But basically it analyzes your writing and tells you…who you write like.

1) Using a scene from my latest Transformer Fanfic (Starscream x Megatron if you’re curious xD):

2) Scene from my Watchmen/Freddy Krueger Crossover:

3) And last but not least – A scene from a Batman fanfic featuring Jonathan Crane & An OC character. XD

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

It’s fun that I got three different authors on three different times…and I have no heard of any of them before. XD Yay?

Ah well, killed a few minutes. XD

This time around it’s that special two-pack from Wal-Mart (That I had to get from Ebay b/c my Wal-Mart refused to carry it…no really. I check every week and they never have a single TFA toy. >_<)

And not just any two-pack! But my favorite couple from TFA!!! That’s right. Optimus Prime x Blackarachnia.

It's blue tinted because I don't know how to work my camera.

If you know me well, you know that I can’t watch anything without shipping something – and Optimus Prime x Elita-1 has always been a OTP. So…naturally it carries over into TFA (even if Blackarachnia x Silverbolt is my OTP for Beast Wars…. Why do you mess with me so TFA!?)

Anyway, the figures are great even if Blackarachnia is a little hard to model. But I love ‘Battle Damage’ Prime. Makes him look manly.

OP is whipped.

Still whipped.

But he's still got a giant Ax.

And hey~ It's OP's lady. Gotta' give her the lovin.

Anyway. I’d take more pictures but I’m out of time. So now they’re just cuddling on my desk next to Arcee & Blurr.

And Despite my misgivings for the third book, I ended up enjoying the third Twilight Movie quite a bit. (And I wasn’t the only one if all the people laughing and clapping in the theatre was any indication…)

Jacob’s still awesome, they play up the tension between him and Edward well and Officer Swan is still hilarious. I laughed at the jokes, and well. I think I’m pretty much doomed and may actually be a Twilight fan.

But all was not glory – there was a few issues. The cinematography was much better in the second film by far and this movie tended to suffer from soap opera face ups. I think they may have over used this particular film technique.

Second, the first hour was rather choppy and for once I’m glad I read the book BEFORE the movie – if only to fill in all the gaps. Eclipse tried to fit too much in and give everyone their little moment of backstory. Sadly this leaves most of them cut a little short (and I’m still angry we didn’t get a full body shot of Rosalie in her wedding dress!!! She wore it, too. It’s insulting we only got to see her from the shoulders up.) I think this is the one time where it’s handy the book filled every thing in with more detail.

Overall though, not many complaints. It was two glorious hours of man-law. Edward vs Jacob. It was wonderful and even the guys in the theatre were laughing at the machismo dripping from the two of them as they fought over Bella.

Anyway, I enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the two-part Break Dawn films. (Which I’m half-way through reading! Progress!)

I came back to visit later to see other comments and realized he’d left something just for me:

greylillybeinginciteful.txt (I got rid of some of the spacing for spaces’ sake):

40,199,'Liliy','greyliliy@gmail.com',
'http://liliy.net/wam','<blocked ip>','2009-08-01 00:51:58','2009-08-01 00:51:58',

'Ha ha; love all the inspiration you guys got from Inkblot. :P\r\n\r\nOne comment though -
why is turning off site wide comments listed as a feature? That\'s a basic WordPress option on their
Discussion settings page...it\'s not retro active, but it\'s still there.\r\n\r\nUnless you guys just
mirrored that setting control on your CP settings page...

',0,'1','Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5;
en; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060219 Camino/2.0b3 (like Firefox/3.0.11)','',0,0),

This is the message on twitter:  

@radio_chio What's really funny is I don't even hate ComicPress. XD In fact, I can't remember being outwardly mean.

^ there's a reminder of some of the things greylilly said in the past.  This is from an SQL dump because the old webcomic
planet frumph.net site no longer exists and the posts I was giving a 'good news' feature list to the comicpress community to
with a new version; greylilly belittled.

NOTE: Sitewide comments turned off (in the wordpress core settings) still leave the Comments are Disabled message that appears,
that option just disabled that from appearing or not, cleaning up the site's look.  Not even a function webcomic+inkblot even has.

I do remember leaving that comment. In fact, when I left it I remember writing it with the intent of playful teasing as competitors since he was listing a few features that had already been released on Webcomic at the time* – clearly it was not taken as such.

