First rule of Horrorthon is: watch horror movies. Second rule of Horrorthon is: write about it. Warn us. Tempt us. The one who watches the most movies in 31 days wins. There is no prize.
From yahoo, Most people remember the feeling of not being tall enough to ride an amusement park ride, but some would-be riders of the signature attraction at Universal Studios' new "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" theme park in Orlando are being turned away because of their girth. The ride, "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey," employs individual restraints to keep each guest tucked in to his or her seat, but the restraints aren't large enough to accommodate heavier riders.
Universal seems to have anticipated this issue, stationing staff "wizards" and test-seats along the line and at the entrance to Forbidden Journey. Riders test their ability to fit in the seats, as well as the restraint (which must click three times to be deemed safe and for the potential rider to be allowed into the attraction).
One Harry Potter fan, Jeff Guillaume of Lansing, Michigan, expressed disappointment on his "Harry Potter" fan site after he failed the test. Guillaume is 5'8" and weighs 265 pounds, and says the restraint wouldn't fit over his torso, though he reports that other rides at the park have special cars reserved for bigger riders.
Universal, which doesn't have "specific weight limits (just the test seats and a requirement that riders be at least 48 inches tall), says the "body dimension" restrictions are "to ensure the safety of our guests. It's #1."
That's all fine and good, but considering the average weight of an American man is 191 pounds (and rising: in 1960 it was 166 pounds), "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" could be turning away quite a few potential revelers.
Universal isn't the first theme-park operator to deal with issues raised by the growing rate of obesity in the United States. In 2007, Disney had to modify the "It's a Small World" ride after weighted-down boats began regularly getting stuck in the plume.
One Harry Potter fan who was unable to ride "Forbidden Journey" when his seat test yielded only two clicks of the restraint, is turning the incident into a personal motivational challenge. Banks Lee, who says he's 6'2? and approximately 310 lbs, has decided to diet and exercise until he can get on the ride (and hopes to continue his quest even after meeting that goal.) He's even started a blog: Banks Lee and the Three Clicks: My Journey to Fit on an Enchanted Bench, where the Orlando resident is documenting the long walks and sensible diet that he hopes will lead to a ride on "The Forbidden Journey."
From worstpreviews, Speaking to Sky Movies magazine, Megan Fox revealed that she's a huge fan of the 1987 film "Lost Boys," which starred Kiefer Sutherland, Corey Feldman and the late Corey Haim. If she had the chance, she would love to star in the remake.
"They couldn't remake it because it would destroy it, but I've always loved 'The Lost Boys,'" she explained. "The female character in it s not really amazing, but if you were to turn one of the male characters into a female, I would love to do that."
Fox added: "That movie has stuck with me my whole life. There's something magic about it to me."
From ew, Toy Story 3 has dominated the box office for a second straight weekend, but Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups did some serious business, too. Knight & Day, meanwhile, did little to restore Tom Cruise as a summer box office draw. And the three films combined didn’t do enough to combat last year at this time, when Transformers 2 bowed to $109 million.
Toy Story dropped 46 percent, for a second-week take of $59 million. The film’s 10-day cume now stands at $226.5 million, making it the quickest Pixar movie to cross $200 million. The movie is likely to topple Pixar’s highest grossing flick, Finding Nemo, which topped out at $340 million back in 2003. Grown Ups did respectable business on its own. The broad Adam Sandler comedy bowed to $41 million but earned a B from audiences, according to CinemaScore. The film marks Sandler’s third-highest opening ever.
Knight & Day grossed $20.5 million for the three-day frame. The PG-13 rated film’s total gross now stands at $28 million (it opened on Wednesday) — not an auspicious beginning to a movie that cost more than $150 million. Audiences liked the film more than Grown Ups, according to CinemaScore, which gave the movie a B+. But whether or not it will continue to play in the marketplace remains a question. The Karate Kid continues to draw audiences. In its third weekend in release, the film earned another $15 million, a 48 percent drop, pushing its total gross to $135.6 million. The A-Team isn’t holding up as well in theaters. Earning $6 million its third weekend, the PG-13 rated actioner lost another 58 percent, for a total gross of $63 million.
