A blog mostly dedicated to cinema (including both new and old film reviews; commentary; and as the URL suggests - movie lists, although it has been lacking in this area to be honest), but on occasion touching on other areas of personal interest to me.
Here's a very nicely put together montage of Oscar-nominated movies ahead of Sunday night's awards. It incorporates clips from 30 of the 42 feature-length films that have at least one nomination, including blink-and-you'll-miss-it clips from Youth, Joy, A War, Brooklyn, Amy, and Embrace of the Serpent. And it's very heavy on Sicario, The Revenant, and Mad Max. I am especially impressed that it goes out of its way to incorporate all five foreign language nominees and three of the documentaries.
So now that I've posted reviews of all the Friday the 13th films along with lists and ratings of all the deaths in those films, I've compiled my Top Ten of all those deaths. For this list I have not considered deaths of Jason or accidental deaths or deaths at the hands of anyone else. Only those perpetrated by Mrs. Voorhees (Friday the 13th); Roy (Friday the 13th: A New Beginning); and Jason (Part II; Part III; Part IV; Part VI; Part VII; Part VIII; Jason Goes to Hell; Jason X; Freddy vs. Jason) have been considered.
In retrospect, my individual ratings were sometimes a little skewed. I have included the rating I applied when I reviewed the film, but in some cases I have chosen a "7" over and "8" because my reaction now is stronger.
Honorable mentions:
- In Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning Junior's head is chopped off while riding his motorcycle in circles whining to his mother about getting his ass kicked earlier (6).
- In Friday the 13th Part 3 Vera has a harpoon fired directly into her eye from long distance (7).
- In Friday the 13th Part 3 Andy gets cut in half as he walks on his hands (6).
- In Freddy vs. Jason Freeburg is sliced completely in half by a machete (7).
Here's a really interesting roundtable discussion with several prominent actors who have all been the recipients of year-end awards and nominations for films in 2011. Without the hindrance of a TV audience and the need to be conciliatory for the sake of promoting a film, they give honest opinions and use honest language. We don't often get to see movie stars in this light - just regular people discussing the industry they work in without the gloss. Normally we either get speeches of praise for directors and costars or the occasional YouTube video that reveals how stars sometimes fall to pieces.
A friend of mine sent me this great video - a trailer for a generic Oscar contender. It's very well done and although it incorporates a lot of obvious cliches as jokes, it's spot on and quite funny.
This TED talk exemplifies at a fundamental level some of the problems I have with so many opinions in the world. "Everyone's entitled to their own opinion...but you know what you're not entitled to? You're not entitled to your own facts," he says just before launching into a rant against denialism. He covers the loons who champion the elimination of newborn vaccinations and growing number of people (for the most part of both privilege and wealth, I have to say) who campaign against GM foods.
What's most troubling to me, however, is reading the comments below the video. I know, that's always a bad idea for thinking people. But there's a startling number of people who've written comments basically assailing his talk because they're skeptical of the science. Specter is giving a talk about how the scientific method as a process for finding facts, truth and answers is the best way to understand things in the world.
He says people like Jenny McCarthy, who campaign against disease vaccinations because of a ridiculously mistaken belief that they cause autism, are responding to anecdotal evidence rather than scientific evidence. Specter even comes out and says, "I understand why people think that," in addition to saying that we should ask questions and ask for evidence and proof. But once the proof has been provided, it's necessary to accept it. We can't deny science when it comes to policy and broad solutions.
Then people watch this talk and say, "I'm skeptical of science." Making a statement like that is a complete misunderstanding of how science works. The vaccine/autism link wasn't disproved by one scientist in a single lab. This was years of research done in several countries, each of which found no evidence of a causal link. That's how science works - through extensive research and experimentation, peer review, follow-up experiments.
What Michael Specter says in this video seems so self-evident to me. It saddens me to realize how many people will carry on without deference to facts.
