and the horse, and musk ox, native of Greenland, are hairy; while the fox and otter, having their habitat in the flowery fields and swamps of Florida, are furry. Nature determined the animal's general physical conditions in the beginning, and nature's laws, having been established in wisdom, are manifestly destined to abide. Some animals, including the horse, ox, lion, camel, and members of the deer family, have coats exclusively of hair. The covering on the skin of the mole is practically all fur. But nearly all the humble creatures designated as fur-bearers have coats consisting of both hair and fur developed in varying proportions, the fur largely predominating....
Fur serves the animal as a protective garment, not because it supplies warmth, but undoubtedly on account of the fact that, being a very poor conductor of heat, it retains in the body of the living creature practically all the vital heat developed, and which suffices for the perfect comfort of the animal during the severely cold days and nights of an extended winter. Even animals, including those as large as the bear, which hibernate during the months of prevailing low temperatures, seemingly experience no real or great discomfort on account of cold. For the same reason, that fur is a very indifferent conductor of heat, furry creatures endure in comparative indifference the ardent warmth of the summer months, the heat penetrating to their bodies very slowly if at all. The view may reasonably be advanced that fur-bearers, particularly those most fully furred, are never painfully conscious either of external heat or cold, and that the temperature of their bodies is approximately uniform under all climatic conditions.
So, I don't know, but I guess I've been listening to like a podcast or two lately where it's all, oh yeah this episode is about Zootopia let's talk about Zootopia, I've seen it 9 times already, with the episode in question being released, about a couple of weeks to a month after the film came out. By that time I'd already seen it, 12, 13 times, still beating out your excessive number of viewings with my own excessive number of viewings, but it's like, man, if normal folks're okay with my obsessed patronage of this film, how am I supposed to compete with teh furrehs all about this.
I haven't actually seen the movie since it dropped from theaters here; it's been more than a month... Which I'm okay with I suppose; there's handfuls of summer movies out that I still need to catch. Don't even need to see those in theaters; tickets cost money, and although it's trivially easy to justyouknow sneak into films, a good two thirds of the point is the patronage you're providing.
...Wasn't much of a cinema attendee back at home; oh of course now is the time you choose to get into buying lots of movie tickets, the time when you actually have to start buying your own food instead of raiding your mother's pantry...
I bought a cone of ice cream today, from the Cocoa Bean. It's my second this week, after the cone from Paradise Doughnuts on Monday. Ice cream in cones is, you know, my "thing," and... also, I think it was kind of necessary, since apparently I dropped 10 pounds since Tuesday which is really bizarre... Gotta get that sugar in me; dropping 10 pounds in between plasmapheresis sessions a couple of days apart is apparently a cause for temporary deferral at least for a buck-fifty-ish guy like me. What I think it is, is, honestly, after having gone to the Snoasis and the Karie Anne's and all the doughnuts last week, and having hardly any sugar this week, my body just decides to lose weight like madnuts even though it wasn't really gaining much weight with all the sugar intake. It's possible for a metabolism to work like that, right? I noticed with the No Sugar challenge last spring/summer, all my greatest weight losses all happened right after the interims between sessions. I'm pretty sure I've got a blog post written on it, left unpolished and unposted somewhere within the vast sea of all the blogging I didn't do last year...
Let's hope that the timing of the ice cream eating works out, and I do get fat from it, instead of getting even skinnier... It's one cone, though; I mean what would that even do, honestly (aside from tricking the body into a metabolic period of increased lipid, hang-on-iness.)
I was talking about all the times I went to go see Zootopia, anyway. How much money it cost me, and the last time I went to go see it, on its last day in local theaters. All the stuff I talked about here, as a matter of fact, where I also calculated how much money exactly that it did cost me. $166.50 in tickets, thereabouts, 31 tickets in total, $26.50 in concessions: $193, just relating to viewing the one film out of the handful of films I saw at least once in theaters this year.
I'm trying not to think about all the money I spent going to go see other films as well...
Luckily nothing coming up really interests me all that much. Sing and Moana and maybe if there's a group going to see Doctor Strange or Rogue One or maybe even Fantastic Beasts, I'll tag along. Reacher 2. But not many definites.
Even calculating in the other films this year into the mix of the money I spent on Zootopia tickets, though, the money spent all there pales (money paling?) in comparison to the money I spent on Zootopia merchandise this year. I've finished sifting through all my receipts for this year, very carefully tallying everything up, and I've come up with some data on all the money I didn't spend on getting myself a nice bike, or paying for tuition, or anything. Ready?
