The Man Behind the Mask

Last night's movie was Halloween: H2O, which means I have now seen every movie in the Halloween series. I was a little bothered that this one pretty much ignored the continuity established by Parts 4-6. The thing is, I think I liked this one better than 4-6, which were kind of non-memorable (although Donald Pleasence was always good as Dr. Loomis). I tend to be a rather continuity-minded person, though, and it kind of bugged me that people referred to Michael Myers not having been seen since the fire at the end of Part 2. The thing is, I don't remember if Michael was assumed dead at the end of The Curse of Michael Myers, which I just watched a few weeks ago. I guess that proves my point about their not being that memorable. {g}

I think I mentioned this after watching Resurrection, but it seems to me that Michael's mask in the last two movies shows more of his eyes than it did in the earlier films. This isn't a good thing, as I've always found the fact to be that no one can see Michael's facial expressions when he's wearing the mask to be one of the most important aspects of his character. I mean, in the credits to some (possibly all?) of the movies, he's just called "The Shape." I think the eye-revealing mask makes the character less scary.

Anyway, other than those minor points, I thought the movie was pretty good. I liked how it focused on Laurie Strode trying to come to grips with her past.

Okay, what else do I have to talk about? Oh, one thing is a commercial for Rosetta Stone that they're always playing on the local news radio station. It says something about learning a new language the same way you used your first language. Um, don't most people learn their first language as they're acquiring language skills in general? That's not exactly something you can do twice, under normal circumstances. From what I've heard, it's usually easier for kids who are learning language skills to pick up new languages than it is for adults. So, yeah, that commercial bothers me. Probably much more than it should, considering that it's just a dumb commercial.

I don't remember my exact grade point average from my undergraduate studies, and they certainly don't make it easy to find out. I contacted them asking if there was any way just to get the number, but they apparently can't release that without my signature, which meant I had to order an official transcript. That's a lot of hassle to go through for a simple number. Maybe I should see if I have any old grade reports around anywhere, but I don't really feel like digging through my old papers.

I bought a copy of Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards! at Borders today. Since my local library system doesn't seem to have a copy, I figured I might as well buy it. It only cost me $7.41, including sales tax.

I guess that's all for now.

Sex, hippogriffs, and rock and roll

I just saw two crazy articles on MSN, both linked from the "your message has been sent" page on Hotmail. Apparently, Jessica Biel (of 7th Heaven and The Texas Chainsaw Masscare: The Shitty Remake fame), has been named the sexiest woman alive by Esqure. If I may use an Internet colloquialism, WTF? And this one says, "A war of words has erupted even between labels and Steve Jobs over whether 99 cents is too cheap for the most popular songs." Too CHEAP? I always thought that was way too expensive for one song. Granted, each track on a CD usually averages out to costing more than that, but there you actually get the CD. Last time I used eMusic, it cost a lot less than that per song, but you had to buy them in packages. I've actually heard of people paying MORE for albums on iTunes than they would have if they'd just bought the CD at the store, which makes no sense to me.

arfies made a post about Bruno Bettelheim and Freudian interpretations of fairy tales. That kind of stuff tends to annoy me. I mean, Freudian takes are probably accurate sometimes, but there are people who will interpret anything long and skinny as a phallic symbol, anything that you can put something else into as a vaginal symbol, and any interaction between family members as an Oedipal or Electra complex. My favorite is how Freudian interpreters take beheading as a symbol of castration anxiety. Because it apparently couldn't be, you know, fear of losing your actual head. It made me think of this review of the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie that I came across last year. It's mostly an anti-CGI rant, but it also includes this gem:

"Cuaron proves himself every bit the hack Columbus was by watering down the suggestiveness that makes fantasy movies powerful. When Harry is taught to tame a beast called the Hippograff [sic] (a combination horse-griffon-eagle), the event is asexual, more neutered than the Pushmepullyou in the Doctor Dolittle books."

So it's not enough for people like this to provide sexual interpretations for every children's story, but when there's something they CAN'T easily sexualize, they COMPLAIN about it? I seem to recall someone mentioning another review of the movie that also said it wasn't sexual enough. Um, who said it was SUPPOSED to be? That kind of thing goes beyond the Freudian thing, though. It's the whole idea of thinking a work of art SHOULD mean something in particular, and then, if it doesn't fit your preconceived interpretation, you criticize the work instead of thinking that, just maybe, you were going about it the wrong way. That's not to say that there hasn't been some successful criticism along those lines, but saying that a hippogriff ride isn't sexual enough is pretty ridiculous.