NBC Thursday Night 5/7: He Said, Fully Erect

I am running on 4 hours of sleep so apologies in advance if some of this sounds disjointed.

Community S1E23 "Modern Warfare": I would like to announce the death of television. It died in a furious rage of paintballs and chaos and Dan Harmon is responsible for creating an episode so good, that TV isn't watchable anymore.

Greendale is hosting a paintball tournament, and the person who wins was going to get a blu-ray player, but that was stolen. So instead it's TBD. Troy wants that TBD bad. Jeff, uninterested in all of this, takes a nap in his car. 1 hour later, Jeff wakes up to see the school in ruins and paint. In walking around a post-apocalyptic Greendale he is assaulted by Leonard. Abed swoops in with Pitch Black goggles and wall-runs in front of Jeff, shooting Leonard. From here Jeff learns what has happened. The TBD prize is now the opportunity to choose all your classes for the next semester before everyone else, and it caused a frenzy. Meeting back up with Troy, the three students take out the Chess Club and come across Pierce and Star-Burns, who are stealing all the snacks from the vending machine. Wanting to be with the popular group always, Pierce shoots Star-Burns in the side to join them. But then, Troy, Jeff, and Abed need to take a piss, and they come across Shirley, Britta, and Annie.


These gifs speak for themselves, really.

The study group is ready to finish off the last of the competitors, knowing fully that when that is done, they will have to turn on each other. There are discussions of giving it to Shirley no matter who wins, which Jeff isn't going to do. Running outside, the group gets ambushed by the Glee Club, taking out Troy and Annie. Using Pierce as bait, he gets shot up in favor of the remaining team taking out the enemy. Sitting around a barrel fire, an ambush occurs from a group of roller-skating disco students, but not without a Warriors reference. Shirley and Abed get eliminated, and it's down to Jeff and Britta. It's now late in the morning and the dean just wants the game to end. He hires Senor Chang for the job, and he's a douchebag that brings his own equipment. Jeff and Britta, who are under a lot of pressure, wind up inadvertently having sex, and afterwards Britta uses it to pull a gun on Jeff. Jeff, too clever for his own good, made sure to remove her magazine first. But then... A CHALLENGER APPROACHES


No seriously, what movies did they NOT reference?

Britta, in a sacrifice to Jeff, takes the plunge to end Chang's hail of bullets, leaving Jeff alone. He takes it to the dean, who is happy to say he has a DVD player for Jeff! But that isn't enough. He wants that priority registration. And shoots the dean. Wrapping up, Jeff gives the priority registration to Shirley, but she has to pretend like she has gout since it violates school ethics policy.


They could and ended the episode right here and I would be fine.

This was an incredible episode. For months fans who has been following Dan Harmon's twitter were curious to see how awesome the episode that went grossly over-budget would turn out, and it really dampened the rest of the night. Parks & Rec was great, but it felt like a shadow compared to Modern Warfare. Everything does. If you have any love for any action movies, from Predator to Pitch Black to Hard Boiled and even Face/Off, this episode has it all. I'll say it every week if I have to, if you're not watching this show then there is a big gaping hole in your life.

Hulu: Community S1E23: Modern Warfare

Parks & Recreation S2E22 "Telethon": Despite being overshadowed by the greatest thing TV has to offer, P&R was really funny. Leslie signs everyone up for a telethon that runs from 2AM to 6AM, and she spent all last night making shirts for everyone, so she hadn't slept in over 24 hours. Much like how I feel right now. The sleep deprivation is solved by snacking on lots of Sweetums bars, which leaves Leslie more crazier than she started.


clipboard mouth. CLIPBOARD MOUTH


A block of sugar, indeed.

Leslie entrusts Tom to pick up Detlef Schrempf, an NBA player, as the celebrity guest, but not before Tom taking him to his club and starts drinking heavily. Mark in considering proposing to Ann, while Ann is considering dumping Mark, both of which have told Leslie about their plans. Leslie first tells Mark he should propose for the telethon since it will be a memorable story, but when she hears what Ann wants to do, she breaks down and isn't sure how to handle it.

Meanwhile, Ron Fucking Swanson skimps out to go sleep and we find that he has a condition known as "sleep fighting."


Have you ever seen this man sleep? It's like an underwater ballet.

