Blessing or Curse: You Can Choose Life is full of ups and downs, and sometimes we find ourselves facing circumstances that can either be a blessing or a curse. What determines the outcome is our perspective and how we choose to handle the situation. Every situation has the potential to be a blessing, even if it initially appears to be a curse. It all comes down to our ability to see the silver lining, to find the lessons and growth opportunities hidden within the challenges we face. When we approach difficult situations with a positive mindset, we can transform them into blessings in disguise. Choosing to see a situation as a blessing is not always easy.
Pleasantly surprised with the experience. Even non-Harry Potter fans can find magic in the walk! Jennifer G.
His actual role in bringing down Spine is tangential, leading me to wonder if that whole prophecy business was just something Baron Burr made up in order to fuck with Spine s head. It s hard to pin down exactly why that happens why certain movies slip through our consciousness without leaving a mark, while others encode themselves indelibly in our brains, to crop up in dreams decades later or drive us to pay 60 on e-bay for an ancient videotape just so we can see if it lives up to our memories.
Choosing to see a situation as a blessing is not always easy. It requires shifting our mindset, letting go of negativity, and embracing gratitude. By acknowledging even the smallest blessings and expressing gratitude for them, we attract more positivity into our lives and open ourselves up to new opportunities.
Tag: elm chanted forest
Like most of us, I watched hundreds of movies as a child. Some left little to no impression. But some have stuck with me. Even twenty-some years later, certain images and characters linger in my mind.
It’s hard to pin down exactly why that happens—why certain movies slip through our consciousness without leaving a mark, while others encode themselves indelibly in our brains, to crop up in dreams decades later or drive us to pay $60 on e-bay for an ancient videotape just so we can see if it lives up to our memories. But I’m going to try. So this blog will be dedicated to describing and analyzing my childhood favorites (along with a bunch of other weird, random stuff) in more detail than they were probably ever meant to be analyzed.
Fair warning: These reviews will contain potty humor, adult language, drug humor, sexual references, and pretty much anything else you can think of. I may be writing about kids’ movies, but these reviews are aimed at the people who are old enough to remember this crap from the eighties and nineties. If you are over 18, proceed. If you are under 18…well, you’ll probably keep reading anyway, because God knows I read worse stuff than this when I was a teenager.
Without further ado:
Brought to you by furries and DMT.
Or, in English: The Elm Chanted Forest, a U.S./Croatian production from 1986.
I’m quite sure that, before I looked it up on YouTube a few days ago, I hadn’t seen The Elm Chanted Forest for at least eighteen years. Probably longer. The movie came out in 1986, which would have made me about four years old at the time. Yet in watching it again, I was struck by just how much of it I remembered, almost word-for-word.
Note that The Elm Chanted Forest is not an especially famous or critically successful movie. An editorial review on Amazon describes it as “typif(ying) the bland, low-budget animated features cranked out for the American children’s market.” And yes, the plot is a tad clichéd…though with some seriously odd tangents. Despite this, there’s something memorable about it. A drugged, dreamlike, hallucinatory mood pervades the whole experience. The narrative slips and slides through a sea of bright colors and bizarre visuals, taking the viewer in unexpected directions and through strange landscapes populated with equally strange creatures. Yet if you accept the story on its own terms, it makes sense. Kind of.
Our tale begins with a narration from a talking wind-spirit named Baron Burr, who looks like what might happen if a clown boinked a porcupine while under the influence of LSD. He tells us about some sort of nonspecific force of darkness which has invaded the forest and driven out all the beavers…because beavers are builders and hence intrinsically opposed to the forces of darkness and destruction. Uh, okay. I guess that makes sense.
Baron Burr is easily the most annoying character in the movie. Everything he says is delivered in a drawn-out, ponderous intonation, and at top volume. The result is that he sounds like a mildly brain-damaged ghost shouting messages into a loudspeaker. Did all the exposition really have to come out of his mouth in the form of a monologue?
After watching Burr prance around like Tom Fucking Bombadil, we meet our hero, a blandly pleasant and thoroughly unmemorable artist named Peter Palette, who hails from the land of Unsubtle Names.
“I had a thought once!”
