See, Your Tuesday Is Already Better Than You Know...

Hallelujah! We've averted another potential catastrophe!

James Cameron unveiled the coffins, and the world did not end.

I need say no more.

Some of you frequenting this blog may recall

I didn't have much use for Neil LaBute's atrocious remake of The Wicker Man,

and despite the promise of an "alternative ending not seen in theaters!", I've had no desire whatsoever to revisit LaBute's atrocity on DVD. The only way to revisit the film, or sample its hilarity, is to do what CCS student Penina Gal does, and laugh heartily every single day at

this hilarious condensation of The Wicker Man remake highlights, including footage not in the theatrical cut I saw (the ludicrous bees-over-the-head sequence: "Not my eyes!")

The beehive-over-the-head bit is truly ludicrous.

I was still zonked with this cold yesterday, though by about 4 PM I was doing much better. Still in the zone earlier in the day, I caught The Number 23 matinee in Lebanon, and wasn't particularly impressed. Full review to follow as part of the ongoing Cine-Ketchup column, but suffice to say it's essentially a Hollywood

revamp of Lance Weiler's Head Trauma,

with family ties attached for optimum loss/redemption options in the final act.

Having completed prep for Peter Money and my big CCS Wednesday field trip (completing said final prep with Marge's help at our dining room table, studiously avoiding dining), Marge and I also darted out last night at her urgent request (she had a rough day at work yesterday) to see The Snake Pit (1947) at Bruce Posner's Cine-Salon screening series at the Hanover Library, and that was big fun. If nothing else, it put Marge's tough work day in stark relief as being a lot better than having a nervous breakdown over and over and waking up after repeated shock treatments to find months had passed and -- well, you get the idea. Marge claims not to know the function of horror movies, but whenever she needs a weepie like this one, it's clear she does understand fully, she just refuses to engage. Anyhoot, Olivia deHaviland's performance still engages, even if the sanitized view of big-city asylums (the 20th Century Fox madhouse still shocked audiences of its day; Frederick Wiseman's Titicut Follies exposed the real conditions of such institutions two decades later) and streamlined Hollywood take on psychiatry pitch into the risible when seen today.

I awoke this morning not wearing a water balloon filled with A-number-one snot on my neck, so the cold is at last passing.

On to Marge.

No playing hooky today -- full day of work, off I go!