Reexamining the Movies Titanic and Castaway

This past weekend, I dusted my VHS collection as part of a procrastination plan to avoid reading Oedipus for the fourth time.

(Excuse me while I rant about this for a moment.) My script analysis teacher assigned Oedipus last week, and we were to have it read twice by that next class period. Reading Oedipus twice through doesn't sound so unreasonable. After all, it is hard to pick up the style of that language the first time through. Well I read Oedipus twice through and came to class to find this written on the dry erase board as next week's assignment. "PLEASE READ OEDIPUS TWO MORE TIMES BEFORE R". (The 'R' means Thursday. Personally, I don't find the "r" in Thursday to be the most significant letter. I'd choose the "h". No other day of the week has an "h". This makes the "h" significant.)

On Saturday, I sat in the middle of my dorm room staring at my Theatre Literature book contemplating the option to study when I suddenly noticed how dusty everything was. So, of course, the dust became a more pressing matter. There's a theory I made up (that holds no apparent validity), that dust makes up about 35% of the average American's daily diet. (That American's are filthy enough to have this much dust in circulation is beyond me.) This makes sense because there is so much dust in the air that there is absolutely no way that we aren't all just walking around digesting it constantly; and that has to account for at least 7% of our calorie intake, I feel.

Well, being on a diet, I couldn't afford that 7%. So I dusted the room and came across two of my favorite movies: Titanic and Castaway.
First of all, remember when the Game Boy Advanced was something to get excited about? That was the last time I'd seen the movie Titanic, and for some reason "Near...Far...WherEVER you are..." was the only thing I could remember from that movie. After a re-review, I realized why.

VHS No. 1 had been an early-20th century montage of neutral colors. The ship was bronze, brown, gold, black and white. The people were bronzed, brown-nosed, and golden--and they were wearing black and white. I simply fell asleep within the first thirty minutes.

Now VHS number two was more eventful! Let's see...umm drowning rats, rats, drowning people, a lot of screaming and crying and Leonardo freezes to death. This was where I stood up and gave the film a round of applause--which clapped plenty of dust into my digestive system I'm sure.

Castaway was incredible! No complaints there. Plenty of vivid colors like green and ocean, but something about that movie seemed a little off. Oh yes, it was the MPAA rating of "PG-13 for Intense action sequences and some disturbing images": Which was found on the bottom of the VHS right under Tom's confused face.

This movie was approximately 2 hours and 23 minutes long. Seventy-four of these minutes were spent watching Tom talk to a volleyball. No action there folks. No action there at all.

Oh and by the way, Oedipus is in progress. I am three quarters of the way through my third read! And I am not afraid to give myself a round of applause for that because I've had a light lunch and no dinner at all, so I think a little dust is just what the stomach needs.