The second half was a genuine inquiry about why he listed disabling comments as a feature. What he described above [the answer to my comments disabled question] was NOT listed on the post and to be frank, I remember receiving a very mean-spirited reply (That I sadly do not have because as he said, the post is no longer available – if Frumph would like to SQL dump that too, that’d be great! :D) in return.

In fact, I was rather hurt he instantly assumed I was “belittling” him. (You’d think attacking with the response he gave, I really really wish you could have read it – but sadly you’ll have to take my word for it. It was completely uncalled for.)

But, yeah.

*On a somewhat unrelated note – I think it’s expected that plugins/themes/whatnot that all do THE EXACT SAME THING are going to have similar if not identical features.  So when one says ‘Hey, ha ha – love that feature from Inkblot’ *wink* it was supposed to be a cute joke, teasing, light hearted competitive rivalry.

It is expected that features are going to be the same in similar software (or in this case Plugins/Themes – let’s not forget WP is the core). I did not literally mean that Frumph stole something from Inkblot. Or that he was inspired by things from Inkblot. I think it was the natural course of the evolution of the plugin/theme that it would start showing features that have been requested by the user base.

Take a painting/art program for an example – can you think of a single on that doesn’t have a ‘paint’ or a ‘pencil’ option? What about crop? Tried comparing Photoshop and Gimp lately? Or PaintShop Pro? Or heck, even Oekaki boards have layers now-a-days. They do most of the same things, with similar tools – they just get there/work in slightly different ways.

People use what they like and what works for them. This goes for add-ons to WordPress to run a comic as well.

Breathe. Take a chuckle and relax.  Life’s too short to be taking this little rivalry so seriously.

And that’s my last word on the subject (save for maybe tweets~)

So far I’ve been keeping my mouth shut on the topic, but it’s been building up enough that I need to vent somewhere on the subject and let you know my thoughts on the matter: The Pay Schema for ComicPress is most likely going to suffer failure.

History

Before I get too deeply into this topic, I feel it’s important to set up a little background of my own personal history with ComicPress. When I first decided to host my webcomic on my server I browsed around looking for the best method. I knew I wanted it to be automated due to the size of the comic and the complexity of managing all of those pages. As I looked around, the best choice I could find at the time was indeed ComicPress – at the time Version 2.5.

It took a little bit of time, but I did have my site up and running fairly quickly. Didn’t look great, but it didn’t look awful either. It worked – which is what mattered. Eventually though, I wanted to customize the site a bit more and was having trouble – so I asked Mike to give me a hand say, replacing the navigation with buttons and he helped out quite a bit. Eventually though, Mike looked farther into the code and realized – it was a mess. They had plugin functions built into the theme itself and the site was not set up for friendly styling. A few aggravated tries to modify later and well – let’s just say Webcomic was born and leave it at that.

However, before anyone starts arguing that I was messing with an older version – part of working on Webcomic & Inkblot means keeping up with competition and seeing what they’re up to as they release new things. So I have run, installed and messed around with the newer versions of ComicPress and to be frank? I’m not that impressed. But that’s a personal preference and at the end of the day -

None of this matters.

The Problem With Charging

The main reason the ComicPress for Pay model will ultimately hurt the Theme/Developers at the end of the day is it’s base CMS – ComicPress works with WordPress.

WordPress is a traditionally free CMS system that runs on the Free Model. The core CMS? Free. Themes? Free. Plug-Ins? Free. Support and Help? Free. The majority of WP users and developers do not expect to charge or pay for things related to the system and software. It’s Freeware on a GNU license.

If someone’s making money off of WordPress – it’s because of Donations. People donate to plugins and authors that they feel have gone out of their way to help the user or have provided a service they love. In fact – it’s rather similar to the webcomic community that does not charge for people to read their materials, but instead puts a happy little donate button on the sidebar.

Charging people to install CPP is going to result in sticker shock, outrage and people trying to justify the cost – and it worsens when you stop and realize that as of right now there is nothing that CPP is offering that you can’t get elsewhere for free. The fact the original number slapped on the product was $79.99 didn’t help matters either – not only where they charging for something they had come to know as freeware, but it was a steep price for what basically came to an install and troubleshooting support. It was mentioned that the “Designer” installing the software would set the price – but even then, that’s a marketing scam in itself. You tell people it costs $80 so when the person you approved to sell the product lists it as $40 – BAM! You think – what a great deal!

