Last night John and I watched a bunch of Troy. We will finish it, butJohn’s assessment that the film is “a hate crime against intelligence” is woefully accurate. I don’t understand what on earth anyone was thinking when that movie was made. With one slight exception Troy is uniformly horrible: the scene where the Trojans attack the Greek fleet with what appear to be flaming tumbleweeds is pretty alright.

I recently got into a discussion with Jesse on his blog about whether adaptations should be critiqued on their obedience to their source text, and while I do tend to defend loose adaptations, they at least have to be good in their own right. I like the Iliad quite a bit, and I have read it enough to know that it would make an awful movie if someone were to simply film it unaltered. It’s too disjointed as a whole, given its nature, and so I would absolutley support a liberal adaptation of the events. But not Troy. No. Menelaus is not killed by Hector, nor is Big Ajax killed by Hector for that matter, and Achilles is not smarter than all the Greeks because he is an atheist. Also: Boromir as Odysseus? What? Why can’t they make a good Greek epic anymore? I have little hope for the new Clash of the Titans now that Sam Raimi isn’t directing and Bruce Campbell isn’t playing Zeus.

In other news, I finished Sense and Sensibility and I think I’ll most likely writing my paper on it. I’ve begun Northanger Abbey and it’s really weird, I don’t feel like I’m reading Jane Austen. I think I’m going to try to find the time to type up an idea for a short story I’m fuddling with in my brain.

In an  hour or so I’m meeting a colleague for lunch and then getting a haircut and then hopefully getting in a nap before I get up with some friends this evening. I really need an extra snooze, I’m tired this week.