All Eyes on Me

Because the algorithms are getting way too smart, I am getting bombarded with ads for that Materialists movie. I confess I’ve become a little bit obsessed with the trailer, and not just for the most predictable, Chris Evans-related reasons. BECAUSE IT’S SO STRANGE TO ME.

I find the title much weirder than I probably should, because I was raised on C.S. Lewis and his usage of “a materialist” comes to my mind before the “Material Girl” sort of way. But that cover of the Madonna song they use is a bop.

As befits the Madonna reference, the premise seems to have time-traveled in from twenty or thirty years ago, complete with characters who still smoke. A woman torn between a slick rich guy and a sweet poor guy? With the implication that she actually has stronger feelings for the poor guy? That is just about as stale a premise as I can think of. How could they possibly do anything fresh with that? If she chooses the nice poor guy, it’s a total cliche. But what would they be saying if they go for the hot rich guy? “Yeah, sure is great when you fall for people who are hot AND rich! Love when life is easy like that!” Powerful stuff, there.

Also, they seem to be implying that Dakota is doing okay for herself. They show her doing well as a matchmaker to high-powered people, so… can't she just hook up with hot poor guy, and take care of herself? Why does she need a man to do it? Is her life going to be soooooo much worse if she’s at her normal level of success un-bolstered by her boyfriend, rather than the rich dude’s ridiculous level?

Now, I get that love isn’t just falling for somebody, but living in that love every day. I believe in a certain level of practicality, and I CERTAINLY could not live with a useless man who didn’t contribute. But like, being a waiter is a hard job, so it’s not like he’s lazy or doesn’t want to work. Is she really afraid he’s going to become a burden on her? Feels kinda classist. “Doesn’t make a lot of money” is absolutely not the same as “does not meaningfully participate in the upkeep of our life together.” But apparently his being a waiter is enough to make her not want to consider him as a life partner?

Of course, this is a woman who hooks up with a new love and immediately afterward asks him how much his apartment costs. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHO RAISED YOU? Pedro, do not marry this tacky chick! You deserve better!

I may just be biased in Chris’s favor. Pedro is a great actor and a total sweetheart, but he doesn’t do it for me for whatever reason. And I have always been way stupider over good looks than I am over money, so… definite possibility.

Chris looks very good, because of course he does. They’re trying to imply there’s a little wear on him, possibly to suggest he doesn’t have his life together at a point by which he should. He’s using his growly voice, which is a nice touch. Apparently he’s been pining away for Dakota, even though men who look like that have no trouble finding great women to date regardless of their professional status. It’s an appealing fantasy, to think of him as some devoted romantic. I confess, “When I look at you, I see wrinkles and children,” got me a little, thanks to my personal baggage regarding men getting sick of you when you get old and gain weight.

And I’ll say the bit where she tells Pedro that she wants a Coke and beer and it appears immediately, briefly implying he’s just that powerful, but actually because her ex Chris saw her and knows that’s order, is very clever.

Still can’t fathom how they plan to actually do something with this premise. Feels like any way you take it is… flat and ridiculous. Does anybody go to a movie like this hoping for innovation? But in 2025, do you really you go with the most done, trite, obvious thing in the history of narrative? Why does Chris keep doing dumb movies like this? Doesn’t he have enough money? Why is Pedro doing this, for that matter, whose career’s been gangbusters lately?

I almost want to go just to see whether it’s fish, fowl, or otherwise. Hey, maybe she’ll end up picking neither! Or maybe go with the best of both worlds, and end up in a polyamorous relationship with Chris’s dick and Pedro’s money. I could get behind either of those.

Was kind of disappointed with this one, since the premise sounded so intriguing, a short horror based off of the Fall of the House of Usher. I guess it's only real sin is it took a long time to get going for a short novella. I think it was trying to build atmosphere and tension, but I found myself impatient for narrative movement.

The other part that didn't work for me was more subjective. I know this was a reinterpretation, and I may be overly attached to my own interpretation of the original Poe story. But it's a favorite of mine, one I teach in my literature and writing classes, and I always felt the true horror in it was the mundane, human weakness and unkindness-- a brother so miserable he knowingly sacrificed the only person suffering more than he was, the sick and helpless sister who depended on him, to relieve something of his own burden. This has Roderick attempting to destroy a dangerous monster rather than an innocent under his protection. Of course a retelling is going to go in its own direction, but this was so much a departure I thought it kind of defeated the point of iterating on the original. I prefer when new versions speak to the big themes that make the original special, although I acknowledge that others may interpret Usher differently.