Ron wakes up enough to do a segment on how to cane a chair, which causes the telethon to LOSE money. Tom is still MIA with Detlef Schrempf, and it's nearing 6AM. Desperately trying to pull things together, Leslie tries several ideas to entertain the audience in the last remaining moments, like recapping her top ten favorite episodes of friends, and attempting to drink 8 glasses of milk in 3 minutes (to which Ann stops her immediately, since she'll die). Other acts inclue someone doing the worm, and Jerry on piano. Finally Tom arrives and declares to the viewers of Pawnee that he is very, very drunk. Detlef offers a $5000, putting them above the goal, and to a well-deserved sleep for Leslie. After she drove onto Ann's lawn.

This was a very hectic, chaotic episode and Leslie really took control of the whole thing. It was one disaster after another and I was reminded of her more neurotic side from the first season, except with added sleep deprivation and a massive sugar rush. Everyone got to have some fun moments and while Leslie held the reins, there wasn't a moment of thinking "where did that character go?" I wouldn't place it in the same tier as Hunting Trip or Sweetums or Possum, but there wasn't a moment that didn't make me smile the whole way through.

Hulu: Parks & Recreation S2E22: Telethon

The Office S6E24 "The Cover-Up": Truthposting here, didn't pay attention to most of this. There was some really funny interaction in the beginning with Jim and Pam messing with Dwight, and it's always nice to see Zach Woods bring some of the same asshole charm he had with Chad from In The Loop.

Sorry for the lack of review, I usually spend this half hour making dinner!

Hulu: The Office S6E24: The Cover-Up

30 Rock S4E20 "The Moms": Everyone's mother is in town for TGS, from the actors to the execs. Jack has to deal with Colleen trying to play a hand in his women troubles, Liz is wondering if she should just try to get married and not waste time waiting on Astronaut Mike Dexter, Jenna and her mom are having a conflict on what to wear, Lutz's mother is literally Lutz in a wig and a sweater. Tracy, who doesn't know his mother, has to have another actor come in to play the part, and Tracy protests. Jack tried to use Kenneth to distract Colleen, but being the mastermind she is has no trouble distracting Kenneth.

The big part of this episode was Liz, when she finds out that her mother passed on her true love instead of the man she married. Her true love being Buzz Aldrin, who guest stars. Liz meets with him and finds out he missed his window of opportunity, and would put Margaret through hell to still be with her. Then one of the most adorable, yet awesome things ever happens:


I don't know about you but I would LOVE to yell at the moon with Buzz Aldrin.

Eventually Jack caves in ans asks Colleen to help him with his love life. And for once, she doesn't have an answer. Jenna and her mother sort out their wardrobe differences, and seeing how happy they were, Tracy decides to accept his fake mom as his mother. The episode ends with a song and to stay tuned for the Mother's Day episode of Bitch Hunter. Fakeout to Bitch Hunter credits, than snap to Marriage Ref. You bastards. I want it to be a real show.

Much like last week this was a cute episode but didn't have too many solid jokes. The two callbacks to Bitch Hunter were great (PUT THE MIMOSAS DOWN... BITCH). I dunno, usually I'm defending 30 Rock left and right this season but this episode felt watered down a bit. It's taking a slight turn for the serious but I think I'm starting to understand why people are not liking the Jack/Liz dynamic. In older eps where Floyd and Liz's other loves came into play the show is still a priority. At first the disconnect was subtle but the final shot of the end of a TGS show during the credits made me snap out of it and see that. TGS is now no longer a part of the show anymore, and I'm still liking 30 Rock, but it needs to get back on the rails for season 5 before it goes from likable and cute to taking off in a different direction.

Granted, I say this as I oogle over a show that spends most of its time not caring it's taking place at a community college, but the writing is so solid and tight to make the backdrop meaningless to the jokes and the delivery. Newsradio is in a similar vein, no one cared about the backdrop being WNYX because it was so well put together. I used to think 30 Rock was in the same boat but it's starting to lose focus, and I don't want to see that happen.

Hulu: 30 Rock S4E20: The Moms

Film: Not Quite Iron Man - Seven Independent Releases To Watch For This Summer

The summer movie season could be said to officially open tomorrow when Iron Man 2 debuts in the USA. That means three to four months of superheroes, big action, and 3D. But there are several independent or limited-release films that can give you a break from all the sound and fury of the summer blockbuster. You already know about movies like Toy Story 3 and The Last Airbender, but here are seven movies you might not know about yet:

Please Give - Opens April 30.

