USA 2003 | Regi: Clint Eastwood | Spilletid: 137 min | IMDb

Mystic River åpner med bildene av tre gutter som spiller landhockey i gatene. Men idyll forvandles fort til det motsatte idet en bil stopper opp. En av guttene blir lurt med i baksetet, intetanende om at de i førersetet snart skal forgripe seg på ham.

Etter at tiden har gått og guttene blitt voksne, har de også vokst fra hverandre. Tim Robbins spiller mannen med den traumatiske fortiden, og det er han som blir mistenkt når et drap begås i nabolaget. Kevin Baconspiller sjefsetterforskeren som var en av de tre guttene i kameratgjengen. Den siste, spilt av Sean Penn, er offerets far. Et komplekst drama med masse følelser og psykologi involvert starter.

Clint Eastwood har laget en ambisiøs film. Det skal han ha. Stødig regiarbeid er det også. Dramaturgisk velfungerende og alt føles veldig korrekt. Kanskje litt for korrekt.

Filmen er basert på en bestselger av en roman, forfattet av Dennis Lehane, hvorpå Brian Helgeland har gjort verket om til et filmmanus. Helgeland gjorde det samme med James Ellroys L.A. Confidential for noen år siden, noe han vant en Oscar for. Helgeland skrev også manuset til Eastwoods forrige film, den langt mer middelmådige Blood Work (2002).

Mystic River favner bredt, noe som tildels også føles som et ørlite lite problem filmen drar med seg hele veien. Det er så mye som trekkes frem at man, på tross av filmens lengde, ikke rekker å gripe ordentlig fast i deler av plottet. Det kan virke som om Helgeland har ønsket å ta med alle bihistoriene fra romanen over til filmen. Film er imidlertid et helt annet medium, der det rett og slett ikke er rom for alle detaljer som finnes innbundet i ordinær bokstørrelse.

Filmen lider også litt under en nokså forutsigbar krimhistorie. Når undertegnede har "gjettet" seg til drapsmannen før halvtimen har gått (og jeg er vanligvis ikke noe god på sånt), ser man også fort hvor konstruert den biten av historien er. Men heldigvis har filmen mye mer ved seg enn et mord som skal løses, selv om det riktignok later til å være filmens hovedingrediens.

Dette var forsåvidt en noe negativ innledning på en anmeldelse av noe jeg faktisk anser som en meget god film. Årsaken er ikke bare den stødige regien, hvor en historie brettes ut uten at det tys til de voldsomme virkemidlene, men først og fremst grunnet ekstraordinære skuespillerprestasjoner som griper en. Sean Penn er skummelt god allerede fra første scene. Du ser at Jimmy Markum er en levende person, med et sinne og en personlighet som er forståelig og troverdig. Han gir liv til en karakter som virkelig er tredimensjonal.

Mystic River er utvilsomt et drama som drives frem på bakgrunn av karakterer vi utvikler et nyansert forhold til. Et karakterstudie som innbyr til utfordringer for skuespillerne, der det blir en enkel oppgave å skille de gode fra de mindre gode. Den oppgaven har Eastwood tatt på alvor. Kevin Bacon er god. Tim Robbins er enda bedre. Sistnevnte er kanskje ingen skuespiller med det store reportoaret, men i denne nedtonede settingen er han minst like fremragende som han var i The Shawshank Redemption. Disse tre utgjør trekløveret som binder filmen sammen. Men det er tvingende nødvendig med gode biroller for at det skal fungere i filmer som dette. Det har Mystic River. Marcia Gay Harden er (som alltid) spesielt god. Det lyser også av Laurence Fishburne, Laura Linney og Tom Guiry.

Mystic River er en mørk og trist film, der det sakte tempoet forsterker effekten av den tragiske historien. Dessverre står kanskje ikke avslutningen i stil med resten. Men etter å ha sett filmen for andre og tredje gang begynner også dét å gi god smak...

O portal norte-americano FilmSite, especializado em rankings, acaba de atualizar sua lista anual com as mais chocantes cenas de mortes do cinema. No total, são contabilizados momentos memoráveis das telas desde a década de 30, quando o hábito de sair para assistir a filmes começou a ficar freqüente.

De um total de mais de 100 longas-metragens, confira algumas cenas que marcaram as décadas de 70, 80, 90 e 2000. Para quem não assistiu a alguns dos filmes, os relatos a seguir podem contar partes importantes do enredo.

O Exorcista (1973)
Direção: William Friedkin

Cansado de tentar exorcizar o demônio Pazuzu do corpo da menina Regan (Linda Blair), o padre Karras (Jason Miller) resolve provocá-lo e questiona seus poderes ao pedir que ele o possua. O demônio atende o pedido e entra no corpo de Karras, que resiste à sua influência e se joga pela janela, rolando degraus de escada e morrendo no final dela. A cena é tão clássica que a escadaria utilizada para rodar o filme, em Georgetown, virou ponto turístico e patrimônio histórico da cidade.

Tubarão (1975)
Direção: Steven Spielberg

O clássico Tubarão é repleto de cenas memoráveis de mortes, mas a mais bem-sucedida delas provavelmente é a do próprio vilão do filme, o tubarão assassino. Depois de perder várias pessoas pelos ataques freqüentes do monstro marinho, Brody (Roy Scheider) engana o bicho e joga um tanque de oxigênio dentro de sua boca. Depois de cambalear enlouquecidamente, o tubarão ainda leva vários tiros.

A Profecia (1976)
Direção: Richard Donner

Depois de tentar encontrar uma solução para matar o assustador menino Damien, interpretado por Harvey Stephens, filho do demônio em pessoa, o fotógrafo David Warner (Keith Jennings) é decapitado após ser atingido por um bloco de vidro, que cai de um caminhão. Sua cabeça rola no ar e espirra sangue, chocando os que estavam ao seu redor. O filme ainda reúne outra cena memorável: mostrando todo o seu amor a Damien, a babá (Holly Palance) resolve se enforcar durante a festinha de 6 anos do pequeno demônio.

Carrie, A Estranha (1976)
Direção: Brian De Palma

Depois de ser banhada por sangue de porco no baile de formatura, Carrie (Sissy Spacek) usa seus poderes sobrenaturais, até então ocultos, para matar cada aluno que atravessa o seu caminho das mais variadas formas.

Alien (1979)
Direção: Ridley Scott

O clássico de 1979 tem uma cena inesquecível. Durante um jantar na nave Nostromo, Kane (John Hurt) tem seu corpo dilacerado por uma criatura alienígena que sai de seu peito. Sangue e pedaços de órgãos voam para todo lado, em um dos momentos menos esperados do longa-metragem.

O Iluminado (1980)
Direção: Stanley Kubrick

O aterrorizante O Iluminado usa da psicologia para tentar retirar dos espectadores seus maiores medos. Ninguém esperava, porém, que a morte do amalucado personagem Jack (Jack Nicholson), que persegue sua família com um machado após ser influenciado por espíritos de um hotel vazio, seria tão simples. Depois de perseguir o filho e a mulher fora do local, o assassino não resiste ao frio e amanhece duro como pedra, congelado pela baixa temperatura.

Sexta-feira 13 (1980)
Direção: Sean Cunningham

No primeiro Sexta-Feira 13, Jason Voorhes nem existia, mas sua mãe já saía matando os adolescentes de um acampamento, indignada com a morte por afogamento de seu querido filho. É num desses assassinatos que Jack Burrell (Kevin Bacon) é agarrado e tem uma lança atravessada em sua garganta, provocando um mar de sangue em sua cama.

A Hora do Pesadelo (1984)
Direção: Wes Craven

Johnny Depp, em começo de carreira, fazia filmes adolescentes do gênero B. Talvez ele não soubesse o quanto a série A Hora do Pesadelo se tornaria famosa. Na cena de sua morte, o personagem é engolido pela cama e reduzido a sangue, muito sangue, que se espalha por todo o quarto e choca sua mãe.

Pânico (1996)
Direção: Wes Craven

O massacre dos adolescentes da série Pânico começa quando a personagem de Rose McGowan decide pegar algumas cervejas na garagem e é esfaqueada pelo maníaco mascarado. Como se não bastasse, o homicida resolve amassar a cabeça da jovem ao prensá-la entre o portão e uma parede.

A Outra História Americana [1998]
Direção: Tony Kaye

O neonazista Derek tem o ódio em seu coração. O ápice de sua raiva acontece logo no começo do filme, quando ele manda um de seus inimigos colocar a boca em uma sarjeta e pisa em sua cabeça, destruindo seu maxilar e o matando instantaneamente.