Also I listened on audiobook and the narrator's style was not to my taste. That can sometimes influence my impression inordinately. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if I'd read it to myself.

And I was pretty disappointed.

It wasn't a bad read, but ultimately an unsatisfying one for me. I rolled my eyes when the screenwriter in the story scorned the idea of making the motivations of her characters clear, but it appears the writer of the novel agrees. I couldn't figure out why most of the characters did the things they did, particularly the narrator, which made them feel less believable.

I also didn't love how often the main character elided conversations and moments that seemed like they should be important with... quick summaries of what was said or done. I know that it's supposed to be an unreliable narrator literally speaking the words of his own audiobook, but it felt to me like the author just didn't know how to actually show the moment rather than just tell us what we were supposed to get from it. And it's not like the author wasn't willing to sacrifice verisimilitude of form in other places-- if the in-book screenplay was supposed to be good, rather than waaaaaaaaay overwritten and self-indulgent, it was definitely willing to overwrite in the service of this being a novel rather than an actual screenplay. As a filmmaker and screenwriter myself, that is NOT how effective ones are written.

And, totally personal gripe, but again, as a filmmaker myself-- any filmmaker who doesn't care about the safety and on-set experience of their crew is a FUCKING ASSHOLE who does not deserve that crew's time or effort. The filmmakers in this story were definitely of that stripe, and I don't think it was acknowledged nearly enough in this story how abusive that is. I think we were asked to have way too much sympathy for those characters for that awareness to have been present.

Had a librarian come in to talk to one of my classes about research. She was talking about the relevance of recent articles versus older ones, while using sea turtle conservation as an example topic.

She said, “In this case, we’d probably find more recent articles more relevant to our work. If you go back too far, “sea turtle conservation” might mean how you make the turtle’s meat last long enough on the long sea voyage.”

I don’t know how much my students got it, but I laughed. Librarians are fun.

I have such angry feelings about the whole Neil Gaiman situation. Most of them are the same as what most folks, given how disgusting that behavior is. But I think I’m tripping over a dimension of them I haven’t seem much discussion of, and I want to grind over that a little.

As I said, I’m disgusted, but not really heartbroken. I like Gaiman’s work a fair bit, but never loved it, nor did it mean a huge amount to me. So it doesn’t feel like a betrayal in that dimension. But it does get at me on a personal level every time a man who has achieved something like I’d love to achieve uses that achievement to abuse people.

I confess to dreams of superstar creative status, though I’m not delusional enough to think they’re likely to ever come true. So if I’m very honest, I harbor a fair bit of jealousy for the few writers who ever get there, Neil Gaiman among them. So every time some superstar is revealed to be a monster— specifically, the kind of monster who leverages their status to take advantage of and hurt people —it just makes my blood boil with the injustice of it.

I know so many super talented, totally kind and decent people who labor in obscurity while assholes like him, like Joss Whedon, like others, find enormous creative success. I mean, God knows I’m not a perfect person. The toxic ambition and jealousy are the least of it— I basically just centered my own frustration in a discussion of people who were assaulted by a man with power. God forgive me. But a big part of why I want the status that comes along with attention and accolades is to use it to treat people BETTER, not hurt and take advantage of them.

That kind of success confers power. People want to collaborate with you, supply you with resources, facilitate you getting your work done. I want those things not just to make my own work better, but to give me the ability to thank and support those who have helped me in the way they deserve. To see that they get accolades, support, attention, adulation, compensation, equal to contributions. And to protect them from struggles and pains in the neck that could get in their work.

Like, take our most recent Hawking live show. We ran into all kind of problems with the technical setup at the event that was hosting us, and not a lot of investment in helping us solve those problems. It made it so much harder for the cast and crew to do their jobs. They’re amazing, so of course they knocked it out of the park anyway, but they shouldn’t have had to deal with that after all their hard work. And I felt frustrated and ashamed, because I had so little power to mitigate that for them. Because I’m not important enough to warrant anything better.

The whole time, I couldn’t shake the feeling. If I were somebody— if Breaking Light Productions was something— people would do better for us. They’d feel it more necessary to support us. And I’d have the resources to fix problems when they happened. But I’m not, so I can’t.

The folks who have been kind enough to collaborate with me deserve so much better that I can offer. Right now, I can’t pay anybody what they’re worth. I can’t even promise a smooth experience where they’re able to just show up and do what they agreed to do. I want to have that power so I can do better for them. So every time I hear about somebody using that power to hurt, it turns my stomach with the unfairness. Sure, maybe you’re talented— but there are so many talented people who aren’t assholes! Why should the assholes be the ones who get uplifted?