And it would be – if the product itself was even worth $40. HGTV has a wonderful saying on one of its programs: “Your house is only worth what people are willing to pay for it.” – The same model applies. CPP is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. If I had to estimate a more reasonable number, I’d say somewhere between $10 and $20 – at the most. Anything past $20 starts verging into uncomfortable territory and people wondering if they’re really getting what they paid for – or was that free plugin they found afterwords the better option after all?

Dissecting The Arguments

Of course though, there will always be defenders to things of this nature – here are a couple of the more popular defenses I’ve heard and my personal responses:

The creators worked hard on ComicPress and use their time to help people out! Why shouldn’t they make money off it?

It’s true, I do not doubt that the people making CPP have worked hard on their product and probably deserve a little compensation. But then again – so do the people who created the WordPress core. Or all those free Plug-ins. Or any of the thousands of themes in the WP Theme directory – some of which are quite literally professional quality. Do they deserve a little capital to pay for their services? Probably. To compensate for all the endless hours they spend trouble shooting and helping people out? Definitely.

Are they charging for any of it? No.

Again, as referenced above – WP is freeware. If you like the theme you’re using – donate. No one is forcing you to give them money but it’d be nice if you did. The point is the option is left up to the user to donate as they see fit. In general, no one is expecting or charging money for these services.

What about all those people charging for their themes? People have Pay Themes all the time and they make money!

Pay Themes on their own are a bit of tricky business – I personally can not see any plausible reason to pay for a theme. If you can’t find a theme you like in the Free WP theme directory, than you’re either looking for someone to personally design a unique site catered to your needs or might want to consider taking a framework theme and designing it yourself.

If Pay Themes make money selling their themes? I guess all the power to them – but this is assuming that the people buying are well aware of the free themes available -most of which are of equal quality or better than quite a few themes out for pay. Sadly, in this market anyone can slap a pricetag on a theme they created and call it ‘Pay’ but it may not actually stand up to the price it’s advertising. One of the very few instances where “You get what you pay for” has very little meaning.

Word of advice for this particular situation? Check the free stuff first. You’d be surprised what you find.

You don’t even use ComicPress so your arguments are invalid! You’re part of the competition so of course you’re trying to tear us down! You have a significant bias!

Because I no longer use a product or service does not make my opinions of the service invalid. I have used it [ComicPress, not CPP - despite what they say I can't see them being THAT different], seen it and came to the same conclusions I had the first time around. Constructive criticism of rival software is to be expected. Analyzing a product that is in high regard and used in a community that I am a part of is to be expected. Ironically, condemning the pay model is almost trying to help ComicPress. Options are what make WP such a great platform. I don’t want CP to drop off the face of the internet and leave no competition.

I think introducing CPP as a pay model is the rough equivalent of ComicPress shooting itself in the foot and I deeply hope they’ve realized this by now.

Questions

And of course – there are my own questions concerning the theme and the pay model. There is a good chance these questions could be answered when CPP is released, but right now information surrounding CPP is vague and they stand true. Such as:

Can I get CPP by itself without a designer getting involved? How much will that cost?

Will updates to CPP be free? Or will they require another installation cost?

What features are included in CPP? Are they truly unique to this plugin or can they be substituted by the thousands of other plugins out there?

Is it easy to modify? Does it have cleaner code than CP Legacy?

Is it possible to preview the theme and its code for myself before I lay down a $20/$40/$80 price tag? If it fails to meet my standards of quality can I get a refund?

What qualifications does one need to meet to sell and distribute the theme as a ‘Designer’ – is it only friends and people who worked on the theme or can any site be a distribution point if they meet a certain set of design standards?

The list could go on and on, but I’m sure you all can see where I’m coming from. There’s been a lot of questions raised – but not too many answered as of yet.

Conclusions

WordPress is a free content management system that is run by a community of developers and authors who offer their services and products on a donation-only basis. ComicPress is a Theme/Plugin combination that runs on WordPress, therefore – charging for it with a steep price tag is most likely going to turn away users and have them seek out other alternatives first.

