It’s Friday the thirteenth, Overthinkers! And because your luck is bad, I’m filling in for your regular thread-opener, Perich.
First of all, have you ever researched (read: looked up on Wikipedia) the origin of Friday the 13th? So sayeth the oracle:
The fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigga being the name of the Norse goddess for whom “Friday” is named and triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number thirteen), or paraskevidekatriaphobia a concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή, meaning “Friday”), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς, meaning “thirteen”) attached to phobía (φοβία, from phóbos, φόβος, meaning “fear”). The latter word was derived in 1911 and first appeared in a mainstream source in 1953.
In OTI news, I’ve closed the polls for OTI Reader’s Choice 2011, and the winners are The Economics of Death Star Planet Destruction (by a large margin) and Beauty and The Beast’s Dark Delusion in the guest post category. Congratulations to Peter Gross, that post’s author, on his good timing, since…
Disney is releasing a 3D conversion of Beauty and the Beast. Given the astronomical return this strategy yielded them for The Lion King, I think we can suspect many more of these. Are you planning to… wait for it… be their guest?
We haven’t been featuring movie releases, lately (what movie releases?), so let’s delve into those hoping that our Friday the 13th luck will change.
Nope! During this dreary winter season, the movie industry takes a break from aiming at box office (as they do in summer, which these days runs from March until September) or prestige and awards eligibility, as in the fall. So the business is putting out the trash, and this week we get the Dolly Parton/Queen Latifah church choir sports movie Joyful Noise. It also Stars Kris Kristofferson, who has done much stronger work in the past.
And after a Wahlberg-less 2011 following huge artistic success in The Fighter, the artist formerly known as Marky returns to the big screen in Contraband. To me, the most remarkable thing about this trailer is the characters’ ingenious use of duct tape.
Apparently, he didn’t hear Kevin Antoine Dodson’s advice: “Hide your kids. Hide your wife.”
So instead of going to the movies, why don’t you put our service the test? Sound off in the comments, for this is your… Open Thread.