Well done guys! All the more praiseworthy given your present location. I just hope that this won't become an issue when it gets to be time for your next evaluation :-P
What's my beef with remakes? It's like this: I can always tell when a movie project rehashing of an earlier successful film is being overly-driven by the pursuit of excess lucre. Look at Clash of the Titans: no I haven't seen its remake yet but I've heard nothing but unbelievably bad things about it (and even worse about it, ahem, "3-D" version, but that's a rant for another time). And then there are films like Peter Jackson's adaptation of King Kong: the movies that don't put the potential for dollars in front of the product's quality on the list of priorities.
What's the difference between the two? What qualifies a remake as being "great" as opposed to being "irredeemably baaaad? It's whether the director, the writers, the entire production choose to remain faithful to the spirit of the original.
And that, I believe Samuel Bayer and his crew have done with Platinum Dunes' retelling of A Nightmare on Elm Street.
This movie hails back to the tone and vibe that Wes Craven evoked in the original movie all the way back in 1983, before Freddy Krueger developed from a demonically-empowered dream-stalkin' homicidal child molester into a character plagued with self-parody. Freddy Krueger 1983 was scary. By the time Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare came out eight years later, Freddy was even being aped on the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And as much as I loved the concept of the Elm Street universe and its central character, it was enough to make me cringe...
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 isn't like that. Its Freddy Krueger (played by Jackie Earle Haley, inheriting the hat and sweater from the original series' Robert Englund) is not the Freddy who cracks too many corny jokes before killing you with cockroaches or comic books or a Nintendo Power Glove. Haley's Freddy Krueger is about revenge and murder... and then he'll go for the laugh. In the same way that Heath Ledger's Joker had that "it's funny but it's also not funny" aspect of his character in The Dark Knight.
I guess that's what I appreciated most about A Nightmare on Elm Street 2.0. This movie marked the return of Freddy Krueger as a primal avatar of the natural forces of fear. Which in my mind is the best way to handle Freddy as a character.
Overall, this movie is a smart update of the original's concept. All of the classic elements are still here: Freddy's claw rising out of the bathwater, the rhyming girls playing jump-rope, the parents hiding a terrible secret... But it's also a movie that isn't afraid to change things up some. Freddy's backstory is changed significantly: in the 2010 version he's not a child murderer in his mortal life. But I still have to nod in approval to what scribes Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer have come up with. And I have to say something about the score (composed by Steve Jablonsky, which y'all who've been following this blog already for a few years know how much I love his work :-) as well. If 2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street had the familiar "Elm Street theme", I can't recall it. Jablonsky has delivered a fresh and terrific score that is totally in keeping with the atmosphere of Springwood, USA while at the same time not retreading the music of the original series. I'll probably be buying the soundtrack if it's available (and if it's not, no I won't be doing an online petition again, sorry. It's just have too much else going on at the moment :-)
I saw this movie in a packed theater last night at midnight along with friend and fellow blogger Steven Glaspie. And it's been awhile since I've seen an audience react with that much genuine terror and serious screaming at what's happening up on the screen. And we happened to overhear a number of other people saying that they enjoyed it. I doubt it'll ever hold the same place as the original series and its mythology, but I for one wouldn't mind seeing two or three more of the "new universe" of Elm Street movies. But not more than that: this movie was infinitely better than the remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween... but I don't want it to become another Saw series either.
So if you want a fun springtime popcorn flick and wanna feel good 'n scared, leave your preconceptions in the parking lot and give A Nightmare on Elm Street a shot. I think you just might be quite surprised by it as well.
I've been following this story from the time it first broke. And I've been pondering it a lot, wondering what exactly to make of it, before adding my own two cents into the discussion at large...
In case you've missed it, a group of Chinese and Turkish researchers are claiming to have found a massive artificial wooden structure on the slopes of Mount Ararat in Turkey: the place which depending on how you translate the original texts, was the place where the ark of Noah landed after the worldwide deluge recorded in the Book of Genesis (some argue that it should translate into the "mountains of Ararat", making the possible location of the Ark anywhere between Turkey and Iran).