O Chamado (2002)
Direção: Gore Verbinski

Depois de tórridas cenas de investigação, o grand finale acontece quando a medonha aberração Samara Morgan (Daveigh Chase) sai da televisão e engatinha em direção a Noah (Martin Henderson), que já estava amaldiçoado pela fita de vídeo assombrada.

A Paixão de Cristo (2004)
Direção: Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson foi alvo de críticas e elogios pelas cenas de tortura de Paixão de Cristo. Na hora da crucificação de Jesus (Jim Caviezel), há closes em suas mãos e pernas sendo pregadas. Posteriormente, ele dá seu último suspiro e morre sob um banho de sangue.

A Casa de Cera (2005)
Direção: Jaume Collet-Serra

A Casa de Cera não chamou muita atenção nos cinemas, exceto pela cena em que a personagem vivida por Paris Hilton, em sua grande estréia nas telas, é morta por uma lança atravessada em sua testa.

This is not only one of my favorite songs from The The, but one of my all time favorites, in general. And it got me thinking about Sinead O'Connor.

I've never been a huge fan. I enjoyed the first album, but nothing she did after really resonated with me. However, she somehow has been involved in some of my favorite songs from other artists who's music I've always enjoyed.

Check out her work with The Edge on "Heroine," a song from his soundtrack album for a film called "Captive." (no video for this, but someone did put it to YouTube)

Thanks to Julia Turner, who turned me onto this album - and specifically, this song - while at college. The rest of this album is very moody and ambient and not really like this song. But this song made it on most of my college mix tapes and still stands as one of my favorite.

It is the feeling one gets from discovering a little known song like this that attracts me every day to the potential of NewTunes. It is my hope that people have experiences like finding a song like this every day on our site.

But, back to Sinead O'Connor. One of Peter Gabriel's more moving songs - Blood of Eden - featured none other than our own Sinead O'Connor.

O'Connor's first album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987. While working on that, she also provided backing vocals for Karl Wallinger's band, World Party. Not only did she sing on the song "Private Revolution," but she also appeared in the video.

As I said, I've never been enough of a fan to purchase any of her music past Lion and the Cobra, but I'm fascinated by how entranced I am every time she performs with someone else. I don't want to fill this post with videos, but here's a short list of others with whom she's been involved...

• Enya
• Jah Wobble
• Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers (but that was dating))
• Dave Stewart (Eurythmics)
• Wyclef Jean
• Moby
• Prince
• Bono
• Roger Daltrey
• Elton John
• Roger Waters
• MC Lyte
• Transvision Vamp
• Kris Kristofferson
• Bob Dylan
• ...and I'm sure I'm missing even more

But I wonder if she knows Kevin Bacon.

1. Molly loves her job so much that she's cried at work. Out of sheer misery.

2. Everyday, Molly and Kayla meet at Blockhead's for $3 margaritas. Somedays, they drink their dinner. Other days, the former just vents about having too much work. And the latter vents about having... none.

3. An air-conditioner proved to be a valid investment after three days of 100-degree weather.

4. Convinced that we had 'bedbugs' after furnishing our room with street furniture, we fought the bites like none other. Molly told a supervisor that it had been a good couple days in the city because she had gotten "NO BUG BITES!"

5. Last Saturday, Kayla went to a birthday party and returned home a little spritzed. After a robust showing of Xanadu and returning home to no air conditioning, Molly stripped down to her skivvies and laid by Kayla's windows. Kayla returned home around 2 a.m. to find Molly, aptly clothed in black lace lingerie, awaiting her arrival. Really, it was just hot as shit and they both needed some air.

Needless to say, we are taking the Chinatown bus to Boston next weekend to legalize our civil union.

6. Kayla and Molly normally wear many hats. Fedoras, sombreros, berets, we've worn them all. So, it was only fitting that we put on our "college party" hats for our first real Friday night in the city... especially since our banker friends, making the big bucks, were buying our drinks. Molly pulled on her hat so tightly that when the shot of Patron came around (after we got picked to enter the bar from a crowd of saucy Mexicans) that she dry-heaved almost all the way to the Empire State Building. Might we say that the view was phenomenal. We went to the West Village, then, to a swanky joint, where Kayla chopsticked some kid's 3 a.m. scallop sliders because she was too poor to eat dinner.

It should have been a peaceful ride home, but neither of us (SHOCK) had any cash. As Mo likes to say, "Why use cash when you can use 'Bank of America: Keep the Change:'?" I agree. Since the cabbie's credit card machine was broken, we decided to challenge him.

"I'LL CALL THE POLICE!" the cab driver said.

"I DARE YOU TO CALL THE M-F-ING POLICE," said Molly,

Needless to say, we did then enjoy a peaceful in Hell's Kitchen.

7. It was around noon when Kayla "dragged" Molly out of bed to embark on an epic journey to Rockaway Beach, where her childhood friends, Laurel and Kelsey, were visiting. After a hangover and a half, we boarded the A train and switched about 4355777730 times before arriving at 90th St. Kayla almost puked at every subway stop, and she "shushed" the kid singing on the train. Molly refused to take off her sunglasses, until we arrived at Jeremy and Clare's house.

Since Mo hadn't eaten, we wandered around Rockaway for some grub, and nothing presented itself. Finally, the clouds parted and a "Bagel Joint" appeared. We ran toward it, only to find kids' clothes at discount prices inside and a sign that read "NO BAGEL" on the exterior. The only chain for a mile was Popeye's.

It was then we ventured inside a deli where Molly refused to get a sandwich because there were flies swarming around the non-refrigerated meat. She settled for a bag of SunChips, and offered to get Kayla a bottle of water, and we proceeded to the counter. It was then we saw a mother deck her child ("You're pissin' me off!") and the clerk told us that there was a $10 minimum.

Molly: I would not work for ONE hour to eat SunChips at this god-forsaken deli.

Kayla: I hear ya.

Upon that statement, Kayla set down her half-drunk bottle of Poland Springs on the shelf of the Rockaway Deli. It might be like a time capsule. I bet you would still be able to find it 10 years from now.

8. Jeremy and Clare "Clark" Hilger are the best hosts ever. They deserve an award.

9.  The Laurel Jones quote of the week, on hearing that there's an airbed upstairs: OR we could fill it with WATER and make it a WATERBED and have a REAL PARTY. (End quote.)

10. We just got corndogs for dinner and Molly said, "That's why homeless people are so fat. Bad shit is cheap."

Herkunft und Jahr: USA 2003

Originaltitel: Mystic River

Regie: Clint Eastwood

Darsteller: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, ...

Genre: Drama

Inhalt:

Einst waren sie Jugendfreunde, Jimmy, Sean und Davey, bis ein Verbrechen alles zerstörte. Zwei Männer, die sich als Polizisten ausgeben, entführen eines Tages Davey und mißbrauchen ihn daraufhin tagelang, bis er schließlich entkommen kann.
30 Jahre später ist nichts davon vergessen, die Wunden sind vernarbt, aber sie schmerzen noch. Jimmy (Sean Penn) ist nach einer Gefängnisstrafe jetzt ruhiger geworden, verheiratet und Vater zweier Töchter. Davey leidet, trotz glücklicher Ehe immer noch unter den Ereignissen von damals, während Sean (Kevin Bacon) inzwischen Polizist geworden ist.
Als Jimmys ältere Tochter Opfer eines brutalen Verbrechens wird, nutzt Sean seine beruflichen Kompetenzen für einen privaten Rachefeldzug, in den auch seine immer noch mit ihm verbundenen Freunde mit hineingezogen werden...

Kritik:

Wieder mal ein toller Film von Clint Eastwood. Das Drama zwischen den 3 Freunden ist packend inszeniert. Das Ende ist eventuell etwas übertrieben.

Wertung: 9/10

IMDb

E pra começo de conversa, uma análise exclusiva do primeiro filme da série Sexta-Feira 13, hoje um dos mais populares do gênero e que, neste dia maldito, completa 28 anos.

SEXTA-FEIRA 13 (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980)

O Acampamento de Crystal Lake é um verdadeiro paraíso... Localizado nas imediações de Nova Jersey a extensa área remete àqueles lugares onde se vai pra passar o resto de sua vida, já extremamente produtiva por tantos anos de trabalho... Só que o filme desse acampamento já foi devidamente queimado por um casal de jovens que, movidos a tesão, deixaram um garoto deficiente morrer afogado no imenso lago que circula a região. Isso foi em 1957. O corpo da criança nunca foi encontrado. E foi exatamente aí que os problemas começaram. Um ano depois, o suposto casal que deixou o menino se afogar, é violentamente assassinado, enquanto se entregavam a folguedos românticos...

