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Random thoughts while waiting for power to come back on:
- If you don't have a generator, the next best thing is a friend who will lend you his and deliver it even if that means trying several blocked routes before finding the roads that are open.
- It also helps to have a neighbor with good sense and good knot-tying ability to lasso your dock before it bobs away to the end of the lake.
- If that same neighbor also owns a chain saw or two, as well as a dump truck, it makes it much easier to clean up that huge tree that blocked the road and brought down the power lines.
- It might be a good idea to rethink that strategy of getting rid of power tools you rarely use. The remaining arsenal — an electric leaf blower and chain saw — weren't much help.
- It's also a good idea to coordinate the purchase of emergency supplies, even in a two-person household. If you need bottled water, let me know.
- We sure do waste a lot of water in the course of the day, something you realize when the pump is off and you manage to make half a glass last while both of you brush your teeth.
- We probably made up for all the water we saved with that first long shower after the power returned.
- No matter where you park you car, it will be the wrong place.
- Leaves atop the tree that tipped over Sunday morning just tickled the bumper of the car, but left us with no way to get down the driveway. The downed lines meant the car parked on the other side of the street wasn't going anywhere, either.
- Listen to the power company. At the height of the storm, a truck from New York State Electric and Gas rolled down the street and the driver tried to tell us something. I put on a raincoat and went out, only to find that she was yelling, "Stay inside, the lines are hot."
- Don't try to flatter the NYSEG workers. They've heard it all. I told one he must be the most popular guy in town and he quickly replied, "... in the state."
- Even 24 hours without power can distort your perspective. When I managed to get out and go to the store, I was perturbed by how normal it felt elsewhere. How could these people be calmly going about their business when I had no Wi-Fi?
- Remember that what most of us suffered was inconvenience, and a minor one at that. People live under more primitive conditions every time they go camping, which is why I never do that voluntarily.
- The people who lost loved ones, who watched their homes wash away, who returned to their businesses and found everything ruined will be living with the effects of this hurricane for a long time — in some cases forever. This is when real leaders make sure that those who need help get it.
Location, ST | website.com


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Explore connections in math and science
Introduction to vector notation in two dimensions.
Introduction to vector notation in two dimensions
Two-Dimensional Vectors Interactive
Explains the difference between vectors and scalars using distance, displacement, speed, and velocity.
Find out why cats seem to have nine lives.
Introduction to vectors, position vectors, and midpoints in two and three dimensions.
Study guide for basic properties of vectors.

subset: commoncrawl


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On Tap Today: Hollywood elbows its way back
Who'd a-thunk Hollywood still had the juice? But the mainstream film industry did indeed seize this year, striking back at the box office against the relentless trendiness of indie films. Learn more as Movie Critic tells us what movies he put on his 2012 Top 10 List – and why -- in Friday's Weekend Cue.
Dining Critic Carol Deptolla has a "Best" list of her own. She gives us a roundup of "Best New Restaurants of 2012." Among them: Braise, c.1880 and Odd Duck . Find out what other new dining places made it to the top this year, and why you should check them all out. »Read Full Blog Post
Next Act gives wings, radio style to 'It's a Wonderful Life'
Imagine a Milwaukee without its musicians and dancers, its singers and actors, its highly reputed symphony and its world-class theater. It would look a lot more like Pottersville, that mean-spirited burg of cheap thrills and third-class entertainment that greets George Bailey before his great awakening.
Such were my thoughts Friday night as six veteran Milwaukee-based actors tugged at my heartstrings for the second straight year, in Next Act Theatre's reprise of "It's a Wonderful Life," as transformed by Mary MacDonald Kerr into a 1957 radio play, coming straight to us from the studio of Milwaukee's very own WNAT. »Read Full Article(1)


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- Report: #92510
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Complaint Review: NACS FINC Beachw-Liberty Group Services
NACS FINC Beachw-Liberty Group Services8081 38 Ave N/PO Box 86309 Saint Petersburg Or Madeira Beach, Florida U.S.A.
NACS FINC Beachw-Liberty Group Services they damage my credit report, by saying I owe money that I know nothing about it Saint Petersburg Or Madeira Beach Florida
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I then received a letter from the Liberity Group Services stating I opened an account with them back in 08/01. I never bought anythng from them nor did I ever receive a credit card of any kind from them. Now I am having trouble reaching them.
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Movie News - Our extensive online Hollywood film and classic DVD news page.
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Scanners on Criterion Blu-ray
Criterion's impressive Videodrome disc includes a clip from a 1982 TV talk show featuring a gathering of four then-hot young horror film directors: John Carpenter, John Landis, Mick Garris and David Cronenberg. Of the four only Cronenberg appears eager to discuss and analyze screen horror; he alone seems fascinated by the genre. Of course, we realized long before that the Canadian director was a wild card maverick. From Shivers (They Came from Within) forward, each won wide distribution, probably due to a highly commercial "ick" factor.
Cronenberg attracted quality collaborators despite being tagged as a maker of 'gynecological horror'. Shivers brought Barbara Steele back to the screen at a time when many fans thought she had retired. The Brood had Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar. Even the relatively primitive Shivers has a meaningful premise, intelligently worked out; Cronenberg's pictures are disturbing because of their unblinking attitude to the fact of our alienation from our own physical bodies. Most of us are repelled by our bodily functions, as we're culturally trained to think of ourselves as spiritual beings made in God's image. Gothic horror often touched upon the idea that we have a bestial quality that needs to be repressed. Cronenberg motivates his horrors with out-of-control (or purposely perverse) science. In one show, an artificially created organ behaves like a venereal disease. Another 'custom appendage' turns its owner into a sexual vampire. An experiment that externalizes psychological traumas causes a woman to give birth to monstrous creatures that carry out her subconscious desires. None of these ideas fall within the boundaries of common Good Taste.
1981's Scanners became Cronenberg's breakout hit. He successfully translates science fiction ideas about mental telepathy to the screen and does a fairly good job integrating them into a thriller about competing psychic supermen. Brian De Palma had scored a massive commercial hit with Carrie, a movie about a telepathic teen defending herself against bullies. His flashy but disorganized follow-up The Fury added little to the concept. Scanners starts from the basics and adheres closely to its own interior logic. It's genuinely scary, and not just an exercise for ostentatious gore.
Initial viewers of Scanners often got no farther than its biggest, genuinely shocking scene, a masterful bit of Guignol beautifully teased in trailers and TV spots: this is the movie where a guy's head explodes.
The story concerns shady experiments conducted in modern research companies. The ConSec Corporation has for years been nurturing a new breed of telepaths. Called 'scanners', they were originally created by Ephemerol, a drug given to pregnant women. Having lost contact with most of the scanners it has identified, ConSec has reason to believe that a competing entity is rounding them up for unknown, nefarious purposes. Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan) has a big problem with Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside) a crazed scanner who has gone renegade, and is assassinating all the scanners he can find. With his psychic skills Revok easily penetrates ConSec security and kills the company's staff scanner researcher (Louis Del Grande). Dr. Ruth has the derelict scanner Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) kidnapped and brought to ConSec for his own safety. The homeless Vale is helped to control his 'talent' and clear his mind of unwanted telepathic chaos from normal people. Ruth then sends his disciple out to seek out Darryl Revok and put an end to his murderous interference. Dodging Revok's killer squads, Vale joins up with fellow threatened scanner Kim Obrist (Jennifer O'Neill). But the opposition always seems to be waiting in ambush. Could there be some kind of double agent back at ConSec, acting on Revok's behalf?
The time-tested paranoid conspiracy thriller format provides Scanners with action and mayhem, enough to satisfy fans and fill out an exploitative trailer. What's amazing is that writer-director Cronenberg doesn't compromise his fairly cerebral story concept. The Fury disintegrated into a series of ever-sillier telepathic attacks and stylish set-pieces. A decade before that, George Pal's awkward The Power was a premature attempt at a similar story that lost itself in plot detours and confusing 'surreal' imagery. Cronenberg's flow of exciting ideas is never interrupted, and his nods to surrealism are more direct. In one scene, a critical discussion takes place inside a giant artwork of a human head.
The movie features a truly disturbing characterization in Darryl Revok, an incredibly dangerous guy capable of 'fogging men's minds' and imposing his will on their actions. As played by the arresting actor Michael Ironside (Starship Troopers), Revok is scary, plain and simple. He responded to ConSec's early scanner training by attempting to bore a hole through his skull with an electric drill. Revok effortlessly hijacks ConSec's demo presentation by mentally hiding his scanning talent. He seizes mental control of his host, and so strongly bombards the man's nervous system that his brain explodes.
Cronenberg then runs wild with his central idea, brilliantly incorporating ideas from classic science fiction. When we learn that Revok's conspiracy seeks to breed a new race of scanners, we may well imagine a plague of telepathic children similar to those of Village of the Damned. The world could be conquered overnight by a drug-altered new race of men, a thought that echoes back to H.G. Wells' original novel Food of the Gods.