Just grinds my gears.

I've been trying to reform some habits lately, in hopes of having a little more energy and focus and managing some mental health symptoms. One of those is I'm trying to replace my morning Starbucks with something a little less sugary, and that doesn't cost six dollars every day.

For this purpose, I decided to give Mud/Wtr a try. I believe it's an example of what they call "mushroom coffee," which doesn't actually contain any coffee, but is a drink powder made with functional mushrooms. As far as I can tell, "functional" refers to mushrooms that have adaptogenic compounds that ward off chemical and biological stress, but are not psychoactive. Since I have been struggling with some of the weariness and mental fog that they're supposed to help with, I thought I'd see if they worked for me, and if I could stand to drink it.

To make the stuff, you mix a tablespoon of the powder with boiling water and your milk and sweetener of choice. Mud/Watr even sends you a neat little blending whip to help mix it together, so it's kind of fun to make. And I actually was surprised to find how much I like drinking it. The kind I got tastes like a fancy hot chocolate mixed with masala chai, although not as thick or quite as sweet. It's no Starbucks chai latte-- my beloved creamy syrupy spicy sugar bomb --but it's way cheaper, and with significantly fewer empty calories.

I think I've been feeling a bit better with it too. It's only been a week, but I do think I've been less foggy. Of course, it could be any number of things-- maybe over Thanksgiving break I've been eating or sleeping better or something. But it makes me optimistic, and anything that cuts down on the Starbucks is a good thing for me now. Also I get to joke now about my morning microdose, which my straightedge ass finds endlessly amusing.

Color sense really isn’t my best skill. Right now I’m working on an art project where I need to come up with color palettes for individual items, consisting of at least three or four colors each, and I’m struggling.

While I’m very interested in color and can see minor gradations in it, I find that I am mostly drawn towards very basic combinations when required to put them together. You can see it in my dress sense; while I think I’m pretty good at putting together outfits that look nice, they are almost always limited to just a few tones. I’m lucky that I look good in most colors and do wear a wide variety, but in any one outfit I gravitate towards one vibrant shade with a few neutrals, or various shades of all one hue. Like, teal with black and white, or various shades of oxblood with dark gray. It looks fine, but often it’s more interesting and sophisticated to combine several bright colors that compliment each other in unexpected ways. I also do this in my costume design, where I assign a general color to characters and otherwise only permit them neutrals, and often default to obvious palettes like red versus blue.

I’d like to get better at that, particularly since I think it would suit this project, but it’s hard. Right now my strategy has been to Google combinations and see what other people put together, hoping for inspiration. Maybe this kind of research will help train my eye so that I can get better at coming up with these things myself. Anything to not just default to a bright with two neutrals, or lots of tone-on-tone.

Forever Captain:
“Bearded”
By Phoebe Roberts
~~~

Summary: “Peggy comes home after several weeks away on a mission to find Steve has neglected to shave in that time. Fetching as she finds the beard, she learns there’s a reason why he’s never grown it out before.”

