The Watercooler

Back to the Future ride in CA is closing too

Last year I wrote about the ridiculous decision to close the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios Orlando.  Well, California is following suit and closing theirs as well.  Boo.

At least they're making it an event.  Here in Florida there was no sendoff whatsoever.  I wish I could go...

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD INVITES GUESTS TO BE THE FINAL TIME-TRAVELERS ON “BACK TO THE FUTURE – THE RIDE” AND TAKE A CHANCE AT WINNING A COLLECTIBLE DELOREAN AS DOC BROWN SETS THE RIDE ON A COUNTDOWN TO ITS LAST MISSION ON LABOR DAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2007

“BACK TO THE FUTURE” CLOSURE TO MAKE WAY FOR NEW SIMPSONS THRILL RIDE OPENING SPRING 2008 AT “THE ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL OF L.A.”

Universal City, California – After thrilling over 61 million visitors with wild rides across “the space-time continuum,” the ground-breaking “Back to the Future – The Ride” attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood will soar into the future for the very last time on Labor Day, September 3, 2007.  Fans of the attraction will also have an opportunity to take the last ride and drive off as the owner of one of the stainless steel 1981 DeLoreans that served as inspiration for Doc Brown’s flux capacitor-equipped time machines.

“Back to the Future – The Ride” blends breakthrough simulator technology with a cutting-edge Omni-max 70mm film to create a total sensory experience.  A signature attraction at “The Entertainment Capital of L.A.” for over 14 years, the ride is being closed to make way for the introduction of a new thrill ride based on the enormously popular “The Simpsons” TV series and movie.  The Simpsons ride is slated to debut in Spring 2008.

“Back to the Future – The Ride” was introduced in 1993 as a continuation of the Oscar®-winning blockbuster “Back to the Future” film trilogy directed by Robert Zemeckis and executive produced by Steven Spielberg for Universal Pictures.  The attraction features an eight-seat convertible DeLorean Time Travel Vehicle that elevates the theme park ride experience to an unprecedented level of detail, beginning with an artfully staged queue line experience that helps set up the ride’s narrative storyline.

At the center of “Back to the Future—The Ride” is an original film, masterfully designed to interface with the simulator’s technology by an award-winning team of filmmakers, including Oscar®-winning and three-time Oscar® nominated director Douglas Trumbull, Oscar®-nominated cinematographer David K. Kennedy and Oscar®-nominated writer Bob Gale.

With imitation being the most sincere form or flattery, the ride has inspired many replicas at other theme parks worldwide since its gala 1993 premiere at Universal Studios Hollywood.

Fewer than 10,000 DeLorean automobiles were built at the company’s Northern Ireland factory.  The car was notable for its futuristic design, including a stainless steel exterior and top-opening gull-wing doors.  The 1981 DeLorean that Universal Studios Hollywood will give away has been driven with just over 60,000 miles.  Officials at the studio are unable to estimate how many millions of years the vehicle has traveled in the space-time continuum. To learn more about winning the DeLorean, guests can log on to www.UniversalStudiosHollywood.com or visit the theme park to register at specially-created “Back to the Future” kiosks.

Twin Peaks: The Second Season

Judge Judy Wednesday will be back next week, as I needed to post this review of Twin Peaks: The Second Season.  It'll be released next week.

Twin Peaks: The Second Season (1990-1991)
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5.0 stars

Well it only took six years and a change in rights from one company to another, but finally we have the release of the second and final season of Twin Peaks.  The story of the small, quirky Washington town is finally complete (well mostly) thanks to Paramount Home Entertainment under their CBS DVD banner.

The second season of Twin Peaks was hotly anticipated when it premiered in the fall of 1990.  The first season had been a runaway success and everyone was talking about it.  By the end of the show's run however, it had become one of the lowest rated shows on television.

So what killed Twin Peaks' popularity just as quickly as it rose mere months earlier?  Despite the changes in the show and the shift towards more supernatural elements, in my mind the biggest culprit was the American Broadcasting Company itself. 