Number of distinct items of separately purchasable merchandise bought: 70. Number of books: 25. Number of ebooks among them, convenient digital duplications of what I would eventually track down in real life: 4. Number of items purchased twice, by accident: 2. Number of items purchased twice, deliberately: 1 (89¢ grab n' go mini-coloring-book package, with the second being bought for a local Syrian refugee drive.) Number of items purchased since last viewing: 9. Number of birthday cards: 10.
All in all, total amount of money spent on all the loot (not counting the second grab n' go pack): $589.44. Amount of that in taxes/shipping and handling: $35.40.
Kubo and the Two Strings! Thursday preview (still not sure how those work.) Epignosis: good stuff. Climax, perhaps, flawed? Though "flawed" maybe not right word; incongruities possibly stemming from non-Western storytelling mode. Would need to get into spoiler territory to explain.
Am reminded of Barsk review, reading all of it on the first day it came out, being too tired and also not having enough time to do full review in initial post when it came time to review- wrote review dealing with non-spoilers, end of post draft one; edit in later, a section at the end where spoilers are covered. Feel now that that would be a good idea for Kubo as well.
For now: good credits. "While My Guitar..." Regina Spektor. Handdrawn of quality to rival stop-motion. Good media, both. Tough year for Best Animation Oscar. Et cetera.
AND HERE: (ALSO HERE BE SPOILERS OF COURSE. ...JUST SEE THE DANG MOVIE.)
We find out what is meant by the two strings, strings of the shamisen made from symbolic representations of Kubo's parents. (And it turns out that the two outer strings of the shamisen's precursor sanshin are called the "male" and "female" strings! Neat! Thanks, Wikipedia; that adds a whole other dimension to my enjoyment of this symbolism!)
It's the final confrontation, though the promises the movie made, while indeed dealing with the film's degree of willingness to depict violence, point somewhat stolidly against this being any kind of epic final "battle." Kubo, we know, is going to have to find some other way around this. String stuff, crazy unforeshadowed moon bug.
So this is how the conflict is resolved: Kubo plays the guitar and gives the moon bug amnesia, upon which the moon bug transforms back into his grandfather, but mortal now. And, being unable to remember anything, they just lie to his face and tell him he's a swell, selfless guy. That's the story of how the moon king learned to see. I guess. ...Come to think of it, yeah, he CAN see, also, now... Weird.
Kubo's mom has Alzheimer's, so it's implied that loss of memory may be tied somehow to this form of magic? But in a film where it's explained no less than three times why it is that Kubo shouldn't go out under the night sky before he does so anyway, you'd figure they'd do something better than imply.
So the whole climax is just this weird, yep they managed to do something unexpected, but in such a way that, maybe, at least to my mind, it was too unexpected? I'd have to watch it again, and admit here that our hero should surely have perished, 'cause I blinked, like, three times, and probably forgot for at least an instant some stuff. "No matter how strange" sure covers it...
Maybe it does have to deal with certain non-Western tropes that we're just not used to. The Boy and the Beast, that came out this year, and though I haven't seen it (yet??) from what I've heard it assembles the elements together in a way that seems at first incongruous to Western eyes. Something about the way the third act is handled, or something?; like, man, not even Stephen Sondheim gets bolder than making all crazy act two. So, I don't know; it's definitely something we're going to have to keep an eye on, and learn from?
...You just, you just read this spoiler section without going to see Kubo first, didn't you. Typical, typical...
Still in the process of, I guess, diversifying 2.0's outward self (odd quirk, now: if you want to eject a CD, you press the bronze button directly (which used to be protected by a plastic shell but which remember broke off when the laptop was dropped) and it whirs and the computer whistles and then it rewhirs, and the CD deejects-- so if you want to open up the slot, you have to whack the bottom of the computer right at the apex point between whirs, and the slot pops right open.) Stickers depicting, how was it phrased, "fauna of an anthropomorphological persuasion unironically enjoying ice cream cones," turns out not as easy to come by as you'd think, so I guess I'll just make my own, and with the level of tech I need I don't think it's even necessary that they be stickers. Check it:
I guess what I'm planning on doing is, priming the whole back of the laptop (perhaps minus logo) with gesso, to give it a smoother surface than the ridged Moire-esque backing it's got now, and with the surface primed thus I don't even need the stickers to be stickers per se. Glue on some drawing/painting off of a paper, paint it direct even, on the surface. I don't think that just prying off the back plastic, as what happened with the middle hinge and the aforementioned CD slot, would quite be safe...
So, no "stickers" there. At any rate, though, there are still plenty of stickers to be had. 9 days ago is the post where I mentioned its Kickstarter going live, it's still not as wild a success as would be radical, and I figure, what can I do, I guess I can post about it more pointedly. But, Stick It! Collabs is, stickers, man.
