King Under the Goblin Stomach

I think I've finally gotten the flu like everyone else. Well, I'd had a cough and shortness of breath for a few weeks as well as a fever so I thought I was getting through the thing with just mild symptoms. I was kept up for much of last night by nausea, though. So far no puking.

I really think playing chess before bed time is a part of it. Maybe I just caught something at the mall yesterday when I went to see The Hobbit again with Tim, who hadn't seen it yet. We saw a 2d show, old fashioned twenty four frames per second and I must say, it's a far better experience than the Imax 3d. As I said to Tim, who hadn't seen a 3d movie yet, "The best I can say about 3d is sometimes you stop noticing it."

Somehow I noticed a lot more in the movie this time, things looked clearer. I complained in my review about Thorin failing to kill Azog despite the fact that we see Azog being dragged off by dwarves. This time, I could clearly see that Azog was being dragged away by his fellow orcs, despite Azog's bellowing protest. Now it makes a little more sense, but still not as much sense as Tolkien's version of events wherein the dwarves, having won the day, finished off Azog. I have trouble, too, buying that orc subordinates felt so much concern for their commander that they pulled him off the field for his own good. I mean, orcs eat each other.

But, I guess we had to have the boss battle between Thorin and Azog. I've been thinking about it with all the Dracula adaptations I've been watching--why is it always so out of the question to just film the damned book? I remember hearing Ray Bradbury say something to that effect at Comic-Con, and gods know he had reason to complain.

I spent my Barnes and Noble gift cards from Christmas on two leather bound books and one movie. I figured I'd buy books I most felt ashamed of getting on a Kindle--so I got a collection of Bradbury's works--The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and The Golden Apples of the Sun--since he expressed such a passionate hatred for e-books. And I got an illustrated Arabian Nights translated by Richard Burton. It looks so much like the copy in Coppola's Dracula except, sadly, lacking graphic sex.

The movie I got was the really beautiful Criterion edition of Carl Dreyer's Vampyr, which I watched last week for the first time in ten or so years. I've been waiting for the right time to write about it and, judging from how dizzy I am, this isn't it.