The show's first season originally aired on ABC on Thursday nights.  Peaks was always a watercooler-type show, and one of the things that helped it build public awareness was that people would come to work on Friday and basically say to their co-workers "Did you see Twin Peaks last night?  What the hell?!?"  People who didn't see it became intrigued, and checked it out for themselves.  They too found themselves hooked.

Well the ABC programming pinheads, in all their brilliance, decided that if it ain't broke they need to fix it.  So the show was moved from Thursdays to Saturdays, along with other critically acclaimed shows such as China Beach.

Nothing thrives on Saturdays.  Nothing.  People go out on Saturdays.  Lynch once said in an interview on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman that Peaks people are party people, and therefore aren't home on Saturdays to watch the show.  As a result of ABC's complete ineptitude, both China Beach and Twin Peaks did not survive that season.

The dopes even devised an insipid marketing campaign for this equally insipid move.  The ads featured a room of executives nervous for their jobs because they were moving their best shows to the television wasteland, and they asked us to find it in our hearts to stay home and watch so their jobs could be saved.

To be fair, creatively the show declined as well, which also helped kill it.  Some of it was unavoidable.  Certain plotlines along the way had to be jettisoned for whatever reason, and the writers were left scrambling at the last minute to find new ideas to fill the time.

Some individual episode thoughts:

Episode 8: In this, the two-hour second season premiere directed by David Lynch, we find out who killed Laura Palmer.  Yep, that's how the episode ends, in one of the creepiest scenes I've ever seen on network television.  Of course it's not exactly what it appears to be though...

Episode 9: Also directed by David Lynch, this episode sets up the Windom Earle subplot that'll drive the latter half of the season.  It's a shame that something that was set up so early would wind up being so rushed.  Later, it's alluded to that aliens might be involved in the town's shenanigans.  That might have lost a few viewers right there.  Then, immediately following the possible aliens, James, Donna and Maddy have some sort of bizarro sing-along which is without a doubt the goofiest scene in Peaks history.  And that's saying something.

Episode 10: The 180 degree turn Miguel Ferrer's character takes here still baffles me, and his character sadly never recovers.

Episodes 11-13: Another problem that would help seal the fate of the series was Lynch's intention to never truly solve the mystery of Laura Palmer's murder, hoping instead that the quirkiness of the show would be enough to keep bringing people back week after week.  Episodes 11-13 are proof that this wasn't the best idea.  The murder case is barely even mentioned over these three hours, and what we were given in its place wasn't a compelling enough substitute.  Even I was close to bailing on this show.

In episode 12, Cooper reveals that he's been in town for 12 days, which blew my mind when I first heard it.  I'd been watching this show for over a year and only 12 days had gone by?  Crazy.  Episode 13 continues the mediocre nothingness, although it does mark the first of David Lynch's great guest-starring appearances as Cooper's hard of hearing boss.  Things then pick WAY up during the finale.

Episode 14: Game on folks.  This Lynch directed episode promised to reveal the true killer of Laura Palmer and boy howdy, does it ever do that in just about the most disturbing way possible.  This might be the single greatest episode of television I've ever seen.

Episode 15: This episode used to bug me a bit, because it seemed like worthless filler between the reveal and the resolution.  But I've come to enjoy it a great deal, as we get to see an episode just like any other, but instead knowing what we now know.  It's like a fresh new perspective.  One episode of it was the right choice.  Any more than that would have angered even more people.

Episode 16: This is the resolution to Laura Palmer's murder case.  Brilliantly acted (save for one totally off the wall speech by Cooper near the end), although it's a bit of a letdown after the high point of the reveal.  But the problem is... now what?

Episode 17: Now what, indeed.  This episode takes place three days after the previous one, and if you look at it close enough you can actually see wheels spinning.  They needed to come out of the gate full force with this episode with something as compelling as Laura's murder to keep people hooked, and instead there's just nothing.  The storyline with Cooper's insane former partner Windom Earle, who has been mentioned a few times by this point, should have leapt to the forefront.

Episodes 18-20: Technically the show was a soap opera, but up until now it managed to avoid most soap cliches and stayed unique enough to stand out.  Sadly episode 18 introduces a far too lengthy subplot involving James leaving town and ending up in some sort of love triangle, murder pact.  It's straight out of Knots Landing or Falcon Crest, and it flat out sucks.  David Duchovny's presence as a cross-dressing DEA agent helps soften the blow however.  A very young Molly Shannon has a brief role in episode 19.