Após isso, o acampamento permaneceu fechado e ganhou a fama de local maldito pelos residentes da pacata e pequena cidade de Crystal Lake. E assim ficou por mais de 20 anos, com algumas pífias tentativas de reabertura que nunca se concretizavam, pois alguém ou alguma coisa sempre atrapalhava. Até 1980 quando o filho dos donos do local, Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer) resolve investir mais uma vez no acampamento, justamente para aproveitar as férias de julho. Para isso contrata um bando de garotos na faixa dos 20 anos para ajudá-lo na tarefa. Mas sempre dizem que desenterrar passado é querer se sujar e um a um, são TODOS mortos violentamente num festival sádico que inclui lanças no pescoço, machadadas na cara, esgorjamentos, flechadas em várias partes do corpo, entre outras atrocidades...

Lançado na esteira do sucesso do clássico Halloween - A Noite do Terror, Sexta-Feira 13 sedimentou os parâmetros criados pela obra-prima de John Carpenter. A partir deste filme, somente a criação de um clima de suspense e tensão não era suficiente... Era necessário acrescentar galões e galões de sangue pra chocar o público. Talvez seja isso que torne Sexta-Feira 13 um ícone muito mais popular do que o seu antecessor e principal inspirador: a capacidade de chocar o público com cenas extremamente violentas aditivadas com suspense e tensão. Mas mais do que isso, há um tom iconoclasta e um moralismo às avessas que acredito terem sido os responsáveis pela esperiência saborosa que é assistí-lo (com todas as suas virtudes e todos os seus [muitos] defeitos) e pela sua longevidade, completando nesta data exata (13 de junho) 28 anos de idade.

É difícil estabelecer as razões pelas quais um slasher faz sucesso. O que move as pessoas a irem ao cinema para ver 90 minutos de alguém matando outras pessoas? Sexta-Feira 13 é herdeiro direto de toda uma geração de filmes trash, feitos para os Grindhouses dos anos 70, onde seus diretores não faziam concessões e utilizavam de todos os recursos possíveis e imagináveis para atrair público. Isso implicava na falta de pudor em relação à violência - que era explícita - e com relação ao sexo, dois fatores que atraem mais gente ao cinema do que um lobo às ovelhas.

Mas há algo em Sexta-Feira 13 que o diferencia dos demais slashers (inclusive de suas sequências, todas inferiores). É um filme quase judeu, de certo modo, onde a menor das infrações é punida severamente, tudo no velho esquema "olho por olho, dente por dente". No caso do filme, o jovem é castrado pelo mundo adulto por ser inconsequente e lascivo. Esses dois comportamentos tão comuns no jovem abalizam e justificam a sua morte pelas mãos de um adulto, alguém que possui uma moral supostamente ilibada, com conceitos bem definidos de certo e errado e que, portanto, precisa corrigir o irresponsável, o imoral e o distorcido jovem. Se for necessário tirar a sua vida, tanto melhor.

O que Sexta-Feira 13 faz, de forma absolutamente brilhante é personificar esse "adulto corretor" na figura de uma mãe e é esta jogada que o torna um filme tremendamente assustador, comparável aos grandes filmes do gênero terror, seja pelo fato de ser uma mulher a responsável pelo massacre impensado de quem quer que pise no acampamento, seja pelo fato de ser uma mãe, o que levantaria questionamentos do tipo "como pode uma mãe, uma pessoa que gera a vida, tirá-la de forma tão discriminada e sádica?", seja pela possibilidade REAL de, no mais profundo inconsciente do ser humano, imaginar que possa existir uma mãe que faça as coisas que o filme mostra.

Mas não é só. Seu caráter levítico-vingativo-moralista atinge uma parte do expectador que ele não revela no seu cotidiano: a catarse em testemunhar a morte do outro de uma maneira confortável e sem culpa. Não à toa, o suspense do filme é montado de forma a gerar tensão na espera da próxima morte, sempre. Mais do que isso, o filme revela o moralismo contido no próprio expectador, já que este vibra a cada morte de mais um jovem promíscuo. Faz lembrar a sequência do estupro em Laranja Mecânica, onde a reação padrão da platéia é o riso diante de uma cena aterradora. É o cinema extraindo do ser humano a sua falta de bom senso. E isso vindo de um slasher concebido para faturar em cima do sucesso da obra prima de John Carpenter não é pouco não.

Dizem que o sucesso de Sexta-Feira 13 se deve mais ao faro de marketing de Cunningham do que de seu talento como cineasta. Isso soa a uma falácia. Embora o filme possua problemas narrativos e de direção gritantes, há escolhas estéticas que NUNCA mais foram repetidas com a mesma eficiência nas sequências e que aqui contribuem para a criação de uma atmosfera perturbadora. Câmera subjetiva, momentos de silêncio aterradores, escuridão em momentos chave, enfim, clichês típicos de qualquer filme de terror, mas aqui utilizados de uma forma que gerou o resultado final interessante, mesmo que apelativo, porém que sobrevive até hoje.

É uma pena, entretanto, que esses predicados tenham sido diluídos nas sequências, onde Jason representa apenas a moral, e como esta não morre, ele também insiste em voltar. Mas até aí, nós também sempre voltamos... voltamos de tempos em tempos a ver ou rever esses filmes e perpetrando o seu moralismo que sempre negamos ter.

3/4

Daniel Costa

Top! do Leitor:

Meursault

1. Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)
2. Beatrice Cenci (Lucio Fulci, 1969)
3. Prelúdio Para Matar (Dario Argento, 1975)
4. O Enigma do Outro Mundo (John Carpenter, 1982)
5. Filhos do Medo (David Cronenberg, 1979)
6. Irmãs Diabólicas (Brian De Palma, 1973)
7. Dellamorte Dellamore (Michele Soavi, 1994)
8. Rabid Dogs (Mario Bava, 1974)
9. O Inquilino (Roman Polanski, 1976)
10. Scanners (David Cronenberg, 1981)

Tops! da Equipe:

Jailton Rocha

Quando se fala em terror a primeira palavra que vem a mente é medo. Um filme de terror eficiente então seria aquele que consegue te passar essa sensação de maneira plena. Sendo assim, o que mais me passou medo seria Chamas da Morte. Não por se tratar de um "ótimo filme de terror", e sim por tê-lo visto quando criança, sendo provavelmente o primeiro filme de terror “hard core” que vi, ficando impressionado com tamanha violência e loucura (assisti na TV com o nome de A Vingança de Cropsy). Nunca mais o vi desde então, mas ainda o guardo na lembrança, só que se o revisse hoje, com certeza, não teria o mesmo impacto de antes. Impacto esse que ainda guardo dos demais filmes dessa relação, que sempre vejo e revejo. Cada um ao seu modo, representa não só esse medo que um filme de terror teria que ter, mas outras coisas que também fazem parte desse universo: insanidade, violência, desespero, é que posso citar agora. Temos medo e muito medo com filmes como Alien, O Iluminado, A Hora do Pesadelo e Halloween; insanidade total em filmes como Evil Dead II e A Mosca; e violência e desespero em Sexta-feira 13 e Despertar dos Mortos. E para provar definitivamente que esse não é um gênero fechado que aceita uma coisa só, o humor característica que se pode julgar como algo contrário ao que um filme terror tenta passar, muitas vezes se apresenta de forma bem eficiente. Um Lobisomem Americano em Londres é um exemplo disso. Humor e Terror juntos em harmonia. Com isso tudo a palavra que pode definir melhor os filmes do gênero a meu ver é surrealismo, já que assim tudo vale, e sempre vamos nos deparar aqui com o irreal, o bizarro, o desconhecido, entre outras coisas, fazendo desse gênero uma coisa bem especial.

01. Sexta-feira 13 (Sean S. Cunnigham, 1980)
02. Evil Dead II - Uma Noite Alucinante (Sam Raimi, 1988)
03. Alien - o 8º Passageiro (Ridley Scott, 1979)
04. O Iluminado (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
05. A Hora do Pesadelo (Wes Craven, 1984)
06. Halloween - A Noite do Terror (John Carpenter, 1978)
07. Um Lobisomem Americano em Londres (John Landis, 1981)
08. Despertar dos Mortos (George Romero, 1978)
09. A Mosca (David Cronneberg, 1986)
10. Chamas da Morte (Tony Maylam, 1981)

Daniel Dalpizzolo

Não sou daqueles que sentem medo vendo filmes – cara foda, hein – e mesmo assim, embora alguns considerem este o sentimento base do gênero em questão, sou fascinado por filmes de horror. Acredito que as escolhas deste TOP! foram feitas menos pelo tormento que estes filmes me proporcionam e mais pelo próprio tormento que os constroem. Por que mesmo na frieza de um rolo de celulóide são encontrados sentimentos. Estes são, portanto, meus filmes perturbados preferidos.

