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dastardlydandelion · 2 years

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SPOILER! SCREAM 6 REVIEW WITH SPOILERS! DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS ALSO I AM HIGH.

my thoughts and feelings on scream vi. i have a lot of them!

boy howdy, that was a ride! so overall I enjoyed it a lot! gonna start out with the positives before i leap into the negatives.

spoilers under the cut!!!

my favorite part was the carpenter sisters, by far. i am aware that there are plenty of people who dislike sam. that’s valid, obvi, people are entitled to their opinions. nevertheless, i do feel like a lot of the hate directed toward her is honestly unfair. hate from billy/sydney shippers who cannot conceive billy having cheated on her even tho he was like, a literal murderer. said shippers angry that their conspiracy theories about sam being sydney’s daughter are just blatantly untrue bc sam is latina, the stu/billy shippers angry that billy evidently enjoyed sex with women outside of using sex to manipulate syd, etc. these are kinda stupid reasons to hate sam, u guys.

now, others were not a fan of sam bc they didn’t care for melissa barrera’s performance in scream 5 and ykw, fair enough. HOWEVER, i would like to interject here that i am personally more forgiving toward some of her wonkier scenes bc i understand what the directors were going for. scream 2022 is a fan movie and sam is a fanfic character brought to screen. her dialogue is what u would read in a middle schooler’s fanfic and that’s…weird but nostalgic, so i get it. this movie was swaddled in nostalgia. also we have to understand sam as a character who intentionally represses her emotions bc of her internal proclivity for violence. much of her performance is restrained until act 3 and while i 100% understand why this didn’t work for some people, it didn’t bother me personally bc i’m sympathetic to the intent behind it.

i was supposed to be spilling my thoughts about scream vi and instead just went off on a tangent about 5. bc context needs context and i can never get to the point without detours and most of my detours involve giving context to the context or covering my bases, for those who potentially wish to poke holes…

ANYWAY. i genuinely enjoyed sam and tara in scream 5. some of my biggest beefs with 5 were the changes to the initial script that decreased the tension between the sisters and robbed us of their familial context. ykw, like amber and tara being romantically involved + amber and sam’s mutual dislike of each other, which would’ve layered amber’s motivations as well as added to the conflict between the sisters. the originally scripted scenes with their mother drunkenly displaying her fear of sam, particularly her fear of sam harming tara, which would’ve helped the audience understand why sam was desperate to leave woodsboro and why sam represses herself so heavily…and here i am still talking about scream 5. but my point is i already loved the sisters and i was very much looking forward to them and seeing how their relationship developed in 6.

and it did not disappoint!! oh my lordy. i love how sam just goes completely into mama bear mode over tara!!! it works so well on so many levels. she wants to protect her because for five years she wasn’t even there, because she spent the most horrible three days of her life nearly losing tara, because their mother and tara are now estranged specifically bc tara chose to allow sam back into her life, and bc she feels like she has to be hyper-vigilant bc tara coped in the opposite direction and chose not to deal with what happened at all.

i loved the push and pull between them, how tara clearly loves sam very much but is straining under her smothering and frustrated bc their coping mechanisms clash with the calamity of a car crash. adore how tara defends sam even when she’s upset with her but i think my very favorite thing was at the end when sam HAS PUT ON HER FATHER’S COSTUME LIKE I HAVE WANTED HER TO FOR FUCKING MONTHS AND STABS BAILEY TWENTY TIMES AND ONLY STOPS HERSELF FROM DELIVERING THE FATAL BLOW WHEN SHE HEARS TARA!!!! AND THEN TARA VISIBLY GIVES HER PERMISSION TO KILL HIM SO SHE UNLEASHES IT AND STABS HIM IN THE FUCKING EYEBALL OH MY GOD.

whew, lotta caps lock, but yeah. yeah, no, i was just that excited. tara didn’t even have to say the words, it was the look in her eyes and the soft tilt of the head and sam knew it would be okay. that was so touching. hands down, my favorite scene. <3 <3 <3

also the storyline surrounding sam? perhaps a tad exaggerated in this horror movie context but not at all unlikely or untrue to life.

a woman who only resorted to violence in retaliation to her more dangerous boyfriend’s violence being DARVO-ed by social media? a woman being turned into the monster of the story while internet fans fawn over and infantilize the man who victimized her? a woman who chose violence only to survive vilified while terminally online fans edit flower crowns onto her actually evil boyfriend’s pics and proclaim his innocence in cutesy fonts??