Episode 21: Windom Earle FINALLY shows up.  They wasted too much time getting to this point.

Episode 22: The awful James subplot finally draws to a conclusion in what I consider to be hands-down the worst episode of the series.  It's directed by Diane Keaton (yes, that Diane Keaton) and she shows no style, talent or ability behind the camera.  She just tries to make things weird for the sake of being weird.  Insert shots are horrible, the audio mix and dubbing are horrible... I really want to try and pretend that this episode doesn't exist.  Sadly I can't dismiss it entirely because out of nowhere this episode remembers that Cooper was shot at the end of season one and it sets in motion the conclusion of that storyline.  It also resolves the whole "Ben Horne goes mad" theme that was a lot of fun along the way.

Episode 23: This was the last episode before the show went on hiatus.  It's also one of my favorites.  It's a fantastic final episode for one of the series regulars and everything about it from the tone to the score music paints a picture of doom with the walls closing in quickly for said character.  Ignore the last five seconds or so... whatever the hell they were thinking there just didn't translate.

Episode 24: The show returned to Thursday nights after I believe a two month gap, but the damage was already done.  Still, we were lucky to get the series back on the air at all for six more episodes to conclude the season. 

Michael Ontkean was very capable in his role as Sheriff Truman, however one thing he should have never, ever had to do was to act drunk and belligerent.  He's terrible at it, and it makes those scenes in this episode fall flat.  Heather Graham arrives as a love interest for Agent Cooper.  She becomes a better actress later in her career.

This episode has the worst ending of any episode in the series.  If they were hoping for renewed interest in the series after such a long break, this ending would not bring any casual viewers back the next week.

Episodes 25-28: Two main components of the Windom Earle storyline are completely shoved aside (one is actually literally shoved aside) as things ramp up to ridiculous speed with all sorts of new information being thrown at us left and right.  To this day, there are details that I still don't understand.  Killer monks are somehow involved now?  What?

Episode 29: If there's one thing David Lynch seems to love, it's torturing us with old people.  Both the two hour premiere and this one hour finale prominently feature really, really old people moving really, really slowly which in each case seems to suck away about 15 minutes of screen time.

If you're frustrated that this series finale offers no answers whatsoever, know that it was not filmed as a series finale but as the end of the season.  There was still hope that the show would be renewed.  But of course it was not. 

Lynch then was given a second chance and was allowed to make a motion picture set within the Twin Peaks universe, but... well, that's another rant for another day.

The audio/video quality for the episodes in this DVD set is spectacular.  Granted I'm basing that on comparing them to fuzzy LP tapes and equally fuzzy memories, but it's still a no-brainer that this is the best Twin Peaks has ever looked or sounded.  If I was unaware of the show and was watching this for the first time today, I would not think it was as old as it is.  There are no DTS audio tracks this time, but you get still get solid 5.1 mixes.  And the Lynch/Frost logo at the end of each episode will still scare the crap out of you.

Every episode in the set includes the Log Lady intros from the show's Bravo run.  These look nowhere near as clean as the episodes themselves, but they're good to have nonetheless.  Unlike the previous set however, each episode does *not* include the "Previously on Twin Peaks" recap before each episode.  Bummer.

Disc one includes an interview with Jennifer Lynch, you know who's daughter and author of The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, a tie-in to the show that becomes a prominent piece of evidence in the murder investigation.  It's a very interesting, relevant interview, however it is much too short for my tastes.  She also refuses to mention a few details, as if there's still a binding non-disclosure pact for this 17 year old dead television series.

Disc two features an interview with series director Todd Holland.  He praises shows like Lost for having the kind of patience with its storytelling that Twin Peaks used to have, and he discusses how the opening shot of his first episode in the second season came about.  Again, good but too short.

Disc three's extra is an interview with director Caleb Deschanel.  He discusses the brief flashback scene in episode 15 and how it came about.  Interesting choice to focus on, considering everything that's going on in that episode...

Director/editor Duwayne Dunham is the fourth disc's participant.  He gives some great insight into why he was the right choice to direct the first episode after the pilot.