The number of "likes" of its Facebook page seems to be growing at 100 a day, which is very swell, but even with 503 likes currently, there's only 21 Kickstarter backers so far... which is, math, like, only 25% of folks liking the project enough to financially invest in it.
I guess SeaFall is kinda technically a little sorta out now? There were a few games available at GenCon Indy last weekend, which got gobbled up quick. Hotcakes-look-like-cold-molasses quick. (Mmm, molasses.) It is conceivable that someone maybe may have completed the whole campaign by now, I guess, but judging by the video from Team Covenant which is featured in the Plaid Hat article on this year's GenCon...
Like Rob says, probably something more to be savored, than binged like I know that at least we did, with Pandemic Legacy.
Still raises a few troubling questions in its stead, though, like. I'm off at college. The game's going to be at home. When the heck are we going to find time for playing it? If it's not something to be binged, we can't just cram it all into Christmas break...
(We, have the game, pre-ordered, I'm not sure if I told you.)
Heck, I haven't been home since like March... spending summer over here... so, it's like, seriously starved for gaming right now. We're in the process of working something out this summer...
Gave a talk at church this morning. First off, may I say, morning church, which is what's going on this summer, is very, morning. My circadian rhythm this summer seems to be, go to bed late, wake up late, take a nap at noon, take a nap at 3:00. Haven't napped at all today. Not that tired, though I woke up earlish; still I should probably sleep soon.
Second off- I don't really have the text of the speech; I didn't write it down. I didn't make it up entirely on the fly, I did have some waypoints I wanted to touch, but, that is basically what happened.
I managed to exhaust most of my random tangents in my head, arranging my mental notes in preparing to get up. Farmville is a subject I didn't even mention in the talk proper, but apparently a lot of divergency can come off of it. Harlan Ellison, TLC (the band.) None of that got brought up.
The talk, vaguely, in reality went something like this:
I explain who I am. And get into it:
There are three kinds of people in the world. You can define however many categories you want, and classify them however you want; for the purpose of this talk, I say three. And the third doesn't matter.
Wolves. The third is wolves.
The two kinds of people other than that are sheep and shepherds. And in reality, everyone is actually a sheep. Even wolves. And shepherds. We're all sheep. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, said to follow him, so we should be sheep that are shepherds... Sheep follow other sheep all the time, so that makes sense...
My talk is family history work and indexing.
Something about how, living people have the power to come back to the fold by themselves. Call you up, "hey I'd like to speak with the missionaries," [heavenly choir.] Dead sheep are the ones we should lead. Dead sheep can't help themselves. Reach your hand to a dead sheep.
We should seek out our kindred dead. I explain why: families, all that, and why it's important to be baptised in the first place, with only ordinances allowing us to return to the Heavenly Presence.
I explain the Spirit of Elijah?, a manifestation of the Holy Ghost turning the hearts of the children to the fathers, vice versa, just like Malachai wrapped up the Old Testament prophesying would happen.
...I ask for a raise of hands (or whatever) asking how many have felt that connection to an ancestor, someone they'd never met but still felt love towards. No hands. I explain how I actually expected hands?...
...Indexing is how we help others. It's easy, and maybe almost fun. Like Bejeweled, except you can play it on Sundays....
Everybody's a sheep. Even wolves are sheep. Like in Hitch, when he takes her to Ellis Island, and he was a serial killer, but she still felt something....
...
Bleeh, I guess that's a good enough overview of my talk. It wasn't really that long; I wrapped it up when it felt like time.
The world is divided into three- the mortal world we know, the underworld and the overworld or heavens. The supernatural is that which is otherworldly.
...
Temples are a physical separation from the world, a sacred place which divides the outside from the inside, marking sacred time.
Temples are places in which take place ceremonies- ceremonies marking transition. Liminal spaces.
Throughout world cultures, one thing is consistent within definitions of the temple. The temple is hard to define. Cultures have different religious means of expression.
...
The mountain is steeped in mythological import. Steeped indeed like a teabag- the mountain represents the primeval mound, the first ground which emerged from the primordial waters. The apsu of Babylonian myth.
Creation myths worldwide, but particularly in the near east, show the formation of the earth with land emerging from water; the point where this first takes place, the primordial hillock, is a mountain imbued with hierophany, hierophanic points of course indicating axes mundi.
Kubo and the Two Strings comes out in a week, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Am I over it already? Clearly not. Is it going to be awesome? Clearly. Is it going to be the best animated film of the year?
...
I saw a commercial, a couple of days ago I'd say, or, wait, actually, only yesterday, where a critic claimed that. That's, quite the, claim to be making, especially in a year where even the Illumination Entertainment offering doesn't suck. (!) The year's been a pretty high watermark for animated films... and of course, there's this new one from Laika, all stop-motion, which is going to be amazing... but...
