mediaphile

So for the past…two or so weeks, I’ve been testing out that Pimsleur Sleep Programming thing.

I returned it today, and apparently I’m not the only one to have done so. The reason?

The man’s voice who does it isn’t nearly as soothing as they originally thought. ;)

I have to agree. It’s a little menacing, especially for someone who doesn’t sleep with anyone, and may have seen…a few too many horror films in her day. ;) It keeps me up at night.

They’re re-doing it. With a woman’s voice. Much more soothing. Because so many people said the guy’s not helping them. :D

But I might be interested to try it when it’s redone. I’ve heard great things about sleep programming courses, but I think those great things happen when you’re…you know…asleep.

Ah, well. We’ll see if the fix is any better than the original.

Last night, my friend Rusty had his homecoming. He lost part of an ear on his mission! While in Wyoming. I’ve never been, obviously, but Rusty was there in -40*F weather and got frostbite. He had fun, though. Missed everything from the past two years by way of movies, music, and books, though.

We told him he’s got to see Stardust. Brilliant movie. Nothing like the book, though, and I love the book. The last 15 minutes of the movie don’t even happen in the book! Seriously, what the heck, you know? But it’s got Michelle Pheiffer, and the ghost brothers are awesome.

I mean, a lot of the endearing qualities of the movie aren’t in the book, and vice-versa, so they’re both good in their own way, but not in the same way. Does that make sense? Like, I love the idea of the travelling market in the book—there’s nothing I like about it always being there. And I love the way the witches’ home is a small hut, the mirror being their link to the palace they once inhabited. And the lack of the riddle and taking away the mystery of Tristran’s mother sucked.

But then there’s all the Captain Shakespeare stuff in the movie, different from the book that I love. And the guard of the hole in the wall, though the way it’s done in the book is just brilliant:

“See my son?”

*nodnod*

“Know where he’s from?”

*nodnod*

“He wants to go back.”

“Oh, okay!”

Instead of the old guy laying the smackdown. It’s just…little things in that movie bothered me more than any of the big changes. Maybe because it was the little things in the book that had me so enraptured. Tristran’s fairy ear—his name–the riddle and Una’s story, Tristran’s bratty little sister…those are the things that make the story so endearing and real.

I understand movies have a certain amount of time to get everything in that’s necessary, but it just kills me when directors and producers get rid of the best parts.

Take Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. That movie? Was horrible. Cuaron took far too many liberties with the script, and I know many of my friends and I felt that was one of the best books in the series. Cuaron made everything too dark, cut out a lot of the little things that made the book so good—completely skipped over one of the main points of the entire book! And we were spoiled by Columbus’s interpretation of the first two movies. He stuck to the stories almost too well, but it added to the air of magic that permeates the entire series. Cuaron only had the use of magic as being so everyday you barely notice it going for him. He even changed the layout of the school!

I don’t know. Maybe I’m too much a purist to the books. Books are generally better than the movies, if only for those little bits of story you don’t get to see on film. Even the Star Wars novels add to the story beyond the movies!

I should be a director. But I’d probably have nobody to work for me and my obsessive detailed ways.

Any wannabe actors out there? ;)

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