Nicole Holofcener tends to make films about real women. The women in her films are familiar, flawed, charming, annoying, sweet, smart, impulsive - in other words, they are every bit as mutli-faceted and complex as anyone you might encounter in real life, something that is unfortunately not often seen in onscreen women, especially during the summer season. This film features one such woman named Kate, played by the wonderful Catherine Keener. Kate runs an antiques shop that she supplies by buying furniture cheap at estate sales. She tries to teach her daughter to not be materialistic, while she herself wants the same things her daughter wants, she suspects her husband (Oliver Platt) is not being faithful, and she is trying to reconcile her own desire to live well while dealing with the poverty she sees on the street outside her door. It's a comedy about value systems colliding, upper-middle class guilt, moral contradiction, and unsteady familial bonds. It is currently playing in New York and Los Angeles and will be opening in more theaters across the country.

Micmacs - Opens May 28.

With films like Amélie, The City of Lost Children, and Delicatessen, Jean-Pierre Jeunet has given us funny, quirky, slightly dark and off-beat films and his new film looks to be no exception. Bazil (Dany Boon) is an unlucky fellow whose father was killed by a roadside bomb and who is left with a stray bullet lodged in his skull which could kill him at any moment. Released from the hospital after his latest accident with no money and nowhere to live, he encounters a group of junkyard dealers who build him a home from the scrap in their junkyards and help him seek revenge on the weapons manufacturers who created the weapons which orphaned him and left him on the brink of death. This looks to be yet another darkly comic and charming adventure from a unique and interesting filmmaker.

Cyrus - Opens June 18.

The first film from Mark and Jay Duplass - The Puffy Chair - was among the first in the unfortunately named but interesting independent film movement known as "mumblecore." These are films characterized by extremely low budgets, non-professional actors, improvised scripts and explorations of personal relationships. Their new film ups the budget and brings in professional actors, but the heart and soul still appear to be in place. John (John C. Reilly) is divorced and still struggling to adjust to his life seven years after the fact. He meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party and they quickly hit it off. However, in order to make the romance work, John and Molly must contend with Molly's grown son Cyrus (Jonah Hill). He is his mother's best friend and will go to any lengths to stop John's invasion into their life. Festival reactions say that the Duplass brothers have successfully translated their heartfelt, very funny and humane style to a higher budget, so this will be a movie to seek out.

I Am Love - Opens June 18.

Tilda Swinton is one of the best and most under-appreciated actresses of our time. Last year's little-seen Julia featured her fierce and unrestrained ability, and she is consistently the best part of any film in which she appears. This new film from Italy about a wealthy Milan family's undoing due to intense passion. Tilda Swinton is enough of a reason to see any film, but this looks to be a rich, intense, beautiful film and should give Swinton a chance to yet again show off her considerable talent. It's been getting overwhelming praise after every festival in which it has appeared.

Dogtooth - Opens June 25.

This film from Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard category at last year's Cannes Film Festival. It is about a family where the children are being raised with zero influence from or exposure to the outside world. Now, they are fully grown, still with no knowledge of the world outside their home. The reactions have been extremely excited, with several critics calling it one of the best films of the year already. It promises to be a disturbing, haunting, and beautiful experience.

The Kids Are Alright - Opens July 7.

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore star as the parents of two children who decide to seek out biological father, a sperm donor. When they find Paul (Mark Ruffalo), he quickly develops a relationship with them that threatens the family unit that Bening and Moore have worked hard to maintain. Reactions from critics have been overwhelmingly positive, with a consensus that it is a smart, funny and heartfelt look into a modern family.

[REC] 2 - Opens July 9.

I couldn't leave off all the sequels, and this one should be exciting for horror fans. It's the sequel to the 2007 Spanish horror film [REC] written and directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza who both return for this film. The new film follows a medical and special operations team going into the quarantined apartment building to investigate, and finding that religious weapons work to fight off the infected people. The original film was remade badly in the U.S. as Quarantine, but the original still packs a horror punch. With the same writing/directing team returning for this and a promise to upping the ante on the first film, this is one to check out. The first film is available on DVD.