yeah, that’s pretty fucking familiar. this probably would’ve happened to sam even if billy loomis wasn’t her father, her heritage just makes it 10x easier for people to manipulate the story against her.

this is where the social commentary of the movie is a little ambiguous and i actually prefer it that way. are they calling out scream fans? true crime fans? media misogyny? could be any of the above, take ur pick. i personality interpreted it as a combination of all three.

the subtlety on that front was a breath of fresh air considering so much was…not subtle at all. i greatly enjoyed this film and i adore mindy BUT her explaining the new rules of a “franchise,” was a little bit too much. it’s a scream film so there has to be a scene like that, ofc, but it could’ve been shorter and it didn’t have to spoon-feed us that hard.

speaking of subtly? uh, yeah. i mean, unfortunately bc of unmarked spoilers i knew detective bailey and ethan were ghostfaces. i did not, however, know any of the ghostfaces other than these two, nor did I have any idea what their motive was. but between quinn mentioning the death of a brother and sam getting called from richie’s phone? yeaaaaah, that clicked into place pretty damn fast. soo not subtle, but amusing. amusing so i’m not complaining yet, i actually had a laugh.

now i feel like i’m rambling without direction but my goal was to tackle positives first, so more positives?

the core four. love them. the way their relationship developed in this film was warming and believable to me, even if the character interactions were perhaps more abridged than they should’ve been give the rapid-fire pace of the film. mindy and chad are great, easy to love, and mindy especially is so relatable to me. kirby is back and she got screen time!!!

the minor characters? not too many, but the ones that were here somewhat fleshed out the setting. i would love a fanfic where sam kills date rape frankie. also the owner of the bodega, shoutout to that guy. a kind stranger in a city famous for rudeness, he dead ass lost his life trying to help our leading ladies. he looked away from ghostface to get his keys so they could unlock the door. r.i.p bodega owner.

the kills! everyone is raving about the kills and i am also a fan. not without my nitpicks, i wish maybe a couple would’ve been more creative BUT mostly i am pleased. i love gore and there was more gore. the ladder scene delivered on the suspense that was promised to us, oh my. my heart was pounding the entire time and altho were barely got to know anika, i truly felt for her. bleeding, scared, doing her best to hold on, gazing at mindy through a blur of tears and panic as she moans, “I don’t want to die, i don’t want to die.” 😢

that said i was hoping the kills might be a tad more creative? it was mostly just a lot of stabbing. which. yes, ghostface stabs. the franchise is famous for the buck 120, which i can attest is a very sharp knife— i have used it to stab through frozen meat and not only did it go right through the package, the tip of the knife got embedded in the table. which is okay bc it’s an old table with a ton of stains and it’s already beat to hell, but that’s not the point. THE POINT, lmao. unintentional pun, I swear! but idk, i was hoping for some variety especially bc the trailers kept emphasizing that this ghostface was “different.”

many of my predictions were correct but where they did manage to surprise me, they really surprised me! like the first killer unmasking himself right after her killed laura?? i gasped! the choreography of the fights in the shrine, dude! i loved the carpenter sisters + chad taking on the ghostface how they did it as a pack. that was awesome! and then chad is gonna finish ‘I’m off and BOOM, the second one pops out! the way the ghostfaces take chad down was brutal but also, like they’re twinning?? the dual knife swipe was spooky and this is genius when we find out that these two are actually twins. or…I think they are? they’re siblings at least, i wanna think twins bc I’m pretty sure the characters are supposed to be the same age even tho the actress who plays quinn is a few years older irl.

misc fun things: jason watching jason takes manhattan in his apartment. mindy’s fashion sense. kirby eating. ethan is not dressed in blue plaid like the ghostfaces before him, but he is wearing red plaid over a blue shirt, so close enough. nancy loomis finally being acknowledged as sam’s murderous grandma. gale dodging sam’s punch just to get hit by tara, pffft. last but not least, ALL THE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES. 😍

those were all the positives. but balance is balance so as much as i loved this film, i still have to touch on the negatives.

the killers? i was right about the anti-dewey angle, but i’d pegged the wrong pig. kirby reed, i formally apologize for ever suspecting u. i appreciate the anti-dewey angle with detective bailey and that being a cop gives him power and authority that ghostfaces before him did not have. but the motive reveal complicates things and it’s pretty convoluted and too convenient the way these ghostfaces were able to worm into our cautious protagonists’ lives. i know let some things slide because of bailey’s aforementioned social power by virtue of being a cop, but this is over the top. i have so many questions. did the siblings go to college just to follow the survivors? they all have fake names?? how did they find out about jason and greg? how is the *whole* family like this?

