Reviews and yes, animals can be as nasty as we are

[shadowkat]

Finished watching the psychological survivalist film Fall on Hulu. It has stunning cinematography and is a worth a watch for that alone. It's more of a roller coaster ride than scary per se. Although it does have horrific moments. It's about a young climber whose husband died in a fall while they were climbing with their best bud, Hunter. About a year lady, Hunter, a bit of a danger junkie convinces Becky who is still mourning her husband and sunk into a depression to do a dangerous new climb - she's found this old abandoned radio tower in the middle of the Arizona desert, which is the fourth tallest man-made landmark in the United States. It stands at 2000 feet.

Rusted, and long abandoned, with only vultures for company, the two venture out to climb it. They have to park their car a ways from the tower to do so. Upon finally reaching the top - they celebrate, then venture to climb down - and that's when things go awry. The structure was slowly coming apart during their climb and as they attempt to go down - it crumbles beneath their feet and they are both stranded at the top of it - with no water, food or abilty to get down. Also Becky has to pee.

I found it well acted and for the most part compelling. There are some stunning visuals, and the minimalist direction really works. Apparently instead of using green screens, the filmmakers built a 100 foot structure on top of a mountain, and the two actresses agreed to do their own stunts.

***

Also finished Skeleton Crew - which I enjoyed for the most part, and it has some good episodes in it - but the last one wasn't among them, unfortunately. It ended weakly - which I've begun to see a pattern with most of the Star Wars mini-s. I would have ended it with six episodes and done a second season, but that's just me. I am however glad they wrapped it up, even if I felt it was a touch clumsily done?

Jude Law is quite good at playing the Star Wars version of Long John Silver. And I enjoyed the droid. The kids, with the exception of KB and Fern, got on my nerves for the most part. And the parents, as appears to be true of most kid-centric series and films, were written as clueless morons.

But overall it was fun - kind of the Goonies meets Treasure Island in Space by way of Star Wars.

***

Still working my way through Rules of Redemption - Firebird 1 by TA White, and I'm kind of bored with it. The world building is disappointing and falls into cliche, and kind of flat. I feel like I've read it before? Also there's a forced romance that has a trope that doesn't quite work for me. A much older, wiser, man who takes a tortured young woman under his wing - uh no.

I'm frustrated with the execution. It had potential but the writer makes choices that don't work for me, and I kind of with the writer had gone left instead of right. Not sure I'll finish it.

Reading slump continues. I may start reading the Tale of the Genji.

I'm craving a certain type of story but I can't find it.

***

Of the Twitterish social media sites - I like Threads the best. It's the least self-righteous and whiny.

There's a rather good Thread on Threads about how easy it is to get duped by people.

In it - the poster states that the whole Neil Gaiman story reminded her of something...Anne Rule. Way back in the 20th Century - ages ago, Ann Rule was the Queen of the True Crime novel. She investigated true crimes and wrote about them. At one point, a young, highly attractive male attorney just out of law school volunteered to assist her on a case. Helping her interview people. She was quite charmed by him. He turned out to be Ted Bundy. But he seemed like such a nice man...so, the poster stated, don't beat yourself up about not seeing beneath the mask, the mask is often hard to see behind and we all get fooled.

It reminded me of a discussion I had over the phone with my mother earlier today...in that people are more than one thing. We want to label them monsters and put them on a shelf. Or label them as kind gentle writers. Or brilliant writers. Or feminists. Or bad people. Or good. But it's not possible - they slip out of those categories. One day we could be best friends, the next mortal enemies. It can change on a dime. And then back again.

Another post I saw was a stray comment by a British musician who asked..."do animals hunt their own kind, steal from them, and kill them?"

ME: yes, have you not watched any nature documentaries? Or for that matter watched domestic household pets? Nature is not nice.

Comments

[iddewes]

Ann Rule wrote a really good book about Bundy. The Stranger Beside me I think it’s called? He volunteered with her on a suicide hotline. She said it was quite ironic how he saved people’s lives there while killing others. But yeah she really did think of him as a nice young man.

[trepkos]

The animals that tend to hunt their own kind tend to be the ones which are most like us - Chimpanzees. I don't know of many that habitually hunt their own species in the wild, though many will take food from them.

[shadowkat]

That's not true. Have you watched many nature documentaries or household pets? I've watched dogs hunt each other. Cats can be brutal - I watched them hunt each other outside my window during the pandemic. I've seen birds fight each other and even steal each other's eggs. Lions hunt each other, there's an entire documentary series on Disney Plus about a lion hunting another one. Male lions are notorious for it.

Insects do it as well.

Alligators eat their young.

Seriously watch more nature programs.

Apes tend to do it less actually than wolves, hynenas (who can be nasty), and Lions.

Elephants also have their issues.

There's a really good nature program about the Serengeti that got that across.

Don't romanticize animals.

[shadowkat]

Yes, she did it based on her experiences with him. Rule was a law enforcement officer turned writer.

The difficulty is people are not one thing. They aren't monsters - they do monstrous things.
It is possible for someone to do something horrible and wonderful at the same time. We all have both impulses inside us. I think people have a tendency to demonize the person and not the action. Bundy was complicated, that's why she didn't know he was doing it. Even though she was a law enforcement officer and trained to observe these things.

Journalists also are not necessarily always reliable and known for twisting the facts to make their story work. Anne Rule got into trouble for it in 2003, although there were mentions prior. All writers make mistakes. Some far worse than others. It's often not done intentionally, sometimes it's done because they want a better story, or rather - an editor or a publisher wants a better story and asks them to "embellish". Or in some instances they are told to leave things out or not to comment on this, or not to quote that source. So always question. Always.

[trepkos]

No need to be so bossy about it ...

[shadowkat]

Didn't mean to. But alas - it can come out tonally from my writing at times. Even before law school, I had a tendency to go into lecture mode. My whole family does. I think it may be genetic? At any rate, law school made it worse. Take the girl out of law school, can't quite take the law school out of the girl. It happens when I get annoyed or irritated or frustrated and want to bop someone on the head with it - because dammit, it's obvious to me? Why don't you get it too? LOL! Forgetting that people think differently and may not perceive the world the same way I do...

[trepkos]

Understood. But I've watched nature documentaries and worked in a zoo for 20 years, and watched bird in various countries. Birds seldom steal eggs belonging to others of the same species - some larger or sneakier bird species prey on smaller species, sure, but that's not the same as a human preying on another human. And nature programmes often go looking for things that are abnormal and dramatic, rather than standard behaviour. It's not a great survival tactic to fight someone of a similar size and weight to yourself, so killing another of your own species - at least, an adult - would have to be over something vitally important. I'd be surprised if there weren't a lot more intra-species killings in the human world than among any other single species, other than maybe chimps. But we will probably never know.