These are all movies I am extremely excited to see, based not only on the pedigree of the filmmakers, but on reviews and reactions from their appearances at festivals. So as you decide what to spend your money on at the theater this summer, please consider scanning your local art house listings for some of these films. They aren't going to have the action and big-budget effects of Iron Man 2 or The A-Team, but they may just surprise you.

Paperless meeting

Imaglide sent this article to me yesterday because he loves stories like this without even realizing that my boss was at this meeting!

I've never been to a big medical meeting like this, but I have been to a lot of clinical trial meetings. You are getting bombarded with information, and generally are given a lot of hand outs, even whole binders sometimes. Having to take a giant binder home with you on the plane can be a big pain. At conferences like this there will be posters for papers and research studies, there will be presentations, and there will be tons of vendors handing out their cards and information on their company or product. That adds up to a LOT of paper.

The integra foundation granted the organizers of the AANS (American Association of Neurogical Surgeons) the funds to provide each attendee of the meeting with an apple Itouch, making this the first paperless meeting in the organizations 76 year history. It was in the interest of going green, but also in the interest in introducing new technology to physicians. My boss pointed out that the entry fee for the meeting had gone up as well, probably to eat some of the cost.

I got to check out the itouch they were given, it was loaded with contact information for all of the attendees of the meeting. This is useful because collaboration is important in medical research, and it is impossible to meet everyone you want to at a giant meeting like this. Every scientific poster that was presented at the meeting was loaded on the itouch, as well as all of the meeting notes. There was an app so they could run polls during the presentations. It was really slick and well organized, the whole front page was apps made especially for the meeting. My boss liked that all of that is still on the device so it can be referred to later. There is more information, and a demo on the app at the AANS website. Also I checked, the app is available for free in the app store, this could be good for people who wished to attend the conference but couldn't.

Just from my immediate experience it has people excited about using this new technology. Since I have an Iphone already, there is already talk about how we can use these devices in our day to day work. Especially for screening research subjects when we are out of the office. Through VPN a physician or a research coordinator who gets a page in the middle of the night about a patient can review their images and vitals right from the palm of their hand. In another example of new technology being introduced to our workplace, one of the coordinating centers for one of our studies sent up USB headsets. We had been using GoToMeeting for monthly webinars, but we'd have to dial in on the phone. Now we will using VOIP for the meeting, which will integrate into GoToMeeting a lot better.

A lot of people might seem like they are very closed off to using new technology, but if you give them a chance like this I think it's exactly what the doctor ordered.

Paying for Privacy?!

I think my tinfoil hat must have slid off my head a little bit cause I just had a totally moon batty idea.

Facebook is not a big fan of privacy, because they want all your information to be as public as possible so they can use that information to sell ads. Take a look at the links below, they do a better job of illustrating both how Facebook has changed in regard to “your” information, but also how the average consumer feels about their privacy Facebook and online in general.

From the EFF
From Gizmodo
From Mashable
From cnet

Basically if Facebook had their way everything on your profile would be public, we are getting to the point where the privacy controls are really just there to make people like me feel a little bit better. My moonbat theory is what if Facebook was to create a pay model? For a price you would have total control over your profile, you could fine tune all your settings just the way you want them. What makes me think this is that originally Facebook said they would not share any information you did not want them to share, but over time that has been loosened up to the point we are at now.

It’s the people that pay attention to tech and things like privacy that are always jumping up and down whenever FB makes one of these changes, but the general public just goes either unaware or they just don’t care. FB knows this, I mean why else would they have defaulted your settings to Public when the other option was to keep the settings they way they were before. They know that when people want to get on to harvest their freaking Farmville radishes they don’t want to read stuff, reading is hard, so they just click next, next, next and then suddenly they now have their profile public for everyone. FB designed the privacy change screens with this in mind.

On top of that they basically make trying to actually configure your settings so complex that I have even given up a few times to get them configured the way I want. The issue is that they kind of have us over a barrel; FB has become an important part of the internet, for better or for worse (I think for worse, but that’s just me) and to opt totally out of FB would limit your social networking abilities on the intertrons. So you can’t really delete your profile, granted they make that hard as hell to do as well, and you don’t really have any control over your information, so what’s a tinfoil hat wearing privacy nut like me supposed to do? Well, jump up and down and yell and scream every time they change the privacy policy, but if they were to let me pay a little bit to have control over my privacy, I would probably do it (it would depend on the cost). They could say that it is to offset the ads costs associated with the loss of information of use privacy nut jobs.