01. A Tortura do Medo (Michael Powell, 1960)
02. Repulsa ao Sexo (Roman Polanski, 1965)
03. The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, 1995)
04. A Hora do Lobo (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)
05. Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
06. Gêmeos (David Cronenberg, 1988)
07. Os Olhos Sem Rosto (Georges Franju, 1960)
08. Prelúdio Para Matar (Dario Argento, 1975)
09. Os Inocentes (Jack Clayton, 1961)
10. Inverno de Sangue em Veneza (Nicholas Roeg, 1973)

Adney Silva

De todos os "gêneros" (escrevo entre aspas porquê separar os filmes em gêneros é uma tarefa um tanto quanto complicada) cinematográficos, o terror é o que consegue, ao mesmo tempo, ser execrado pelos baluartes do ramo (sendo referido como um gênero menor), e amado por milhões de expectadores. Talvez isso aconteça principalmente pelo enorme fascínio que o medo (e suas variações: pavor, temor, terror, asco, nojo, etc...) causa no ser humano. Quem de nós não ficou acordado até mais tarde quando criança esperando aquele filme que o seu irmão mais velho (ou qualquer outro conhecido de idade mais avançada) disse que "era aterrorizante, e que você não conseguiria ver até o fim"? Esse fascínio por esse gênero fez com que muitos cineastas fizessem inúmeras obras-primas. Dentre elas, destaco as seguintes:

01. Os Pássaros (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
02. O Exorcista (Willian Friendkin, 1973)
03. M: O Vampiro de Dusseldorf (Fritz Lang, 1931)
04. Alien – O 8º Passageiro (Ridley Scott, 1979)
05. A Mosca (David Cronenberg, 1986)
06. O Bebê de Rosemary (Roman Polanski, 1969)
07. Halloween (John Carpenter,1978)
08. Extermínio (Danny Boyle, 2002)
09. Prelúdio Para Matar (Dario Argento, 1975)
10. Carrie, A Estranha (Brian de Palma, 1976)

Djonata Ramos

É sempre ruim ordenar um top de preferência com filmes tão brilhantes e que, de certa forma, me marcaram em momentos tão distintos da minha vida. Isso em qualquer gênero, obviamente. Não sei bem qual o critério que estabeleci, não é bem o ato de causar medo, mas o de me torturar, de me fazer roer as unhas, de esfregar os pés incessantemente ao assistí-los. E claro, de me fazer ouvir sons estranhos ao tentar dormir, e, por isso, dormir de luz ligada.

01. O Bebê de Rosemary (Roman Polanski, 1968)
02. O Exorcista (William Friedkin, 1973)
03. O Iluminado (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
04. Psicose (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
05. Carrie, A Estranha (Brian De Palma, 1976)
06. A Profecia (Richard Donner, 1976)
07. Extermínio (Danny Boyle, 2002)
08. A Morte do Demônio (Sam Raimi, 1981)
09. A Mosca (David Cronenberg, 1986)
10. Fome Animal (Peter Jackson, 1992)

Sílvio Tavares

Diante da falta de esperança e o sentimento de insatisfação que permeia nossa sociedade, o terror é um gênero que encontra eco em nossos anseios secretos (aqueles mesmos que nos fazem parar frente à televisão quando presenciamos uma cena de enorme violência), no extravasar de nossas emoções mais profundamente abomináveis e no inexplicável prazer em ver a destruição e a degeneração. O cinema explora as diversas vertentes e possibilidades de forma mágica, perturbadora, psicológica e por vezes até poética proporcionando um dos gêneros mais ricos e variados de todos os existentes. Uma pequena lista dos mais marcantes pra mim:

01. A Noite dos Mortos Vivos (George Romero, 1968)
02. A Morte do Demônio (Sam Raimi, 1981)
03. Medo (Ji-Woon Kim, 2003)
04. A Hora do Lobo (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
05. Jogos Mortais (James Wan, 2004)
06. A Mão do Diabo (Bill Paxton, 2001)
07. O Gabinete do Doutor Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
08. Coração Satânico (Alan Parker, 1987)
09. O Bebê de Rosemary (Roman Polanski, 1968)
10. O Massacre da Serra Elétrica (Tobe Hooper, 1974)

Marcelo Dillenburg

Embora seja frequentemente tratado como um gênero menor, o terror possui uma característica que lhe abre possibilidades tais que, quando bem exploradas, podem levar a resultados fascinantes. A característica em questão é a possibilidade de usar um dos sentimentos mais intrínsecos ao ser humano - o medo - para refletir sobre aspectos inerentes ao nosso cotidiano. Ou você acha que um zumbi do Romero é só um zumbi?

01. A Noite dos Mortos Vivos (George Romero, 1968)
02. Alien – O Oitavo Passageiro (Ridley Scott, 1979)
03. O Gabinete do Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1919)
04. O Iluminado (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
05. Os Pássaros (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
06. Extermínio (Danny Boyle, 2002)
07. O Bebê de Rosemary (Roman Polanski, 1968)
08. Despertar dos Mortos (George Romero, 1978)
09. A Morte do Demônio – Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, 1981)
10. O Exorcista (William Friedkin, 1973)

Amílcar Figueiredo

Esse top não tem absolutamente nada - ou quase nada, já que mesmo o subconsciente deve ter uma parcela de racionalidade - que esteja de fora das minhas reações instintivas, primevas mesmo, sobre o que vem a ser o terror. São filmes que me fizeram sentir medo, repulsa e intranqüilidade durante a exibição e depois dela, tanto pela estória em si quanto pelo que ela representava. São filmes de estéticas diferenciadas e feitos pelos mais diversos diretores, com várias camadas do desconforto que gera a urgência que gera a mudança que gera o crescimento que, por fim, faz tão bem à espécie humana.

01. Alien - O Oitavo Passageiro (Ridley Scott, 1979)
02. Gêmeos - Mórbida Semelhança (David Cronemberg, 1988)
03. Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922)
04. O Bebê de Rosemary (Roman Polanski, 1968)
05. O Exorcista (William Friedkin, 1973)
06. O Gabinete do Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1919)
07. Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)
08. Carrie, a Estranha (Brian De Palma, 1976)
09. Wolf Creek - Viagem ao Inferno (Greg McLean, 2004)
10. Poltergeist, O Fenômeno (Tobe Hopper, 1982)

Pedro Kerr

O terror sofre o mesmo tipo de preconceito que comédia e musical, a dificuldade de muitas pessoas em aceitar a farsa, em ficar cobrando um filme mais quadrado. Tanto terror, quanto comédia, quanto musical, são geralmente mais 'inverossímeis', ficcionais, dependem muito da manipulação - tanto que tem gente que acha que um filme ser manipulador é necessariamente uma coisa ruim. Aí os filmes acabam meio que destacados dos outros, meio que numa categoria à parte, existem bons filmes, boas comédias e bons terrores, que nunca se misturam. Não por acaso, consideram que bom terror é um que causa mais medo, e boa comédia é a que te faz rir mais; que pra mim não podia ser mais longe da verdade. E é só ver que os filmes de terror mais aceitáveis para o público em geral, como O Exorcista e O Bebê de Rosemary são mais pé no chão e com uma temática religiosa mais digerível. Enfim, no meio dessa bagunça toda, aqui vão dez dos filmes que me atingem mais usando sua face de terror.