Plus? Webcomic authors are cheap. I’d put a bet on it but I don’t think I want to spare the quarter.

That said – I looked for her in Toys R’ Us. I looked for her quite often. But, I work normal hours which means I could never make it to the store on delivery days. So, thanks to other rabid fans and scalpers – I was out of luck.

And I refused to pay $30+ or more before shipping for a $12 figure.

Well, one day I got lucky. I was browsing Ebay and saw one for $10, I went ‘okay’ and went ahead and bid. I got outbid immediately so curious of the other person’s High Bid – I went all the way up to $21. And then – I find an Arcee for $9.50 that ends in 20 minutes. I went ‘what the hell?” and bid. And ended up winning her for $11. I was freakishly happy and if you follow my Twitter you probably heard me squealing. (Thankfully someone who knows who he is outbid me on the other figure. XD)

She arrived in the mail and I am, very very happy. This is a nice figure and well worth it. They really should have printed more of her because she would have sold out no matter what.

But – I’m going to show you pictures of the other Toys R’ Us Exclusive figure first just to hold out the suspense!

Cybertron Mode Ratchet – I actually found him in the store. And he’s a cutie:

Ratchet!

But none of you care about him (as noted by the fact there’s still another figure of him sitting on the shelf in my local Toys R’ Us…) So here’s Arcee!!

She is Hard. Core.

I was not a huge fan of Arcee in G1 – sure I adored her paired up with Springer (OTP!) but she was mostly just there. And that thing with her and Daniel later in the series was just plain creepy. Animated Arcee – now her I liked. She was still meek and modest, but you could tell she was well, useful. Girl was a school teacher! You know she had some brass.

She glitters.

And let’s face it – her Animated ReDesign was slick and probably called back to the original G1 design more than most of the cast. This figure just looks good – and it glitters. *_* (See, this is how Glitter is done Edward Cullen! Take some notes!)

Swords

And best of all – the figure revealed some other fun stuff about her, like the fact her weapon of choice is dual swords. You know she used those on her students.

Awesome Duo

And much the way Animated drives me crazy with screwing with my OTP’s (G1 Optimus x Elita-One & BW Silverbolt x Blackarachnia somehow morphing into TF:A Optimus x Blackarachnia) – it does it again messing with G1 Arcee x Springer to the above. Ratchet & Arcee in Animated are ridiculously adorable together.

Blurr is Jealous

And now Blurr is jealous because he’s no longer my favorite TF:A figure. It’s okay, Blurr! Your’e still the second favorite!

I can’t remember the last time I read a book that had me going back and forth between hatred for the main character, boredom and disgust. Now, I’m sure there was a spot here or there that I liked or was tolerable, but it was so overrun by a total disgust with Bella Swan that overshadowed everything else.

In fact, I’m pretty sure any discontent I have with the Twilight series has to deal with Bella Swan. I don’t think I’ve ever found a main character in a book that was this unlikeable. There is nothing I like about her and by now I’m sure you’ve realized this is a rant more than a review.

It took me so long to force myself to finish this book (I kept putting it down and reading each chapter was quite literally a chore) that I barely remember what happened in it. So I’ll have to settle for ranting about what I do remember.

But! We’ll start off on a positive note with a few quotes that I actually quite liked:

“He’s like a drug for you, Bella…I see that you can’t live without him now. It’s too late. But I would have been healthier for you. Not a drug; I would have been the air, the sun.” – Jacob Black

“The clouds I can handle. But I can’t fight with an eclipse.” – Jacob Black

“I wasn’t about to send you off alone. With your luck, not even the black box would survive.” – Edward Cullen

“If we had happy endings, we’d all be under gravestones now.” – Rosalie Cullen

And from there – we’ll start with subject one:

Werewolves

I like Jacob Black. I think it’s the movie’s influence because they did a good job with him, but even in the books I’ve liked him. He was interesting, down to earth and he’s a werewolf. Can’t go wrong there really. In fact, despite the fact all of her werewolf references and the like are made up and new, its’ actually a concept that works (unlike the sparkling, glittering skin of the vampires). The hive mind thing they have going on is interesting and it helps bring all the characters together.