From slashfilm, Last year, Genki Wear released two Star Trek branded cologne fragrances for men: “Red Shirt” (the tagline on the box reads “Because tomorrow may never come”) and… “Tiberius” (in reference to James T. Kirk’s middle name, tagline reads “Boldly Go”). Last month it was announced that Genki would be adding a third fragrance to their Star Trek line: “Shirtless Kirk”. I kid you not.
This occurred to me recently and I wanted to ask what other Horrorthonners thought. Obviously you could say "the Force" or "the Jedi" but I guess I'm asking in a more abstract, elemental "pure cinema" sense. What were the basic visual/auditory innovations that gave the thing its fundamental punch, up on the big screen for the first time? Anyway here's my list:
1) lightsaber (probably his best idea ever) 2) spaceship dogfight 3) droids 4) orchestral score 5) use a Muppet*
Comments welcome. (I'm posting on my phone from a Massachusetts cabin, which is pretty cool.)
*(not just a mere puppet but a Muppet, specifically, complete with Frank Oz.) (Go ahead and give me a hard time about not sticking with the first movie if you feel like it.)
ADDENDUM: Others that occurred to me included "Vader mask," "dirt everywhere," "Death Star trench (you could just say the Death Star itself but that had kind of been done before, albeit never so well)," "Letting them try to build the Dykstraflex motion control system even though it was the pre-PC era and they had to make their own fucking printed circuit boards" etc. He had a lot of good ideas, and so did the people he brought together.
I'm not going to say much beyond insisting that all of you just go see this, and marvel at the unparalleled artistry of Pixar. I'll just make a couple of quick points:
1) It's the best 3D I've ever seen, bar none. They really know how to do it. My previous favorite was Beowulf, but even that seems gimmicky and projectile-heavy compared to TS3. The 3D especially shines in...
2) ...the short, Day & Night, is not only mind-blowingly brilliant but makes the cleverest use of 3D I've ever seen anywhere.
3) All Pixar systems were completely re-done circa Up, so all the character models and sets had to be completely rebuilt from scratch, and they're both noticeably superior and exactly the same as the last two times, if you can dig it. They've found a perfect visual balance between the 15-year-old pristine "birth of the CGI movie" Toy Story look of Andy's room and the post-Wall-E astounding atmospherics and textures.
4) Another trilogy with no weak link, like The Lord of the Rings (and, of course, The Expando Machine) (kidding).
How to put into words what happened Wednesday? I’ll sure as hell try…
In the wrestling biz, they refer to a “curtain match” as a main event SO compelling, that all the other wrestlers on the undercard gather around monitors behind the curtain backstage to watch, rather than just going home once they finished.
I had no way of predicting how the topic would be received, and for a while there in the late-afternoon hours, I was beginning to think I had blown it. We were having some fun up to that point, but it was just me, Pants, AC, Cat & Octo. Some good stuff was flying around, but I felt largely that everyone else had given a collective ehhh. Little did I know that what was building was one of the most epic and memorable days in Haiku History.
Enter 50PageMcGee. Much like the Ultimate Warrior, when he beat the Honky Tonk Man at Summerslam 89 for the Intercontinental Title, it looked like we had an Unstoppable Force, nothing but offensive firepower that could not be stopped.
Enter Octopunk. The proverbial Immovable Object, meeting the Unstoppable Force head on. What happens when the two collide? Not even Gorilla Monsoon could answer that question, as he asked it approximately 3,000 times over the course of his broadcasting career. (2,000 of which were accounted for in the two Hogan matches listed above.)
It’s 8 minutes, all of it good. The commentary is especially good, if you replace “Hulk Hogan” with “50Page” and “Andre” with “Octopunk.” Gorilla makes it to the 1:47 mark before he uses the phrase.
50 & Octo traded blows in a gladiatorial showdown the likes of which we’ve never seen. Like a hurricane fighting a tornado, or a mega shark fighting a giant octopus, it was a battle that can barely be explained – you simply just had to be there.