Something about Laika's pictures, they've never quite been able to, connect all the way, you know? Pretty good. Consistently good. But like Muppet movies: something's just, not all the way, some X factor that's just missing, to make them, consistently, not great.
In a year like 2016, where some critic, doesn't really matter who, someone or anyone who knows what they're talking about, can claim that Kubo's the greatest animated film of the year... it looks like Laika may have found that X factor this year. But I dunno. Just a thought.
(P.S. It's the MUSIC SEQUENCES. If the Muppet movies got, not so forgettable, music, better applied in their films, then maybe...)
When Finn was young, there was a forest out behind his house. Deciduous trees, in clustered patches. A well on top of a hill. Beyond that, a lake, with swans, dazzling white, thousands of them, swimming on the surface.
It did not occur to Moone until later to question why a well would be set up on a hill- and especially not when a lake is directly adjacent, why there would need to be a well at all.
The hill has corroded and crumbled since then, revealing jagged clay underneath. It has half dissolved, leaving the well like a bone exposed at its core. The well was no well- a tower, disguised by building an artificial hill around it.
What did the tower hide?
Why was the tower hid?
If the well hill had stood for generations, why had it only started to crumble now?
...
The swan is dead. It lies on the side of the lake, partially rotten, matted with crawling flies the way that the lake used to be covered by swimming swans. Its carcass dank, mudstained, surprisingly heavy, especially for something hollowed of so many of its entrails. Swans necks curve gracefully in life; there’s no curve intrinsic to the vertebrae of the neck, and in death, the neck is straight, long and useless, and the head also heavy, flopping freely as though to emphasize the unnatural state the swan is in in both life and death. The half-heart curve of the neck, a lie, but the swan’s most defining feature- in death, a swan bears no resemblance to a swan.
It must live in agony, mustn't it, the muscles of its shoulders and neck perpetually straining to keep its head aloft, to maintain the idea of its elegance.
...
The weregiraffe, struck by the plane, now resembled such a swan, which flooded Moone with horrible guilt he could not name-- the form of the giraffe no longer resembled a giraffe at all, its limbs mangled horribly, lacerations up the neck, its ribcage crushed so badly as to cast doubt on the idea that there had ever been anything inside the cage at all-- and if there were, where was it now? The one eye that remained intact stared lifelessly.
The corpse shuddered, as if settling. Or beginning to ferment- the body of the weregiraffe began rising, like bloating yeast. It twisted as it rose. The limbs, cast at unnatural angles beneath the body, rotated and snapped in place, spreading outwards to come to a rest under the giraffe as its body elevated higher and higher from the ground. The rib cage did not inflate itself, the angle of the head at the end of the neck did not right itself. It was merely as though the giraffe corpse had been a marionette puppeted by an unskilled puppeteer, who was now raising its puppet by the strings from its heap on the ground.
The giraffe swiveled weightlessly, on broken legs that shouldn’t have been able to support it. Some life returned to its one eye, which searched, and found Moone on the ground nearby the plane. And the giraffe, trailing juices and ichor from its many perforations, began barreling straight toward him.
Nice, family, business, there, painting the apartments all up with a fresh coat. I brought them doughnuts. And, gave them my bike? There's been a bike lying out on the sidewalk nearby for the past, however long, that I discovered today had a FREE sign taped to it.
I freaked out to myself, like Dudley finding Richie having slashed his wrists in The Royal Tenenbaums, although in a more excited positive way? but basically the way he, wavers and screams silently. Meep. (I've always imagined Dudley as Beaker and Raleigh St Clair as Bunsen Honeydew. And Richie as Ernie from Sesame Street. I've got a whole cast list, Wes Anderson characters as Muppets. Man's gotta have his hobbies.)
The tires were flat which made it occasionally difficult to ride, and it's a girl's bike, the crossbar (? bike anatomy ?) being angled instead of straight, but it was alright. Rode it across the street to campus and back. Way quicker, even with the parts where it refused to move due to its tires being flat.
I brought it into the lounge. FREE sign still on. Where it was, seen by the family, the (parents?) with their young (daughter?). They asked about the bike being free.
It is a girl's bike...
1992 is just, the worst, for internet. 1992 is when Finn Moone book 1 takes place, and the internet is a tangentially important plot point, but it's not even close to "our" internet. It's a totally alien species. 1993 is when everything happened. Just off the top of my head:
The Internet for Dummies first published
"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" comic published by the New Yorker
Mosaic graphical web browser, and oh
Birth of the friggin' world-wide web itself
Usenet becomes available to general public (the "Eternal September")
This episode of the PBS show Computer Chronicles?