Imagine if in 6 month Facebook came out with this idea after continuously scaring the people like me, this would look like a breath of fresh air in terms of their usual tactics. They could then basically do whatever the hell they want after that with the information of the people that don’t care about their FB privacy.

Puts tinfoil hat back on head squarely

Who wants to be part of a 5-way?... On Skype

Get your mind our of the gutter!

According to this post over at Gizmodo Skype the VoIP chat client is going to enable 5 way video conferencing. I am sure that the business impact of this will be analyzed all over the place, but I wanted to bring up a slightly different point about this new feature, and that is pod-casting. I listen to a lot of podcasts, the iTunes on this computer I am writing this on have about 20 podcast subscriptions, and my other computer has about the same. One of the more annoying things that happen is when there are multiple people on the episode they talk over each other. With this 5 way Skype video chat up to 5 pod-casters could doing the podcast together and they would be able to see who is talking, pick up on body language and expression and know when someone is going to talk.
I would like to start creating a podcast so I am really excited for this to be rolled out, I might even consider paying for it if I used it enough.

Mark your calenders

Lost fans are in for a treat. The series finale is being extended to 2 1/2 hours (if only they were commercial free!). This is definitely essential for how many questions still are left unanswered, and how many characters haven't been killed off yet ::cough KATE cough:: "The End" will air from 9-11:30 with a special Jimmy Kimmel show "aloha to lost" right after. I am glad that they are doing this because Jimmy Kimmel has been a big fan of the show since the very beginning. There will probably be a nice wrap up right before the show too to get you in the mood. For any other show the amount of clip shows they've produced would be ridiculous, but they are entirely necessary for Lost.

Also Saturday night (may 22) they will air the series pilot "enhanced". I really don't like the enhanced episodes of lost they offer on hulu. They seem like they are made for very stupid people, so hopefully this will be something different. I am interested and will probably watch it. It would definitely be good to see the characters from the very beginning one more time.

It is really good to see a network treat a show so well. ABC is definitely smart about things like that. They would be foolish not to market this show well since it has such a huge fanbase, but other networks definitely have screwed over great shows.

I Can't Do It, I Dinna Have The Power (To Autotune)

A lot of Glee fans have been complaining about the back 9 (episodes airing after the incredibly long hiatus) and most of their complaints have been about things the show has always done. Short stories that wrap up by the episode end with a performance finale, pushing characters in the background to showcase others, a lot of whining that makes me wonder if the hiatus made Glee fans somehow expect more from a show than what it was doing currently, just because it was off the air for a long time. It's only in its first season, and it wasn't until today that I realized what was bothering me so much about these issues.

You just don't have the time in 9 episodes to do a huge story arc. There was so much focus on completing a whole story in 13 episodes that it was a singular piece that didn't need any episodes afterwards and could have easily been the whole season ended right there, moving on to the next one. But the hype machine rolls on, and 13 isn't enough.


Let's get serious, no one put this much effort into Hammer since Hammer did it himself.

So what can't you do in 9 episodes that you CAN do with four more episodes like the front 13? For starters, give attention to most of the characters most of the time and their respective plotlines. You have more wiggle room to set the stage and to hype up conclusions you can see coming a mile away that you still bounce in your seat eager to see. Right now things are being created and ended in one or two episodes max, and with 5 episodes left, tell me, what can you do?

Sit back, enjoy the quick fun episodes while they last. If you want the mystical magical "Glee I used to know" then shut the hell up and go back to the dimension you came from where it's a bad show.

I once heard someone say the show jumped the shark. IT'S NOT EVEN IN SEASON 2 YET, GOOD LORD. NERDS. ARG.

Film Review: Mother (2010)

When a person gives you a gift that you didn't know you needed, it's exhilarating. Similarly, when a filmmaker gives you a film that defies all your expectations and takes you to a place that is truly unique, you cannot help but be excited. Bong Joon-ho's new film Mother is just such a film. It follows a widowed mother as she attempts to prove her son's innocence in the murder of a young girl, but this description doesn't do this funny, tense, marvelous film justice. In the hands of a less interesting and less talented filmmaker, this set up might result in a mediocre, cliche-ridden thriller. But Bong Joon-ho is not a conventional filmmaker. He has given us Memories of Murder and 2007's terrific monster movie The Host, and now he has given us Mother.

