Two posts in two days? It's incredible!
First of all, to address the comments from my post yesterday, what makes Belle the best? That's my problem with the whole thing. I don't see Belle as the best and I can't understand why Gaston would. She was physically identical to the blond trollops. What set her apart? Her brains? Why does that appeal to him? Does he need someone to read to him at night? I am not convinced that the characterization makes sense.
And then my new thing: Windows 7.
I might have seen someone's computer who might have a slightly bootlegged copy of Windows 7 that they might be using as their main OS. Here's the theoretical skinny from an expert.
Here's my take:
This software is incredible. As the article above suggests, beta versions of software are all about probable stability, not about speed. The speed on this software is incredible. I can't get over how fast this thing is. My friend hasn't really burned any discs with it, he usually uses thumbdrives, but copying files is absolutely smoking fast. I can't get over it. The GUI is really, really classy. There is a neat little spot in the right-hand corner that clears the desktop and all the Start line items/icons show what is happening in them when they are minimized using Picture in Picture technology. The start up, from boot to running is about 45 seconds. My friend says that there is nothing like it, and I have to agree.
This is not to say that there are not bugs in it. There have been some BSODs, some random shut-downs, some video shakiness... but all in all, my friend says that every time he considers going back to Vista or XP the OS stuns him in some new way.
The upshot, it's a strong recommendation from my friend, and I accept his word implicitly. It breaks records as far as Microsoft Windows is concerned. I know that there are a million folks out there who claim that Linux based things are the greatest, but I tried Ubuntu, and so did my friend, and it just didn't cut it. I like just being able to click on things. I like it to be easy. Maybe that's lazy, but why should computing be complicated? There were things my friend and I liked about Ubuntu, but in the end, Windows 7 is the trick.
2 comments:
Thank you for the news about Windows 7. Your father is using Vista and hates it. The new thing that terrifies me about my laptop becoming old is the thought of facing Vista on the next one.
Belle being the "best" is inherent in the story. One of the liberties that the Disney writers took with the old tale is that everyone would recognize her quality. Her lovableness in the old story was what made her special. In the case of the movie's rather self-centered, also egotistical character, Belle, her only specialness was her love of literature, which was not evident in anything she said.
In her dialogue there was never any literary reference that I can remember. She loved those books as objects, not for what the authors said. If Gaston would use antlers in all of his decorating, so Belle would use books in all of hers. "Oh! Books!" Does her speech pattern reflect what she had read, nor do we get any sense of any author's especial influence? Nope.
From the old story, Belle had a passing sweetness, which she markedly lacks in the movie. Old version: sweetness was her downfall, in that she was susceptible to her sisters' vileness, because she was sweet. In the movie, with no sisters to influence the inner person, Belle's downfall is external. In this, her tenderness towards father is what brings her down. The girlish struggle of choosing between papa and lover is amplified and strained into a far more physical choice than the emotional one of the old story.
In the movie, this matter of the choice that girls face when growing up (which is exemplified in the marital ceremony when the father gives the bride to the groom,) is given a unique poignancy, since in her closest relationship, that to her father, we see her only sweetness, until she becomes tender towards the Beast.
Her relationship with her father is very "Hollywood", in that he is dependent upon her, not the other way around. In the old story, her sweetness in laying down her life for her father is one of daughterly devotion. In the movie, she has apparently always been the strong party in the relationship, which turns what we know about father/daughter relations on its head. That father is perpetually incompetent; he is an endless exasperation to his daughter. We are to take it that she loves well, because she loves unlovable objects. And her we see her objectifying her father and loving him as burden, much as she loves the books.
This means the transformation of her character in the movie is to a truly loving person, because she comes to love the Beast, not as object, but somehow for himself. Although, that he is an unlovable, incompetetent object is also made plain. She finally sees beyond that book's cover and is moved by what is inside, though even that person inside (it seems to me) is going to take quite a bit of tolerating.
Finally, one of the subtexts of the movie is that young men need taming by woman, which might not be far off the mark. If Belle was anything like the best, as far as Gaston was concerned, it might that she was the only potential partner we meet who might be capable of taming him, We all know that Gaston needs taming as much as the Beast does. That the Beast had tenderness made him eligible, while Gaston's lack thereof made him deserving of death. Perhaps that was the nature of Gaston's pursuit of Belle, the longing for redemption through the female. If she couldn't/wouldn't do it, he had no value as a person, because of his irredeemable character flaws.
I catch the glimmer of a Christian theme in here, but really ought to think about other things.
Have you read any of Ed Bott's reviews? He loves Vista and Widows 7. He says if you liked XP, you'll hate Windows 7.
I hate Vista. I've tried all the tweaks he recommends and I still hate Vista.
But at least fast would be better.
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