They'd say we've advanced pretty far since then, but I don't know. My computer seriously crashed trying to view that above video. Slow wifi here. Not, take a few minutes to download, not the video file of Clinton's inaugural address, but the text file, slow, but, making it all the way through a half-hour YouTube video was apparently too much for it.
Stuff that was around in '92, though? Don't Copy That Floppy:
Remember, kids, Digital Piracy is Evil.
Also, left is right and right is wrong...
Safe-T-Rider, I can't not bring up having brought up Don't Copy That Floppy. Also 1992, so it works. Though having really nothing to do with late-'80s/early-'90s computer tech.
Is staving off bigtime world heartburn. Is tired. Is looking fabulous. Is having bought 3 boxes of doughnuts, plus one of those plastic packages of the smaller doughnuts. Is realized today, the nuts of dough are akin to the nuts of a bolt, not having to do with the nuts of legume. Is having had only one doughnut. Is also had having had gelati fresh. Is the telling of the story now.
The story of look fab.
Is returning from Suicide Squad Friday, and seeing items for sale (is saying any reasonable offer is accepted) outside of pawnshop. Is see most excellent stool, shaped like the legs of a tiger. Tiger is maybe Tigger even. Is most excellent stool. Is closed, of the pawn shop. Is closed weekends as well. Is open on Monday.
Is checking today of pawnshop. Pawnshop is of priced low. Pawnshop is of weapons and old video games and of fancy low-priced guitars. Pawnshop is not of stool? Items of outside be of yard sale. Sale sale is of sold. Items of not sold, maybe? Items of not sold, maybe, at now D I. (Deseret Industries is of Savers or Goodwill, is of places of high of population of Mormons, is of owned by Church.)
Is to check. Is check. Check of D I, no stool at D I, perhaps still of processing new items. Items of donation being processed much, stool of probably still process. D I still of nice clothes. Is try clothes on. Is like some. Is love some. Is look fab. Clothes of low price. Clothes of good.
Is maybe maybe post photos? Is too heartburned to post photos now. Is also of tire. Is of much fab still though. Is of clothes. Clothes of nice.
How dare you, Netflix. How dare you give me feelings.
EDIT: Psst. Hey, you. Yeah, you. You like stickers? 'course you do; they're stickers...
Another thing that went live on Friday... The Kickstarter for Stick It!, a project creating awesome stickers, by local student artists, a few of whom I know and most of whom I've met. Go help Kickstart it. They're stickers. Do you even need a reason?
Also, Zootopia dropped out of all US theaters, the last 24 that were still showing it, ending its domestic run officially... The 4th, was the last day, is what that means, 5 months to the day it arrived in theaters. The 5th being the first day it was no longer in theaters, as well as the first day that Little Prince arrived in actual US distribution, not in theaters like we'd thought it would be but via streaming... Either way, you can tell as well as I can, with the timing of that, that was a narrow shear, they never coexisted in such a form which made the whole voting to go see The Little Prince over Zootopia conundrum rather pointless in the end.
Come to think of it, we never did go see a movie as an apartment complex, or do any sort of winter semester activity as the voting and the plans were...
Claiming that my morality is based on sensation, out of the two things we can do with the external world, wasn't entirely true. I realized this two weeks ago, the Sunday after I posted about that. I can't shut up in church. Which means that there's a lot of interaction that needs to be met too.
You're at church, and you're supposed to keep quiet when the speaker is speaking, but you're also supposed to sing- and hymn time comes without any real formality or shift. Just sudden rule change.
I posted both music videos to Miike Snow's Animal up, the post where I went into sensation and interaction. Planet of the Apes, that post. I always thought that the lyrics were, I'd sink ships. I guess that's why I'm bringing the post up in the first place. Those lyrics, misheard and then understood with epiphany, are some of the only ones that really stick with me. I guess because, misunderstanding, remembering the actual sounds of the words instead of the words themselves...
They say that lyrics stick in your head, that they're easy to remember. And they just come to you. Even use music as a mnemonic, right? Fit things to music, makes them easier to remember somehow. Spelling Aardvark, that drill. Lyrics are easy, right? But, maaan, that ain't never been true with me (and no this has nothing to do with singing in church or shutting up or anything, this is what I'd really meant to get to.) Well, hymns, I guess, I'm decent with. Anything that I've listened to a grazillion times. A lot of U2, I've got the words to, decently, but even then there's a lot of fudging sometimes.
Even, and especially, when the lyrics are easy to make out, that just makes it worse. Flowing directly, the meaning of the words, instead of their sound.
