CURRENT ISSUE 12/24/02 Front Page Weekly Features Ain't That America? To-Do List Frank Haskins Moth's Diary Travistan: State of Crisis! Movie Corner ALARIC RETURNS! Info Archives Crap Shop Who's at Fault? Contact Us! Aye, mateys! Get you some Daily Probe booty!	Daily Probe Movie Review by Alice Higgins Professor of Wymyn's Studies University of Toronto    Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers Rating: 1 stars (out of 5) It's very difficult for a self-respecting womyn to enjoy the holiday season these days. All I'd like is to sit next to a roaring fire, perhaps with a nice mug of chamomile or cider in my hands, and watch as Lilith coats the landscape outside with a delicate carpet of snow. I guess it's the romantic in me. Instead, I find my senses attacked. A simple visit to the mall to buy sensible footwear results in being jostled by angry parents fighting to buy something called Bey Blades for their ingrate hell-spawn. Every radio station plays that Lilith-awful "Walking Around In Wymyn's Underwear" until I want to poke out my eardrums with chopsticks. Meanwhile, the male students on campus strut around wearing sprigs of mistletoe on their belt-buckles, giggling like hyenas and somehow deluding themselves that this ancient joke makes them incredibly clever. And of course, a trip to the cinema-house is out of the question, as 'tis the season for Ball-ywood to release every penis-worshipping opus they can ejaculate out of their rancid DNA cannons. A case in point is Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. This so-called movie is nothing but three hours of phallus-idolatry that I will never have back. I shouldn't be all that surprised that it is a big hit among middle-aged Dungeons And Dragons fanatics who have never (thankfully) known the touch of a womyn. They spend so much time manipulating their own pathetic units that seeing hours of penile-imagery on the screen must seem only natural. If you're not familiar with the story, it has something to do with a bunch of short people trying to destroy a ring. Meanwhile, armies of semi-humanoid mutants (which bear a shocking resemblance to wrestling fans) try and prevent them from destroying said ring. Gripping storytelling indeed. That's the story in less than a paragraph, yet Peter Jackson seems to find it necessary to extend this premise over roughly 10 hours of film (including the equally abhorrent prequel and upcoming sequel). The Two Towers, surprisingly, doesn't get my lowest rating. This is because as I see it, the movie does have two positive messages that the filmmakers have (no doubt unknowingly) sent. One is the destruction of the ring. As my students will tell you, a ring is a symbol of marriage. A womyn who enters into the bond of slavery known as matrimony is forced to wear a ring as a public proclamation of her husband's ownership of her. From where I sit, anything that destroys such a symbol can't be all bad. The homely actor who stars as the cretin Gollum is a good metaphor for men in general: withered, shriveled, and conniving. All veins and loose hairs, this thinly disguised penis-proxy writhes its way through the movie, spitting and spewing at all who dare cross its path. Gollum apparently once possessed the ring before it was stolen from him. It turned him into a slithering, grotesque caricature of a man who dwells underground. He emerges from this self-imposed exile to pursue Frodo (Elijah Wood), who is in possession of the ring, with no concern for his appearance or sanity. It just goes to show you, sisters, the lengths men will go to in order to own something with a hole in it. Once again, my sisters, you have been warned!
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