Be Careful When Framing Your Shots

This isn't advice that's incredibly useful any more - the primacy of widescreen televisions has largely eliminated the need for panning and scanning. Still, it's interesting to see examples of a time when people didn't think too long or hard about what was going to show up in the frame when the conversion was made from widescreen to fullscreen.

Let's use Jason Goes to Hell as an illustrative example, shall we?

This is Jason tossing a hero aside like so much refuse. Note the distance between Jason and that bush to his left. Moments after this occurs, a heroine uses the bush as a springboard to jump onto Jason's back.

What's going on with classic video box art? (part 2)

Okay, last time I looked over the bizarrely cheap new art that Prince of Darkness had been saddled with on Netflix. As if that wasn't bad enough, take a look at the monstrosity that The Thing (one of our greatest movie posters), now has representing it to the world:

Is it an issue of having to re-license the art? Because I can't imagine anyone looking at the second box and imagining it was an improvement.

Now take a look at what's going on with Friday the 13th, according to Netflix.

This is more of a hit-and-miss situation, actually. I'd like to get offended about all of the changes, but some of them were actually for the better. I would have liked them to hold onto the first three posters as-is, but truth be told, the change they made to The Final Chapter didn't really hurt things much - the old one was classier, but a few bloody flames never hurt anyone.

Then five and six are just bizarre - five is a huge improvement over the classic poster, although still inferior to the teaser image I loved so well. Six, on the other hand, is just a generic mess. What the hell is Jason doing using a machete for a backhanded stab? Despite how Jason likes to use it, the thing doesn't really even have a sharp point!

Things proceed to get weird with seven and eight - who could have predicted that New Blood would join the original as the only movie to have its poster untouched. Eight, on the other hand, presents us with an example of Netflix actually undoing a historical tragedy - that poster was famously pulled back in the 80s when New York's tourism board threatened to sue, but twenty years later no one cares any more, and it's been restored to its rightful place as the face of Jason Takes Manhattan!

God, next thing you know they're going to mess with A Nightmare on Elm Street's poster, possibly the single most iconic 80s horror-

What the hell, people?

Something I never noticed until just now in Friday the 13th Part 2

Continuing my infrequent series of articles about things I'm just now noticing in movies I've seen literally hundreds of times, let me point out a bizarre sequence from Friday the 13th Part 2.

This is Vicky, going skinny-dipping in Crystal Lake, alone, in the middle of the night. While that's questionable in and of itself, let's move on to what I'm here to discuss, namely Scott stealing her clothes-

And the aftermath thereof. Running off with Vicky's shirt, Scott winds up caught in a man-trap. Reclaiming her clothing, Vicky heads back to her cabin to find a knife she can use to cut Scott down. Then this happens-

First off, this isn't a 3D movie, but that's not the really weird part. We've got to assume that was her towel, since she went down to the lake to take a dip. Right after doing this she heads back to her cabin-

Who throws their wet towel off into the woods when they were on the way back to the place it belongs?

Weird.

Box Office News: Friday the 13th

Perhaps it's my morbid desire to be proven right after the Dark Knight fiasco (here's the precis - it made more money than I imagined and predicted it would. My underestimation of the 'Brandon Lee' factor was due to my failure to factor in that people generally thought of Heath Ledger as a 'good' actor, a trait that Lee sadly did not share) that has left me giddily anticipating the long-term failure of the film Friday the 13th, which I also absolutely loathed.

Luckily for me, this time the numbers are backing my hatred of a film up. I think I can take as read the idea that opening weekend box office is an indicator not of a film's quality, but rather an audience's excitement about a film, and the success of the film's marketing. Judged solely on those criteria, Friday the 13th's opening weekend was a smashing success. Earning 40.1 million dollars in three days establishes this film clearly as one that was well-marketed, and one that audiences were interested in seeing.

Jason: The Avod

Last night both the Divemistress and myself went to theatres and watched the film Friday the 13th. We each took an hour or two to process what we'd seen, and then went online to discuss.

This new Avod is that discussion, preserved for the viewing audience, especially those wondering just how much of a disaster the movie was.

You can listen to the Avod by right-clicking here, and then saving the film to your desktop. As always, it's also available on TheAvod's blog.

The Texas Jason Massacre!

I forgot to bring a notepad or laptop to the movie, so this is going to be a little less clear than my later – I-now-have-the-film-on-DVD-post is likely to be, but for right now, here’s the stream of consciousness that comes from liveblogging the film as I run it back through my head with my eyes closed.

Why are they ruining what might be an effective kinda-black and white flashback to the end of the first movie by cutting to black and running credits? I accept that you want opening credits, but if you must, play them over black before the story starts, or after the title card. Whatever you do, don’t interrupt storytelling with them. Also, Courier? Were the other fonts all too pricey?

Happy Avod the 13th!

That's right, after months of plugging it's finally time to unveil the Jason-themed Avod! The Divemistress and I went a little overboard this time, deciding that each and every film deserved in-depth analysis. As a result, the Avod has been broken up into three sections, each of which can be downloaded by right-clicking on the following links and 'saving (the) target as'.