Disc five sports an interview with episode 27 director Stephen Gyllenhaal.  He mentions that there was one particular actor he had to work with that he just hated.  I wonder who that was...

Disc six has an interview with director Tim Hunter.  Also on the final disc is a 30+ minute collection of new interviews with performers Kyle MacLachlan, Sherilyn Fenn, Madchen Amick, Dana Ashbrook, Gary Hershberger, James Marshall, David Duchovny, Kimmy Robertson, Don Davis, Mary Jo Deschanel, Lenny Von Dohlen and Charlotte Stewart.  These can be viewed individually or (thankfully) all at once.

While there are a great many key cast members missing (along with series creators Mark Frost and David Lynch), it's good to hear from some who've yet to have a voice in previous Peaks releases.  David Duchovny and Lenny Von Dohlen for example.  And unlike the interviews on the previous season and on the movie, these are all shot beautifully and professionally and are presented in anamorphic widescreen.

I know it sounds as though I have many complaints about this show, but the good still far outweighs the bad.  Most of the worst moments here are still better than 99% of everything else that's ever been on television.  From start to finish it remains my favorite television show of all time.  And while the extras aren't as plentiful as they were in the first season set, at this point I'm just happy the thing got released at all.

Now if we could just get the pilot episode on DVD...

Why Steve Why?

There was no need for a Pink Panther remake.  Alan Arkin couldn't do it.  Ted Wass couldn't do it.  Roberto Benigni couldn't do it.  There's just no reason for it.  And now sadly Steve Martin has proven that he couldn't do it.

Martin fails to make the character his own.  He just looks like Steve Martin with a painted on mustache, sporting a completely unbelievable French accent.  Peter Sellers became Clouseau.  Martin can't even imitate him.

There is an element to the character of Clouseau that always bothered me in the earlier Peter Sellers films, however it was never done as frequently as it was in this remake.  Once in a while in one of the classic Pink Panther movies, some sort of accident would just happen.  No one's fault.  Clouseau just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when it happened and therefore looked like an idiot as a result.

The genius of the character is supposed to be that he's a complete buffoon and yet he's supremely confident in himself.  In this remake, it seems a great deal was done to soften the character, to make him more of a sympathetic figure instead of a total moron.  I can't say I like the change.

Take, for example, "the globe gag".  The globe gag was used twice in Sellers' installments.  In one instance Clouseau spins a globe and then confidently rests his hand on it, sliding straight to the floor.  The other time he does the same thing but his hand gets caught between the globe and the holder. 

However in this remake, Clouseau casually spins a globe and through no fault of his own it flies off its holder and out into the street, where it causes recurring havoc ala the electric cart in Ernest Goes to Camp (that's right... it felt like a bit stolen from an Ernest movie).  Clouseau didn't do anything to cause this to happen, it just happened.  It wasn't clumsiness, it was misfortune.

In another scene, Dreyfus (Kevin Kline) has one of those executive kinetic ball things on his desk which Clouseau goes to use.  He uses no more force than anyone else would and yet merely touching the thing causes it to fall apart completely.

So while I ultimately disliked this movie and saw no reason for its existence, it's even more frustrating that there were a handful of genuine laughs throughout.  There's a fight scene were Clouseau only poses towards people while his partner (Jean Reno) does all the actual fighting.  The whole running "hamburger" gag is fine despite it being beaten to death in the trailers.  However the best bit of business comes from a brief conversation between Clouseau and his partner:

Ponton: He was just found dead in a training facility locker room. Shot in the head.
Clouseau: Was it fatal?
Ponton: Yes.
Clouseau: How fatal?
Ponton: Um, completely.
Clouseau: I want to talk to him now!

There's a little more to that conversation (which I'll update later), but it's brilliantly performed by Martin and Reno.  Since it was early in the film it gave me a false sense of hope, but sadly the rest of the film wasn't as amusing.

The Carpenters Aren't Rock and Roll

At one point during dinner conversation last night, the topic turned to "What's your favorite Elvis song?"  Naturally everyone had a different answer, considering that Elvis recorded 9 million songs during his career.  No lie.

