I love Halloween

Halloween is easily better than Christmas, to me, although--GASP!--this year the rank commercialism that attends Halloween is starting to get to me. I predict, sadly, that next year I may even start to resent the appearance of orange, purple, black, and green items in August. Then I'll buy some of them and feel better. Halloween is an excuse to wear a costume, listen to spooky music, and watch horror movies. How could I not love a holiday that allows me to do what I would do every day, given the chance? (Okay, maybe I wouldn't wear a costume every day. Maybe.)

It helps that I like pumpkins. I really like them. I like them in my food, I like them on my desk (oh mini pumpkin on top of my black external hard drive, I <3 you), and I love their color. It helps that October is a habitual season of horror movies coming out. Love 'em or hate 'em (and I hated the greater majority of them, on balance), but the Saw movies were a constant presence in the theaters for seven years. It didn't matter that I didn't like half of them because it was a fun tradition--get dressed up, go to the movies. Recently, Paranormal Activity has picked up the slack. There's that The Thing prequel/reboot, too. I cannot be upset about any of this because, again, good or bad, it's just fun to go out to a horror movie during the spooky time of year.

It's also fun to reflect on how silly these traditions are. We gleefully celebrate ghosts and goblins at a time of year where, traditionally, people were scared or else quietly reverent of the dead. It's a way to throw off the superstitions of the past and mock them while at the same time inventing new ones that never quite go away. (Goodbye, Samhain! Hello, Razor Blades Hidden In Candy!) It's very...human.

FIUTORYTE22%@%!^&$#&$#HV!!!!

AVENGERS TRAILER. TOO EXCITED TO MAKE GOOD ENGLISH.

Ahem. Okay, I'm not joking when I say I'm elated. I'm still riding that adrenaline high of excitement, despite the fact that there seems to be plenty of space for criticism of that trailer alone. Another time, perhaps. BECAUSE I JUST SAW AN AVENGERS TRAILER AND IT HAD THOR AND IRON MAN AND CAPTAIN AMERICA AND 'SPLOSIONS AND NINE INCH NAILS MUSIC AND I CANNOT BE RATIONAL RIGHT NOW.

(MaymovieMaymovieMaymovieMaymovie)

I am calmer now.

Something that puts fannishness into perspective? Looking at things others are obviously fans of--that, in fact, I might be a fan of--and the merchandise associated therewith that is too ridiculous to be compatible with reality. Exhibit A: a "swim like Michael Phelps" Kinect game. I am a fan of Michael Phelps (....'s body), but this is pushing it. How much garbage do you expect his fans to swallow?

...which is "Hello, Ms. Pot, have you met my friend, the much-maligned Mr. Kettle?" talk that I ought to wink out of existence in a fit of cosmic irony, or something, given my earlier reaction to The Avengers trailer being released. I did promise to be more coherent, eventually, on that. (The other post is and will remain a CAPSLOCK paradise, I warn you.) Here's what I have to say, now that I can be marginally less giddy.

-For a movie that has only just finished wrapping, they've got some decent CGI shots already done. The Hulk is looking, well, Hulkish, but more The Incredible Hulk-ish than Hulk-ish, which is acceptable. There were lazers and some lightning for Thor. All of which could stand to be improved, obviously, but that they have that much is impressive. I mean, it could be a warning that they're rushing things--they have a trailer online seven months before the movie premieres, which is only about four months earlier than Captain America did--but I choose to have faith.

-They explained "the Avengers"! By which I mean the name, which, since moonlightalice brought it up--"What, exactly, are they avenging?"--has not failed to bother me. Stupid smart people with their words and things mucking up perfectly good superhero team names!

-Nine Inch Nails in the trailer: On the one hand, LOVE IT. "We're in this Together" is one of my favorite tracks from my favorite NIN album ever, The Fragile. The Downward Spiral is the most famous/commercially successful NIN album, but The Fragile kicks its ass in every way that matters. The songs are better, they make you feel more and more strongly ways about stuff, the entire album flows better, start-to-finish, and it is artistic while still being incredibly catchy. I'm a piss-poor music critic, but The Fragile is an album about which I get worked up, so it's good. "We're in this Together" is even used passably well in the start of the trailer. On the other hand, it's used incredibly poorly towards the end, with the twisted dialogue of the chorus being made into rah-rah nonsense. I mean, shoe-horning in the words "we're in this together now" to play over the images of the Avengers is just too on-the-nose. The riffs also don't work as well as a closer--it's too unfinished a sound. Maybe that's just me and me knowing that that riff is in the middle of the song. But they needed to transition it better.

-I see that Joss Whedon and Robert Downey Jr. go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Some of the lines felt a little forced, though. I worry about that. Joss' best lines don't go hand-in-hand with action scenes a lot of the time.

There. I said some things that didn't amount to typed flailing. I'm proud of me.