As the film opens, we see the unnamed mother cutting herbs and watching her son through the doorway of her apothecary. She sells herbal remedies and does unlicensed acupuncture on the side to make ends meet and take care of her forgetful, naïve, and rather simple 27 year-old son Do-joon (Won Bin). He is outside talking with his friend Jin-tae (Jin Ku). She doesn't like him. We will learn more later on. A look of intense focus is on her face as she watches them and inattentively chops her herbs. So focused is she on her son's activities that she cuts herself, just before a car almost hits him. Later, Do-joon drunkenly follows a young girl through a few alleyways and the next morning she is found dead. Do-joon is swiftly arrested after a bit of evidence places him at the scene, but his mother knows he must be innocent. He can't remember what happened to speak in his own defense, so she must prove that someone else committed the murder and framed him. As in the best thrillers, when she starts uncovering the answers, they do little but raise more questions. Never could I predict where this film was going, and each new revelation only made me want more.

As exciting as the filmmaking and storytelling is in this film, it all hinges on the character of the mother, and how believable the performance is. What an asset Kim Hye-ja must be for a filmmaker to rely on. As the mother, she gives a ferocious performance full of intense emotion and deep subtlety. There is never a false moment. Bong Joon-ho lovingly frames her expressive face as she goes between rage, regret, love, fear, despair, and hope with the greatest of ease, and Bong Joon-ho's camera captures every nuance as she moves through the community, unearthing every scrap that could help her in her quest to free her son. She is a force of nature.

Films like this – with their twisty, unpredictable narratives and supremely accomplished craftsmanship – can remind you just how boring so many movies that populate the box office really are. There is no way a movie like this could be produced in Hollywood. It's too hard to package. As Bong Joon-ho's previous films, Mother melds several genres and toys with different elements in each of them. It begins with a lovely and wonderfully surreal shot of Kim Hye-ja dancing in a field, a sad expression on her face. The film that follows this opening shot weaves comedy and suspense masterfully through a beguiling and wildly inventive tale about family and guilt. This weaving does cause the film to meander slightly, but I was never bored and never did my mind wander. It earns every moment, all the way through the marvelous ending. It's an unmissable film from one today's most intriguing filmmakers, already one of the best of the year. With films like Mother already released this year, it is beginning to look like 2010 will be a very exciting year in film.

Film Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

If you are a horror filmmaker, the ultimate opportunity must be to be able craft dreamscapes in which anything can happen and you are limited only by what you can imagine. Think of the possibilities for terrifying and surreal imagery that an imaginative and ambitious horror filmmaker would have open to them in a story like A Nightmare on Elm Street. It's such a shame that, rather than taking advantage of this amazing opportunity, Samuel Bayer and Platinum Dunes productions decided to instead just return to the same boiler room over and over again for this lifeless and dull remake.

The problem with so many modern horror films is that they don't do what they are supposed to do. They don't give the audience suspense or scares. They aren't frightening or unsettling. They aren't even shocking. They are just time-fillers. One of the chief culprits in this trend of bland horror is Michael Bay's production company Platinum Dunes – the studio to blame for the remakes of Friday the 13^th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Hitcher. They have now brought us A Nightmare on Elm Street, a remake of the Wes Craven semi-classic starring the iconic boogeyman Freddy Krueger. It brings back the boogeyman, but none of the scares, originality, or sense of fun has been translated in this slick remake.

The story is simple enough. Nancy (Rooney Mara), Quentin (Kyle Gallner), Kris (Katie Cassidy), and Jesse (Thomas Dekker) begin sharing the same nightmare in which a man in a hat and striped sweater terrorizes them with a glove fixed with razors. They soon realize when this man named Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley, a talented actor dreadfully wasted here) kills them in their dreams, they die in real life. The conflict, then, is to fight the need to sleep, and if they do fall asleep, avoid being killed by Krueger as he takes over their dreams.