He wanders into the forest and sets up his easel and canvas under a tree. He tries painting some birds who are serenading him from a branch. After a few seconds, he looks at his canvas he sees it’s nothing but a bunch of blobs and squiggles. In frustration, he flings down his paintbrush and then falls asleep under the tree, proving himself to be the world’s least persistent artist. “I painted something in two seconds without even bothering to look at the canvas and it turned out shitty! WAAAAAAH-oh well, nap time.”
While Peter sleeps under the tree, a giant glowing hand appears out of nowhere and touches him in what may or may not be a sexual manner. Baron Burr materializes and informs the audience that Peter is the chosen one who’s come to save the forest, and he’s been blessed by the magic tree. Burr has no qualms about breaking the fourth wall.
Hi, I’m your hallucination.
A moment later, Burr disappears, Peter wakes up, and a beaver wanders onto the scene. Peter tries painting him and discovers to his delight that, thanks to the Magical Molesting Hand, he can now create detailed, lifelike images with no effort at all. What’s more, the beaver can talk. He introduces himself as J. Edgar. Get it? J. Edgar Beaver?
Edgar tells Peter that since he slept under the magic elm, he now has magical powers and can talk to all the animals. Peter just goes along with this, asking remarkably few questions as he followed the beaver deeper into the forest.
As a protagonist, Peter is very passive. He makes no choices of his own, but rather allows himself to be led about by the hand like a small child…and this trend pretty much continues throughout the movie. At all times, he wears a dazed smile and blithely accepts the weirdness around him at face value. My theory is that his frustration at his own lack of talent led him to heavy drug-use, blunting his rational faculties and blurring the distinction between fantasy and reality.
Soon after this we’re introduced to the movie’s villain, Emperor Spine, a fat guy with a crown who is apparently some kind of humanoid cactus:
I don’t have a joke here. Insert your own punchline.
He lives in a big scary-looking castle guarded by walking axes. Aside from bearing a deep and irrational hatred of beavers (seriously…anytime someone mentions beavers he flies off the handle), he doesn’t seem to do all that much except sit in his castle eating spiny lobsters and abusing his henchman. Until, that is, Peter Palette comes to the forest. See, there’s a prophecy (isn’t there always?) that a human outsider will end Emperor Spine’s reign, so as soon as he hears about Peter’s presence in the forest, Spine becomes obsessed with hunting him down and killing him.
He orders Thistle, his court magician/errand boy/punching bag, to bring Peter to the castle.
The urine sample is ready.
Thistle’s a little green guy with pointy ears, and it’s clear from the get-go that he isn’t really happy with his lot in life. I mean, his job is to stand around being yelled at by a man resembling a bloated pincushion. Plus he’s suffering from male pattern baldness (usually concealed under his large floppy hat) and has a severe speech impediment which makes him sound like Elmer Fudd’s effeminate younger brother. It’s hard for a guy like that to get any respect.
Peter, meanwhile, sets up his easel in a cottage, and soon all the animals in the forest are crowding around begging to have their portrait painted. Apparently they’re really starved for entertainment. Among them is a vivacious French fox named Fifi. I am just going to assume there is porn of her somewhere on the Internet.
Uh…what’s wrong with those animals in the background?
Suddenly Thistle arrives and, with great fanfare, invites Peter to join Emperor Spine for lunch at his castle. Peter is all ready and rarin’ to go when a little hedgehog warns him to stay put. “Emperor Spine is evil,” he warns. “He will harm you.”
“But then where will I have lunch?” Peter asks with a lobotomized grin.
The hedgehog sees that this vapid manbaby will cheerfully wander into the jaws of death if left to his own devices, so he invites him to have lunch with his parents, Fa and La. And hey, dessert is acorn pudding. Who could pass that up? Peter hems and haws: “Hmm, now which lunch sounds better?” Yeah, tough choice. Certain death at the hands of a vengeful dictator, or a pleasant afternoon with a family of friendly hedgehogs?
When Thistle returns to the castle Peter-less, Emperor Spine is pissed, and his mood only gets worse when Baron Burr shows up and starts talking about the prophecy in his blaring monotone. Imagine what a drag this guy must be at parties. Spine hits Thistle with his scepter a few times and tells him that if he doesn’t bring back the artist by yesterday, his ass is grass. Thistle wanders off dejected, wondering why a career in Evil Henchman-ing ever sounded like a good idea. I’m told it offers excellent insurance.