"Better Living Through Drugs" was the optimistic slogan that too often turned the general population into a testing ground for modern day mad scientists. The parallel of Cronenberg's fictitious "Ephemerol" to the tragic real-life drug Thalidomide is just the kind of taste-challenged content that leads Scanners into Dangerous Idea territory. Most sci-fi / action thrillers soon abandon whatever ideas they might have in favor of chase scenes and random gunfire. Scanners instead leaps onto a new level of conceptual menace. Waiting in a doctor's office, Kim Obrist suddenly realizes that she's being scanned by an expectant mother's unborn fetus. The fear of the future is the fear of change, of progress, the fear that technology will make us obsolete. Marvelously rich in ideas, Cronenberg's fairly modest production is a core title in filmed science fiction.
The young director makes sure to give his already devoted horror fans what they've come for. Dick Smith's special makeup work delivers jarring, grotesque images that really grab one by the stomach. The detonation of Louis Del Grande's head breaks all the rules by going 'full visceral' -- no smoke or cutaways intrude to 'tastefully' hide anything. Michael Ironside's powerhouse acting adds immensely to the final showdown, as Revok practically turns his flesh inside out to concentrate on obliterating Cameron Vale, mind and body. Retreating into a Buddha-like trance, Vale's strategy appears to be a passive-aggressive surrender followed by a telepathic sneak attack. Cronenberg has shrewdly front-loaded his film with its strongest shock scene, which keeps his audience hanging in nervous suspense for the rest of the picture.
Scanners shows the director relying on good casting. Fan favorite Patrick McGoohan lends his heavyweight presence to the script's complex exposition about telepathy and ConSec. Michael Ironside is a disturbing new star as the genuinely frightening Revok. Pretty Jennifer O'Neal has an unexpectedly small role but carries her end well, especially in that scene in doctor's office. New York artist Stephen Lack fronts a good look as the lost soul learning about his own powers while playing the role of psychic detective. Unfortunately, too many of Lack's most important line deliveries are just not good. A genre effort like Scanners can skate over many flaws, but Lack's performance always stands out.
Criterion's Dual-Format Blu-ray + DVD of Scanners gives this sci-fi shocker a new lease on life. It and The Brood were previously released on mediocre DVDs by MGM. This new HD transfer works wonders with cinematographer Mark Irwin's slick cinematography, and flatters the expressive designs of art director Carol Spier. Howard Shore's menacing music track gets a boost as well.
The new disc has a wealth of desirable, illuminating extras. The substantial featurette The Scanners Way is a making-of piece with plenty of input from the actors and extra attention given to the film's special effects. Mental Saboteur is an interview with the riveting Michael Ironside, who is just as forceful when speaking to a docu camera. Ironside's comments and anecdotes pull us into his spell, which is only broken when he implies that his character was based on watching a real telekinetic person in action. The interview piece The Ephemerol Diaries presents Stephen Lack as an intelligent, engaged artist who met director Cronenberg in the New York art scene. Lack remembers the film with great affection.
Beyond approving the dark and rich film transfer, Cronenberg's input is limited to an extended interview on Canadian TV's The Bob MacLean Show. After only a few seconds listening to the director, one realizes that he's the real deal, a well-adjusted serious artist with the smarts to express himself and survive in the commercial film market.
Another disc highlight is the inclusion of David Cronenberg's first feature, Stereo. Structured like a research report, the 1969 film is the work of an art student making the most of limited resources. Freaky things are happening at a place called The Canadian Academy for Erotic Inquiry. The jargon-laden tech talk in the voiceover (the film's only audio) lets us know that eight volunteer subjects have undergone 'pattern brain surgery' to turn them into functioning telepaths. The film is an hour of thick pseudo-scientific ramblings, but writer Cronenberg's ideas are way, way ahead of the curve. We learn that a telepathic bond must have an emotional component, which is where the sexual element enters. The investigators choose one test subject to mentally dominate the others, in the hopes of establishing a functioning telepathic commune. Some of the 'submissive' telepaths erect fake "schizo-phonetic partitions" to prevent a takeover of their personal identities. Others agree to have their speech centers in their brains removed to make telepathy their only outlet for communication.
Cronenberg's visuals are vague representations of test subjects interacting. They're often little more than a background for the intense narration, a strategy that reminds us of the experimental German sci-fi 'anti-movie' Der große verhau. Yet Cronenberg manages some arresting images. A boy caresses a biology mannequin while a few feet away his topless and blindfolded girlfriend 'experiences' his pleasure by brainwaves alone. Test subjects carry ordinary baby pacifiers... to perhaps focus their erotic thoughts? The pacifier is visually compared to the "Ankh" symbol, and at one point we see a rebellious subject cutting a pacifier into pieces. When finally covered by Variety in 1984, the reviewer "Cart." acknowledged that Stereo was virtually unwatchable, yet instantly recognizable as the work of a talent with great promise.
Seeing Stereo gives us more reasons why David Cronenberg had so little in common with his horror-director contemporaries. Lost in his grisly domain of 'body politics', Cronenberg was definitely operating on his own plane of awareness, somewhere over the conceptual horizon.
A trailer and some radio spots are included. Criterion's insert booklet contains an essay by noted commentator and author Kim Newman. The disc's arresting cover art is by Connor Willumsen.
By Glenn Erickson
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New Books
A Girl's Got to Breathe: The Life of Teresa Wright
By Donald Spoto
"A girl's got to breathe!" Teresa Wright to Gary Cooper after receiving a lengthy kiss in The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
Teresa Wright lived a rich and complex life against the backdrop of Hollywood's Golden Age. She worked with some of the leading actors of that generation in beloved films including Mrs. Miniver, The Pride of the Yankees, Shadow of a Doubt, and The Best Years of Our Lives
"I never wanted to be a star," she told the noted biographer Donald Spoto at dinner in 1978. "I wanted only to be an actress." She began acting on the stage in summer stock and repertory at the age of eighteen. When Thornton Wilder and Jed Harris saw her in an ingénue role, she was chosen to understudy the part of Emily in the original production of Our Town (1938), which she then played in touring productions. Samuel Goldwyn saw her first starring role on Broadway--in the historic production of Life with Father and immediately offered her a long contract.
She was the only actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for her first three pictures -The Little Foxes; Pride of the Yankees; and Mrs. Miniver), and she won for the third film. Movie fans and scholars to this day admire her performance in the classics Shadow of a Doubt and The Best Years of Our Lives. The circumstances of her tenure at Goldwyn, and the drama of her breaking that contract, forever changed the treatment of stars. She had two rocky marriages, the first to writer Niven Busch--who wrote Duel in the Sun for her but she had to drop out when she became pregnant--and then to writer Robert Anderson. Both ended in divorce.
Spoto had the cooperation of Wright's family and heirs and also had exclusive access to her papers and letters. He draws on a number of interviews and anecdotes from a variety of directors and actors who worked with the actress including Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler, Karl Malden, Jean Simmons, Bette Davis and many more.
Donald Spoto is the author of twenty-nine books published in more than twenty-six languages including The Dark Side of Genius, High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly and Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn.
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The Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd
By Michelle Morgan
Thelma Todd began her career in silent movies but went on to work with Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers, and make a series of hilarious shorts with Patsy Kelly. She was a savvy businesswoman who opened her own successful nightclub and a beloved comedienne who's mysterious death has intrigued film fans for years.
This new biography of the actress dubbed "the Ice Cream Blonde" traces Todd's life beginning with her as a vivacious little girl growing up in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Her brother's death changed the dynamics of the family. Todd wanted to go to college but her mother insisted she enter beauty contests. The reluctant daughter became a beauty queen.
It wasn't long before the movies beckoned and Todd found herself in demand as an actress. She worked steadily throughout the mid-to-late 1920s and made the successful transition to sound.
Increasingly disenchanted with Hollywood, in 1934 Todd opened Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Café, a hot spot that attracted fans, tourists, and celebrities. Despite success in film and business, privately the beautiful actress was having a difficult year including receiving disturbing threats from a stranger known as the Ace and having her home ransacked. It all ended tragically when she was found dead in a garage near her café. An inquest concluded that her death, at twenty-nine, was accidental, but in a thorough new investigation that draws on interviews, photographs, documents, and extortion notes-much of these not previously available to the public--the author offers a compelling new theory that the vivacious young actress was murdered.
But by whom? The suspects include Thelma's movie-director lover, her would-be-gangster ex-husband, and the thugs who were pressuring her to install gaming tables in her popular café. This fresh examination on the eightieth anniversary of the star's death raises interesting questions and is sure to interest any fan of Thelma Todd or of Hollywood's Golden Age.
Michelle Morgan is the author of The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals, The Mammoth Book of Madonna, and several books about Marilyn Monroe: Marilyn Monroe: Private and Confidential, Before Marilyn: The Blue Book Modeling Years, and Marilyn's Addresses: A Fan's Guide to the Places She Knew.
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Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story
By Mollie Gregory
Stunt players are often the unsung heroes of filmmaking. They rarely receive recognition for the harrowing work they do to make the leading actors and villains look convincing. This is often even more true for women in the stunt industry.
In the early days of filmmaking, women were highly involved in all aspects of film production, from writing to editing to directing to stunt work. But as the movies matured and sound was introduced, women found their roles curtailed. Capable stuntwomen found themselves on the sidelines as stuntmen donned wigs and women's clothes to double as actresses. As a result very few stuntwomen found work between the 1930s and the 1960s.