Now, people have been looking for Noah's Ark for literally hundreds of years. Reports of sightings have been documented throughout antiquity. Even during the twentieth century there have been stories about it being spotted from afar (and not a few who said they walked on its top decks), including some admittedly very curious aerial photographs. But so far, nobody has come up with solid physical evidence of the ark being there.
I've heard 'em all over the years. So when I first read about Noah's Ark Ministries International out of Hong Kong, you could have immediately colored me skeptical.
Except that these guys arrived with something that to the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever produced before. Namely, photographs, wood samples, and full-color video.
Mash here for the English section of Noah's Ark Ministries International, which has many photographs of what the group is saying it's "99.9%" certain is Noah's Ark. And behold the video that they've released...
Interesting. VERY interesting.
Here's the problem I have with it however: as well-meaning as Noah's Ark Ministries International likely is, they should not have full-bore declared with little uncertainty that they have found the biblical boat. It would have been much more professional and scholarly if they had announced to the international community that they had discovered strong evidence of a man-made wooden structure on Mount Ararat, and then proceeded to allow their findings to withstand rigorous academic scrutiny.
Which leads to my next point: we don't know where exactly these photographs and video footage were made. However, I definitely could understand if the group wants to keep it under wraps for the time being, lest the site become contaminated (or worse, vandalized). But at some point they must be prepared to come forward with the location, and open it up to further study: both organized and independent. That isn't being mistrustful of the explorers' claim at all. I like to think that it's trying to validate it.
So that said, I'll make this commentary for the time being: assuming that Noah's Ark Ministries International has (a) located something that is indeed on Mount Ararat, (b) it can be determined that the site and its evidence has not been planted, (c) operating without the pre-conceived notion that this must be Noah's Ark...
...what then is it that they have found?
Because if the group is being absolutely honest with us, they have discovered something on Mount Ararat. Whether or not it is Noah's Ark or not, it will still be an amazing archaeological find!
And even if it isn't the ark of Noah, it won't alter the matter of my own beliefs one way or another. The historical witness and far more than that has already in my estimation more than confirmed the greatest and most central tenet of my faith: that God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son to free us from the burdens of sin and legalism. Our faith is founded on things yet unseen, not those things which we can behold with our eyes.
But that said: I'm still gonna be keeping my eye on this story :-)
Now, I love a good video game as much as the next person. But being an Eagle Scout and having been a Cub Scout before that, I have to say that this is about the silliest thing that the Boy Scouts of America has done in a great many moon. And lest y'all think that I'm being old-fashioned or a "stick in the mud", consider this: there are already awards in Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts for things like computer skills. So one for video gaming is plenty redundant. What's next: a merit badge for Facebook and Twitter skillz?
In addition to Video Games, the Boy Scouts are also rolling out awards for Disability Awareness, Family Travel, Good Manners, Hiking, Hockey, Horseback Riding, Kickball, Nutrition, Pet Care, Photography, Reading and Writing, and Skateboarding. I can see at least two on that list that are not only fun to do, but very strong skills that can follow a young lad (or young lass, no male chauvinists we!) into a life of productive success. Seems like the Cub Scouts could be doing more to encourage early forays into things like that.
(But then, who knows? One of those Cub Scouts might grow up to be the next Ken Levine or Cliff Bleszinski...)
No wonder...
McChrystal, commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, quipped that "When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war."
Daily Mail brings us the both tragic and comic story of how PowerPoint has become despised by senior members of the military.
Suffice it to say, this doesn't go well...
By the way, "Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody" has been nominated in the categories of Best Viral and Best Music Video for this year's Webby Awards!
(I heard it used a few minutes ago on the Fox News Channel. Per my longtime observation of such matters, whenever anyone in elected office or the "mainstream" press uses the word "comprehensive", 99.999% of the time what it really means is "there's more bullsh-t going on behind the scenes than you seriously want to know about...")
That is all for now.
Witness anew what is arguably the lowest point of the illustrious career of Bill Cosby...
"Better than ever"?? I still remember the one time that I tried to drink New Coke. It tasted like crap! What were you thinking, Bill?! We trusted you! And Coca-Cola betrayed us! No Jell-O Pudding for you.
