My response to ableist remarks from somebody who shouldn't even have thought them.

 

This is Nicole Rogerson, the co-founder and director of the not-for-profit organisation Autism Awareness Australia. Outside of that, she and her husband Ian, a broadcaster who's appeared in a YouTube video (on AAA's channel, in fact) with fathers of autistic children, have become spokespeople for autism causes. That's nice. But this week, regarding a new study of early intervention therapy for autistic children, she was quoted as saying: 

"What this research has shown is what a limited amount of work very early that could be done could have a radical change for these children and their ultimate outcome. This research shows us we have to look at early childhood completely differently. We can't wait until children are three or four years old to see where they are developmentally. If we see some warning signs at that 12-month age it is absolutely imperative we get started. And this research shows the great outcomes for these kids. If we've helped their communication, if we helped those social skills, if we've made it more likely that they're going to go on to have an independent life and be successful in school, then it's incumbent on us, we have to do it."

As I read those words, I felt the breath sucked right out of my throat, and I truly saw red. I still cannot believe somebody in her position would advocate intervening in ASD kids' developments in order to make them appear more neurotypical. They certainly need help with social skills, but I believe that in no way means they need to be changed. She should absolutely know better, also, to even think, much less say these kids cannot become successful or independent adults with early intervention therapy growing up. There are literally thousands of adults on the spectrum whose tales disprove those fucking ignorant, patronising and condescending suggestions. And as the mother of an autistic son, how would she feel were he forced to undergo an intervention, at any age, to "fix" him? I hope she loves him unconditionally; after all, any parent should love their children unconditionally.  As for Nicole herself, after those deeply offensive claims, obviously I don't even like, let alone love, her.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-21/wa-study-hows-early-intervention-reduces-autism-diagnosis/100476422?fbclid=IwAR3vsEL-Eh0SBXpC6ppamSNCY14ZvGWa6so3_lEpOcxwpnvOlXK0mnOU6xk

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #262: The Place Beyond the Pines (2012).

 

It's 1995. Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) is a travelling motorcycle stuntman who, after reconnecting with his ex-flame Romina (Eva Mendes), learns she now has a baby son whom he accidentally fathered a year earlier. Romina and the boy, Jason, are now living with her new boyfriend Kofi (Mahershala Ali, before he won Oscars for Moonlight and Green Book), who openly dislikes Luke immediately. Shocked but committed, Luke now impulsively turns to robbing banks to support Romina and Jason. This new crime career naturally makes his path cross with that of upstart cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), himself a new husband and father, leading to a very fateful encounter. Then, in 2010, Jason (Dane DeHaan) is a disaffected teen who hangs out with A. J. (Emory Cohen), a drug-addicted and rebellious teen who, initially unbeknownst to Jason, is Luke's son; Jason, meanwhile, doesn't initially know A.J.'s father is Avery. As these two gradually uncover their fathers' histories and connection, parallels are inevitably drawn and it's up to them to end and escape the violent cycle.

The Place Beyond the Pines, for about the first half of its duration, had me engaged but somewhat puzzled about the point of it. But once it introduced Jason and A.J.'s storyline, its narrative intentions indeed became crystal clear to me. This is not simply a basic crime drama, as the synopsis of it on the streaming service I watched it from suggested (hence, maybe, why I initially felt confused and misled); it is also a meditation on internal and external connections between families as well as history's repetitiveness. Director Derek Cianfrance, with his co-writers Ben Cocco and Darius Marder, explores the layers of these three interconnected narratives with consistent logic and assurance until they unravel together like a roll of wrapping paper. He also gets solid performances from all his male cast, particularly Gosling (who I hadn't initially thought suited to action roles) and Cohen, although Mendes is relegated to a pretty one-dimensional love interest role. Sean Bobbitt's beautifully paced cinematography enhances the atmosphere further, and Jim Helton and Ron Patane's editing and Mike Patton's score are also fitting and evocative. Overall, once I could mentally navigate what it was trying to do narratively, I found The Place Beyond the Pines a stunning and hauntingly unique crime/family drama. 9/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #261: Strange Magic (2015).