Not until the political movements of the late 1960s and the 1970s raised the issue of flagrant sexism and discrimination did the number of working stuntwomen begin to increase. But even as late as the 1990s, stuntmen were still doubling for actresses and some were "painted down" for more convincing performances.
For decades, stuntwomen have faced institutional discrimination, unequal pay and sexual harassment even as they jumped from speeding trains and raced horse-drawn carriages away from burning buildings. They've traded punches in knockdown brawls, crashed biplanes through barns and raced to the rescue in fast cars.
Featuring sixty-five interviews, Stuntwomen showcases the absorbing stories and uncommon courage of women who make their living planning and performing action-packed sequences that keep viewers' hearts racing.
Mollie Gregory is the author of Women Who Run the Show: How a Brilliant and Creative New Generation of Women Stormed Hollywood, 1973-2000 .
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Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays
By Karie Bible and Mary Mallory
We have all seen those wonderful black and white photographs of stars posing for holiday pictures--Bette Davis posing amidst a box of chocolates (Valentine's Day), Mae West as Lady Liberty (4th of July), Clifton Webb carving a turkey (Thanksgiving), W.C. Fields as old Saint Nick (Christmas), and just about everybody helping to sell War Bonds during World War II.
Marvelously illustrated with more than 200 rare images from the silent era through the 1970s, this joyous treasure trove features film and television's most famous actors and actresses as well as starlets on the brink of discovery, celebrating the holidays, big and small, in beautiful re-produced photographs.
The images were often taken by legendary stills photographers and the entire book harkens back to the Golden Age of Hollywood when motion picture studios devised elaborate publicity campaigns to promote their stars and to keep their names and faces in front of the movie-going public all year round.
From Clara Bow to Elizabeth Taylor to Ann-Margaret, there is a wonderful mix of black and white and color photography throughout the book.
Karie Bible is the 'Historian in Black,' at the famed Hollywood Forever Cemetery where she gives guided tours and shares with visitors the stories of the famous and nearly forgotten who are buried at the Cemetery. She co-authored the book, Location Filming in Los Angeles with Marc Wanamaker and Harry Medved. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
Mary Mallory is a film historian, photograph archivist, and researcher, focusing on Los Angeles and early film history. She is the author of Hollywoodland and she blogs on early Hollywood history for The Daily Mirror. She serves on Hollywood Heritage, Inc.'s Board of Directors, and acts as a docent for the Hollywood Heritage Museum. She lives in Studio City, California.
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DVD Reviews
Point Blank on Blu-ray
When documentary filmmaker John Boorman made the leap to feature filmmaking with Catch Us If You Can (aka Having a Wild Weekend, 1965), a low-budget rock-n-roll vehicle for the Dave Clark Five, he transformed the quickie into a surprisingly biting satire of popular culture set to a bouncy soundtrack, displaying a remarkable sophistication and creativity unexpected from such a project. It was enough to land him his first American film, Point Blank, where he revealed an even greater ambition and talent.
Based on the novel The Hunter by Richard Stark (a pen name for Donald Westlake), Point Blank shuffles the lean, straight-forward story of a gunman named Walker (Lee Marvin), who is double crossed by his partner in crime and returns (seemingly from the dead) for revenge, into a surreal, abstracted crime drama. The plot is faithful to original novel, a hard-boiled piece of crime fiction reimagined for the underworld culture of the sixties, but Boorman and Marvin, who requested the young director and supported his unconventional vision for the film, refract it through a modern lens. Walker's odyssey from Alcatraz in San Francisco to the underworld of Los Angeles is splintered with short, sharp shards of memory that cut through his story, as if reflecting Walker's attempts to put the pieces of cause and effect together in his mind.
Boorman views L.A. through an alienated lens and edits it more like a European art film than an American crime thriller, but fills it with offbeat, ultra-stylized scenes of violence. It opens on a gunshot that should have killed him and he struggles to put it all together when he wakes up: "Cell. Prison cell. How did I get here?" Marvin is enigmatic, to say the least, as he tracks down his unfaithful, guilt-ridden wife (Sharon Acker), his wife's sister (Angie Dickinson), his old friend turned double-crossing heist partner Mal Reese (John Veron), and finally the syndicate bigwigs, all just to get his due: "I want my 93 grand."
This vision of urban Los Angeles is alternately crowded and noisy and urban, and austere and empty and dislocated. His footsteps echoing through an empty, anonymous hallway becomes the disembodied beat of his march of revenge. A scatting, screaming R&B singer at a chic night spot called The Film Club is the feral soundtrack of a brutal backstage fight, at once visceral and abstracted in the clutter of 35mm film cans and nightclub supplies. The aftermath of a suicide becomes a psychedelic vision of destruction, which disappears in a cut to the apartment suddenly empty, a ghost house with no evidence of life or death, just transition.
The dialogue is loaded with references to "a dream" and characters constant remind Walker that he's supposed to be dead. Keenan Wynn adds another level of remove as the devil whispering in Walker's ear, another unreal figure with a carefully concealed agenda who is preternaturally attuned to Walker's movements. More than an informant, he appears from nowhere to provide a name, an address, a piece of information on the trail to the top man in the Organization as Walker's debt keeps getting passed up the chain of command.
Walker is both an unstoppable sentinel who seems more than flesh and blood and a vulnerable man wounded by betrayal who has armored over his emotions with a mission. Marvin delivers both sides of the character without compromising either. There's a cold fury under his deliberate movements and his eyes betray a moment of regret and sadness when he finds his wife dead by her own hand, but it is all pushed down and kept in check by his single-minded focus. "I just want my money" is his mantra, not a matter of greed but a debt to be settled to balance the scales. Marvin is at once deliberate and relaxed, a veteran criminal soldier alert to everything, which makes his character even more fascinating. He doesn't demand attention on screen, he commands it through confidence and ability and cool focus.
That alone makes him more admirable than Mal, who is played by John Vernon as an oily, arrogant, amoral rat, selling out anyone and everyone to buy his way back into the Organization. The rest of the members of the cast don't play characters as much as cogs, functionaries in a criminal enterprise as a cutthroat corporation, simply doing their jobs as if Walker was a rival in a hostile takeover. Only Angie Dickinson's Chris has the passion and fury and emotional life of a human being, siding with Walker out of both loyalty and for payback against Mal ("He makes my flesh crawl") and the Organization that has taken over her business and her life. Sharon Acker, who plays Walker's wife, comes off less haunted than simply weak. She barely leaves an impression, which is fitting for her character but fails to offer any sense of tragedy to her story, and she's almost instantly forgotten after she exits the film. It's really the only weak element of the film, which otherwise is strong, confident, and sure from beginning to end.
Point Blank has been called a modern film noir but it has more in common with Performance, another crime thriller that fractures time, offers enigmatic and ambiguous characters, and equates organized crime with big business. Boorman delivers meticulously executed set pieces that are designed for the wide CinemaScope frame with a sure sense of space and a dispassionate perspective. He emphasizes intelligence over action and presents Walker as total professional, never flustered and always emotionally removed from the situation. And if Walker is an extreme incarnation of the revenge driven noir anti-hero, the modern syndicate has transformed the old school mob into a world of paper jungles and corporate businessmen, an alienating concept to a two-fisted, gun-wielding independent like Walker. "Profit is the only principle," is their motto. Almost 50 years later, it's more modernist than modern, a fascinating time capsule of an era when young directors brought nouvelle vague style to classic genres, and a cryptic crime thriller that turns Marvin into the most enigmatic criminal professional in the movies.
Boorman creates a hard, austere look for the film and the new Blu-ray delivers a sharp clarity to his vision of Los Angeles as an impersonal modern city. Apart from a few scenes, he strips the frame down to isolated figures in an empty urban landscape under the hard light of the California sun. It's an urban desert and the disc preserves that atmosphere of a ghost city by day and a shadowy underworld at night when the crowds gather on the streets and in the clubs. The impersonal palette of concrete surfaces and blank office interiors in the day gives way to the color of human habitation after dark, which oddly enough has a warmer atmosphere than the harsh light of day.
Carried over from the earlier DVD release is an audio commentary track with director John Boorman and fellow director Steven Soderbergh, a fan of the film who essentially hosts the commentary. He engages Boorman in conversations about the film's style, the use of color and camera lenses, working with Lee Marvin (who became close friends with Boorman), and making his Hollywood debut with a film that refused to play by the studio rules. Soderbergh's The Limey was clearly indebted to Point Blank in both its theme of revenge and in its fractured storytelling and unconventional use of flashbacks. Taking part in this commentary is like paying tribute to his inspiration.
Also features the vintage promotional featurette The Rock (in two parts), which looks at shooting the film on location in Alcatraz, and the original trailer.
by Sean Axmaker
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Ravenous on Blu-ray
Ravenous (1999) channels the story reminiscent of the Donner Party disaster and the legend of Alferd Packer (the only American ever convicted of cannibalism) into a gruesome survival thriller with a crimson-hued streak of black humor and an elemental hint of the supernatural. The resulting film takes top honors as the definitive frontier cannibal movie. Not that there's a long list to choose from, mind you, but this earns its position with honors, thanks to a gleefully weird and savagely bloodthirsty sensibility.