This would be a terrific story in which an imaginative filmmaker could create memorable imagery in surreal dream sequences with which to terrify the audience. But this movie is far too lazy to do that, instead giving us jump scare after jump scare with no genuine thrills at any point in the film. This film commits the greatest sin a horror film can commit: it's not scary or fun. In fact, it's boring.

Horror films can provide fantastic and disturbing imagery, explore the darker side of humanity, or simply be a lot of fun. However, many modern horror films do none of these, particularly the most widely seen films. Films with slow-burning suspense and creepiness that make you double check the locks on your doors like The House of the Devil go unseen while films like this win the weekend box office. It hurts horror as a genre, and Platinum Dunes is one of the worst offenders with their consistently lifeless and stale remakes. They depend on the name recognition and hit all the same beats as the original films – there is not one interesting shot in this film that was not cribbed from the original – without justifying their own existence. To be so beholden to the plots and set pieces of the original films arbitrarily limits the ability of the filmmaker to do something compelling and creative, and leads to lazy exercises like this. They have a terrific boogeyman in Haley's Freddy Krueger, and they had the chance to give the audience truly scary images in the limitless possibilities of the dream world, but they waste it all on some jump scares, and twenty-odd jump scares and a bit of blood and gore do not a horror move make.

Youtube.com is down?

I guess Youtube.com is down i keep getting a

502 Server Error

Strange

Can You Index the Future?

Have you ever been freaked out by those auto completes when doing a Google Search? You start typing and Woah! Google knows what I am looking for… freaky! Ok no its not really that freaky and no they don’t “really” know what you are thinking about looking for, they just know what other people have searched for that looks a little bit like what you are typing. Google cannot tell the future, until now!.. well kinda

Google recently invested in a company called Recorded Future, who attempt to use massive amounts of data to tell the future. This type of prediction technology is handy to people that want to know what the various complex markets are going to do in the future, so that investors and business types can make lots of money, well they can make lots of money if they are correct. The theory is that by analyzing massive amounts of data that is currently available a picture of where things are going will emerge. It is suspected that the predictions will be about as accurate as say a weather report, what I would be interested to know is, is it as accurate as a weather prediction for Boston, or a prediction for Phoenix Arizona.

Win...d Power!

The Daemon would be proud (I suggest you go read Daemon by Suarez). Google again showing their ability to want to do good in the long run has invested $38 million in to Wind Farms built by NextEra. You can read the summary here

I love this idea, I am all for any type of energy production that take emphasis off of coal and gasoline power. While I hope that humans will eventually get to a place where we drastically cut down on the amount of harm we cause by our existence, because honestly I don’t see things slowing down, the only thing we can hope for would be to create new sources of power that keep up with our demands for power but are less harmful than what we have now. Wind Farms may not be the most efficient method, and a lot of people don’t like the way they look, but it is a step in the right direction, and to have this change coming from a massive corporation is well … a breath of fresh air. I am sure there are some good bottom line enhancing, financial reasons for Google’s decision here, but at least they are investing in something semi-long term, which show that they are concerned with the big picture rather than just the here and now.

The conversation about power is a tough one, people are happy to admit that they don’t want to use coal and gasoline as power supplies, but they are either unwilling to make the changes to a less harmful method of power because it will also have drawbacks. At least for the short term everything will have draw backs, wind power kills lots of birds, and people are scared to death of nuclear power. Before we get to a place where a non harmful source of power we need to take the baby steps towards things like Wind Power, and you know what, screw birds.

Does Mega Man Care About the Princess?

I should have posted this last week when this was fresh and hip, but I didn’t so its here now

Mario Crossover Epicness

I only played up to the second stage, but being able to blow up Mario’s enemies with a machine gun is ultra epic.

I'm on to you, Hawking...

I think Stephen Hawking just got a Netflix account

After seeing Independence Day he decided that humans contacting aliens probably wouldn't be the best idea!

Now after catching up on Dr. Who he gets to work on figuring out how to build a time machine and just where/when he'd like to go and what he'd like to see.

"If I had a time machine I'd visit Marilyn Monroe in her prime or drop in on Galileo as he turned his telescope to the heavens. Perhaps I'd even travel to the end of the universe to find out how our whole cosmic story ends. "

It will be interesting to see what he thinks when he's caught up on Lost.

I don't know what he'll be watching next, but I know I'll be watching his new documentary on the Discovery channel.