When I stated that my hands down favorite was If I Can Dream, the reactions ranged from "I'm not sure I recognize that one" to "Bah, that's one of those upbeat, inspirational ones".

Now rather than turn this into a "So what about you people, what's your favorite Elvis song?" I'm going to go in a different direction.  See, the song If I Can Dream reminds me of the 1988 movie Heartbreak Hotel, an underrated little gem that while totally preposterous is still entertaining.  The song is featured on its soundtrack.

Heartbreak Hotel tells you from the very start that it's completely made up, calling itself a fable about the King.  It's 1972, and a small town kid from Ohio (Charlie Schlatter) kidnaps Elvis Presley (David Keith) to help cheer up his mom (Tuesday Weld).  Elvis cleans himself up, reflects upon the mistakes he's made in life, and even performs in the high school talent show.  I know it sounds absurd, but it's a cute little movie.

The DVD (which unfortunately is full screen only) is readily available and pretty cheap too.  You can find it online for $6-$7 easily.  The Watercooler recommends this title to you.

Don't You Wish Your Weekend Was Fun Like Me?

With my girlfriend out of town and apparently taking the Florida sunshine with her, it was appropriately dreary outside this past weekend.  Driving around in the new car listening to tunes wasn't going to be a safe time filler until her return, so that meant it was a weekend of trying to stay busy someplace else.  "Someplace Else" is now the name of my living room.

I don't have any current projects going on and ones I've abandoned in the recent past are difficult to just jump back into at the moment, so all Friday night and most of Saturday I spent the time with either the Xbox 360 (so it'll stop blogging awful things about me) or the DVD player.  That's right, check me out.

I watched a couple of flicks from my long overdue pile (The Forgotten and the remake of The Pink Panther), finished off some TV on DVD sets (My Name is Earl: Season 1, Scrubs: Season 4, The Office: Season 2 and ER: Season 5), and started a new one (St. Elsewhere: Season 1).  I'll have opinions on all later in the week.  The Pink Panther might turn into a full-fledged rant.

Sunday I went in for some "overtime" at work (I got to drive the new car to and from, so... yeah baby, score!), and then finished up my week's worth of laundry.  Then I wrote this blog, the blog I mentioned moments ago, another blog about my car buying experiences, and yet another Personal Hell blog.

Then I wrapped all my Christmas presents, as I've been done with my shopping for a while now.  Those of you on my gift list will soon find out just how bored I was (heh).

When I wasn't doing any of those things, I was importing my entire CD collection into iTunes for playback on my iPod, then checking run times against versions that I already had in iTunes to see if I'd duplicated anything, then cleaning up song titles and artists names to my liking, then finally downloading CD artwork for missing albums.  Duran Duran's Ordinary World is now trapped in my head.

Jealous?  Why, what were you out doing?  Clubbing?  Dancing?  The cinema?  Haha.  Losers.

Yeah, I really missed my girlfriend.  I'm glad she's home.

Quick Takes

Quick takes on movies I've seen recently:

An American Haunting - What an absolutely worthless motion picture this is.  Some ghost seems hellbent on slapping a teenager in the face and then we find out it's all because her father had sex with her or something.  Horrible.  0.5 out of 5.0.

Click - Adam Sandler doesn't possess the acting chops to pull off what was required from him in the film's final act (where it gets pretty dramatic).  Normally films like this with the whole trick ending (or is it?) piss me off to no end, however this didn't bother me much since the premise is so outlandish anyway.  Christopher Walken gets a beefy supporting role.  3.5 out of 5.0

The Da Vinci Code - Yeah, so?  Now what?  I didn't hate this like a lot of people did, but I had no doubt that even if they proved that there were living descendants of Jesus Christ, nothing would come from it.  So who cares if 12 people on the planet know?  The interesting part would be how does the world react to finding out that everything they've been told is a lie.  But we don't get that.  Oh, and the trailer flat out lies to us as well.  There's nothing written over the face of the Mona Lisa like we see in the previews.  2.5 out of 5.0.