Guy Pearce is Captain John Boyd, whose battle cowardice during the Mexican-American war inadvertently results in making him an accidental hero. The ordeal of playing dead under the bleeding corpses of his fellow officers also puts him off meat, as the opening scenes so vividly illustrate. Director Antonia Bird cuts straight to the heart of the situation as she intercuts soldiers devouring bleeding-rare steaks at a military luncheon with the bloody casualties of battle stacked like cordwood: meat is meat, at least as far as this film is concerned. Boyd's commanding officer (John Spencer of The West Wing), who knows that his valor is a fraud, ships him out to the fringes of military reach: a fort in a California mountain pass, which runs with a minimal compliment during the impassable winter months. "This place thrives on tedium," smiles fort commander Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones), who takes everything with a bemused indulgence. How else to survive a company made up of a useless drunk second-in-command(Stephen Spinella), a giggling weed-head idiot (David Arquette), a twitchy, mumbling chaplain (Jeremy Davies), and a macho soldier boy (Neal McDonough) who holds the rest of the company in utter contempt?
The tedium is quickly dispersed when a bedraggled disaster survivor (Robert Carlyle) stumbles into camp. He spins a horrific story of a lost wagon train and an incompetent scout who strands them in the mountains, where as the winter snows traps them and desperation leads to feeding on human flesh. It's a tale right out of the Donner Party until it turns feral, but it's not even close to the real story of Carlyle's wild-eyed survivor. For a starving man, he looks remarkably fit when he doffs his shirt, and other clues suggest that this is no production gaffe. One night, while camping on the trail to his old camp to search for survivors, he's caught licking the bleeding wounds of an injured soldier. You know, tasting his next potential meal.
That's when the film takes its twist into weird and wild horror, a bizarre plot that doesn't really make much logical sense but sure makes for a wicked mix of psychodrama and visceral body horror. The Native American Wendigo myth is referenced to explain madness, but you could say it's a vampire tale without the supernatural dimension--it turns out human flesh is addictive, and it helps to have a nest of fellow flesh-eaters to keep the diet coming--or call it a particularly gruesome metaphor for manifest destiny. However you label it, it is off-the-charts crazy, an eat-or-be-eaten thriller served very, very rare.
British director Antonia Bird seems like an odd match for this material. She honed her craft on TV drama and made her reputation with the tough, wrenching dramas Priest and Face, two films with complex characters and socially conscious themes. What they have in common with Ravenous is star Robert Carlyle, who recommended Bird after the film's original director Milcho Manchevski was let go after three weeks and the producer's chosen replacement, Raja Gosnell, was rejected by the cast. Bird (who passed away last year at the relatively young age of 62 after a battle with thyroid cancer) was frustrated by the conditions of the production and the oversight of the producers and she complained that her cut was compromised in post-production. That may explain the awkward pace, jarring turns, and a climax that feels tossed together--an uninspired way to end such a devious film--but she is clearly the architect of the odd, offbeat key of the film's blackly comic tone and surreal atmosphere and Carlyle is her partner in outsized madness. He leads the cast in playing their eccentricities big, though next to Carlyle's juicy performance, Arquette and Davies come off more like actor's studio sketches in twitchy weirdness or fidgety indecision than actual characters. Guy Pearce provides the contrast, creating a character fighting to maintain control and keep his emotions and his reflexive revulsion in check as everyone else lets their freak flag fly. It oddly enough makes him the most intense character on screen. As all that fear and disgust and anxiety just bottles up behind his desperate eyes and increasingly battered body, Pearce shows us the toll this ordeal exacts on him. In this survival drama, he's the one in true survival mode.
Scream Factory's Blu-ray features a solid new HD transfer that preserves the dynamic contrast between the white-out daylight scenes of snow and the ominous shadows of the deep forest and the dark rough-hewn quarters of the frontier fort. Night doesn't have to fall for the darkness to seep into the image. Given the elemental quality of the imagery--much of the film takes place in the snowbound wilderness, with the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia standing in for California--the transfer has a satisfying level of grain that not only preserves the texture of the film but gives the entire atmosphere an added level of authenticity. These images feel like they were carved into the film.
The film was previously released on DVD over a decade ago with three separate commentary tracks. Director Antonia Bird and composer Damon Albarn team up for the most informative track, with Bird talking in detail about the physical challenges of the production. Screenwriter Ted Griffin and co-star Jeffrey Jones tend to lapse into silences in their track and actor Robert Carlyle is even more intermittent in his the solo track. Also carried over from the earlier disc is a collection of deleted scenes (many of them in rough-cut form) with optional commentary by Bird and a gallery of stills. New to this edition is a 20-minute interview with Jeffrey Jones, who looks back on the themes of the film.
by Sean Axmaker
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Southern Comfort on Blu-ray
A motley crew of Louisiana National Guardsman wade out into the swamps for weekend maneuvers. It's 1973, as the war in Vietnam is grinding away the soul of America and the heart of the military, and this platoon of weekend warriors--a volatile collection of rednecks, hotheads, jokers, and guys who probably signed up to steer clear of the draft--are like fresh recruits going into battle for the first time. They've got the fatigues and the cocky attitude but dubious discipline and training and their machine guns are loaded with blanks as they head into the bayou. To the Cajun swamp folk, the trappers and hunters living on the fringes of society, these men are invaders who trample their camps and steal their boats. And when one of the soldiers lets loose a burst from his weapon, laughing like the class bully after humiliating the new kid, these shadowy swamp dwellers defend themselves, becoming a guerilla strike force waging a war of terror on the utterly unprepared toy soldiers. They don't know that it's just blanks in those guns but it likely wouldn't matter if they did. They've been attacked and they will respond. These city dwellers are out their element and after their commanding officer (Peter Coyote) is gone, the first casualty in the war of attrition, they are out of their depth, flailing around with a panic that dumps their radio, compass, map, and pretty much everything else that was supposed to keep them alive.
Southern Comfort will never be mistaken for a Nation Guard recruitment tool. Call it an anti-platoon movie. Hill gives the squad the outward accoutrements of a real fighting force, down to the uniforms and weapons, but this is a military unit in name only. Beyond the swaggering banter of the soldiers and self-deprecating comments of Spencer (Keith Carradine), the self-appointed company joker, they have no real training, no experience under fire, and no commitment to one another. These guys are more like barroom buddies playing soldier than a disciplined force.
There are two voices of restraint in the wilderness, Spencer and new guy Hardin (Powers Booth), a transfer from Texas who doesn't know anyone in the company but sizes up their weaknesses quickly and realizes that they haven't much a chance as long as wild cards like Reece (Fred Ward) and Stuckey (Lewis Smith) go charging through the swamps looking for payback. Casper (Les Lannom) takes command by virtue of an essentially meaningless detail of rank and bumbles around quoting regulations and making speeches, doggedly following the book because he hasn't a clue what to do next. The filmmakers don't make him a figure of ridicule, mind you, just a guy falling back on the only thing he knows. In fact, none of them are necessarily "bad guys," though like any Hill ensemble, it has its share of jerks, bullies, racists, and anger management candidates and the pressure brings out their worst instincts.
So yes, it's a story of American soldiers in an alien land, lost in an unfamiliar landscape and outmaneuvered by a guerrilla army at home in the jungle. Director / screenwriter Walter Hill and producer / co-screenwriter David Giler insist to this day that Southern Comfort was never intended to be an allegory for Vietnam, simply a survival tale in an overwhelming and unfamiliar environment. It's hard to take them at face value but it is easy to forget the allegory in the heat of the drama. It also shares DNA with Deliverance, another film about city boys with guns who take their sense of ownership and entitlement into the wilderness, threaten the locals, and end up hunted by them. But where John Boorman's primal thriller turns his Appalachian backwoods men into brutal outlaws who take pleasure in stalking the city invaders, Hill and Giler keep their Cajun soldiers hidden, seen as figures in the distance or blurs running behind the trees, ghosts on the fringes of sight. They treat the would-be soldier like wild game, silently shadowing their progress and whipping them into a state of panic to steer them into their traps. And whatever the short-fused guys in the platoon think, this is no cultural conspiracy to wipe out the invaders. Their enemy consists of a handful of isolated hunters who didn't start the war but by God are determined to finish it. The rest of the Cajun folks they meet don't seem to be a part of it, though after a couple of days in the swamps, the paranoia is powerful enough to make every sidelong glance look ominous. Ry Cooder's eerie and haunting score only intensifies the paranoia.
What ultimately differentiates them from the soldiers of a classical platoon drama is that they haven't bonded under fire and have never had to put their trust in one another. This group unravels and tears itself apart from fear and panic and unfocused rage. And in classic Hill manner, there are no philosophical musings or existential conversations. The closest the film comes to putting its theme into words is from the mantra of a terrified Simms (Franklyn Seales), who finds himself cut off from the group and suddenly aware of just how vulnerable he is. "I'm not supposed to be here," he repeats, as if begging the universe to correct some cosmic planning error. And then he's no longer there.