01. Prelúdio Para Matar (Dario Argento, 1975)
02. Zombie - O Despertar dos Mortos (George Romero, 1978)
03. Rabid Dogs (Mario Bava, 1974)
04. O Bebê de Rosemary (Roman Polanski, 1968)
05. Carrie, a Estranha (Brian De Palma, 1976)
06. Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)
07. Banho de Sangue (Mario Bava, 1971)
08. Gêmeos - Mórbida Semelhança (David Cronenberg, 1988)
09. A Morte do Demônio (Sam Raimi, 1981)
10. Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)

Guess what was on TV last night???  Only one of the most awesome movies of the 80’s and there were a lot of them.  “Footloose” starring Kevin Bacon.  You know the one where Ren (Kevin Bacon) moves to a small town from Chicago where he was in some kind of trouble…drugs.  But don’t say anything.  And the town is all strict and doesn’t allow any kind of nonsense especially dancing or Reverend Shaw Moore will condemn your very soul to Satan.  He has this crazy-ass daughter named Ariel. Not the mermaid, although they do have a lot in common.  Like difficulties getting along with their fathers, wanting to get out of their small towns or oceans, red boots, red hair, no legs, skinny legs.  That reminds of the scene where Ariel and Chuck have a fight because he has finally figured out that she likes Ren.  It took him a long time, because Chuck is, well, dumb.  Rusty, one of Ariel’s friends, (played by Sarah Jessica Parker-now we know where Carrie Bradshaw lived before she moved to NYC) said “Chuck never did have all his dogs barking.”  Hee, hee.  That’s pretty dumb.  Anyway, they are fighting and Chuck says “I guess you’ll wrap those skinny legs around anyone.”  Great line, but it hurt me almost as much as it hurt Ariel.  I cannot tell you how many times jealous, angry ex-boyfriends have said that exact same thing to me. I’m okay.  So then Chuck gets all mean and nasty and hits her, but man she doesn’t give up.  She gets up and goes all Carrie Underwood on his truck.

Okay, anyway, if you have not seen this movie in awhile, you should really watch it.  It is still a good movie with some great songs.  Of course Footloose by Kenny Loggins, Holding Out forA Hero by Bonnie Tyler, Dancing in the Sheets by Shalamar, The Girl Gets Around by none other than Slammy Hagar.   Remember that song is on when Ariel (played by Lori Singer-whatever happened to that skinny chick?  Anyone know?  Get back to me on that one) is straddling the two trucks heading down the highway almost hitting an oncoming diesel.  Let me tell you this is not as easy as it seems.  I mean first you have to like round up two really good drivers, stretch and get limber, psych yourself up and last but certainly not least, smoke like a ton of crack. 

I must discuss the fashions in this show.  Pretty bad.  What is up with all the high water, high-waisted jeans.  Did we really dress like that?  Yikes.  But nobody rocks high-waisted, tight, acid washed Lee jeans like the Bacon.  Speaking of the Bacon, did anyone remember that he had quite a bulge?  Especially in that scene where he is dancing at the mill,  I mean his sausage was smoking. Get it sausage-bacon-get it?  It’s a wiener reference. 

Let’s Hear It for the Boys is another really good song.  It is playing when Ren is trying to teach Willard (Chris Penn, rest in peace) to dance.  The boots on the bleachers scene is totally awesome.  I am going to throw in a Terry J. reference even though some people will argue with me about the similarities between Kevin Bacon and Terry J., but I still see it.  However, Willard reminds me of Troy B. (If you didn't go to high school with me, then you probably don't know Terry J. and Troy B. so consider yourselves lucky and bear with me one this one.)  So, in my mind, (which is a scary place) I keep picturing Terry J. trying to teach Troy B. to dance.  In my dreams.  Okay, so anyway, I think the Reverend has more to worry about than some dance.  Is it just me or did anyone notice that Ren and Willard were getting a little to close during those dance lessons?? Probably just me. But there is a scene where they are skipping and dancing and doing somersaults in a field of wildflowers.  Says love to me.

Okay, so here is my favorite scene.  Let me break it down for you:

They actually get to have a prom.  I think it was because Ren was all up in the Rev's face quoting scriptures at the Town Hall meeting and proved that God does in fact approve of dancing. 

 Almost Paradise is playing at the prom at the flour mill and no one is dancing and the camera is panning the crowd and I almost cried to see all those sweet, innocent, country kids just sitting in the their fine prom wear too scared to dance and I am feeling all sentimental for my prom and remembering what a great dancer I was and then, dude in the blue tux is picking his nose.  I mean not just a subtle little flick the boogie away, but digging like nobody’s business.  Yuck, I am so over this. 

If it was up to me those dumb, non-dancing, fashion-challenged, nose-pickin’ country kids would never have a prom, a dance, a square dance, a mixer, a barn raisin’, a cow milkin’, nothin’.  I mean the blue tux is bad enough, but picking the snoz at the prom.  How disgusting.

I almost forgot about the final fight scene when Willard and Rusty show up and Willard promises not to fight (he is a Penn), but Chuck (Ariel’s ex) shows up too.  Chuck and his goons start punching Willard. Then Ren shows up and Chuck says something like “Here he is… Mr. Dance Fever.” Chuck is so dumb. Kevin Bacon is not Mr. Dance Fever that was, uh, like Danny Terrio.  Rusty (sjp) was right.  Chuck doesn’t have all his dogs barking or cats meowing or cows mooing or ducks quacking.  I think you get my point. 

Then Ren and Willard proceed to kick ass.  Then they go in to the prom and …you guessed it… they dance.  Nothing says I just kicked some ass like a snappy kick ball change.  Okay, so now all the country kids are dancing, everyone is happy, that’s the end, yippee.

All in all, this is a good movie.  I have to admit that I did get up and dance a little.  And you know what?  I still got it.

Oh, I forgot to mention.  Did you know this movie was based on actual events that occurred in Elmore City, Oklahoma?  Oklahoma  Rocks!!! 

Here's a clip just in case you need a visual reminder of this awesome movie:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHomxiO-TEI

the air i breathe

The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.

A drama based on an ancient Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones: happiness, pleasure, sorrow and love.

What drew me to this film was the cast, Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia, Kevin Bacon, Julie Delpy, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Brendan Fraiser and Emile Hirsch.  My first thought was whoa, that is a lot of big names in one film.   Then when I read the description I knew I had to rent it.  

"the air i breathe" is broken down into four stories whose characters intertwine.  Without actually comparing "the air i breathe", this film is in the same vein as "Shortcuts", "Magnolia" or "Crash".  Now that I am at a computer I see the movie got mediocre to horrible reviews by the "professional critics", but I would recommend it regardless, many - many regular folks like you and me appear to have appreciated and enjoyed this film (see IMDB reviews).  It is very well acted, the cinematography is beautiful, and the soundtrack doesn't suck. I also believe it to be a film that either gender would appreciate equally.

Each of the main characters is struggling with one of these emotions.....Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, Love.  I particularly liked the fact that the characters were listed under their "emotion" in the credits and not by their character name (we never did learn their names), very nice touch.       

I really don't want to say much more about this film because getting into the plot will give too much away. I will admit that this film may not be for everyone, but I give it Four Tissues, even though I did not cry, "the air i breathe" was certainly worth the $4 I slapped down at the rental store. (go for it, it is worth the risk)

Sometimes the things we can't change...end up changing us.

Please note that the rental cover is different than the theatrical release.

OK, yes. An explanation may be in order. Lard is my new wonder fat for cooking with. It's got lots of unsaturated fats, less saturated fat than butter, and fries to a crispy finish. It also works very well in stuff - I made biscuits with it the other day that were just divine, dahlinks. Seriously, it's like the best fat to work with, in cooking terms. The only thing to remember is to buy the refrigerated kind that is non-hydrogenated; the hydrogenated kind contains trans-fats, which are teh evol.

Short digression about lard: lard comes in various grades. The best is called leaf lard, which is made from fat around the loin and kidneys; the next one down is from the fatback, which is unsurprisingly on the pig's back; and the least good grade is made from the caul covering internal organs. Most lard is made from a mixture of these fats. It has a high smoke point, a neutral flavour and is chock full of nice fats.

Anyway, so I'm sitting around thinking about lard, which leads me to start thinking about bacon, what with lard being rendered from the fatty parts of porkers. Bacon's brilliant. And has anyone else seen this? The thing I love about this product is that it is actually kosher. Comedy genius.

Anyway, thinking about bacon obviously started me thinking about Kevin Bacon. He's not as brilliant as actual (pigflesh) bacon, but he's still pretty good. I liked Flatliners, and one of his films, Pyrates, which also stars his wife Kyra Sedgwick, is unjustly overlooked, in my not so humble opinion. Sure, it's not Citizen Kane, but I liked it.

Which brings us not-so-neatly to the famous trivia game involving Kevin Bacon - six degrees of Kevin Bacon. The idea is an expansion of the famous (and somewhat inaccurate) axiom that there are never more than six degrees of separation between any two people in the world; there are, for example, four degrees of separation between me and George Bush - I have met my MP, who has met whichever non-entity happens to be current leader of the Liberal Democrats, who has met Tony Blair, who has met George Bush. The conceit of six degrees of Kevin Bacon is that any actor can be linked to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less, which leads to an actor's Bacon number, the number of links between that actor and Bacon. Ronald Reagan, for example, had a Bacon number of 2; Matthew Perry has a Bacon number of 3, because he was in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip with Ed Asner, who was in JFK with Kevin Bacon.