 

Two lands, one with fairies and light and the other with bog creatures and darkness, divide a fantastical realm. In the former, fairy Marianne (voiced by Evan Rachel Wood) is heir to the Fairy Kingdom and engaged to dashing warrior Roland (Sam Palladio), until she sees him kissing another fairy on their wedding day. Marianne then vows never to fall in love again. Meanwhile in the dark forest, the Bog King (Alan Cumming) makes the same vow, against his doting mother Griselda's (Maya Rudolph) protests. Shortly later, Marianne's sister Dawn (Meredith Anne Bull) is in a panic about who Marianne will be attending the Spring Ball with and who she herself might meet there. Dawn and her elf best friend Sunny (Elijah Kelley), who has the hots for Dawn, then have a very close shave with a giant lizard from which Marianne saves them, and then at the Ball Roland tricks Marianne into returning to the dark forest where she now meets the Sugar Plum Fairy (Kristen Chenoweth), whose trick of her own is to arrange a fateful meeting between Marianne and the Bog King. All of this, by the way, is told as a jukebox musical.

This first non-Star Wars animated feature from Lucasfilm, with seven-time Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom making his directorial debut, is underrated. It's currently at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes but while it's far from perfect, I certainly don't think it warrants that low a rating. George Lucas developed the story for Strange Magic, with inspiration from A Midsummer Night's Dream, to make a more feminine family movie for his three daughters and while some of the dialogue (David Berenbaum, Irene Mecchi and Rydstrom wrote the final screenplay, for the record) is dreadfully bland and Rydstrom's directorial inexperience shows at times, I nonetheless thought this had a genuine charmand self-awareness to it throughout. The animation, which is of course the intended focal point, is utterly ravishing both in design and detail, and some (albeit not all) of the jokes amused me. The soundtrack is also entertaining, with selections as diverse as the Doors' People Are Strange to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. The vocal cast were all wisely chosen and give engaging, enthusiastic performances also. Strange Magic is no Epic, and it mightn't even be FernGully (I don't know; I haven't seen that since I was a child), but I think you should still ignore the critical drubbing it received. 7/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #260: Detroit (2017).

 

In 1967, Detroit, Michigan exploded in race riots along 12th Street. It was the most violent of the "Long hot summer" of race riots across the US. It reached its zenith with the Algiers Motel incident, in which various local police departments murdered three civilians and abused nine others. 2017's Detroit, released to mark the tragedy's 50th anniversary, recreates and explores its events through the eyes of several people who were there: primarily security guard Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), up-and-coming singer Larry Reed (Algee Smith) and his bodyguard Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore), racist and corrupt white cop Philip Krauss (Will Poulter) and two young white women, Julie Anne Hysell (Hannah Murray) and Karen Malloy (Kaitlyn Dever), who happen to be staying at the same hotel as Larry and Fred.

Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal have done it again. After their brilliant, Oscar-winning one-two punch of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, they've crafted another knockout of suspense and power. Bigelow's direction is effectively immediate and impassioned in the action scenes, delicately restrained in the quieter ones and entirely objective overall, while Boal's screenplay very lucidly and methodically reconstructs and plots the events, as well as developing all these characters very patiently. It's also deliberately, genuinely infuriating, particularly thanks to Poulter's character; he is so hateful and callous I truly wanted to shoot him in the stomach and leave him there alone to die. The cast are all solid, especially Boyega and Latimore, Barry Ackroyd's cinematography (he's another long-time Bigelow collaborator) is strikingly efficient and William Goldenberg's and Harry Yoon's editing matches that. The only flaw I found here was James Newton Howard's quite derivative score. Nonetheless, Detroit is a scorcher of an action thriller whose themes are unfortunately equally relevant today. 9/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #259: The Comet Kids (2017).

It's the 1950s, in small-town America. Astronomer Rodney (Tiriel Mora) and his pre-teen son Lucas (Xavier West) are out stargazing one day when they're shocked to discover a comet passing by in space. Soon after, when Rodney suddenly dies, Lucas decides to find out what happened to that comet and to try to protect his father's discovery and reputation. He recruits his friends Grace (Alicia Roberto), Claudia (Juliette Salom), Archie (Hamish Triggs), Tricks (Harrison Bradley) and Jackson (Liam Pope), to go on an adventure to track the comet down, becoming embroiled in a conspiracy in the process.