Inside Man - I really enjoyed Spike Lee's first real commercial effort, however the last 20 minutes (after everyone leaves the bank) really sabotage things.  My girlfriend fell asleep right before this and when I woke her up as the credits rolled, I couldn't even explain what had happened.  Everyone just sort of meanders around and talks to one another but there is no satisfactory resolution of any kind.  It lost a whole half star because of this, and I'm sure Spike will be devestated to hear that.   3.5 out of 5.0

Stick It - This is what you end up watching when you're around teenagers.  Granted I probably would have thrown it in at some point because I was curious as to why Jeff Bridges was doing this movie.  Anyway, don't expect much from this teen rebel gymnastics thing.  It's fun to snark on, and parts of it aren't even that bad.  2.5 out of 5.0.

Another Movie Quiz: Questions 7-10

7) Your favorite movie theater
Any theater without other people in it.

8) Jean Arthur or Irene Dunne?
Pass.

9) Favorite film made for children?
Either Fluke, Oh Heavenly Dog or Homeward Bound.  I love dog movies.

10) Favorite Martin Scorsese Movie?
Either Casino or After Hours.

Weekend DVD Recommendations (and Warnings)

Perhaps going into this weekend you might have your eye on watching a flick or two.  I've been there myself these past few weekends.  These are some of the films I've seen recently that I don't have a whole lot to say about (the others have already received full write ups), so perhaps you can use this as a guide for your weekend o' entertainment.

First up is The Omen. There's absolutely no reason to watch this needless remake of a film that's 1) a classic, 2) spawned three sequels, and 3) has already been semi-remade over the years as films such as The Good Son and Bless the Child.

However, allow me to recommend two brief seconds worth of it.  In the scene where Damien's nanny jumps from the roof to hang herself, there's a moment where she yells to get the crowd's attention.  Everyone in the crowd turns to look up at the roof, and then I kid you not, two hand puppets that were a part of a puppet show stop doing their puppet things and slowly turn their puppet "attention" to the roof.  Doesn't make sense on about 50 different levels, but it provided an all too brief moment of hilarity in a movie that's otherwise worthless.  Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0.

Down in the Valley was a movie that I knew absolutely nothing about.  I saw it in a Best Buy ad recently and watched it solely based on the cast mentioned on the box.  As it turns out, this is a solid film.  It doesn't hammer you over the head with character background and lets you determine their motives for yourself, which is a refreshing change of pace.  Now there is a bit of an "icky" vibe throughout the first half of the film that eventually plays itself out, but it is still a distraction there for a while.  Edward Norton and David Morse are excellent.  Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0.

The Dreamers is quite simply not my kind of movie.  I'll give it all the credit in the world for keeping my interest, showcasing some solid performances, and not being predictable, but the characters and the story are just not something I can identify with in any way whatsoever.  And that's really all I have to say about that.  Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0.

Thank You for Smoking.  While I liked this one, I think I expected more from it.  Sure it's kind of interesting to have a movie based around a guy who argues for the tobacco industry, but it just wasn't quirky enough (not as much as I wanted it to be, that is).  There are a few interesting editing and stylistic touches here and there, and it did deliver one of my favorite lines in recent memory: "The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese!"  Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0.

Finally there's American Dreamz.  This very obvious spoof of both American Idol and the Iraq War made about eight bucks at the theaters and so I was expecting the worst, but it turns out to be rather humorous and engaging.  Perhaps people just weren't ready for wacky terrorists?  The ending is very heavy handed and I would have preferred it went in a different direction entirely, but overall it was an entertaining little flick.  Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0.

So definitely take a look at Down in the Valley.  Thank You for Smoking and American Dreamz might be worth your while.  Take a chance on The Dreamers if you're into the whole arty thing.  And if you find The Omen in your hands at any point, just go ahead and ram your head into a wall.

"Wanna suck face?"

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master was a major box office hit, and ultimately ended up being the highest grossing film of the series.  Too bad it sucks, and sucks hard.

In this installment co-written by Academy Award winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Conspiracy Theory) and directed by Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2), Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) returns to eliminate the three teen survivors of the previous film, and after accomplishing that decides to just keep on going.  One of his targets however turns out to be the "Dream Master", who can get the upper hand on Freddy on his own turf and finally destroy him for good (or at least until part 5).