ur telling me richie’s entire fam indulged his stab obsession to the point of them not only accepting his being a serial killer, but becoming ghostfaces to honor him in their vengeance driven kill spree??

umm…yeah, this is all a little too kookaburra for me. but i will say i liked their style. i like that they actually seemed to be bringing the costume to life. the ghostface costume was originally packaged in-universe as the “father death” costume, it’s the grim reaper by another name. and these ghost faces were actually kind of swooping around like a reaper, an angel of death. cannot emphasize enough how much i loved the twinning with the knife wipe and just like, having multiple ghostfaces onscreen in general. i am too high right now to look up the actress’s name who played quinn but kudos to her for chewing the scenery once she unmasked. but some of their choices didn’t make sense to me. why did ethan help mindy after quinn wounded her? why was a target put on anika’s back at all??

so…more negatives?

um…let’s talk about suspension of disbelief for a moment. we all have to have some of that when watching slasher films and movies wouldn’t be movies if we expected them to be exactly like real life. i like to think that as long as a movie follows its own logic, i have a pretty healthy suspension of disbelief. i can accept the improbable in the scream ‘verse…but not the impossible.

u know what’s impossible?? chad surviving that. fml. yeah, no, that guy’s internal organs are soup. it’s even a stretch that he survived scream 5 since amber clearly slashed open his femoral artery even before she stabbed his guts, but this???? chad was being carved up by two ghostfaces and blood was dead ass gushing from his mouth like a waterfall. i love chad, truly, i do, but his survival was insane, i can’t accept that.

on that note, i found it frustrating that the injuries in this movie were seemingly only as severe as the storyline wanted them to be. again, it’s a movie so we have to have a level of suspension of disbelief and that’s fair! i can accept people being more durable on the screen than in real life but where they lose me is when they’re keeping semi close to reality in one scene and totally ignoring it in the next. anika loses a lot of blood and is in great pain, which hinders her ability to escape (so she doesn’t). i buy it. gale is stabbed in the abdomen twice, deeply, and loses so much blood she entrusts the carpenter sisters’ with last words, passes out from blood loss, and is in bad shape when paramedics arrive. i buy that. mindy is similarly stabbed in the abdomen multiple times, survives because ethan helps her for some mysterious reason, which I buy…I don’t buy her RUNNING TO THE SHRINE MERE HOURS AFTER.

we have a throwaway line about her being on drugs, but no, i still don’t buy it. story time. my work mom, okay, so she was in a really bad car accident once. running on pure adrenaline, she raced out of the car with broken bones and punched the driver of the other car that hit her. immediately after, she collapsed and guess what? she’d injured herself further by punching this lady. so even if mindy wasn’t feeling her wounds because of the drugs (which i could buy easily enough), no responsible hospital would allow her to run wild like that.

at the shrine tara is stabbed UP TO THE HANDLE IN THE BACK and it doesn’t?? effect her like at all? okay, okay, i could possibly buy this with the adrenaline excuse, cause I mean, again, that is a thing. my work mom paid the price for it. but after being stabbed in the back, tara is also stabbed in the torso after being dropped from quite the height and that wound similarly has no tangible impact beyond a few pained pants while she was struggling against a larger, more physically powerful ghostface…and adrenaline wears off? at the very least, after they’re finished off the ghostfaces, tara should’ve been shock-y and sam should’ve been trying to get her medical attention ASAP. at this point the movie wasn’t following its own logic in regards to injuries that’d previously occurred in the movie.

i find it so hard to believe laura’s character at all, that she would go into a dark alley searching for a strange male she had never, ever met in person before dead ass a blind internet date. no girl or woman would ever do that, let alone a supposedly a highly educated New York newcomer.

the pacing in this movie was almost a little too fast. i feel like there wasn’t much room to breathe? i didn’t want it to be slow or anything, but it was almost dizzyingly speedy. i LOVE the chase scene with gale but what the fuck. they made a point to talk about how they weren’t safe in broad daylight, then they cut to gale’s apartment and it’s like nighttime? huh?? how many days did i just watch???

the secret celebrity cameo was jack quaid? boo, letdown, boooooo.

neutral stuff: i feel like sam’s bf only existed in this movie so they could do ladder scene LMFAO. but i didn’t want to see romance so that’s perfectly fine with me.

