Depressing Cheerfulness

I generally like Tim Burton's work just fine; even when it's not great it's still interesting. Even so, I haven't seen Corpse Bride yet. But since I also very much like Danny Elfman, I find myself listening to the soundtrack. Highly reminiscent of that other stop-motion animated film, the music is funky and enjoyable. I remember James Berardinelli criticizing the music of Nightmare for failing to have you humming as you left the theater, and this music has that same character, whether or not you think that's a fault. (I think not.) But the lyrics are full of interesting (IMO) ideas about what it might be like to be a dead person competing with a living person for another's affections, if such a situation were possible. There's even a fun Peter Lorre imitation, completely obvious from the moment his voice enters the track "Tears to Shed".

"Remains of the Day" is perhaps analogous (in lounge-style and light-hearted grotesquerie) to Nightmare's "Oogie Boogie's Song". The oft-repeated mantra in "Remains" is the following thought:

Die! Die! We all pass away,
but don't wear a frown
'cuz it's really OK.

You might try to hide,
and you might try to pray,
but we all end up
the remains of the day.

I think Burton's creative and I appreciate his genius, and even his fascination with darkness and twistedness; he's rather like a mildly pessimistic Dr. Seuss. But the main idea of the chorus of "Remains of the Day" is surprisingly heavy, and disturbingly nihilistic. I'm not convinced (or claiming) that Burton intends the words to be taken as discounting religious belief, though they do certainly imply that prayer is ineffective as a means of avoiding death -- that assertion can be taken a number of ways.

One way to take it is to realize that people who recognize impending death often pray in desperation (around the same time they might be hiding the truth from themselves), and that sort of thing certainly is ineffective. That's a fair interpretation, and probably (I suspect) the primarily intended one.

Aliens v. Predator

BEWARE: SPOILERS (for Alien, Aliens, Predator, The Exorcist, and The Sound of Music)

The marines in the jungle are just starting to get the sense that something about their mission doesn't add up, and that, in fact, there appears to be something out there that will get them, probably sooner than they'd like. And lo, it turns out that there is a Special Effect running around in the jungle. It is inexplicably mobile and dextrous, and able to move without a sound except when it lets its guard down and stomps its Foley Boots from here to there. (And except for the tick-clicking Predator sound, which works well, IMO.)

I'm glad I've seen Predator, but Aliens is the better film, hands-down. I compare the two since they came out in 1986 (Aliens) and 1987 (Predator), and since they both feature aliens pitted against marines (calling for suitably militant scores) in unfamiliar territory who are killed, mostly one at a time, until only the protagonist whose name gets top billing is left to fight.

It is also the only film I've seen in which I know two future governors act (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura).

I was compelled to note that near the 28-minute mark of Predator, vastly more story has been told (or vastly more plot exhausted, one could say) than The Exorcist manages to tell within the first 30 minutes. (The Exorcist spends this entire time in Iraq, with a story that I still cannot clearly connect with the rest of the film.) This is the case despite the fact that both are well-done Horror films (The Exorcist falls much more exclusively into this genre), and as my friend pointed out, Predator does manage, to its credit, to let 40 mintes elapse before we see the predator for the first time. That's well-done, since what you can't see at all is almost always scarier than what you can see. Unlike in Alien, we do get a very, very good look at the Predator before the end of the film; it's actually quite similar to Aliens, since the mode of battle at that point is mano y mano. But I'd rather watch Aliens again, I'm pretty sure.

Lately I've been reading Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief, and I think he's made me inclined to take the Kant course being offered next fall at Tufts (where I am a student). Thus Kant is coming in slightly ahead (at this point) of a Natural Kinds seminar or Philosophy of Biology, which I still think could be very interesting.

I'm also reading Dumas' The Three Musketeers for the first time. A friend has compared it to 19th century Tom Clancy, and while I've never read a Tom Clancy book I expect my friend is right. I haven't decided yet whether I like The Three Musketeers better than The Count of Monte Cristo or not.

Speaking of the Count, V for Vendetta is finally being released on DVD on August first, and I'll be watching it again soon after. I realize it's not a great movie, and yet I'm curiously compelled by it and am looking forward to seeing it again.

Lastly, I'm also reading "The Truth in Relativism" by Bernard Williams, published in his Moral Luck. (I need to turn this effort into a paper in the near future, but I'm still working on understanding what Williams is saying.)

Note: In The Sound of Music, they get away at the end.