While I was thinking about Bacon numbers and the like, I happened to have my browser open and I caught sight of a recent comment, and thus was a new meme born. It's not exactly like SDoKB, but it evolved.

The way the meme works is this:

1. Go to the latest comment you have from someone else. Go to the blog of the person who made it. If that person doesn't have a blog, go to the next one.
2. Click the latest comment on that blog from someone else. Go to the blog of the person who made it. If that person doesn't have a blog, go to the next one.
3. Do this again until you have gone six blogs away. If anyone on the way doesn't have a latest comments widget, just pick the first comment you see.
4. Post about it. Tag at least a couple of other people.

Mine went:

1. Anxious Mofo commented on Thor is Angry!
2. Paul from Cafe Philos commented on Finally, someone takes a stand against irritating celebrities
3. Lirone commented on The Rain at Dawn
4. Michelle commented on Little boy’s toy…
5. noahthegreat commented on Monday Mural, and...
6. Bob at Average Poet commented on Actions...

I tag Gary and Lottie.

Currently listening to:
Shivaree - I Oughta Give You A Shot In The Head For Making Me Live In This Dump

Milla Jovovic - The Divine Comedy

THE AIR I BREATHE
I finally got around to seeing this on DVD. Frist time i saw the trailer for it i was very intrigued with the concept. I was really hoping this would be a great movie and i must say it met my expectations. First of all the cast is really good, each character does the best they can with their role. Surprisingly Sarah Michelle Gellar does a decent job, probably her best work ever. Same goes with Brendan Fraser. I always found him as a bit of an over actor. But he plays this part so calm and cool that he proved himself that he can take on a serious role. But the real show stealer is Emile Hirsch. His small part was fun, effective, and probably the best part of the film. As for the actual plot, it has some good concepts and ideas but its not without it faults. Some parts of the stories seem unnecessary and drag out a little long. The end plays out very nicely. I think fans of movies that have intertwining stories, characters, and deeper meanings will enjoy it. Its worth checking out.

OVERALL RATING: 7.5/10

yes, we killed it.

afterwards, we went back to shindi's and decided to bike over to the mission for some dessert at luna park. i have this thing for their make-your-own-smores. maybe it's their homemade graham crackers-fucking phenomenal! makes me think i should have a smores partay soon...

unfortunately, there are no smores pictures. it was too dark in the joint. but i do have flicks from the bike ride out to the embarcadero afterwards.

the next day i went back to the mission and met up with sarah for some thrifting. a few good finds here and there, but didn't look too hard since we were pretty hungry. we decided to hit up monk's kettle on 16th for some late lunch since neither of us had been.  here are the highlights - giant pretzel driiiiiipping with butter and one badass charcuterie plate. i can't wait to come back to this place - namely for the potpie which looked like a big ramekin full of food porn. mmmmm. and it was only $12.

and then we went outside and some dude handed out these rad specs:

since there wasn't too much going on that night, sarah and i decided to cook breakfast-for-dinner and watch quicksilver, an 80's kevin bacon movie where he plays a bike messenger on a fixie. both dinner and the movie were awesome. the soundtrack for this flick is so cool, as is the romantic ballet/bike dance-off between kevin bacon and his materialistic girlfriend. two thumbs up! oh yeah, and we also made chocolate chip oatmeal walnut cookies. i'll put up a recipe for those eventually.

on sunday, i went swimming at the hotel nikko pool. then went over to iris' in the evening. she had made a shitload of tamales (goat, vegan, chicken mole) and threw this ridiculously impressive feast. my absolute favorites were the goat tamales and the molotes (oaxacan, deep-fried, chorizo-stuffed...). i totally gorged and was painfully full, but couldn't stop grazing because everything was so good. thank you, iris, for taking that oaxacan cooking class. my belly is very appreciative.

afterwards i went home and did tae bo.

oh, and here's my only bad eating experience of the weekend: don't fucking EVER go to rain tree cafe on 8th (?) and irving. this place blows. jesse and i went for brunch on sunday since park chow had some crazy wait. the food was awful and our server was this mealy-faced cunt who brought me a blueberry muffin with mold on the bottom. stupid slut.

but i'm not bitter or anything...

Molly and I met at Laguardia around noon, got my bags, sat in seemingly endless traffic across the middle of Manhattan and finally rested atop our door stoop an hour later. Zack, our wonderful roommate, welcomed us and  showed us around. Nice digs, it would suffice to say, considering that our kitchen has brand new appliances and his room has a fireplace. The bathroom is completely remodeled, too. If this is what post-grad apartments look like, I thought, then there is a God. And I will thank him.

I took a walk to Central Park while Molly met a friend for lunch. After that, we sought out Salvation Army (closed, of course, on Sunday), and she mentioned that she had seen some furniture on the side of our road (49th St.). We walk up the block and, sure enough, there is a superintendent moving the last bits of furniture of two girls who se lease had ended May 31. We racked up a bamboo dresser, two full mattresses, two full box springs, a desk, a chair and a coatrack. For free.

The tricky part was moving all the mattresses down 49th St.-- and up the stairs of our third-floor walk-up.

Then we saw Kevin Bacon, in all his skinny indigo jeans, Bono sunglasses and flatironed-hair glory. We stood and watched his assistant ask him about when Kyra would come back and we said, "Huh. That's Kevin Bacon." And we relished the fact that we were, in the game of life, now only one degree from Kevin Bacon.

And then we moved on.

There was a beautiful Spanish boy serving us at Ray's Pizza on 8th Ave., when we decided to leave our apartment. Molly was flirting shamelessly with him. Then she dropped her pizza on the floor. This is the testament to how cheaply we are living: She looked at me with puppy-dog eyes and said, "I'm gonna eat it."

To which, the nice boy insisted (probably for sanitary reasons) to give her another. He wished us "a luego" and off we went to Trader Joe's in Union Square. We fought the crowds, came home and bought beer to share in reward for a day of hard work, we moved more furniture, showered, and then sat back to relax with our Heineken Lights.

It was then that I looked into my bookbag and pulled out a Conde Nast Traveler insert from last year detailing the glory of Manhattan. Who is on the cover?

Kevin Bacon. "New York City, center of the universe," it read.

It shall be our bible, er, guidebook.

So here I now sit, sore as can be and stealing internet from our neighbors. Welcome to New York City, the center of the universe.

Still so very a good deal in love. Kevin Roger Bacon and married woman, Kyra Sedgwick exhausted the hour interval extinct and about shopping in Capital of the United Kingdom aboard Pluto wait what? RANDOM. My girl is travelling to get a boot extinct of these exposures.
I love this couple as both appear like exist ent echt people. We need more people like them in Hollywood.
Bauer Griffon
Societal marking:
Kevin Roger Bacon
Kyra Sedgwick
Capital of the United Kingdom
Pluto
shopping

Kyra Sedgwick
You can skip over to the terminal and go forth a reaction. Pinking is presently not let.

News >>> Kevin Bacon

Great Scott! Los Angeles woke up this morning to discover that Universal Studios was on fire! Among the sets and buildings lost - the iconic courthouse square from "Back to the Future." But what's the big deal - all you need is a De Lorean, a flux capacitor, and 1.21 gigawatts of power, and you can go back in time to stop the fire from ever starting! And you can get the power when that lightning bolt strikes the old clock tower....WHICH HAS BEEN DAMAGED IN THE FIRE!! GREAT SCOTT!!!

While we figure out where to get a new power supply, enjoy these bonus jokes from our Big News writers. And speaking of going back in time - starting June 8, Big News is one hour earlier - a brand new show every Sunday night at 9!!!!

President Bush has denied charges in a new book by his former press secretary Scott McClellan that he was not “forthright on Iraq.” The President pointed out that he was forthright because three other people were right first.

On Friday, Ricky Martin endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. Not to be outdone, Dennis Kucinich on Friday got a rousing endorsement from William Hung.

This week the Mars Phoenix Lander sent pictures of the Martian surface back home to earth. In response Congress is considering further cuts in NASA’s budget so they don’t have to sit through another boring slide show of Mars vacation pictures.

Over one hundred nations met in Ireland this week to pass a treaty that would ban cluster bombs. Unfortunately, the treaty came too late for "Speed Racer."

China threatened to boycott the films of Sharon Stone over comments she made criticizing the country's treatment of Tibet. However, Chinese officials privately applauded Stone for shaving as bald as the Dalai Lama.