While this band of infighting brothers wades blindly through the swamp without a clue as to their bearings or direction, Hill's direction never falters. He has always had a sure hand as a storyteller, keeping his plots uncluttered and letting the details of character, conflict, and the world around them define the story. Southern Comfort limits the world to the middle of the swamp, where we (like the soldiers) are unable to find any point of reference, and observes how the discomfort of the environment and the constant disorientation takes its toll on what little good sense the characters bring with them to the mission. It exacerbates the already dysfunctional dynamics of this platoon of battle virgins and is as deadly on its own as the native hunters who use the environment as a weapon in their arsenal. It's not necessarily skill or even luck that saves the guardsmen who survive the ordeal. In classic Hill fashion, it is a matter of intelligence, awareness, teamwork, and the commitment to do what is necessary to survive. There's no sense of victory in survival, merely relief.
Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack. Both discs feature the new HD master but the Blu-ray of course features superior clarity and richness of color. Both are clean, strong images while the Blu-ray shows off excellent detail. The Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack puts the mix right up front. A couple of scenes of chaos and confusion overwhelm the dialogue with background sound, which is surely intentional but still seems a little out of balance to my ears.
New to this release in an original 27-minute featurette with new interviews with actors Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Lewis Smith, and Peter Coyote and, on low-resolution video via Skype, director Walter Hill and producer David Giler, who collaborated on the script with Hill. The actors share stories of shooting in the Louisiana swamps in February with wet suits under their uniforms, six weeks of working in the cold and damp, and they remind us that they were all in it together. The crew endured the same conditions so no one had the right to complain. More interesting is the discussion around the themes of the film. Hill and Giler maintain that while they did not intentionally set out to make a Vietnam allegory they were aware that audiences would make that connection, while the actors admit that they knew it was an allegory from the moment they read the script. Keith Carradine's reading is particularly detailed and interesting. Curiously, none of the six participants mention Deliverance.
Carried over from the old DVD release is a brief collection of outtakes and the original trailer. All of the supplements are featured in both the Blu-ray and DVD discs of the Combo Pack.
By Sean Axmaker
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Tess on Blu-ray
Tess (1979), Roman Polanski's film adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1890 novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles, has in 2014 received a sublime Blu-Ray and DVD release from Criterion. Restored by Pathe under the direct supervision of Polanski himself, the movie looks and sounds magnificent. At first glance, the lushly beautiful Tess is a seemingly unusual work for Polanski, whose films we tend to associate with horror and sex, but this was actually a highly personal project for the master filmmaker. It was his first picture after fleeing the United States in 1977, and also a project that his wife, Sharon Tate, had suggested he make as a vehicle for herself -- just before she was murdered by the Manson gang in 1969. Polanski read the novel after her death and realized it was indeed right up his alley, and he dedicated the eventual film to her with an on-screen inscription.
Hardy's tale, to which the film is very faithful, is about a poor English girl, Tess, whose father learns he is a distant descendant of a once prominent, rich family, the D'Urbervilles. He sends Tess to the home of a remaining D'Urberville to find employment (or at least a handout), but Tess winds up being seduced by the ne'er-do-well Alec D'Urberville (Leigh Lawson), who becomes obsessed with her. Fleeing Alec, she eventually finds work at a dairy farm and starts a passionate relationship with a young farmer named Angel Clare (Peter Firth). But in this society, the revelation of the sins of her past, even if they were not her fault, could doom Tess to shame, ostracism and worse. Ultimately, Tess is about a woman struggling to make her way in the world, looking for happiness, or at least survival, but finding that a judgmental society, timing and even luck are all working against her.
Polanski explores this theme vividly, sympathetically and cinematically. Costumes, speech and physical mannerisms of the actors all convince the audience of the time period and of the distinctions among the social classes, and the film's pictorial beauty does much to stress the contrasting cruelty of some of the characters. The movie is not "pretty" for prettiness' sake. Most important, one really feels the isolation of Tess throughout the film, which is at once sprawling and intimate. The plot itself, while important, feels less vital here than the depiction of Tess' emotional experience of the world she is forced to inhabit, and as a result, the long running time feels entirely appropriate and never tedious.
Tess was shot entirely in France, mostly on locations in Normandy and Brittany, because Polanski worried that if he traveled to England he would be extradited to the United States. Polanski later wrote, "To tell the story at all, it was essential to find the proper setting, a twentieth-century equivalent of Hardy's nineteenth-century Dorset. The only way to convey the rhythm of his epic was to use that setting as an integral part of the film, signaling the passage of time and the change in Tess herself by means of a visible, almost palpable change in seasons. Once our rural locations were chosen, we would have to film throughout the year from early spring, through high summer, to the depths of winter." With such a shooting strategy, filming wound up lasting nine months over 80 separate locations, and Tess became, at $12 million, the most expensive film ever made in France to that point. Freak weather and labor strikes only added to the overall time and expense.
If Tess is atypical of Polanski, it's in the way that The Age of Innocence (1993) is atypical of director Martin Scorsese. But in fact, both films are completely emblematic of their directors' concerns and are indeed suffused with violence. It's just that the violence is emotional, an undercurrent beneath a pristine surface -- exactly like the societies the films depict.
That being said, it's hard to shake some of Tess's most exquisitely beautiful imagery, such as the lovely natural light of an outdoor dance, or the riders and dogs on a fox hunt who appear out of a sublime mist, or the face of Nastassia Kinski, who is heart-stoppingly gorgeous (a quality, incidentally, that is vital to the story). Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, who had shot such films as Becket (1964) and Cabaret (1972), died a few weeks into production and was replaced by Ghislain Cloquet, who sadly would himself pass away two years later. They shared the Oscar for Best Cinematography. The film also won for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Score.
Criterion's dual-format release contains one Blu-ray disc and two DVDs, with both formats containing the film and identical extras. And there are plenty, starting with three short documentaries about the film's making (originally included in Columbia's 2004 DVD release), directed by Laurent Bouzereau and totaling 73 minutes in length. Bouzereau expertly interviews key players like Polanski, producers Claude Berri and Timothy Burrill, co-writer John Brownjohn, actors Nastassia Kinski and Leigh Lawson, set decorator Pierre Guffroy, costume designer Anthony Powell, hair and makeup artists, the crew electrician, the assistant editor and others. The artists discuss fascinating details of production, like the challenge of getting the "strawberry seduction" scene between Kinski and Lawson just right (which astonishingly was shot on a rainy day despite looking on-screen like the height of warm summer), the creation of the Stonehenge set outside of Paris, and the design of the costumes to be authentic and truly expressive of character -- beautiful without being decorative. Powell is fascinating as he discusses his approach, and also about the little splotch of blood he put on the hem of Tess' dress at a key point in the story, which Polanski shot for maximum impact.
Burrill recalls that on location the filmmakers were only able to see the rushes days after shooting, rather than the next day, and not always under the best conditions. But gradually, he says, "we started to see what was happening, the magic that was coming off the screen, and the extraordinary professionalism of Nastassia.... I don't think there was ever one day when she fluffed a line. She was word-perfect, always."
Second is a 52-minute documentary from 2006 by Daniel Ablin and Serge July entitled Once Upon a Time... Tess. This is also interesting, but it covers much of the same material as the Bouzereau pieces, with many of the same interviewees telling the same stories. It's also not as smoothly edited. But unlike the Bouzereau film, it includes composer Philippe Sarde, and delves more into Polanski's pre-Tess life and career. It also recounts the difficulties in Tess's post-production, particularly concerning the running time. Francis Coppola was brought in by producer Claude Berri to trim the film, which was deemed overlong, but Polanski hated the result, leading to a falling-out between Berri and Polanski and between Polanski and Sarde. Polanski himself eventually trimmed the film by about 20 minutes, resulting in the current running time of 171 minutes.
Third, there's a 1979 episode of the French TV program Cine Regards, running 48 minutes, that looks at the making of Tess and interviews Polanski during the film's production. The interviews with Polanski are revealing, but the real strengths of the piece are the long, uninterrupted slices of life on the set as Polanski directs and thinks through scenes, conducting his orchestra of crewmembers. These sequences go on long enough to make us feel as if we are there.
Fourth is a 1979 episode of the British TV program The South Bank Show, 50 minutes in length, in which host Melvyn Bragg interviews Polanski. And Criterion rounds things out with the film's trailer as well as a handsome printed booklet containing a fine essay by Colin MacCabe and crisp, colorful photos from the film, almost all of which feature the entrancing Nastassia Kinski. It's a beautiful package and motion picture, all very highly recommended.
By Jeremy Arnold
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Used Cars on Blu-ray
The opening of Used Cars (1980) has the ominous, wind-scoured character of a modern crime film in a desperate southwest town where a Sergio Leone western wouldn't be out of place. The camera cranes down from a high shot over a struggling used car dealership, where a few pathetic beaters line the lot, and slowly glides over to one car with someone is crammed under the dashboard. The only sound is the lonely wind--the kind of strangled, desolate howl you get in dustbowl dramas and desert survival thrillers--and the grunts of the man struggling with the mechanics under the dash. And then we see the odometer turn back, shaving some 40,000 or so miles from the record. The title hits the screen, a brass band jumps in with "Stars and Stripes Forever," and the unidentified mechanic wriggles out to reveal Kurt Russell in a cheap, loud suit making his rounds to mask the sorry condition of the cars on the lot. It turns out that this is a crime movie after all, or at least a film of multiple misdemeanors and bald-faced misrepresentation, and the perpetrators are the good guys.