But mostly, no. Devon and McKenna singing along to the top 40s, again, how I couldn't do that.
Sing, the upcoming Illumination film. It's by Illumination, but it might actually be good? And they all know the words...
Man that all felt weird and disjointed. You know what, just forget I opened with the "interacting" in church stuff. I think the transition was fairly smooth, but...
Walked halfway across town today, just to check out a garage sale that was going on (scouting out the place is the reason my cocoa sorbet got all melty yesterday.) Took me a couple of hours, there and back again. Like a hobbit. Also like a hobbit, I was totally barefoot at the time.
My right foot's got at least three blisters (the third one being on that second toe there- that's what that light patch is.) My left foot blister-free, I think... but that is the foot that I stepped on that bee with. Only took a few minutes to shake it off; you can't even see the sting (but see the pinkish area there to the bottom left, that's what that is.)
Aand I figured as long as I was taking photos I might as well show the current state of the desk. Most of the action figures are hidden behind the plushies; the Funko POP and Mystery Minis are on the bookshelf up there, with Shining Armor surveying his kingdom atop the deck of MLP Collectible Cards.
I AM A TOTALLY NORMAL PERSON, WITH NORMAL PERSON HOBBIES.
Dadgum! I went to go see Suicide Squad! Let me tell you about Neverending Story II (not as much a non-sequitur as it sounds; this review is "technically tangent-free." The body copy itself; if you like tangents, you need look no further than the footnotes.0)
Neverending Story II is, in some regards, a better movie than even the first. It isn't regarded very fondly, but seeing it the way I do1, it's fantastic. And let's face it: Jonathan Brandis is a way better actor than Barret Oliver.2 Who played Victor in the original Tim Burton Frankenweenie, apparently (isn't IMDb the greatest?) which reminds me I also wanted to talk about Tim Burton.
Ignore all the stuff, getting back to NeS2 now, where Bastian has to get back to Fantasia, and he goes to the city, and meets the weird puppet things on the pirate ship or whatever, and precisely none of that is ever mentioned again. Let's say that this film is a direct continuation of the first film, only Bastian is suddenly dashing and smooth and has great hair and a Jonathan Taylor Thomas-esque sense of presence, Cocoon Kid replaced with Wesley Expy.3 Let's say it was the power of Fantasia that did that, I guess. The second film opens right up with Bastian already at the castle.4 NeS2 suddenly becomes a rather tight psychological fantasy drama exploring family relationships and what sort of life would drive a boy to need to escape to Fantasia in the first place. Then with plot-induced-stupidity wasting wishes on individual stair steps, it'd be best to ignore that part too.5
Tim Burton, now?6 The original Batman movie was, well, avoiding any objective claims, subjectively, it's, well, it's not that great. It's aged, if you've been reading along in the footnotes, less gracefully than even Seaquest DSV. The Joel Schumacher Batman flicks of the 90s were pretty darn charming in their over-the-top 90s-esque-ness; the Tim Burton Batman flicks of the 80s7 were, just, really super tacky, in their over-the-top 80s-esque-ness. They were just silly, when they're alleged to be gritty, or whatever.
Which brings me to the Marvel/DC slugfest. I am a Marvel, for the opposite reason (typical?) Marvels are Marvels, apparently, and the reason (typical) DCs are DCs. Marvel comics are silly and their movies are serious; DC's comics are serious and their movies are silly. I just don't understand why people keep telling me it's the other way 'round. When dealing with the concept of enhanced/metahumans, all wearing fancy costumes and doing scientifically absurd stuff, we're by nature dealing with mundus inversus, a world upside-down. DC comics, with Metropolis and Gotham and everything instead of Chicago and New York City and everything, immediately set their exploration of this new world order in the realm of ideals. ensuring a cleaner meditation. Marvel, though dealing with real-world issues such as racism and politics, is set ostensibly in something more akin to "our" world, but in a way that can never be; a mediation between the two must take place, which it does in outlets such as Squirrel Girl, Howard the Duck; less fantastically Fraction's run on Hawkeye and Spencer's run on Ant Man. When it comes to the films, MCU allows itself levity, which (dealing with subject matter) actually grounds it into something full of pathos; DCEU, in its attempt to be gritty, but dealing with the more weightless of the two universes, enforces an aura of bathos.
Thus holding the opinions I do, and thus having laid the groundwork for a proper discussion of my musings on the new film, I can begin. Having seen the negative reviews of this film, but having agreed with them negative reviews for Dawn of Justice before disagreeing with them after having given that film a second shot, and having my complex but internally self-consistent views on Marvel's and DC's respective universes(es,) and knowing how allegedly divergent this film was supposed to be compared with the DCEU tone thus far, I knew that I had to get on this film ASAP.
