Red Rum

In the full swing of the holiday, I've been taping and watching some horror films lately. During lunch today, I caught the last 25 minutes of Psycho -- the updated version starring Anne Heche and Vince Vaughn and directed by Gus Van Sant. How incredible is Vince Vaughn at recreating the role of Anthony Perkins? I mean, it's just spot on, and creepy.

But I digress...

For the remainder of my lunch break, I began Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. That opening shot, high above the solitary car on the mountain road is incredible. For those who don't know, the scene is underscored by an eerie musical motive; it's a musical setting of a Latin hymn, famously found in a Requiem. Dies Irae is translated as "Day of Wrath", if you needed any help in setting the mood.

Even w/o knowing that musicological nugget, the ominous music perfectly foreshadows the ultimate conclusion of the movie.

[Mild spoiler ahead, if you've lived in a cave or somehow never learned how to read or participate in popular culture]

When I read The Shining for the first time, waaay back in middle school (yes, I had a creepy Stephen King phrase which earned me the title, "Person Least Wanted to Meet in a Dark Alley"), a helpful reader scribbled in the margins above the third statement of Red Rum, "It's murder, backwards, you idiot."

Well, gee, thanks for that...this is partially why I hate reading books from the library. Speaking of books, I'm still working on Peter Gay's bio of Freud and it's pretty interesting -- I've been thinking about my childhood alot lately; interesting stuff.