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake shook the southern coast of Iceland on Thursday. Sharon Stone immediately called a press conference to voice her suspicion that the earthquake was Iceland's Karma for introducing an unsuspecting world to the music of Bjork.

Senator Larry Craig told reporters last week that he's planning on writing a book that will discuss his arrest last year for attempting to solicit sex from an undercover officer in a bathroom stall. The book is called "If I Did It."

Senator Larry Craig told reporters last week that he's planning on writing a book that will discuss his arrest last year for attempting to solicit sex from an undercover officer in a bathroom stall. Now that he has finished the book that will clear his name, Craig has sworn to spend the rest of his time looking for the real cocksucker.

Paramount Pictures will release the fourth “Beverly Hills Cop” movie during summer 2010. In the film, Axel Foley will investigate exactly which movie killed the career of Eddie Murphy.

Paramount Pictures has announced that it will release the fourth installment of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise during the summer of 2010. This time, Eddie Murphy plays a Detroit cop who gets lost while trying to pick up transvestite prostitutes in Beverly Hills.

Clay Aiken will become a father after serving as a sperm donor for a fifty-year-old record producer. Aiken found her request easy to fulfill, as he just donated some of the extra sperm he had lying around his house.

Clay Aiken will become a father after artificially inseminating his fifty-year-old record producer. It’s the closest Aiken has come to losing his virginity.

Paul McCartney was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University. The school then took back the degree after listening to any of McCartney’s music from the past 25 years.

Ashlee Simpson has announced she will be taking the name of new husband, Pete Wentz. From here on in, she will be known as Ashlee Whiny Douchebag.

Amy Winehouse told reporters that she will perform at a concert honoring Nelson Mandela next month. She has not announced yet when she'll be cancelling her performance.

The wife of actor Bill Murray has filed for divorce after nearly 11 years of marriage. Mrs. Murray has demanded half of all Bill Murray's assets, whereas Mr. Murray has countered, "Okay, there will be no money involved, but on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So you got that going for you. Which is nice."

Bill Murray's wife Jennifer Butler Murray has filed for divorce after nearly 11 years of marriage, accusing the comedian of infidelity, physical abuse, and drug and alcohol addiction. After being covered in slime, she was sent to Japan to sing karaoke and live the same day over and over again.

Kirsten Dunst told E! Online that she went to rehab in February not for drug or alcohol abuse but for depression. Along with everyone else who saw Spiderman 3.

The multimillion-dollar Long Island home at the center of a dispute between rapper 50 Cent and his former girlfriend was destroyed by a suspicious fire early Friday. Police became suspicious of foul play when the fire was seen collaborating with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake.

The multimillion-dollar Long Island home at the center of a dispute between rapper 50 Cent and his former girlfriend was destroyed by a suspicious fire early Friday. The fire is suspicious because, after destroying the home, it shot 50 Cent another 23 times.

Thelma Keene, the inspriation for the "Mommy" character in her husband Bil's long-running "Family Circus" cartoon, died of Alzheimer's disease last Friday at age 82. Her funeral was marred when her oldest son led a funeral procession that wandered aimlessly around the neighborhood, trailed by a dotted line.

Thelma Keene, the inspriation for the "Mommy" character in her husband Bil's long-running "Family Circus" cartoon, died in Arizona last Friday at age 82. Doctors have not yet determined the cause of death, although they suspect the involvement of an invisible gremlin named "Not Me."

Researchers in Brazil have produced aerial photos of jungle dwellers who are among the few remaining people on Earth with no contact to the outside world. Experts say the tribe is so remote that it takes them almost 15 minutes to get to the nearest Starbucks.

Last week, researchers in Brazil produced aerial photos of jungle dwellers who are among the few remaining people on Earth with no contact to the outside world. However, the tribe members are still just five degrees away from Kevin Bacon.

A woman who sneaked into a man's house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan on Thursday. Jodie Foster retorted that being in the closet for only a year is nothing.

Engineers monitoring the famed Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy say that it has been successfully stabilized and is out of danger for at least 300 years. After that, the tower can remain vertical for another 20 years if it consults its doctor about Viagra.

Experts say that, due to recent engineering, the Leaning Tower of Pisa will remain stable for the next 300 years. Meanwhile, remaining unstable for the next 300 years will be Britney Spears.

In West Virginia last week, a young girl was stung by a scorpion while looking for fruit in a Wal-Mart store. Witnesses say the girl should have seen it coming, because the scorpion was singing "Rock You Like a Hurricane."

In West Virginia last week, a young girl was stung by a scorpion while looking for fruit in a Wal-Mart store. Authorities say the girl deserved it because she was looking for fruit in a Wal-Mart store.

In West Virginia last week, a young girl was stung by a scorpion while looking for fruit in a Wal-Mart store. Luckily for the girl, she has adequate health coverage because her parents don't work at a Wal-Mart.

Researchers in Florida have identified several potent mosquito repellents that can keep bugs from biting for up to 73 days. The most successful method so far: wearing sleeves.

The Supreme Court of Brazil voted last week to allow scientists to conduct research on embryonic stem cells. The only stipulation is that the research must be used to produce someone who looks like Blanka from Street Fighter 2.

A new survey claims that childhood obesity, which has been on the rise for more than two decades, appears to have hit a plateau in the United States. Unfortunately the plateau is actually a gathering of their obese parents.

A new survey claims that childhood obesity, which has been on the rise for more than two decades, appears to have hit a plateau in the United States. A big chocolatey plateau made of Hostess cupcakes and double-glazed apple fritters.

A new survey claims that childhood obesity, which has been on the rise for more than two decades, appears to have hit a plateau in the United States. The obesity numbers would have continued higher, but it can no longer support all that weight.

A new survey claims that childhood obesity, which has been on the rise for more than two decades, appears to have hit a plateau in the United States. Experts attribute the leveling off to the fact that the average American child is now too fat to get off the couch and too unfit to open a refrigerator.

A new survey claims that childhood obesity, which has been on the rise for more than two decades, appears to have hit a plateau in the United States. Mostly because their parents are too poor to feed them.

Officials in Las Lomas, California have warned residents to refrain from drinking tap water after tests showed the water contained high levels of mercury. Even more disturbing, the water also contained high levels of Freddie Mercury.

Officials in Las Lomas, California have warned residents to refrain from drinking tap water after tests showed the water contained high levels of mercury. Residents suspected the water contained mercury when they noticed it tasted like tuna.

And finally, Harvey Korman, the Emmy-award-winning co-star of "The Carol Burnett Show," died Thursday at the age of eighty-one after complications from an abdominal aneurysm. The aneurysm burst when Korman was cracking up during surgery due to the hilarious antics of his colleague, Dr. Tim Conway.

ANALYSIS:  This week several members of the Microsoft Institute met in Redmond with a visiting friend from government, and among other talks we had a very interesting discussion with Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft Research principal researcher and manager.  Eric's well known for his work in artificial intelligence and currently serves as president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).

We talked about one of Eric's recent projects for quite a while: "Planetary-Scale Views on a Large Instant-Messaging Network," a project which has been described by his co-author as "the largest social network ever analyzed." 

One interesting facet is the story of that co-author, Jure Leskovec, who collaborated on the work while a grad-student intern at Microsoft Research; here's his student page at Carnegie Mellon, where he's finishing his PhD in Computer Science this summer.  That page doesn't yet note that he's taking a teaching position at Stanford University -- Go Stanford, Beat Cal!

The Leskovec-Horvitz study took just one month's worth of anonymized data capturing high-level communication activities within the whole of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging system. the Internet's most popular IM environment.  Since they were examining the patterns and collective dynamics of communications among large numbers of people, not individual conversations, the dataset contained "summary properties" of 30 billion conversations among 240 million people over the course of that month.

The communication graph constructed includes 180 million nodes and 1.3 billion undirected edges, "creating the largest social network constructed and analyzed to date."  Check out the "map" on the left, of the geo-located conversations - to the eye it actually contructs an understandable physical map of the world's landmass.  Another view, a "communications heat map" of the data, brings to mind Thomas Friedman's influential best-seller "The World is Flat"

Some of the study's findings may have been intuitive, some not so much:

• We find that the graph is well-connected and robust to node removal.
• We investigate on a planetary-scale the oft-cited report that people are separated by "six degrees of separation" and find that the average path length among Messenger users is 6.6. 
• We also find that people tend to communicate more with each other when they have similar age, language, and location, and that cross-gender conversations are both more frequent and of longer duration than conversations with the same gender." 