Also, I'd been meaning to see it anyway, and it's one of the films I've mostly been avoiding spoilers for (the end credits was my first time hearing Heathens by twenty one pilots; I avoided even that.)
So. Remember the Nerdwriter vid about BvS's flaw? I got it for you again, don't worry.
Suicide Squad, Suicide Squad was all about scenes. It didn't really realize it itself, though, which resulted in the weird bits of stylization that were all in the trailers anyway (Joker and Harleen Quinzel (at a key point of the transformation into Harley Quinn) making out in vat of acid; Joker tableau'd writhing in ecstasy on the floor surrounded by a circle of knives; the odd bits of subtitles introducing the cast of players to us as they get mentioned in the X Portfolio8) but just seem kind of out-of-place in the film.
Nerdwriter mentions Age of Ultron, the farmhouse scene; Suicide Squad has such a scene, just chilling at a bar in the abandoned city, musing on being villains and having to live with yourself over that. It's absolutely beautiful.
I primed an explosive up above, NeS2; time I detonate that here. The beginning of the film, where it still seems to be trying to find its own legs, outside of the shadow of Man of Steel and BvS, perhaps overcompensating resulting in the odd stylistic choices.9 The film doesn't really take off until about a third of the way in, when the squad actually assembles (illustrating the handiness of assembling a team from films that the audience has already seen, as with the Avengers (and of course Justice League, to a lesser extent.)) The first third is necessary, though, setting up a lot of important character motivations... though come to think of it, then there's Katana, whose backstory and powers are all integrated near-seamlessly into the story itself... and what's the deal with Captain Boomerang, who was given an introduction most perfunctory of those who were given initial introductions, but who turns out to be a way bigger character than that would make it seem...? The pacing is really weird in the first act, anyway. Especially with the whole Incubus introduction; they could have delved into the interplay between him and Enchantress way more, for how important a character he is.10 Just think of it as a chess game, though, I guess. Getting all those pieces into place. Michael Bay movies, is probably another thing I should have brought up earlier. Transformers Dark of the Moon, Chicago getting decimated (at least I think that was Chicago?) which would have been maybe a good climax in another film but in here was background dressing for, more climax, just, like, an action scene lasting a whole hour+. Suicide Squad, that happens (although minus the endless climax.) Midway City, Michigan, gets taken over by Enchantress and Incubus, all as backstory for the film, instead of trying to shock and awe you with it (having that as backstory (and the Enchantress bits are complicated enough) goes a great deal in explaining why the Incubus arch feels so perfunctory.) Even in a decimated Midway City, the pieces still need to be set up a little more: endless swarms of magick'd mooks dispatched (scene, not moment), spoiler bits regarding Viola Davis's character, Amanda Waller (scene, not moment), and the character relation with Rick Flagg (which is itself complicated and spoilery,) and then the movie really hits its stride. Which it does in great glory. It may seem like it took a while to get to this point, but remember, it was already showing promise as the Squad assembled for the first time. Promise is not delivery; BvS had great promise but in the end never really took off (there was nothing to escalate from, since the whole thing was one fine miso-spread of "BE AWED.") Suicide Squad does deliver; it takes a while to set everything up (aforementioned Flag stuff, triangle between him and Enchantress and Waller; Joker, as usual, is his own faction, White Portuguese done right; how that affects Harley Quinn affects the rest of the Squad) but you can relax and know that everything does pay off. Midway City may seem from the trailers to be a climax, but in the film it's actually where the heart and soul of the film take place, where the film actually begins in earnest with its own highs and lows within; contrast that with Dark of the Moon, where... okay, I guess the heart and soul of a Michael Bay film is successive climax, so, yeah that works. This film, though, is more of a complex character drama. About pyromages trying to distance themselves from the past; scientists, possessed by witch goddesses, willing to die if it means stopping the black magic from spreading; assassins trying to navigate their relationships with their daughters and ex-wives; former psychiatrists with minds and hearts warped into clinical insanity by famously deranged psychopaths, who have the common agenda to reconnect with each other; killer crocs, serial bank robbers, women with magical katanas. And some dude who climbs well; he's probably not a redshirt. Random segue!11 You know how oranges and chocolate go together? I got some Talenti from Albertsons...
Only...! It melted, got all goopy on my way back home (I may have, taken a several-hours-long detour) and so I poured some Orangina into that, and even refreezing it, with the sorbetto texture integrity melted anyway, even with the Orangina in it the consistency remains moussey. It's, the greatest, ever.
And no, that wasn't a tangent. A tangent would have to deal with anything that I'd actually been talking about; that deliciousness came out of the blue...
