Grouching About the Oscars

I guess the Oscars are going to be televised this year, despite the rumors that they weren't? Anyway, I have seen a grand total of two of the Oscar-nominated films. One is The Golden Compass, which is nominated for art direction (and rightly so, I would say). The other is Sicko, nominated for best feature-length documentary. I have to wonder why The Simpsons Movie didn't get a nomination, not because I think it's an Oscar-worthy film, but just because you'd think they'd want something to add to the three nominees for Best Animated Film. I'll probably see and enjoy some of the Academy-lauded films in the future, but I'm just not so keen on going to the movies. It's expensive, and it can be a hassle to find a good time. I believe I only saw seven movies from 2007 in the theater, and three of them were connected with properties that I enjoy (The Golden Compass and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on books, and The Simpsons Movie on the show). Two others (Spider-Man 3 and Saw IV) were sequels, and another (Halloween) a remake. As far as I can recall, the only truly original film that I saw in a theater last year was a documentary.

So, because of my own viewing habits, I can't comment on most of the choices. It does deeply disturb me, however, that Norbit was nominated for something. As if it isn't bad enough that filmmakers keep putting out these "Hey, aren't fat people funny?" movies, the Academy has to encourage them by implying that a fat suit is one of the three best uses of makeup in any movie released last year. Also, why were three different songs from Enchanted nominated? I mean, I haven't seen the movie or heard the songs, so maybe they all really do deserve it, but it still kind of strikes me as overkill.

What qualifications does a movie need to qualify for nomination, anyway? I've never been entirely clear on that point.

A Whale of an Entry

The Minor Prophets say pretty much the same things as the big guys, but their books are much shorter. In fact, Obadiah only has one chapter. Two things in the Minor Prophets of particular importance to Christianity are Micah's prediction about the Messiah hailing from Bethlehem (although the language makes it sound like he might have been talking about a clan, rather than the town), and Zechariah's reference to a king riding on a donkey, which some people feel was comically misinterpreted by the author of Matthew. I might well say more about these things when I get to the Gospels, which should be next if I'm going in the typical order, but I think I'll actually tackle the Deuterocanonical books first. Almost buried in the midst of all the prophecies is one of the most famous Bible stories of all, that of Jonah and the whale. Okay, it's actually referred to as a fish, but I don't know that a culture that regarded bats as birds and thought that some insects had four legs (see Leviticus 11) would have known the difference anyway. I'm surprised that Young-Earth Creationists haven't tried to insist it was an icthyosaur or plesiosaur. Jonah is of the opposite stripe from people like Abraham and Moses, who tried to intercede with God when He planned to wipe out a population. Instead, the old whale-dweller gets pissed off because God DOESN'T destroy the repentant population of Nineveh. And before I leave Jonah, I'll mention that the Good News Bible I had when I was a kid referred to the destination of the ship that throws the prophet overboard as Spain, which I found to be somewhat out of place for a book that usually focuses on the Middle East. A more accurate rendering of the place is Tarshish, which some scholars do associate with Tartessos in what is now Spain, but it's not totally clear.

In Final Fantasy V, I've reached the second world, and escaped from Exdeath's castle. Prison breaks in games like that usually just consist of waiting around long enough, or finding a hidden switch or passage. Part of me thinks there should be more actual strategy involved, but another part realizes that such a thing might cause me to throw the game across the room in frustration. {g} FF5 is one of the games in the series with different job classes, which is kind of cool, but it seems like some of the most interesting jobs aren't really all that useful. Beastmasters, Mystic Knights, and Blue Mages have powers that sound really neat, but it's difficult to actually put their special skills to use, making it more practical to just stick to fighters, healers, and casters of attack spells. I do have to say that I quite like Callers, though, in this and other similar games. Summoning up powerful elemental spirits to do your bidding is awesome.

Incidentally, to tie the two subjects of this post together, there's a part in FF2 where your party is swallowed by Leviathan, which seems to be a combination of two different Biblical references. Leviathan hasn't yet show up in FF5, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of his appearing later on. He's a summoned monster in some of the games.