Eclipse goes out of its way to try and destroy Jacob. I think it became apparent in New Moon that Jacob was probably the better choice out of the two and so it had to demonize him. He’s now screwing with Bella (don’t get me wrong, she’s still a selfish, manipulating brat but even she doesn’t deserve some of what he does) and going so far as to forcefully kiss (molest) her and corner her into choosing either him or Edward by force and guilt. It wasn’t as horrible as it could have been, but it was definitely a character derailment – but I will admit it was funny having the other wolves complain about his thoughts about Bella leaking into all of their heads.

Not to mention when Bella broke her hand trying to punch him I laughed out loud. Physically. I really had needed that.

Vampire Fight

I feel gipped. They spend a great deal of this book setting up a giant Vampire Battle with Victoria & a crew of new borns she’d recruited…and we don’t get to see it. We hear about it via Seth’s mental link with the pack, but Edward & Bella are separated from the action. We do get a bit of a fight between Edward, Victoria, Seth & a guy named Riley but it was so-so and ended predictably with you guessed it – Edward winning.

Not to mention the Volturi. Talk about a missed opportunity. They show up at the end go “opps, did our job for us” kill some poor sap and leave. Just about the only thing I enjoyed was them mentioning that Aro really wants to see Carlisle again – and that lead to me getting depressed yet again because the storyline with Carlisle and the Volturi would have actually been interesting. Ah well, maybe one day I’ll brave the Twilight Fanfiction section and find something there.

Bella and Marriage

I could tolerate Bella being too dumb to live.  I really could. I could even deal with her being a selfish, spoiled brat who couldn’t make up her mind with ‘some people are just like that’ and move on. What I could not tolerate – were Bella Swan’s views on marriage. They just baffled me.

Let’s lay this down – Bella in all of her selfishness wants to become a Vampire before she’s too much ‘older’ (older being relative because she keeps forgetting he’s pushing over 100 years old) than Edward. She’s claiming it’s to avoid the Volturi but let’s face it – she just wants to sex up Edward. Anyway, Carlisle has agreed to change her after graduation but she wants Edward to do it. Edward has one condition – he wants to marry Bella before he turns her into a vampire and gives her the ride of her life. So far, I’m not seeing any problems. She wants to be with Edward for eternity – he’s taking the logical first step.

Bella is instantly disgusted by the idea and she thinks Edward is an old fashioned and joking with her. Bella absolutely does not want to get married and I was flabbergasted. I didn’t understand at all. It made no sense whatsoever. And eventually, Edward drags an explanation out of her and we find out it has to do with her perception of marriage. She’s using her mother’s teenage marriage as a basis and I suppose I can understand that – but her attitude about the entire thing is what gets me. She’s willing to DIE and become a vampire – and somehow that’s better than a teen wedding brought on by unexpected pregnancy?

I want to quote for you Bella’s exact explanation for why she doesn’t want to get married. I’m hoping I’m not the only one who’s confused and disgusted by it.

I’m not that girl, Edward. The one who gets married right out of high school like some small-town hick who got knocked up by her boyfriend! Do you know what people would think? Do you realize what century this is? People don’t just get married at eighteen! Not smart people, not responsible, mature people! I wasn’t going to be that girl! That’s not who I am….”

This is a girl who’s been trying to jump Edward Cullen since she met him. This is a girl who wants to be turned into a vampire (let us recap: dead, immortal, drinks blood, permanent life change) absolutely right now without listening to the people telling her to wait until she’s older. A girl who claims she can not live without Edward Cullen in her life for the rest of her life forever and ever bound to him for eternity and she gets disgusted by the idea he asks her to marry her. She’s disgusted by how other people might look at her for being a teen bride. She was also disgusted by the idea that people would think it weird Edward dating someone so much older than him (I’m sorry, but there isn’t that big of a stretch between 17 and the 20′s with someone as mentally mature as Edward.). But this marriage thing topped the cake for me.

I have never wanted to leap into the pages of a book and slap someone so much in my life. If I give Twilight anything, it is the ability to induce emotion in the reader be it good or bad.