With a wrathful vehemence not seen since the Cabbage Patch Kid riots of '83, Coca-Cola found itself besieged with angry phone calls, letters and organized protests. Three months later then-CEO Roberto Goizueta announced - via a televised spot with all the gravitas of an Oval Office address - that the crisis was ending: the old Coca-Cola was coming back as "Coca-Cola Classic".
And within days of hitting shelves again for the first time, sales of original Coca-Cola soared. Coca-Cola Classic fast eclipsed sales of Pepsi. To this day, Coca-Cola remains the best-selling soft drink in the world.
How could it not have? By that point in the summer of 1985 Coca-Cola dominated much of the pop cultural discussion, both here and abroad. People were talking about Coke like they had never talked about it before.
New Coke by itself was a business failure... but New Coke did make people want the original Coke like never before. New Coke pulled off what had never been done on this large a scale before: it created genuine demand for something that was already so successful it didn't need demand.
I don't care what the "official" documents say: I'm fairly convinced that the New Coke fiasco in my book was brilliant and quite intentional psychological marketing. Not completely convinced though. Wanna know why? Because it does bother me, that the mass of people can be manipulated by something so simple. And so part of my mind doesn't want to acknowledge a great fear that history and human nature have perhaps confirmed too many times already. But anyhoo...
If you want to know more about New Coke, which we got ambushed with twenty-five years ago this week, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a good write-up about it, including how Coca-Cola is now chronicling the New Coke episode at the World of Coca-Cola.
(If nothing else, it has to be said that New Coke was a product so bad that it made Billy Beer taste good.)
No wonder they've often been mistaken for sisters :-)
I would like to also show you a photo of Bob, Lauryn's dad and Robin's husband, but that would prolly ruin the effect...
(Just kidding Bob. Mostly :-P)
But seriously: it is a rather neat image, although rather bloody. But I like how it compels the eye to dart around it, picking out grisly detail and the film's tagline...
Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise, either. They're only seeing their respective wave functions. What the heck do they know?
Mind ya, immortality can be a bit boring after awhile. I can't help you there. But no doubt you'll find something to keep you occupied.
Me? I'm going off to become a shrimp boat captain.
And why? Because it's been known for awhile that "Death Trap" hails the return of Boba Fett: the most infamous - and most popular - bounty hunter of the entire Star Wars pantheon.
It will be thirty years next month since Boba Fett was first seen in The Empire Strikes Back, and fully eight since a young Boba fought alongside his father Jango in Attack of the Clones...
So he's not yet the Mandalorian-armored mercenary that will eventually stalk the galaxy. But "Death Trap" definitely gave us plenty of the up-and-coming Boba Fett in high-gear action! Heck, by my rough count this one half-hour of Clone Wars showed us Boba wrecking more havoc than everything he did in the live-action movies combined! And yet at this stage in his career (voiced by Daniel Logan, who played the ten-year old Boba in Attack of the Clones) he's still a bit uncertain of himself, still blessed with a child's conscience... albeit a child obsessed with killing Mace Windu. He's not what we know he'll be, but he's well on that path.
And then there were the last few moments of the episode: practically porno for everyone who's ever loved the Star Wars bounty hunters too much than is probably healthy. Yeah I'm speaking of Bossk and Aurra Sing but if you watched this episode then you know what I'm thinking of most of all: the return of Boba Fett's hyper-deadly space vessel, Slave I.
(I wonder if we'll ever get to see Bossk's ship, the Hound's Tooth. 'Specially that wicked automated skinning table tailor-made for Wookiee prey. Prolly not: as daring as Star Wars: Clone Wars has been this season, it's not that daring... yet anyway.)
All in all, I thought "Death Trap" was a superb episode: well-scripted, beautifully animated, and finely orchestrated as a story of both action and character. I'll likely watch it a few more times from the DVR over the next several days.
"Death Trap" will air a few more times this week, and then Boba returns for the Clone Wars season finale next Friday night. No doubt Fett-heads across the planet will be waiting out the week with baited breath :-)
Very great thanks to good friend Bethany Myers for finding this! :-)
How something like this has escaped my knowledge until now, I've no idea.