…possibly have more to add, but idk? i’m high af. overall i really enjoyed this film though. especially the carpenter sisters. sam put billy’s costume on in the best way. it was a monkey paw wish for detective bailey that backfired on him majorly, she looked fucking great in it, she literally stayed in it and then at the end, she let go of the mask. because sam isn’t a murderer. she may have internal violent desires but she keeps that part of her in check cause she’s a good person and only acts on those impulses when real danger is afoot. she isn’t her father and the wants to leave that mask behind its past behind, and follow her sister into the future.

#scream 6 #scream 6 spoilers #scream vi spoilers #scream #sam carpenter #tara carpenter #apologies for typos i am stoned

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thefinalgirlspeaks · 5 years

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The Future of the Final Girl

“She is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again. She alone looks death in the face, but she also finds the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued or to kill him herself.” [Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws].

As women watching horror films through the lens of the male gaze, we are often encouraged to place ourselves in the inappropriate kitten heels of the terrorised girl running screaming from the killer. This girl has become a horror staple, the one we can root for, hitch our hopes onto. This girl, unlikely as she seems, will provide the eventual satisfying final blow to whichever murderous villain has slain everyone else.

She is the Final Girl.

As feminism progresses, so must the reflection of women in the media; much of horror is historically misogynistic, which is all the more reason to encourage the effects of female empowerment to trickle through to the way women are represented in horror films. There is a change happening, slowly but surely - the Final Girl is morphing from shrieking, inept victim, to armed, prepared badass. For a comprehensive overview of this mutation, we can examine and score a selection of films from each decade since the beginning of this Final Girl phenomenon and track her progression right up to the present.

“Why not more and better female killers, and why not Pauls as well as Paulines?” [Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws].

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Every horror enthusiast knows that Hitchcock changed the game when he killed off Marion Crane, who - until the infamous shower scene – viewers suppose to be the heroine of Psycho. Instead, the film’s true Final Girl is Marion’s sister Lila, a tenacious, petite woman who arrives late to the party bearing no distinguishable personality besides being Marion’s concerned sibling.

Despite the disapproving way Lila speaks about Marion and her light fingers, she is determined to uncover the truth about what happened to her. She does this by immediately roping in a man to assist her: Marion’s boyfriend Sam. Unlike, Lila, Sam’s actions are helpful and smart – he drives them to the Bates Motel, insists on inspecting motel logbook to find Marion’s name, and even distracts creepy Norman Bates while Lila snoops around Marion’s old hotel room (it should be noted that she discovers nothing of import).

Eventually however, despite the ineptitude that she has displayed throughout the rest of her screen time, it is Lila that, while hiding, stumbles upon the corpse of Norman’s mother, thereby accidentally revealing his ‘psychosis’. As a starter Final Girl, Lila is pretty average. She screams and runs about, prattles on about her inaccurate theories, and annoys the hell out of every male character she interacts with.

Final Girl Rating: 4/10

Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)

Italian maestro of horror direction Dario Argento is notorious for his gratuitous, often near-unwatchable depictions of slaughtered women. His most famous films form a trilogy, known as ‘The Three Mothers’, consisting of Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980), and The Mother of Tears (2007). The most famous of these is the first; Suspiria immerses the viewer in a visceral, melodramatic murder-mystery. Within the first few minutes, a young blonde woman is being terrorised, chased, strangled, stabbed, and eventually made to plummet through a glass ceiling, to be hanged before a (different) screaming lady.

I will dub this character, often a feature of the horror formula, the ‘First Girl’. The First Girl is both a decoy and a necessity. In the same way that Psycho’s First Girl Marion makes way for Final Girl Lila, Suspiria’s Pat makes way for Suzy. Suzy is a shy, American sweetheart with a serious case of underdeveloped personality disorder. As a foreign student coming to join a German dance school, she is the perfect outsider, made evident from the beginning, when a few of the other girls are immediately snarky towards her.

It takes a while for Suzy to cotton on to the sinister goings-on behind the scenes of the Tanz Dance Academy, partly due to the mysterious and sudden malady that has her bedridden and unable to participate in classes very soon after she arrives. The creepy doctor prescribes her nightly doses of alcohol to help her sleep, and it isn’t until token ‘Foolish Friend’ Sara points out that she can’t be roused once she’s drunk it, that she realises it might be laced with something else.

Inevitably, after Sara’s mysterious demise, Suzy is the only girl left in the school clued in enough to understand that it’s all a front for a murderous witch coven and must try to defeat the evil. As you may have gathered from the poster, she does this mostly by creeping through the darkened corridors with a lamp, slowly opening doors and sweeping back curtains until she suffers another jump scare and screams.