The Dream Master had a total uphill battle with me from the opening scenes, all because of the way they handled Freddy's resurrection.  Basically someone devised some retardo scenario where a dog named Jason (get it? A swipe/nod to the Friday the 13th series?  It's funny!) urinates a fireball onto Freddy's grave.  Even as a thirteen year old horror film freak I couldn't suspend disbelief enough to get past that idiotic method of bringing back Freddy.

There were hints of it in the last film, but this is really where Freddy started killing people with irony.  After very clunky scenes set up each character's phobia or niche, Freddy will them kill them in a related manor.  Afraid of bugs?  You die in a roach motel.  Have asthma?  Guess how you die.

There's nothing wrong with Freddy capitalizing on people's fears, which is really what he should have been doing all along.  I'm surprised it took up until the fourth film in the series to pick up on and really explore this potential theme.  But the establishing of each character's little background only tells the audience exactly how they're going to die.  That dude knows karate... I bet his dream will be a karate battle with Freddy.  Yawn.

Also, why is this whole movie dubbed?  It sounds as if Tuesday Knight's role was completely voiced over and many other scenes feature complete overdubbing.

The bonus disc in the boxed set features the film's original theatrical trailer and several interviews.  In them we learn that this was the first film of the series to have a firm release date set even before a single frame of footage had been shot.  This created a great deal of nervousness and tension in the offices of New Line as no one knew exactly what they were doing (it shows in the final product). 

When shooting began, the writer's guild went on strike... so things were being made up on a daily basis by everyone involved.  Must have been how the dialogue was created because it is horribly stilted.

Also, director Renny Harlin tells us that he wanted Freddy Krueger to become the hero of the series, like a horror version of James Bond.  *Ugh*. 

Curiously, the information I was most looking forward to hearing (about why Patricia Arquette didn't return for this installment and was instead replaced by Tuesday Knight, who doesn't even come close to approaching anything similar to what Arquette did with the role) isn't even touched upon.

Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0

"Welcome to Prime Time"

Pardon the cliché, but the third time's the charm for the Nightmare on Elm Street films.  Hands down, Dream Warriors is the best film of the series.  It wisely ignores the second installment, a trend in horror films which I usually abhor but I have no problem with in this case.

Dream Warriors was the first Nightmare film I saw when I was a kid and also the first one I saw in a theater. I can clearly remember after Kincade said "Let's go kick the motherf*cker's ass all over dreamland" the crowd I was with went absolutely out of their minds and applauded for at least a minute.  But even without those fond memories it stands alone as the best written, best acted and most entertaining film of the series.

The last of the Elm Street children are all patients at a psychiatric hospital, troubled by their nightmares of Freddy Krueger.  When Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) returns to her hometown to work with these kids, the nightmares intensify.  One by one, the kids soon start to die in ways resembling suicide.  But of course, Freddy's behind it all.

Two drafts of the script were written.  The first by series creator Wes Craven and Bruce Wagner was much larger in vision and scope.  When that script was deemed unfilmable, Chuck Russell (who went on to direct The Mask and Eraser) and Frank Darabont (director of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) rewrote it.  The final mix of the two pretty darn good.

That's certainly not to say that the film is perfect though.  There are some silly plot points here and there, and every once in a while it doesn't make sense.  For example, the kid who sleepwalks... at one point he sleepwalks THROUGH a closed door.  It was only a quick shot, but one that does yank you out of the movie for a moment to question what the hell just happened.

The bonus disc with the DVD boxed set called The Nightmare Series Encyclopedia features the film's original theatrical trailer and a good amount of interviews.  Although, like the second film, disturbing topics are discussed. 

For example, there's a lengthy discussion about the Freddy worm/snake thing special effect at the beginning of the film.  As it turns out... yes, it was designed to look like a penis.  Now, I never ever would have drawn that conclusion, and I'm frightened to know that every time I see this film from here on I'll have that idea in my head.  What is wrong with these filmmakers?  Make with the scares man, stop trying to turn these things into sexy bloodbaths.

Robert Englund is the worst about all this horror-sexual nonsense... he seems to think that there's a lot of erotic qualities to both his character and the series.  At one point, he shares his belief that all Nightmare fans really wanted to see Freddy and Nancy "get it on".  Ewwww.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0