I don’t know what’s going on with the weather, but I do know this: the weather needs to stop. Please. Someone. Just make this horrendous, endless burning stop. I cannot take it for very much longer.

I’ve tried many things to deal with this endless HEAT and HUMIDITY and SCREAMING BRIGHTNESS, but none of them have worked. I’ve tried wearing hats and sunglasses and cotton clothes. I’ve tried eating salad. I’ve tried flapping my hands at my face to approximate the magical whirring of air-conditioning, but it’s just not the same.

I’m miserable with heat: like a big fleshy slug. But as I recline on my sweaty sofa, with only movies and a ceiling fan for company, I like to imagine I’m living inside some of the movies I watch. They help. A bit. Maybe give these a try:



The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

If your idea of an excellent adventure is hunting down the shark that ate your best friend, then you’ll like this movie so much! If you also like Bill Murray, you’ll like this movie so much! The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is basically about Bill Murray as Jacques Cousteau on a quest for revenge against a jaguar shark. (Added bonus: the underwater scenes were shot using stop motion animation. They are lovely.)



Jaws

I am extremely fond of Jaws. I talk about Jaws all the time. I say things like: “Isn’t this beach nice? It’s just like the beach from Jaws.” Or: “A relaxing cruise on the harbour sounds great! I hope a shark doesn’t eat our boat, like the shark did in Jaws.” As you can tell, I’m a very popular person. Even after 40 years, Jaws is still extraordinary. Sure, its summery tale of blood in the water might not make you feel cool, but it might make you feel happy about being on land.



The Little Mermaid

Oh, Sebastian. Truly, world’s most neurotic crab had it right. Accompanied by some steel drums and a rad calypso beat, the crustacean tells Ariel: “The seaweed is always greener / In somebody else's lake / You dream about going up there / But that is a big mistake.” This is 100% correct, Sebastian; I am “up there” and I agree that this is a big mistake. I sweat a lot. I have to pay for water. I honestly don’t know why Ursula didn’t turn Prince What’s-his-face into a merman and save Ariel the trouble of discovering the perils of thigh sweat.



Splash

“Boy meets mermaid” is clearly some kind of tiny film micro-genre, because Splash is yet another example of this very bananas premise. But let’s not dwell. In Splash, Daryl Hannah meets Tom Hanks after he falls off a boat, she gives him a big smooch, and then she decides to swim her mermaid tail all the way to New York City so she can hang out with him some more. Daryl is obviously not worried about water quality in New York Harbour, but let’s not dwell on that either.



The Abyss

I am going to put it out there and say that James Cameron is obsessed with the terrifying depths of the ocean. In Titanic, the sinking scene is made all the more harrowing when you realise the endless blackness that the ship and its passengers are disappearing into (the wreck of the Titanic is nearly 4km underwater – NOBODY’S LEGS ARE THAT LONG). In The Abyss, a deep-sea drilling crew has to confront a bunch of blobby aliens who live in the depths of the ocean – in very dark and claustrophobic places. All of the underwater scenes are really, really breathtaking… and anxiety-inducing and suspenseful. Maybe life under the sea is overrated.