PART 1 - In which we discuss Fridays 1-3, as well as debate timelines and characters' ultimate fates.

PART 2 - In which we discuss Fridays 4-7, which include the series' highest and (near) lowest points.

PART 3 - In which we discuss Fridays 8-11, three of which comprise the the so-called 'Fake Jason Trilogy'

Now for the show notes. As promised, the Internet did not let me down when it comes to celebrities dancing silly:

Friday the 13th... The Comic! (Part 6 of 6)

Issue 6

I’ve seen some strange openings in this series so far, but this issue takes the cake by such a wide degree that, unless we’re very lucky, we may never see cake on this planet again. What’s that opening? Why, the origin of Jason, of course!

Excuse me? You think you know Jason’s origin? Something about almost drowning in a lake until he got brain damage, then seeing his mother brutally killed, and taking misguided vengeance into his own hands until getting killed by Corey Feldman. A quick lightning bolt to the chest some seven years later and he was back as an unkillable zombie.

No, silly goose, I’m talking about the secret origin of Jason Voorhees. You know, the one with the Indians.

Yeah, I hadn’t heard about it either.

Friday the 13th... The Comic! (Part 5 of 6)

Issue 5

Rather surprisingly, this issue doesn’t pick up where the last one left off, instead it opens back in the hospital, where the Sheriff is interrogating Sally while she’s strapped to her bed, doped up on ‘all kinds of meds’. He’s desperate to find out exactly what happened at Crystal Lake, and recaps the death of the three victims we know about, dropping quite a bombshell in the process. It seems that the stoners’ bodies were covered in tiny bite marks, matching the jaw radius of different ages and genders of children.

He mentions this in passing, although it seems to be a pretty important point. After all, we know that the stoners died just a couple of days earlier – where on earth could those bites have come from? We readers know that this fact establishes the ghost children as actual, factual monsters – as if their attempt to drown Sally hadn’t done that already – but to him, this has got to be something of a crazy twist! Back in the first issue, he announced he was skeptical about the whole ‘Death Curse’ thing, but there’s no way he can justify skepticism any more, is there?

Friday the 13th... The Comic! (Part 4 of 6)

Issue 4

The issue kicks off another great image, which not only serves to set a great mood, but also remind me just how big proper oars are. My only real boating experience is with canoes and their rather modest paddles. Those rowing deals are something else, huh?

The actual story of the issue resumes just where it left off, with Sally, Girlfriend and Jock (the secret gay!) gathered in the main cabin while Jason looms ominously outside. Unfortunately, the outdoors aren’t well lit, and the lightning has dies down, so no one else is able to see Jason. This leads Girlfriend to announce that she thinks it’s safe to go and gather Rico and Alisha, then all drive into town together. Not some much to get away from the murderer as to escape the awkwardness of her secretly gay boyfriend.

Friday the 13th... The Comic! (Part 3 of 6)

Issue 3

This issue opens with Mike and and the other counselors discovering that the stoners have disappeared. Everyone agrees they must have left early in the morning, since no one saw them go, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to have wandered off in the middle of the night. Of course, it also doesn’t make sense for two loser stoners who were ditching out on paying work to have made their beds before sneaking off:

Friday the 13th... The Comic! (Part 2 of 6)

Issue 2

The second issue opens with a dream sequence, as Sally, currently unconscious because of her near-drowning experience, hallucinates that Jason is attacking her. The most interesting thing about this scene is that the Jason that attacks her is clearly the ‘real’ Jason, as defined by the world of the comic.

I’ll explain – up until this point, we’ve had no reason to believe that Sally has any particular familiarity with the details of the Jason legend, nor is there any suggestion that anyone has managed to get photographic evidence of his appearance. Yet, when Jason appears in Sally’s nightmare, it’s the Jason who will actually be chasing her through the woods in two weeks, right down to the machete.

Friday the 13th... The Comic! (Part 1 of 6)

Friday the 13th holds a special place in my heart. In addition to my qualifications as a pop culture critic in this, the last great unregulated expanse we call the Internet, I am both a board-certified Jasonologist and a world-reknowned Jasonosopher. I believe this renders me better able than most to offer commentary and criticism on DC's recent attempt to launch a line of Friday the 13th comic books. This article will exhaustively cover the first storyline of that new series, which was untitled, and spanned a trade-paperback-friendly six issues. It's going to be essentially one long spoiler as I address plot details, holes, and various problems contained within the comic. In order illustrate my points I'll be using some images from the comics and films—because the films were all rated R, and the comics are published by DC's 'edgy' subsidiary Wildstorm, it's quite possible this article will not be safe for work. It depends where you work, I guess. If you're in the art department at Hustler, then it's probably cool. If you're answering phones at a rectory, maybe not so much. Please, just use your best judgment, or, if you need to be absolutely sure, anonymously send a link to this article to your HR rep and get their opinion. Actually, you know what? Do that anyway, I could use the hits.