The General

So far of the three books – this has been the most painful. I really hope the movie is better (because we’ll at least get to see the fight scene – there’s no way they could get around skipping it in the film) and by the grounds that I actually enjoyed the other two films, books aside.

And now I start my journey into Breaking Dawn – which just may kill me. Apparently not even the fans can stand that one. Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.

Was walking through the grocery store on a soda run and ran across this in the frozen goods section:

I was amused. I hope you all are too. XD

Some Background

Once upon a time, I saw a trailer for a movie. And in that movie, I saw Rorschach deliver the line “Why are you screaming? I haven’t even cut you yet.” and I went – I must see this movie. So, I prepped. I realized that it wasn’t fair to see a remake of a movie series I hadn’t seen. So I asked Mike to lend me the Nightmare films & I systematically watched the other 8 films in the series. And I loved them.

I am not a huge fan of the horror genre. I have no intention of ever seeing a Friday the 13th Movie (the closest I’ve gotten was Freddy vs Jason) because I don’t want to see gratuitous sex, nudity and violence. For this same reason I’m probably never going to see any Saw films or Texas Massacre films or what have you. The Krueger films – they don’t have these. I think the worst thing in these films has been a breast shot sprinkled here and there, but for the most part the films have been fairly tame. (With a notable exception of the 5th Film where a couple of the deaths passed into just disgusting and as such this is my least favorite of the franchise).

So why enjoy the films? Freddy Kreuger & his kids. These aren’t so much horror films as they are dark action flicks. The big bad monster hunts down the kids and they fight back. I don’t think I’ve ever found the Krueger films to be particularly scary, even the first one, but more so visually attractive and attention grabbing. These films don’t have to figure out the most gruesome way to kill someone to freak out the audience

On that note – I still maintain that Tina’s death in the first film was by far the worst death in the series for emotional impact and horror. It wasn’t grotesque or over the top – there was a realism to it that hit you close because you watched a girl be beat to death and dragged across a ceiling. It was other worldly while still being realistic and I think that’s the most disturbing part.

But – we’re here to talk about the 2010 Remake that made me want to get into this franchise in the first place.

The Theatre

I sort of want to talk about my experience in the theatre itself first. I went to go see a 12AM Matinee of this film. As such, there was maybe 10 people in the largest screening room in the building. There were about 6 guys all by their lonesome speckled about the theatre, me and 3 teens who wandered in after the previews (who talked for most of the movie…). It was sort of interesting; it’s been a while since I got to sit in a premium spot in a theatre walking it at the start of the film. XD

It’s also fun to note that I had my ID checked to get into the theatre. On the one hand – I’m sort of flattered. On the other…I’m 25. XD

The Movie – Their be SPOILERS here. Enter at your own risk.

I loved this movie. I know how critics have been bashing it lately – but I throughly enjoyed this film. It grabbed quite a bit from the old movies but it was also very different. For starters? The focus of the movie. This film wasn’t about Nancy. It was about Fred Krueger and his relationship with his kids. The remake went into the direction the first film shied from – Fred Krueger was not a child murder. He was not a man who intentionally took kids away to a dark room and tortured and murdered them for kicks. This Freddie was something else.

He was a sick man who needed help.

Not once in all the flashbacks did I get the impression that Krueger even realized what he was doing molesting those children was wrong. He seemed to genuinely care about those kids. He loved Nancy. He loved her in the wrong way, and he definitely needed to be sent away to someplace that could help him – but you couldn’t help but feel for him. Hunting him down and burning him in a building without real proof of what he was doing was a bit malicious on the part of the parents. Then again – this is knowing he was guilty from the start. The movie tried to make you wonder whether or not he really molested the kids which actually brings up an interesting topic – what if he hadn’t molested the kids? What if he really was just a regular guy who liked children and then those kids he loved so much got him viciously hunted down and murdrered? It’s an angle I almost wish they had explored.

Granted, the fact he was guilty puts this Freddy Krueger on the tip top of the complete monster scale. But even while he’s there, you feel for him. This is a guy who was betrayed by the kids he loved. And he’s pissed off. The deaths in this film were targeted and meticulous. He wanted them to remember him and when they didn’t he screwed with them.