Did you know that two widely-used childhood vaccines were manufactured with cells taken from aborted fetuses?
I didn't either, until I read this article from LifeNews.com. It's about a just-published research study that has found a connection between the MMRII and chickenpox vaccines, and the dramatic rise in the rate of diagnosed autism.
From the article...
A new study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency shows a correlation between the use of cells from babies in abortions in vaccines to an increase in autism rates. The study provides another problem from pro-life advocates who are already concerned about the abortion-vaccine tie.After all these years and several court cases focusing on the mercury in vaccines as being the accused source of cases of autism, now it turns out that it was possibly something far, far worse that might have been behind the climb.The study, published in February in the publication Environmental Science & Technology, confirms 1988 as a “change point” in the rise of Autism Disorder rate.
"Although the debate about the nature of increasing autism continues, the potential for this increase to be real and involve exogenous environmental stressors exists," the study says.
The 1988 date is significant because, as pro-life blogger Jill Stanek notes, the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute indicates that's when the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices added a second dose of the MMR vaccine, containing fetal cells from aborted babies, to its recommendations.
The study found two other change point dates: 1981, two years after MMRII was approved in the United States with fetal cells, and 1995, when SCPI says the chickenpox vaccine using aborted cells was approved.
Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League, said today that his group is joining SCPI in calling for a Fair Labeling and Informed Consent Act to let people know of this link and the use of cells from babies victimized by abortion.
“For years the evidence has pointed toward the link between vaccines using DNA from aborted babies and the rise of Autism Disorder rates,” he said. “Parents need and deserve to know the risks associated with vaccinations made from lines derived from the bodies of aborted children.”
How does it feel, knowing that we have had our children "inoculated" with the dead remains of innocent babies?
I doubt that even Edgar Allan Poe, in his most feverish nightmare, could have come up with so horrific a thing.
Unfortunately what happened to the Alien franchise after that hasn't been anywhere as up to par with what Ridley Scott and James Cameron did. Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection well, let's put it this way: they both had their moments, but I don't regard them as being true "Alien"-ish canon. Maybe they're just bad dreams that Ripley is having and she's still aboard the Sulaco along with Hicks, Newt and Bishop on the way back from LV-426. Even Alien vs. Predator was better than those entries (and I haven't seen that movie's sequel so I can't comment on how good or bad it might be).
Anyway, when word came that Ridley Scott was planning on returning to the series that he helped to create, I was ecstatic. I had been hoping that he could get things back on track. Maybe even do something drastic to make us forget that Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection never happened to begin with.
Unfortunately, it looks as if that is not to be. We've known for some time already that Scott was going to do a "prequel" to the original Alien... which I already thought was a way wrong approach. Now it's worse. Confirming some rumors that have been making the rounds for awhile, Scott spoke to MTV Movies and revealed some details about the Alien prequel. Including what it's going to mostly be about.
And much of it will be about this thing...
Yup, the Space Jockey. That fossilized ancient extraterrestrial pilot that Dallas, Kaine and Lambert found in the derelict spaceship on LV-426. Scott told MTV that "It's fundamentally about going out to find out 'Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair. Remember that?"
How could we forget a thing like that? But I for one am compelled to ask: Do we want to know everything about what the Space Jockey is? That was one of the things that most made Alien succeed as a horror story: the Lovecraftian atmosphere of the film. Here are seven blue-collar working stiffs aboard a glorified tugboat. You know: people that on some level we can all relate to. And they're earning their paycheck in the depths of interstellar space: the most unknown and inhospitable setting known to man. And they come across something that they not only don't understand, but the crazy geometry of it practically screams out "you can't understand this".
Honestly, I don't want to understand that. And I've no doubt many others feel the same way. The Space Jockey - whatever the heck he/she/it is - is part of a mystique that would forever be gone if we knew any more about its back story. It is simply... what it is. Nothing more and nothing less. But this is definitely a case of "less is more".
There is plenty of potential in the Alien franchise that hasn't been touched upon at all. 'Twould be something that fans would much more appreciate if Ridley Scott took the road less traveled than that of a prequel. Seriously, I want him to return to the series... but not like this.