In the forest, Thistle encounters Bud E. Bear, a retired athlete who is forever going on about the good ol’ days and talking in sports metaphors. Bud E.’s confined to bed due to a thorn in his paw, which Thistle kindly removes.
In gratitude, Bud E. takes him out to the forest saloon for a drink, where Thistle listens with apparently genuine interest and admiration to Bud E.’s rambling sports stories, thus winning Bud’s eternal devotion. Really, all this bear wants out of life is for someone to listen to his sports stories while he drinks lite beer (pardon me, “lite bear.”) They have to call it that because you can’t mention alcohol in a children’s movie, but it’s pretty obvious that the animals at the saloon are getting shitfaced.
In fact, Bud E. is so delighted that he launches into a spontaneous musical number—“Let Your Fur Down With a Friend.” And, seriously, this is a pretty catchy song, one that stuck in my mind for years afterward. The other animals all start singing along and dancing. Fifi does this, inspiring another few gigabytes of future porn:
After a few minutes, Thistle starts getting into it; his eyes do that swirly thing that people’s eyes do in cartoons when they’re drunk or hypnotized, and he abruptly floats into the air, buoyed up by little clouds of hearts. Either he’s really feeling the love in the room, or Bud E. slipped him an ecstasy tablet.
Of course, now that Thistle has seen the light, we know it’s just a matter of time before he switches sides. Hanging out with dancing, singing animals in their hippie forest commune is more fun than being beaten and insulted by an angry watermelon. While Thistle parties with his new furry brethren, Emperor Spine’s efforts to smoke out Peter become increasingly violent. First he tries to burn down the forest, then he tries to flood it. Note that this stuff is only happening because Peter is there; before this, the worst Emperor Spine ever did was chase beavers. At some point, we have to ask ourselves if Peter’s presence is doing more harm than good. Just hand him over to the Emperor and your problems will be solved, folks.
After Emperor Spine’s latest destructive snit-fit, the animals are once again rebuilding their homes, and it finally occurs to Peter to ask, “Hey, why is Spine such a dick, anyway?” After some conversation, the forest friends come to the conclusion that Spine, as a cactus, is supposed to “flower.” Cacti usually have blossoms during certain times of the year, so Spine’s anger stems from a subconscious frustration over never fulfilling his nature. (Yes, this is pretty much exactly the explanation given.) So, all they have to do is make flowers grow on his body and he’ll stop acting like a dick. Brilliant! So Thistle agrees to whip up a batch of potion that will make Emperor Spine sprout some flowers.
Before he can complete the potion, he’s captured by Spine’s men and dragged back to the castle. Spine, who’s quite miffed at his betrayal, decides to execute him at sunrise. Why villains always want to wait until sunrise in order to execute people, I don’t know…but of course, this gives our heroes the chance to rescue him. With the help of a friendly mole, J. Edgar Beaver constructs a tunnel into the dungeon where Thistle is being held captive, and they whisk him out seconds before the executioner arrives.
Peter, meanwhile, clumsily blunders into a hole in the ground…and into one of the movie’s weirdest and trippiest tangents, in which a group of anthropomorphic mushrooms capture him and tie him to a chair. Are they planning to rape him? Torture him? WORSE.
Kidnapped and tied up by sentient mushrooms in an underground lair. Either a bad trip or the weirdest erotic fanfic ever.
Their leader, a bearded and bespectacled fungal patriarch (probably named Papa Toadstool or something, I can’t remember his actual title), declares that after spending enough time underground with them, Peter will himself be transformed into a mushroom. I’m not really sure how this works or what they hope to accomplish by turning him into a mushroom, but at this point I think logic has been suspended. The mushroom people then launch into a song-and-dance number complete with flashing disco lights and drums. Some fro-sporting guy named Michael J. Mushroom break-dances. Strangely racist visuals ensue.
This screenshot makes me uncomfortable.
Peter eventually gets rescued by Bud E. Bear, who frightens the mushrooms away with a roar and unties him. Thistle completes the potion, the woodland creatures storm the Spine’s castle, and Peter forces the potion down the Emperor’s throat. Amazingly, this oddball scheme works. Flowers sprout all over Spine’s body, and he transforms from a bloated, angry, spiky guy into a bloated, smiling pink guy covered with blossoms. His lair also transforms from a dark, scary-looking castle to a bright happy-looking castle, and all his weapons and instruments of death transform into carnival rides.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?