You know, I can't help highlighting the "Kevin Bacon" aspect noted by the authors: "To our knowledge, this is the first time a planetary-scale social network has been available to validate the well-known "6 degrees of separation" finding by Travers and Milgram [a 1969 study]. The earlier work employed a sample of 64 people and found that the average number of hops for a letter to travel from Nebraska to Boston was 6.2 (mode 5, median 5), which is popularly known as the "6 degrees of separation" among people. We used a population sample that is more than two million times larger than the group studied earlier and confirmed the classic finding."

I won't include many of the other interesting findings, but it's a fascinating study and is now leading to other hypotheses and research.  It was also presented a couple of months ago at the Beijing WWW 2008 Conference.

Some more general points: Eric's "Adaptive Systems and Interaction Group" within MSR includes work on machine learning and decision making, search and retrieval, sensor fusion, human-computer interaction, ecommerce, hardware devices, computational theory, and cryptography.   Here's Eric's own page on the Microsoft Research (MSR) site, with links to many projects and published papers, and where he describes some of his focus areas:

I'm interested in computational foundations of intelligent sensing, reasoning, and action -- with a particular focus on methods for grappling with uncertainty about environments or situations. I'm also interested in models of human cognition, and in developing computational systems that leverage insights about cognition to help people to achieve their goals. Much of my work makes use of probability and decision theory, decision analysis, and, in particular, Bayesian and decision-theoretic principles. My research spans both theoretical issues and concrete, real-world applications. I'm interested in information triage and alerting that takes human attention into consideration, spanning work on notification systems, surprise modeling, multitasking, and psychological studies of interruption and recovery. Other interests include principles of mixed-initiative interaction that can support fluid, efficient collaborations between people and computing systems, methods for guiding computer actions in accordance with the preferences of people, search and information retrieval, and collaboration." - from home-page of Eric Horvitz 

Every time I talk with Eric I learn something new and unexpected, this time including something about how to learn new and unexpected things. I suppose that's inevitable given his interest in surprise-modeling.

By the way, when he says above that his "research spans both theoretical issues and concrete, real-world applications," he means it.  A couple of months ago Microsoft got pretty wide coverage in TechMeme and elsewhere (see New York Times story, or WIRED magazine) for the release of the ClearFlow traffic system, which uses Eric's team's AI research for "a smarter way to keep you out of snarls" (WIRED's phrase) with "an ambitious effort to add AI machine-learning techniques to the complex problem of predicting traffic congestion" (again WIRED).  The system combines predictive algorithms based on years of traffic data correlated with many other events and variables (time of day, weather, holidays, sporting events), combined of course with the normal live traffic data from networks of highway sensors.  You can use that system today at Live Maps.

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Black Dog (1998)

Patrick Swayse (Black Dog) -> Keanu Reeves (Point Break) -> Al Pacino (The Devils Advocate) -> Robert De Niro (Heat) -> Kevin Bacon (Sleepers)

4 moves

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

Bruce Campbell (Bubba Ho-Tep) -> Bridget Fonda (Army of Darkness) -> Kevin Bacon (Balto)

2 moves

Teen Wolf (1985)

Michael J Fox (Teen Wolf) -> Elizabeth Shue (Back to the Future 2) -> Kevin Bacon (Hollow Man)

2 moves

Passenger 57 (1992)

Wesley Snipes (Passenger 57) -> Laurence Fishburne (King of New York) -> Kevin Bacon (Mystic River)

2 moves

The Hard Way (1991)

James Woods (The Hard Way) -> Joe Pesci (Casino) -> Kevin Bacon (JFK)

2 moves

Timecop (1994)

Jean-Claude Van Damme (Timecop) -> Lance Henrikson (Hard Target) -> Bill Paxton (Aliens) -> Kevin Bacon (Apollo 13)

3 moves

Kevin Bacon has used the six degrees concept to start a website to raise money to charity. You can find out more at sixdegrees.org

I look up to Clint Eastwood, not only as an actor but as a marvelous director who always knows how to pull my emotional strings. He can work with actors well and get the best performance possible out of them, unlike some director´s like Tim Burton who only has actors that are great actors. The greatest director´s are the ones that work well with actors, show hints off their style and leave their mark on cinematic history. As off now Clint is leaving a large trail of great films and he has always hit his mark. This time i got to watching his 2003 film: Mystic River, many people remember it mostly for losing the Oscar to the third installment in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Luckily, Eastwood has had many critical hit´s since then and has earned a large amount of awards and a few Oscars.

This film tells the story of three former childhood friends who lost their friendship after a traumatizing event. 25 years later, they have all gone their separate ways but when one off their daughter´s is murdered they all start to connect to each other in a different way. The story and characters shine in their spotlight and the actors are fantastic, especially Tim Robbins and Sean Penn.  The mystery of the case holds the viewer´s interest and it leads to a conclusion that is worth your time. The character´s motivations are all understandable untill the last few minutes of the ending, the film could have ended a few minutes earlier but there is the aspect of Sean Penn´s character that is interesting enough to forgive that "second ending".

You can spot traces off Clint Eastwood´s film style in dramas: The music, character motivations and the ending. So to the fans of Eastwood´s films that have not seen this one, put it on your must see list. Mystic River is without a doubt one of his five strongest films.

*****

Here's a good start: http://oracleofbacon.org/index.html

Type any actors you know and you'll be surprised at how they are connected to Kevin Bacon. I tried to look up for any actors that I think wouldn't be connected to Kevin Bacon but I was wrong, almost every actor is connected to him in various degrees. Here are some examples that I tried:

Charles Chaplin

Charles Chaplin has a Bacon number of 3.

Charles Chaplin was in Picture People No. 3: Hobbies of the Stars (1941) with John Beal (I)
John Beal (I) was in Firm, The (1993) with Margo Martindale
Margo Martindale was in Rails & Ties (2007) with Kevin Bacon 

Charles Q Murphy (Eddie Murphy's brother)

Charles Q. Murphy has a Bacon number of 2.

Charles Q. Murphy was in Three Days to Vegas (2007) with Jay Amor
Jay Amor was in Death Sentence (2007) with Kevin Bacon

Zhang Ziyi

Ziyi Zhang has a Bacon number of 2.

Ziyi Zhang was in TMNT (2007) with Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar was in Air I Breathe, The (2007) with Kevin Bacon

Yuji Okumota (bad guy from Karate Kid II)

Yuji Okumoto has a Bacon number of 2.

Yuji Okumoto was in Robot Wars (1993) with Steve Eastin
Steve Eastin was in Rails & Ties (2007) with Kevin Bacon

Govinda (Bollywood comedian)

govinda has a Bacon number of 3.

Govinda was in Ek Aur Ek Gyarah: By Hook or by Crook (2003) with Om Puri
Om Puri was in Wolf (1994) with Michael Raynor
Michael Raynor was in Rails & Ties (2007) with Kevin Bacon

Peter O'Brian (lead actor of the notorious B-action Rambo rip off movie, The Intruder)

Peter O'Brian (III) has a Bacon number of 3.

Peter O'Brian (III) was in Angel of Fury (1992) with Cynthia Rothrock
Cynthia Rothrock was in Eye for an Eye (1996) with Keith David (I)
Keith David (I) was in Novocaine (2001) with Kevin Bacon

Darren Ewing (the "Oh My GOOOOOOOD!" kid from the legendary bad movie Trolls 2)

Darren Ewing (II) has a Bacon number of 2.

Darren Ewing (II) was in Unaccompanied Minors (2006) with Wilmer Valderrama
Wilmer Valderrama was in Beauty Shop (2005) with Kevin Bacon

Jalaluddin Hassan (Malaysian actor)

Jalaluddin Hassan has a Bacon number of 4.

Jalaluddin Hassan was in Gemilang (1997) with Erra Fazira
Erra Fazira was in Hidden (2008) with Christopher Atkins
Christopher Atkins was in Stageghost (2000) with Dana Barron (I)
Dana Barron (I) was in Saving Angelo (2007) with Kevin Bacon

P.Ramlee (legendary Malaysian actor)

P. Ramlee has a Bacon number of 4.

P. Ramlee was in Ibu mertuaku (1962) with Ali Fiji
Ali Fiji was in Beyond Rangoon (1995) with Frances McDormand
Frances McDormand was in Friends with Money (2006) with Marin Hinkle
Marin Hinkle was in Rails & Ties (2007) with Kevin Bacon

Jamal Abdillah (Malaysian singer/actor)

jamal abdillah has a Bacon number of 4.

Jamal Abdillah was in Suratan kasih (1995) with Osman Jailani
Osman Jailani was in Saint Jack (1979) with Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich was in Dukes, The (2007) with Dominic Scott Kay