The second feature from director Robert Zemeckis and co-writer and producer Bob Gale, Used Cars comes right out of the screen comedy culture of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the underdogs snubbed their collective noses at authority, propriety, property and privacy laws and anything else that crossed their paths in slobs vs. snobs comedies like Animal House (1978), Caddyshack (1980) and Ghostbusters (1984). Used Cars is raucous and reckless and far more gleefully corrupt than any of its brothers in rebellion, embracing the confidence games and illegal stunts pulled by the skeleton crew that works for Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), who is the closest thing that the film has to an honest man. The devotion of salesmen Rudy (Russell) and Jeff (Gerrit Graham) and mechanic Jim (Frank McRae) to Luke is really all that separates them from Luke's rapacious brother and across-the-street rival Roy L. Fuchs (Warden again) and his slick sales force. That and the fun they have ripping off the rubes who wander on to their lot.
The premise of film - two used car outfits at war with one another - was hatched by John Milius, who was one of the executive producers (along with Steven Spielberg), but the script is pure Zemeckis and Gale. The rivals are twin brothers, the Cain and Abel of used car dealers. When impending freeway construction threatens to destroy bad brother Roy's dealership and make the good brother Luke rich, Roy finds a way to speed the demise of Luke's bad heart and Rudy makes good on his promise to keep Roy from taking over the lot. Rudy has his own, more immediate motivation, of course--he's trying to buy his way into the local political machine and he's still a little short on the down payment--but it's also personal. Luke is something of a father figure to the crew, which makes them the mischievous sons who break the rules whenever dad's back is turned. After Luke dies, their antics more outrageous, from secretly burying Luke on the lot (his beloved convertible fittingly serves as his casket) to jamming satellite signals with wild pirate commercials replete with gratuitous nudity and senseless destruction of private property. The plot seems to careen from one comic collision to another but there's a nicely-constructed plan under it all, simple but ingenious enough that you don't actually see how the pieces are laid in place until it all comes together in the ragged spectacle of final act.
It's not really a satire of American business so much as a wicked lampoon: lie, cheat and steal as the American way, as long as you do it with a sense of fun. Kurt Russell was just breaking out of his clean-cut post-Disney persona when he took on the role and he sinks his teeth into Rudy, turning the brash characters into the epitome of the smiling mercenary selling lemons to suckers with dirty tricks and phony promises. Gerrit Graham is his partner in commercial piracy, unfazed by anything but harbingers of bad luck, notably red. Deborah Harmon is both romantic interest and plot complication as Luke's long lost daughter, who shows up just after dad's death. Jack Warden has a field day playing twin brothers and Frank McRae is hilarious as the giant adrenaline-pumped mechanic. The crotch-grabbing Mexican junk car wholesaler is ubiquitous character actor and future director Alfonso Arau in his first great comic role in an American film (Romancing the Stone and Three Amigos soon followed). But the entire cast is in danger of being upstaged by the adorable dog Toby, who has his own role to play in the sale stunts. This pooch's hilarious performance makes him one of the greatest movie dogs.
Zemeckis matured into a polished filmmaker and an ambitious storyteller and went on to make more sophisticated, more provocative, and certainly more subtle films, but he never made anything as savagely funny as Used Cars. Its banged-up ingenuity and rough-and-tumble energy and warped mirror reflection of the American Dream as a snatch and grab free-for-all is wickedly funny. Everyone is a crook here and the epilogue even enshrines mendacity as a virtue, at least when it comes to stepping into the used car game.
Used Cars has a remarkably tidy visual aesthetic for a film about a seedy, shabby culture, with a screen that is uncluttered and flooded with desert sunlight in day scenes and blasted with floodlights as bold as a football stadium night game for the after-dark stunts. The new HD transfer shows a well-preserved print and is sharp and clear. Simply put, it looks superb.
The commentary track with Zemeckis, Gale, and Russell, carried over from the 2002 DVD reelease, is almost as fun as the movie. "We wanted Jimmy Stewart in It's A Wonderful Life, except he's totally corrupt," is how Zemeckis explains the genesis of Rudy. Kurt Russell laughs back: "So you cast me!" These guys are having a blast laughing their way through their remembrances, but they manage to stay on track and keep the production stories coming. Few commentaries manage to balance the information and entertainment so well.
There's a four-minute reel of outtakes (apparently taken from surviving video dub; it's all quite hazy), a radio interview with Russell, a car commercial featuring Russell, galleries of art and stills, and not one but two isolated score tracks: along with Patrick Williams' musical score heard in the film is an alternate, unused score by Ernest Gold. We don't quite get it in the context of the film (at least not with dialogue and sound effects) but it's a more conventional, less satirical approach. The accompanying 8-page booklet features another fine essay by Julie Kirgo.
By Sean Axmaker
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Press Release
Library of America's The Moviegoer on LAURA
Library of America's new regular web feature called The Moviegoer is devoted to great films inspired by classic American writing. This biweekly column features columns by Megan Abbott, David Denby, Wendy Lesser, Charles McGrath, Farran Smith Nehme, Carrie Rickey,Terrence Rafferty, Harold Schechter, Michael Sragow, & others and launched on January 27, 2016.
American literature has proven an endlessly renewable resource for filmmakers, its originality and vitality inspiring whole catalogues of memorable movies. Now Library of America, the acclaimed nonprofit publisher of the nation's greatest writing, presents The Moviegoer, a biweekly column in which curator Michael Sragow (Film Comment) and other leading writers and critics offer fresh, penetrating examinations of the best of these films, gems that readers will want to revisit or watch for the first time. Standing at the intersection of classic American writing and classic filmmaking, The Moviegoer, offers not reviews but full scale reevaluations that explore the creative alchemy involved in translating a masterwork from page (or stage) to screen. It takes its inspiration, and its catholic compass, from the hero of Walker Percy's famous novel, and, in the words of curator Sragow, "aims to generate new enthusiasm for cinema as well as for literature."
To read the entry in the series on Laura by Megan Abbott and to sign up for an alert when a new Moviegoer is published, click here.
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Dick Dinman Visits the Deadly GARDEN OF EVIL
DICK DINMAN VISITS THE DEADLY "GARDEN OF EVIL" : Twilight Time's co-founder the award winning writer, producer and documentarian Nick Redman and acclaimed writer and film aficionado Julie Kirgo join producer/host Dick Dinman as they salute the singularly riveting Gary Cooper/Susan Hayward/Richard Widmark edge-of-your-seat action adventure GARDEN OF EVIL which Twilight Time has just released in a spectacular wide screen transfer emboldened by no less than three listening choices each of which graphically stress the essential importance of the monumentally powerful and unique Bernard Herrmann score.
The award-winning DICK DINMAN'S DVD CLASSICS CORNER ON THE AIR is the only weekly half hour show devoted to Golden Age Movie Classics as they become available on DVD. Your producer/host Dick Dinman includes a generous selection of classic scenes, classic film music and one-on-one interviews with stars, producers, and directors. To hear these as well as other DVD CLASSICS CORNER ON THE AIR shows please go to www.dvdclassicscorner.com or www.dvdclassicscorner.net.
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John Wayne Cancer Foundation kicks off SHOW YOUR GRIT campaign on May 26
Join TCM on May 26 as we honor one of Hollywood's greatest stars, John Wayne, on his birthday with a full day of his films beginning at 6am. An icon of American individualism and courage, Wayne is perhaps best known for his work in the Western and war genres--where his image as the direct (sometimes gruff) yet always just and strong hero has become the stuff of screen legend for generations of film fans. Our tribute begins with an early Wayne film, Ride Him, Cowboy (1932) and continues through McLintock! (1963) at 5:45pm ET.
The day of programming is also in support of the John Wayne Cancer Foundation's Show Your Grit campaign, which kicks off on May 26. The John Wayne Cancer Foundation (JWCF) was created by his family in honor of Wayne's memory with a mission to bring courage, strength and grit to the fight against cancer. For 25 days, beginning on John Wayne's birthday and ending on Father's Day, June 19th, the John Wayne Cancer Foundation challenges you to #ShowYourGrit on social media to raise awareness and honor those who have shown courage, strength, and grit in the face of cancer.
To learn more about the John Wayne Cancer Foundation and to join the John Wayne movement please visit http://johnwayne.org/.
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TCM Podcast An in-depth look at this month's films by the employees of TCM DOWNLOAD TODAY >
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Wednesday, March 20, 2011
Removed: 10:00pm Springfield Rifle 12:00pm Casablanca Added: 1:00pm Virginia City 12:15pm Casablanca
Wednesday, March 20, 2011
Removed: 10:00pm Springfield Rifle 12:00pm Casablanca Added: 1:00pm Virginia City 12:15pm Casablanca
Wednesday, March 20, 2011
Removed: 10:00pm Springfield Rifle 12:00pm Casablanca Added: 1:00pm Virginia City 12:15pm Casablanca


text:
- Report: #832591
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: Clear Wireless Internet
Clear Wireless Internet, Washington United States of America
Clear Wireless Internet Terrible service all around! Everywhere, Washington
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If you stream any video or do a lot of online gaming or frequently make other big downloads, forget about Clear. Even before you are throttled the service is spotty at best. It is true that on occasion you can get the full advertised download speeds (10+ Mbps), but that is rare and difficult. You average about half that, and like I said, once you hit the transfer limit of only a few gigs they slow you down to a useless crawl.