Or an Earthquake fighting a Typhoon
The sheer brilliance of it is that accidentally (or symbolically-on-purpose), the very topic brought out the best in these two. Rather than our usual collective wit-fest, we all became gradually aware that our roles were to sit back and enjoy the show. Octo & Fitty became the gladiators in a main event that I don’t think either of them planned on being in. We had all performed our duties on the undercard admirably, and now, the “curtain match” main event was at hand. And it did not disappoint.
Space limitations prevent me from reprinting their entire exchange, which of course you can find here. But here’s my highlights of some of the more impressive, devastating blows, taken from consecutive postings, so you can really witness the sheer seesaw nature of the battle. I begin with Octo’s first jab after 50s Revenge Fantasy (more on that later). The comments alternate between the two.
Revenge fantasies I save for those who hurt me Not sloppy pissers
let me get this straight your method of starting shit is to *talk* to me?
While you are reeling I'll pee on your white shag rug Laughing my ass off
judo sweep the leg elbow drop onto his spleen spleen bursts on impact
Spleens are for pussies! I rip mine out to prove it Blind you with spleen juice
next comes the bellows plugged into mouth, pump pump pump make an octo blimp
(This was midstream in the Fireplace Accessories series, but it was the one that KILLED me…and now, a double-roundhouse from Octo…)
As his mouth opens In drops the atomic bomb My aim's good today
To protect myself I open small parasol Got from coyote
(At this point, it was anybody’s match. I couldn’t tell WHO was going to emerge victorious. The parasol’s reappearance alone was nuclear.)
with face-melt powers i do some rearranging now he's Uwe Boll
50 throws a punch Morph Boll face into anvil Humorous clang noise
octopuddle goop reshape into giant nose rub into my rug
My sobs are a ruse GIANT ATOMIC SNOT BOMB All Gretchens sticky
From here, the battle just turned insane. Not only was all of Horrorthon involved, but then Octo pretty much went berserk, laying waste to all of us, along with Hawaii, California, and Canada. His big finish:
Stan surveys wasteland Shaking head and tut tutting I sneak up behind
Heat vision? Doom breath? Radiation arsenal I opt for wedgie
The best part of this haiku battle was that it had everything, intelligence, wit, humor, incredible imagery, cartoon-like flights of fancy, celebrities, and all of us. The worst part of it was that I got wedgied at the end. Taking nothing away from Octo’s superlative, valiant, brilliant retaliation, BUT…for starting it all off with an epic haiku series about a revenge fantasy on a sloppy piss job that had by turns, almost all of the above elements, for inspiring the rest of us (Octo more than anyone) to lofty heights, for those reasons, (let's go to Howard Finkel at ringside), the winner of this bout…and NEWWWWWWWW Haiku Heavyweight Champion…
50…PAGE…MC-GEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
The crowd goes berserk Octopunk can’t believe it! Parasol wilting
From geekology, EMILY may look like a porpoise wearing a Red Cross tent, but she's actually a robo-lifeguard. One that will undoubtedly turn a blind, robotic eye if you ever cramp up in the surf.
"This summer, EMILY (for EMergency Integrated Lifesaving lanYard) began patrolling Malibu's dangerous Zuma Beach and will watch over about 25 more by December. Although lifeguards operate this version by remote control, next year's model will autonomously save potential drowning victims as reliably as a human. Once a lifeguard tosses EMILY into the surf, its sonar device will scan for the underwater movements associated with swimmers in distress. Its electric, Jet Ski-like impeller drives it at 28 mph through even the roughest chop, getting a flotation device--itself--to victims six times as fast as a lifeguard would. The 'bot's camera and speakers will let an onshore lifeguard calm the person and instruct him to wait for human help or to hold on as EMILY ferries him back."
I don't really understand how the sonar differentiates between a drowning victim and a swimmer, but I do know I'd rather take my chances with a shark. And by take my chances I mean gouge that son of a bitch in the eyes and ride it to Australia. Then set up camp in a kangaroo's pouch.