A critic complained about us getting to know Fred before the burning because it made him more human and “humans aren’t scary.” I think it’s just the opposite. Fred Krueger the guy who works at the preschool and has a good time watching the kids is realistic. Things that can actually happen in real life are twice as horrifying than the monster in the attic or the alien goop trying to eat you. It grounds you and let’s face it – this is the base of all Krueger horror. He’s always been just realistic enough that you remember once he’s out of the dreams, Krueger’s just a normal guy who feels pain and can be beaten down just like everyone else. You could meet this guy on the streets. And now we’ve given that already horrifying person unlimited power in a dream world where that stalker with an obsession with you can do whatever the hell he wants. That’s scary.

On that note – Haley nailed this role. He played Freddy’s cheesy one liners straight and it made for an interesting effect. He started out serious and all business and eventually started to have a bit of fun with it. By the time he needled down the kids to his favorite little Nancy – he was just having fun again. It was a great effect that mirrored the movies that started with maybe one or two lines in the first film down to the final film which was straight comedy. But there were some great lines and they made me laugh. Like they were supposed to – Fred Kreuger cracks jokes. And as Mike said “They’re funny because you’re not the one getting cut.”

And those that were getting cut – were not bad. I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with an outcast Nancy, but she really wasn’t all that outcast. She was pretty normal all things considered and that made for more realism. In fact, all of the kids reactions were pretty nailed. One of the problems with the earlier films is most of the kids didn’t well….react. They just sort of went “Huh. That’s bad.” These kids scream and yell and freak out. Poor Jesse had a break down when Kris died and him sitting in the jail cell smacking himself in the head sobbing going “Stay awake, stay awake!” was appropriate (and I cracked a smile).

And best of all? It was a level of violence I could handle. The two worst deaths in the film weren’t all that out there and they stuck to relatively quick, bloody deaths. It wasn’t so much gore as realistic violence and only the last death was really twitch worthy. I don’t want to be grossed out by violence. I want to see Freddy mess with the kids’ heads. Plus? There was no sex or gratuitous nudity to sit through. That made me ridiculously happy because the movie didn’t need it.

Though, this isn’t to say the movie didn’t have its faults. A few of the CGI effects were rather, um. Less than adequate. It’s sad when the movie from the 80′s does a special effect better than a CGI remake. I’m sorry, but Freddy coming out of the wall was cheesy and jarring because it looked fake. At least in the original they were moving a physical object. The cinematography fell pretty flat as well. The shots were pretty straight on and dull so even the scenes that were working (Micronaps anyone?) had their effects lessoned quite a bit.

Overall though – this movie was awesome and if you enjoyed the first movies – you will enjoy these. I loved the shift of focus from the kids to the monster and I think they did an amazing job with it. They’ve made Freddy Kreuger a truly horrifying figure even when he’s making you smile with a joke.

Though, despite all of Freddy’s amazing one-liners and dialogue, I think Quentin got the best line out of the film: ”Ah, shit.”

…but Freddy still had the crowning moment of awesome which I will not repeat because you need to hear it yourself. All you need to know is it’s during Nancy’s final confrontation of Freddie. XD

I can’t wait for this movie to come out on DVD.

No big deal, I think. I reach down to get it but my fingers decided to be chubby today and merely pushed it deeper into the crevice between cushion and armrest.

Not learning my lesson this repeats until the earing is pushed to the bottom, but still remains in sight. I gather my tools of two paper clips to try and fish it out – I only manage to hook it slightly before shoving it out of sight between wood and cushion.

I growl and get on floor trying to find way to reach beneath cushion that is firmly, firmly attached to the chair.

Co-workers notice at this point and plight is explained. They take the chair apart and start shaking it to try and loosen the item. Paperclips, food bits (that were there before!), a key, money and all sorts of other nicknack one would expect in a couch fall to the ground.

No earing.

And so the fellas turn the chair over and rip out the bottom panels and more falls out. Finally put chair on side and I look under the panel and see the earing lodged firmly in place between the siding. I retrieve my paper clip and fish it out of its’ hold.

Earing retrieved and slip of paper falls out of chair. In trash now, but paper dated over twenty years ago. My chair is freakin’ old.

Thank-you. The above took approximately fifteen minutes. I am now wearing only one earing as the other has a date with some rubbing alcohol before it can return to duty.

I love Fridays.