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 02/01/2012 09:42 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Clear-Wireless-Internet/-Washington-/Clear-Wireless-Internet-Terrible-service-all-around-Everywhere-Washington-832591. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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Rigondeaux: A Fight With Mares Would Have To Be at 122
By Ryan Burton
WBA/WBO super bantamweight king Guillermo Rigondeaux paid a recent visit to BoxingScene Radio to talk about a variety of topics including upcoming fights in and around his division.
Rigondeaux walks around close to the super bantamweight limit of 122 pounds and made it clear that he won't be moving up in weight anytime soon.
On Saturday WBC featherweight champion Abner Mares face former champion Jhonny Gonzalez in Southern California. Rigondeaux said that if Mares is successful, he would love to face him. He did however say that the only way that fight could take place is at the super bantamweight weight limit.
"I don't have any problems making 122. There are other fighters that have problems making 126 but I am not one of them. I am the king of the division. I am a pound for pound fighter and if they want to fight me they need to come to me.
"I think it would be a tremendous fight (versus Mares) but if we were too fight it would have to be at 122. I don't have any problem making 122 so I am not moving," Rigondeaux told BoxingScene Radio.
You can listen to the interview in its entirety by clicking here: http://www.boxingscene.com/bscene-radio-rigondeaux-santa-cruz-more-6pt-9et--68832
Send questions or comments to [email protected] . Follow Ryan on Twitter @ringsidewriter and tune in to BoxingScene Radio, BoxingScene's official audio show on Tuesdays from 6-8PM PST. The show is hosted by Ernie Gabion, Luis Sandoval and Ryan Burton.
What did I tell you Gambler?Comment by Jack Napier on 08-23-2013
the fu[COLOR="Black"]c[/COLOR]k? Mares is at 126 and talking of going up to 130 not sure what Rigo's on about with 122, that's not happening if anything, Rigo should move up to 126 he already took out the top 122 lber…Comment by torosboxing75 on 08-23-2013
[QUOTE=DwightMare;13672051]This guys ducking Mares. LOL just kidding Rigotards.[/QUOTE] Nice one I was about to get mad :buttkick: lolComment by Rapid8Fire on 08-23-2013
Rigo just move up or fight the next opponent that's in line in stop *****ingComment by mezoomozaa on 08-22-2013
[QUOTE=racostaa;13672241]The problem is that most of boxers are not accustom to defend his views in front of the promoters. I like the way he talk to Arum, straight, simple and clear. Even thought arum destroy his career I like the…Post a Comment - View More User Comments (91)


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my posts have just disappeared from view, they are showing on the dashboard as published, but they are not on my site.
widgets and advertising and header are still there tho.
my posts have just disappeared from view, they are showing on the dashboard as published, but they are not on my site.
widgets and advertising and header are still there tho.
I'm having the same problem. Everything seems to be working, but I have no content in any of my posts or pages. The only thing showing up is the calendar. I've tried all those tricks with the .htaccess file and updating my permalinks and disabling the automatic upgrade plug-in, but nothing seems to work. Any help would be appreciated. My site is at http://www.linw.org
there is no trick with .htaccess
delete or rename the .htaccess
rebuild permalinks
admin - settings - permalinks
Thanks for the quick response. I had previously renamed the .htaccess and rebuilt the permalinks to no avail. So I deleted the .htaccess just now and rebuilt the permalinks again. Still no luck.
The oddest thing, to my mind, is that I can edit the posts and pages and the titles do show up. But the content itself is not showing, even though it's in the database and can be edited and resposted.
I'm having the same issue, and am also perplexed. .htaccess monkeying seemed to have no effect, nor did deactivating all of my plugins.
Possibly relatedly, WP's automatic upgrade didn't fly at all, throwing an error when trying to unpack.
This problem appears to have resolved itself. Reasons are still unknown.
Oh, man. My next step was going to be deactivating all my plugins, but you say it didn't work and the problem resolved itself??? If you ever find out what happened, please share!
Problem solved. I deactivated all plugins, then reactivated them one at a time. The plugin wp-typogrify version 1.6 (Author's description: "Prettify your web typography by preventing ugly quotes and widows and providing CSS hooks to style some") By Hamish Macpherson was the source of the problem. What a relief!
wp-Typogrify has now officially been replaced by wp-Typography. Hopefully you will have better luck with this plugin.
I'm suffering from the same problem - posts with a wordcount of 4.5K vanish into thin air when posted via the online WP editor, leaving only the title, and occasionally the tags as well (Visual editor's window clears up. HTML editor's window doesn't, but nothing is posted)
On the other hand, when posting via Windows Live Writer, stuff works, but that is not a decent solution, due to Live Writer's various limitations regarding posting images (plus, its a horrible app)
I've tried playing around with .htaccess and php.ini, but that doesn't seem to do the thing either.
Any suggestions?
tech stuff:
Version is 2.8.6.
(NextGen, The usual suspect, is not installed)
I is the long posts problem maybe?
I got rid of it by using this in my wp-contig.php file:
/** Trick for long posts */
Paste it just below db_collate
wow. this works! thanks!!!
This topic has been closed to new replies.


text:
- Report: #648842
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: Randy Hirsch Tax Services
Randy Hirsch Tax ServicesVine St Los Angeles Los Angeles, California United States of America
Randy Hirsch Tax Services Hires to do Tax Returns 1998 and 1999, basically charged me $300.00, and tried to send me only federal and the returns were hand written in blue ink. Had to wait 6 weeks to all kinds of excuses. i hav Los Angeles, California
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This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 10/08/2010 09:34 AM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Randy-Hirsch-Tax-Services/Los-Angeles-California-/Randy-Hirsch-Tax-Services-Hires-to-do-Tax-Returns-1998-and-1999-basically-charged-me-30-648842. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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The Story of the Owl and the Sheepdog - A Parable
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[quote:Chrit:MV8xNzAyNjIzXzI4MTczODAxX0QwMUMzODEx] [quote:1123581321:MV8xNzAyNjIzXzI4MTczNTM1X0Y0ODQzQzk4] Are the sheepdogs of this world any better off than the sheep? [/quote] Only one answer to that question: Know they self. Look around and realize everything created in this world was done by people no different then you. It's up to you to rise to the occasion. [i] If ordinary people know, they are sages; if sages understand, they are ordinary people. - Wumen [/i] [/quote]
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There once was an old owl that lived in the trees at the edge of a large green pasture. After a noontime meal, he would often sit in a tree overlooking the pasture with a flock of sheep below. He was sleepily resting when a very large, black sheepdog came to lie in the shade of the tree to avoid the hot afternoon sun.
Noticing the owl sitting in the tree above, the dog said, "Look at those stupid sheep. They have no idea how much we do for them. If it wasn't for us, they would all be eaten by the wolves in no time. They should worship us, not our master! He is never around. We control this pasture."
The old owl said, "Does it never bother you controlling and ruling them the way you do?" "Bother me? Ha, ha!", said the dog, "Fool! Without us the many predators would eat them in no time at all! We are saving them! They need us. They have no idea how much work it is controlling them! Look, they don't even realize that we control them! Ha, ha. In fact, it makes them feel more secure knowing that we are here to protect them."
"Every once in a while, some young ram full of life will try and show his prowess, but we quickly put him in his place. He doesn't try that again I can tell you.", said the sheep dog with a slight grin. "They soon learn that they are not in control here, we are.", he said sternly.
The owl said to the sheep dog, "but don't you realize that you are controlled by humans the same as the sheep?" "Rubbish!, said the sheep dog, "We control this pasture! We tell the sheep where to go and when to do it, he said proudly." The old owl listened quietly and then asked after a short silence, "But you don't get to eat the tasty mutton, the humans do, is that not so? So who is really in control?"
This caused the sheep dog to fly into a rage. Showing his teeth he said to the owl, "If you were not up in that tree, I would eat you right now to show you who rules this pasture! Not humans!" The old owl chuckled at this bravado and said to the dog, "I don't fear your threats, I am not part of your silly game. That is why I spend my time alone, quietly watching this struggle from the trees. It does not concern me."
"Then why are you here?" said the dog, still angry from this affront. "To watch and to learn, just like you", said the owl. "Watching is all well and good, but power and control are what really matters! I am in control of my destiny, unlike these stupid sheep!", said the dog. The dog was still irritated at the turn in the conversation finally said, "I have to get back to work. The master will be coming soon to select a couple of lambs for his dinner. You can get back to your dreaming. I have work to do!"
The dog then returned to the field, angrily snapping at the heels of a couple of lambs straying too far from the flock. The old owl then returned to his watching and to his afternoon dreaming.
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Meet the CityLab Staff
Don DeRosa, Ed.D Director
(617) 638-5629
Patty Kellogg Administrator
(617) 638-5623
Carla Romney, D.Sc., M.B.A Director of Research
(617) 638-5959
Carl Franzblau, Ph.D. Founder and Principal Investigator
(617) 638-5320
Founder of CityLab, Professor, Dept. of Biochemistry
Carl Franzblau has been a faculty member of Boston University School of Medicine for more than 50 years. His research involved the study of extracellular matrix proteins, collagen and elastin and the role they play in the pathogenesis pf disease. He has been the Principal Investigator of several large program projects involving the response of the lung to injury. He studied animal and cell culture models as well as conducting studies in the clinic. As the PI, it was his responsibility to oversee all aspects of these projects.