~~~

( “Bearded” )

~~~

The End

Blargh. I screwed up today in a way that made me get on my students’ cases for not being on top of their stuff. But when I investigated further, it was my mistake, not theirs, because a change I made to my teacher resource had not propagated to their student resource.

When I realized, I took responsibility and apologized to them. I feel bad and awkward about it, like I’ve undermined myself and my credibility next time I try to set standards for them. But maybe it’s good to model an authority figure owning up when you are in the wrong, and saying you’re sorry for what you did.

I saw The Substance this past weekend, and I am sorry to report I didn’t really like it. Not that it was bad, exactly, but I don’t think it was effective. At least, if it was trying to tell the story I was expecting. SPOILERS AHEAD.

From the marketing, I was going in for a story about a woman whose fear of losing her value as she aged leading her to destroy everything of ANY value about herself. I was preparing myself for this film to, for lack of a better term, trigger the hell out of me, or at least give me big feelings. This is, in theory, a horror movie for me, exploring ideas that I VERY SPECIFICALLY find scary. My fear of aging and becoming ugly is well-documented, after all. But it really didn’t work for me, because I don’t feel like it captured any of what that fear feels like.

To begin with, it is not a subtle film. That’s not necessarily a criticism, but I will say I did not care for it. Anytime a character was remembering something that just happened to them, the moment would be superimposed right on top of things, like it didn’t expect you to make the connection. The misogynist male executive was depicted as loud, gross, and over the top as possible— from having him rant in so many words about how old women sucked, to yucky closeups of him chomping on shrimp. And that’s to say nothing of how over the top the voyeurism of the camera was on Margaret Qualley’s body. I was kind of hoping to see a depiction of pervasive, insidious anti-aging bias is woven into the world, particularly for women, particularly for women in the limelight. It just seemed a bit too easy to have a very yucky man straight-up tell Demi Moore that fifty is too old— especially when she’s so beautiful that she’s able to pass for younger than fifty when she’s actually sixty-two.

Again, I get that this extremity and exaggeration was a deliberate stylistic choice. But to my sensibility, when you create a fantasy of a real experience, you are trying to use the fantastical elements to express true ideas in a manner that makes them stand out even more strongly than they do in life. So it wasn’t that I was expecting this lurid sci fi horror extravaganza to realistically depict the mundane indignities of getting older. But I felt like the representations should be clearly alluding to emotions and experiences that were recognizable enough to evoke horror. But I only saw one moment, maybe one and a half moments, that felt like genuine expression of the struggle of aging.

The first and realest was when her growing insecurity over her appearance in comparison to Sue while getting ready for her date led her to second-guess herself so badly, she not only ruined her appearance, she collapsed entirely. As someone who has wiped off fifty percent of all lipstick she’s ever applied in her entire life, because of staring in the mirror and genuinely being unable to tell if it looks good or clownish— as someone who has wondered if I ought to just get that tiny little poke of flesh at the corners of my jaw “taken care of” before anybody but me starts to notice— I felt that.

The only other one that came close, and to me used the extreme fantastical exaggeration effectively for once, was when her trollishly twisted self stood beside the portrait of herself in her glory days. The comparison— of having been perfect once, having known what it was like to have been beautiful, but intensely aware of how fleeting it is —shivered me, because it evoked a terror that runs genuinely deep. I’ve been lucky enough to have kept my figure up to this point, but my face has visibly aged, losing some roundness around the jawline and loosening up just a tiny bit at the jowls. Even as I exult over the fact that I can still wear a bikini I bought when I was nineteen, the changing shape of my face reminds me that it’s all just a matter of time before it all goes away. No amount of beauty you once had protects you from what’s to come.

It also didn’t manage to capitalize on its compelling premise. The idea was that you use a medical procedure to make a younger hotter self, and trade off weeks of getting to go out and live life. When the selves cannot split time and resources equally and become jealous of each other, they destroy one another. But I think they just didn’t build it out right. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekyll would maintain consciousness when he became Hyde; he had the same memories and awareness, just like everything about himself and his personality were different. He felt Hyde’s experiences, he knew what Hyde did, because— as was ultimately the point of the book —Hyde WAS him. In The Substance, main self Elisabeth and alternate self Sue shared no consciousness at all, and under most circumstances weren’t even able to meet each other. It wasn’t really like having an alternate self; it was more like having a child you had no relationship with, and no ability to develop one.

It really made it hard for me to see what the advantage of the process was— you miss out on half of your life, you don’t get to personally enjoy any of the benefits of being the young hot self, and you don’t even have any ability to develop love or affection for the other self to make you enjoy their success vicariously. The company that makes the Substance has to continually remind Elisabeth and Sue that they are one, but… they don’t feel that way, to us or to them, because they’re really not. The process really doesn’t facilitate anything that would make them feel that they are.

It made me wonder if maybe it was more a story about jealousy, or living vicariously through your child. But that lack of relationship between them left a lot of even that premise on the table.

I also didn’t quite understand the purpose of the extremely sexualizing camera angles constantly used on Sue. At first, I thought they were trying to establish the excitement of suddenly having an amazing body, and delighting in checking it out. That made sense to me. (Although for the record, if Margaret Qualley is hotter than Demi Moore, it’s only by the tiniest bit, which is saying something since Qualley is 29 and Moore is 62.) But they persisted with the objectifying closeups on her until almost the end of the movie. We get several sequences of her dancing shot like porn movies, with a particular focus on her ass. As I said, this is not a subtle movie, but after a while I didn’t get what it was trying to say by carrying it out so persistently. We knew by that point that she was hot, so… what? I thought eventually they might use the extreme objectification to make her body seem grosser and grosser, the way human physicality can become when you chop it up visually and get too close on the details, but by the time they were ready to do that, they actually started making her body itself fall apart. So it honestly started to feel like fan service to me, which seemed very out of place in a movie like this. If anybody has an idea of what they think it was trying to accomplish, I’d love to hear it.

There was also one element that cracked me up— the intense masculine voice that narrated the commercial for the Substance also was the one who answered the phone anytime Elisabeth and Sue called the company to complain. Poor guy, he probably auditioned for an acting gig and got stuck with a customer service job!