Yes. I am serious. That is the desperately hackneyed plot of this colossal cinematic stinker from Australia. But that's just the start of its problems. The Comet Kids is apparently set in the US but none of the child actors sound like they had a dialect coach and the sets and locations are even less convincing still; the two girls (one of whom is also an Asian shaman stereotype) are depicted as always needing the boys to save them, the inane scientific dialogue and over-stylised fight scenes are unintentionally hilarious, and it's bookended with a flashback stereotype that is so wholesome and schmaltzy it could make even Chris Columbus race to the toilet. Oh, and did I mention a suspiciously high number of the writer-director Glenn Triggs' relatives worked on it? (I hope he paid them all well.)

This may be the very worst Australian film I've ever made the error or watching. On behalf of us, I apologise to the rest of the world for Australia inflicting this one on you. Maybe there's a reason "comet" rhymes with "vomit." 2/10. 

One possible reason why I work out.

I exercise daily, including visiting a gym twice weekly for an hour each time. That began in 2015, when my then-employer encouraged me to take it up to make me physically stronger for the gardening work we did. I quickly came to love doing gym work, and I've been hooked ever since. It's a good, healthy addiction to have. In my case it helps with maintaining socialisation and motivation alongside the obvious medical health benefits.

But since last month, particularly thanks to the revelation I had in July which I posted about then, while working out at my gym I've been asking myself a very specific and deep question: are my past experiences of being body-shamed a subconscious reason why I work out so much? I now think that's increasingly likely. Today I sincerely don't care much about how others perceive my physique, but the harassment about that from when I did clearly never fully left me. Hell, in high school we had a students' gym which I used quite frequently during lunchbreaks in the early grades when I was still being teased about my skinniness (later in high school that finally stopped). A pattern could've begun there.

How much negativity from our formative years do we truly let go of? How much of it do we subconsciously retain? I'm really not depressed about this, although I'm definitely not nostalgic for it. This recent question that's come to me about it has simply come as, I suppose, a revelation from that previous revelation, and the answer to that question is currently one I'm still stewing over. Yet, I feel it's a necessary question for me to answer about myself, and maybe I was meant to get into exercising so I could be presented with it. 

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #258: How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017).

 

It's some time in 1970s London. Punk is just about to make its mainstream breakthrough when young Enn (Alex Sharp), an aspiring comic book artist who lives with his single mum Marion (Joanna Scanlan), has a night on the town with his friends. It proves to be a very fateful night when the gang encounter a group of extra-terrestrial teenagers visiting Earth to complete a strange rite of passage. One of them is the striking and rebellious Zan (Elle Fanning), who immediately ensnares Enn. As Enn and Zan then quickly fall in love, their fight to be together generates conflict on and between both their worlds.

This adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2006 short story, as directed and co-written by John Cameron Mitchell, is like the bastard offspring of A Clockwork Orange and a Vivienne Westwood fashion parade. It's a nut I couldn't fully crack if I'm entirely honest, but I genuinely enjoyed trying to crack it nonetheless. With its vivid fusion of rock music and science fiction/fantasy elements, How to Talk to Girls at Parties I think shows Gaiman's and Mitchell's tastes and narrative styles in consistent simpatico; to anybody who's unaware, Gaiman is best-known for fantasy novels like Stardust, and Mitchell for the glam rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Fanning, who's very talented, I think was unchallenged in this role but remains watchable nonetheless, while Sharp, with more to do emotionally, projects the right attitude and look throughout; among the supporting cast are Nicole Kidman (reuniting with Mitchell after their 2010 film Rabbit Hole) having great fun as local punk hangout manager Queen Boadicea, and Matt Lucas as one of the alien leaders. Throw some beautifully realised visual effects, lucid editing and a lively soundtrack, and for me this was a weird but engaging and very intriguing romantic ride through our universe. 8/10.