In the early 1990s, when Carl was the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Sciences, he had an epiphany that our nation needed better-trained students to enter our graduate programs and become the next generation of biomedical scientists. In that spirit, he created CityLab with SEPA support in 1991 to give middle and high school students and teachers an opportunity to experience real scientific investigations. He has served as the PI on all of CityLab's SEPA awards since that time and has dedicated himself to STEM education for the latter half of his career.
Carl conceived of the original mobile science laboratory concept in the mid-1990s and the MobileLab "hit the road" in 1998. This is just one example of the pedagogical innovations that have emanated from CityLab and had a transformative impact on STEM education. The MobileLab has served hundreds of thousands of students and teachers since its debut and now mobile labs for STEM education are found all over the U.S. and abroad (India, Hong Kong, Israel, Qatar, Jordan, Australia, among others).
Director Research Assistant Professor, Dept. of Biochemistry Clinical Associate Professor, School of Education
Don DeRosa has been at CityLab since the program began in 1992. He has several years of teaching experience at both the pre-college and college level. Since 1984, he has taught biology, chemistry and Earth science to students in grades 7-12, Anatomy and Physiology at Mass Bay Community College and science education courses at Bridgewater State College. Don has also presented many teacher workshops in biotech education in both the U.S. and Europe. In addition to his responsibilities at CityLab, he is the Director of Science Educations at the School of Education where he teaches science teaching methods to pre-service teachers. Don is co-author of Teaching Children Science: A Discovery Approach.
Don has a B.S. in Biology from the University of Vermont, an M.Div. from St. John's Seminary, an M.A.T. in Science Education and an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching from Boston University.
Patty comes to CityLab with a wealth of experience. As past executive director of the Hyde Community Center, and as past member of the Newton School Committee, she is instrumental in the smooth operation of CityLab.
Director of Research
Carla joined the CityLab team in 2000 to combine her passions for science, education, and business. She first entered a research laboratory through a National Science Foundation Student Science Training Program while a high school student in New York. One day after her high school graduation, she began work in a cancer research laboratory in NY, an experience that ultimately influenced her career path. She spent summer and winter vacations during her college years investigating the roles of viruses and biochemical modulators in cervical cancer. After graduating from Tufts University with degrees in electrical engineering and Spanish, she began a long graduate school path that included studies at Dartmouth College (Masters in Biomedical Engineering) and University of Rochester (Masters of Business Administration). While in Rochester, Carla worked as an engineer for a surgical laser start-up company that designed devices to facilitate minimally invasive surgical procedures. She then decided to return to school to study cancer biology and earned her D.Sc. from Harvard University in 2000.
Carla has a long-standing interest in education. During the past 13 years, she has helped thousands of students to prepare for standardized entrance exams at all levels and has volunteered for several programs that encourage women to study science and engineering. She is now running Symmetry Learning, a company that develops and markets an innovative inquiry-based science education program for grades K-8.
Carla enjoys fine dining and traveling.


text:
Wednesday July 23, 2008
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) -- It's almost time for Armanti Edwards and
Appalachian State to take center stage in the Southern Conference
again. The conference holds its media day on Wednesday, and one of the hottest topics is sure to be whether the three-time defending
winners of the Championship Subdivision can stage yet another huge
season-opening victory on a big-name team's home field.
The Mountaineers open at LSU next month in a matchup of the
champs of both subdivisions of Division I. A year ago, Appalachian
State became the talk of the nation when they stunned Michigan at
the fabled Big House. The buzz likely also will center around Samford. The Bulldogs' entrance into the SoCon became official this summer.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)


text: Superdelagates These Superdelegates could end up choosing the nominee for the 2008 race, how fair is that? Tweet Senator Ted Kennedy Frm.Vice President Al Gore Frm. President Bill Clinton Governor Bill Richardson Senator Chris Dodd Representative Dennis Kucinich Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid DNC Chairman Howard Dean Senator Jay Rockefeller Frm. Shadow Senator Jesse Jackson Frm. President Jimmy Carter Senator Joe Biden Senator John Kerry Representative Karen Thurman Speaker of the House Nancy Pelsoi Frm. Mayor Raul Martinez Congressman Robert Wexler Representative Ron Klein Senator Tom Daschle Senator Tom Foley Photo 1 of 1


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NYILFF: In movies, when a villain has the unarmed hero at gunpoint
Advertising Agency: Wing, New York, USA
Chief Creative Officer: Gustavo Asman
Art Directors: Alvaro Naddeo, Jamie Tao, Xiang Mengwen
Copywriters: Ruben Salavert, Xoch Serrano
Producers: Nadina Steimberg, Alejandro Falduti
Account Executive: Daniel Gergely
Published:August 2011
7 comments
CuriousPencilAug 01, 2011 - 19:50
It's not your fault, Peru. It's just the ideas you copied in someone else's sleep while they were in the toilet somewhere else.
In Peru in the 80s, anywhere else in the 80s, or anywhere else in the 80s.
I lost count somewhere in the 80s.
But this was always a bad idea.


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Back to game info
DayZ Screenshots for PCOn: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Arma II's successful survival horror mod gets a standalone release.
Latest Articles for DayZ
DayZ 'console prototype' expected in Q1 2016
Survival horror will not be available on PS4 or Xbox One until at least next year.
DayZ sales hit 3 million
New project lead David Durcak thanks fans for their continued support as open-world survival game hits latest milestone.
DayZ creator Dean Hall opens new studio 'RocketWerkz'
Hall exits Bohemia to open a new studio in New Zealand.


text:
- Report: #901081
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: USA Relocation Services Inc
USA Relocation Services Inc18375 Ventura Blvd. Suite 511, Tarzana CA 91356 Tarzana, California United States of America
USA Relocation Services Inc USA Relocation Moving & Storage When they had my furniture, they trippled the cost and threatened to leave it in a parking lot if I did not pay. Tarzana, California
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late and after packing my things, they said it was much heavier then they had thought and would prob. cost over $5,000.00 but if I made a deal with them before they weighed the truck, they could give it to me for $4,700.00. I refused and said that was fraud.
They got to the scales and said the wt was 14,250 lbs so it was going to be $4,300.00 which included $1,000.00 in packing supplies. I had packed everything except for a large mirror. They told me they would discount the packing supplies to $500.00 and it was going to cost me $3,800. and if I did not pay it, they were going to take my things off of the truck and leave them in a parking lot. They also refus. to give me a copy of the items they took. I called the police but they said it was civil and they could not help me.
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 06/21/2012 06:35 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/USA-Relocation-Services-Inc/Tarzana-California-91356/USA-Relocation-Services-Inc-USA-Relocation-Moving-Storage-When-they-had-my-furniture-th-901081. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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- Report: #860539
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: Supermedia
SupermediaKing of Prussia, PA Internet United States of America
Supermedia Superpages Beware of pay per click by supermedia Internet
*UPDATE Employee: Customer Service
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As it turns out thats not true, what they ment by that was you can stop the pay per click but for 1 year it will cost you anywhere from 150.00 to 260.00 per month depending on what they want to charge you. I say that because after I stopped the pay per clicks I was told it would be 149.00 per month but for the past 3 months I was billed between 220.00 and 260.00.
I have contacted the billing department every month and nobody will give me a good answer for the additional charges and insteasd tell me they have opened a ticket for me. I believe I have 4 tickets opened and nobody has called me back or answered my billing problem or questions.
By the way the slick salesperson who I thought was going to do everything for me won't return my calls. All I can say is read the fine print... The marketing did nothing for me. I do way better with free programs like google, etc.
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 03/28/2012 12:30 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Supermedia/internet/Supermedia-Superpages-Beware-of-pay-per-click-by-supermedia-Internet-860539. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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#1 UPDATE Employee
Customer Service
AUTHOR: SuperMedia LLC - (United States of America)
SUBMITTED: Thursday, March 29, 2012POSTED: Thursday, March 29, 2012
I promise someone will get back to you within 48 hours with an update
Are you an owner, employee or ex-employee with either negative or positive information about the company or individual, or can you provide "insider information" on this company?
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This review is from: TP-LINK Archer T2U AC600 Mini Wireless Dual Band Adapter, 2.4GHz 150Mbps/5Ghz 433Mbps,One-Button Setup,Windows XP/7/8
Pros: Incredibly small, has good reception (I was worried about that). and for win8.1 is was plug and play.
Cons: none
Other Thoughts: its got a green status LED when ever its sending and receiving dataREAD FULL REVIEW
This review is from: LEPA V17 17" Notebook/Laptop slim Cooling Pad w/ 140mm Blue LED Fan LPCP001
Pros: Dropped the Laptop temps significantly. The fan at max speed is still very quiet. on low its practically silent.
Cons: NothingREAD FULL REVIEW
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Pros: Faster than my old 8gb SD card
Cons: noneREAD FULL REVIEW