So Rory Scanlon's book arrived in the mail today. Proof of address, plus, Rory Scanlon's book. A day early, and Amazon estimates that Better Nature and WE3 are arriving Saturday, so... tomorrow, looks like? That's going to be sweet.
Going in to the Biomat, with proof of address, there was something about, not needing it at all this whole time, or something...?
Got the book at least, anyway.
It's divided into two sections: drawing the figure and clothing it. From the introduction, and the About this Book:
"...part of every artist's skill is to adapt any technique into his or her own 'style.'... If you only want to copy, you'll be frustrated. You can never successfully produce someone else's work. And why would you want to? Your style is unique. Your goal should be to perfect that technique by trying other techniques. My process is a product of many other people's techniques. It would be difficult to determine the source of any specific element. Much of your frustration at this point is due to the fact that you find others who draw 'better' than you. Stop that way of thinking and simply realize that they draw 'differently' from you, that's all. And that's the way it's supposed to be!"
With this in mind, Professor Scanlon's art style seems to be techniqued after...
Man I don't care if that's the only dance they do in that show; it's the greatest dance ever...
Francois Delsarte was a French dancer and orator who came up with a lot of biznasty theories on body language, which he applied to dance and speaking and acting. I'm not sure if he actually applied them to costume design, though, and here's where Rory Scanlon's own theories, like, must come into play, then. Delsartean theory is applied when drawing the initial nude "actor" to be clothed, their body language there (there's this whole fascinating thing dealing with weight being placed in different places on different feet and what that communicates) but, alright, here's where some of the costuming ideas from that UTA workshop come into play.
Professor Scanlon used examples of famous characters, and what their costumes express about them: Spider-Man has an open costume, especially in the chest region (linked to heart and the seat of emotions,) thus we perceive him subconsciously as very vulnerable, which he is. Contrast that to, say, Sherlock Holmes, who dresses in layers which interrupt the profile/silhouette, and we see how emotionally guarded he is. Head region applies to intellect; legs brute power, masculinity, sexuality; torso femininity, emotions, like I said. Areas of focus create focus, areas of contrast and conflict show conflict of (or between) those areas in the character.
AARGH Tell me why I spent so much time today researching false memories again. Not that I spent all that much time researching it, but, it's the one situation where you're too paranoid to even attempt to reconstruct your own train of actions.
Memory from my childhood which I could never quite work out: Mom, me, at some kind of, mall or airport or something? Escalators, shiny metal. Stairs, we walk past/under. I am very small. A doorway. A dark room. I am surrounded by people, pressing around me. Doctors? Am I being operated on? Am I being born? But, no, Mom's not here. How do I feel about that? I can't say. Malleability of memory is useful if you have PTSD, not if you're trying to recreate something you never understood nor fully remembered from childhood.
I bring this up because, I'm not sure if I actually do remember these particular levels from childhood, from the old Mac we used to have back when we had a zillion cats, but they sure the heck seem familiar. Though an aitch of a lot more deucedly difficult-seeming, now (Tanara ("Dallin"?) is playing on Specialist, the top difficulty tier, but that just affects how fast the wands move, not the actual level layouts themselves...) Video is 34:31 long, but, Spin Doctor!
I only remember like 16 levels, though, existing in total, not 106... looking into it, I seem to be describing Spin Doctor Challenger, a 10-level demo bundled with Macintosh Performa computers, which, looking at photos of those, is definitely the system we had (that computer's still around, buried somewhere backstage at the high school auditorium, and you still see it occasionally enough to know what it looks like.) Based on the one or two videos I can find of that system specifically being played, I really can't tell anything, though... but I definitely (mmmhmmm) remember more than just 10 levels, or the levels being more complex than the introductory few levels of the full Spin Doctor game, at any rate.
Memories...
And I couldn't go this long writing out "Spin Doctor" over and over again without getting the band stuck in my head... and I couldn't think of that without thinking of this:
I'm not sure whether this fits into false memories or not. Looking up the wrong guy...? I do remember the conversation going slightly differently, though, with Greg being the one to go "...they DO have the same name!" instead of Bill (which he does a little, but not the way I remember it) with the camera being completely different furthermore. Fits in there at least a little, at least on the personal side of things, even if it doesn't really have anything to do with the incident described above. Either way one of the greatest incidents in late-night television within the past five years. Says I.
So anyway I haven't eaten like anything today. Until I went shopping for groceries a couple of hours ago, at least. Is it put-pumpkins-into-everything season again already? (That's the TRUE most wonderful time of the year, tellin' you right now.) I don't think so... which means that Noosa pumpkin yoghurt (where have you been all my life?) is available year-round. Greatest news of the day.