With Spine now at peace, the woodland critters are safe. Peter bids a tearful goodbye to his furry friends and goes home.
Viewing this movie as a kid, I accepted everything at face value. Viewing it again as an adult—and a writer—I’m left with certain questions. Like, there’s this whole prophecy about Peter ending Emperor Spine’s reign, but in the end, why is Peter the chosen one? What exactly does he do? Yeah, he helps clean up the mess after Spine sets the forest on fire and tries to flood it, but that wouldn’t have even happened if he’d never shown up, making the entire thing kind of a self-fulfilling snake-eating-its-own-tail of pointlessness. I’d say that’s some kind of commentary on free will or destiny or something, but I feel like that would be giving the writers too much credit. And yes, Peter’s the one who physically forces the potion down Spine’s throat, but pretty much anyone with enough muscle could have done that.
In a good story, the protagonist is the protagonist for two reasons: his choices drive the plot, and he changes in some way over the course of the story.
Throughout the movie, Peter never changes nor makes a single significant decision. Okay, he decides where to have lunch, but the hedgehog really had to help him out with that one. Really, Thistle is the only one who actually has a character arch and the only one who truly makes any tough choices. He switches sides, risking his own life in the process, thus transforming from a cowardly underling to a…kinda less cowardly guy who lives in the woods with a talking bear.
I think we have to face facts here: Thistle is the real hero of this movie. Peter is just some guy who fell asleep under a magic tree. His actual role in bringing down Spine is tangential, leading me to wonder if that whole “prophecy” business was just something Baron Burr made up in order to fuck with Spine’s head.
After watching Burr prance around like Tom Fucking Bombadil, we meet our hero, a blandly pleasant and thoroughly unmemorable artist named Peter Palette, who hails from the land of Unsubtle Names.
On the other hand, when we choose to view a situation as a curse, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. By focusing on the negative aspects and dwelling on what went wrong, we invite more negativity into our lives. This mindset traps us in a cycle of despair and prevents us from finding a way out. It's important to understand that we have the power to choose how we perceive and react to the circumstances we face. We can either let challenges consume us or use them as stepping stones to personal growth and development. It all comes down to our mindset and our ability to shift our perspective. While it may not always be easy to see the blessings in every situation, it is always possible. It requires a conscious effort and a commitment to finding the good, even in the most trying times. By making this choice, we can transform curses into blessings and create a more positive and fulfilling life. In conclusion, whether a situation is a blessing or a curse is ultimately up to us. It's a choice we make based on our perspective, mindset, and how we choose to handle the circumstances we face. By choosing to see blessings even in the most challenging situations, we open ourselves up to personal growth, new opportunities, and a more positive and fulfilling life..
Reviews for "Changing Your Narrative: Choosing Blessings Instead of Dwelling on Curses"
1. John Smith - 2 stars - I found "Blessing or Curse You Can Choose" to be a disappointing read. The book promised to explore the concept of blessings and curses and how we can choose our own path, but it fell short on delivering any meaningful insights. The author seemed to rely heavily on cliched religious and spiritual beliefs without providing any real evidence or logical arguments. It felt more like a self-help book peppered with vague anecdotes and platitudes, rather than a well-researched exploration of the topic. Overall, I felt let down by the lack of substance in this book.
2. Sarah Johnson - 1 star - "Blessing or Curse You Can Choose" was a complete waste of my time. The writing was convoluted, filled with unnecessary fluff, and lacked a coherent structure. The author's ideas seemed scattered and disconnected, making it difficult to follow their train of thought. The book also made sweeping generalizations and presented personal opinions as if they were facts without any real evidence or supporting arguments. I was expecting an insightful exploration of blessings and curses, but instead, I got a jumble of vague and unfounded claims. I cannot recommend this book to anyone seeking genuine guidance or knowledge on the subject.
3. Emily Thompson - 2 stars - I was initially intrigued by the concept of "Blessing or Curse You Can Choose," but ultimately, it failed to live up to my expectations. The writing style was dry and lacked any real emotional depth, making it difficult to connect with the author's message. Additionally, the book was repetitive, rehashing the same points and examples over and over again without adding anything new or insightful. I also found the author's dismissal of external factors that may influence one's life circumstances to be oversimplified and unrealistic. Overall, I found this book to be unengaging and lacking in substance.