“The Final Girl looks for the killer, even tracking him to his forest hut or his underground labyrinth, and then at him, therewith bringing him, often for the first time, into our vision as well.” [Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws].

Although it is relatively unclear whether or not Suzy does succeed in destroying the coven altogether, it is probable that the fire she sets does consume everyone inside the academy. She also earns points for tracking down an outside opinion from a local professor not associated with the school to learn how to take down witches. Still, a fairly standard performance; Argento gives us a disturbingly young-looking Final Girl, whose capabilities do not extend much beyond childlike ignorance. She is perpetually stricken by her own paralyzing fear, and only finds the courage to battle the evil right at the last second, by which time her friends are already dead.

Final Girl Rating: 5/10

Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)

“The Final Girl of the slasher film is presented from the outset as the main character. The practiced viewer distinguishes her from her friends minutes into the film. She is the Girl Scout, the bookworm, the mechanic.” [Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws].

Halloween’s Final Girl is perhaps the most notorious of all time, Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie, a smart, introverted babysitter overshadowed by her two promiscuous and outlandish friends. As a sexually inexperienced, rule-following young woman, she is the epitome of what it takes to be a Final Girl, as her survival strategy will not be muddied by drugs, alcohol, or lust. Although Laurie must suffer the horror of seeing her friends be slaughtered and their corpses displayed in macabre dioramas, she is feisty enough to last until the very end. She even manages to fight her way through Halloween II, using her past experience to chase off the dogged Michael Myers a second time.

Laurie is not given a lot of backstory, but as successful Final Girls go, she is one of the first, and the best. She endures the horror, but does not let it weaken her. She channels the injustice of her friends’ murders into anger, and strikes the killer down, very nearly succeeding in killing him before she is rescued. Arguably, Laurie paves the way for future Final Girls in the 80’s boom of female-driven horror, out of which spring Alice of Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980), and Nancy of Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984).

Final Girl Rating: 7/10

Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)

From the outset of Alien, it is made clear that the only rational voice amongst the crew of the Nostromo spaceship is Ellen Ripley, the second in command officer. There are two females amongst the seven members of the Alien cast (not including Jonesy the cat): Ripley and Lambert, and they are polar opposites. Lambert is the embodiment of weakness; actress Veronica Cartwright was told by director Ridley Scott that her character was ‘the audience's fears; a reflection of what the audience is feeling’. As such, she tackles the unfortunate situation of a rogue alien slithering about the ship eating crew members by making rash, stupid decisions, crying, shrieking, and being generally unhelpful.

Lambert is merely a foil, however, for the strong, smart, rebellious performance given by Ripley, the lone survivor of the Nostromo - along with Jonesy. She alone, with her unwavering pragmatism, her cunning strategic mind, and her aptitude for wielding a flamethrower, manages to outsmart the terrifying alien creature, and jet off to safety in the ship’s emergency shuttle.

Treading into and deepening the prints made by Laurie’s dainty feet comes Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, a Final Girl to be revered. She was so impressive to audiences world over that she earned herself three sequels.

Final Girl Rating: 8/10

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005)

This early noughties British flick was an innovation when it emerged due to its all female cast. The Descent follows six adventurous young women who decide to go caving as a bonding exercise following an awful tragedy. The husband and child of one of the group (Sarah), die in a car accident, and in a valiant attempt to move on, she decides to squeeze herself through some narrow underground passages with her friends. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group however, Juno, the organiser of the expedition, has led them into an entirely unexplored cave system, hoping that in discovering the way through, they would all be brought closer together. Unfortunately, this plan goes awry when the passage they came through caves in behind them, and they have no idea of the way out. Left with no other choice, they push further into the caves, only to discover that they are not the only creatures alive down there.

The basis of this film is, unusually, based on the complexity of female relationships. Rather than deriving conflict from sexual dynamics, The Descent uses Juno and Sarah’s strained friendship to maximise the dramatic tension.

“...other filmmakers figured that the only thing better than one beautiful woman being gruesomely murdered was a whole series of women being gruesomely murdered.” [Schoell, Stay Out Of The Shower].

Juno’s immediate reaction to Sarah’s initial misfortune is to run from it, meaning that later in the film, when the group meet to ‘descend’ into the caves, her motivation is guilt. She is desperate to make amends for her cowardice in the face of Sarah’s grief, which is why she makes the foolish decision to lead them all into a death trap.

When Juno explains her reasoning to Sarah moments after they become trapped, Sarah is unmoved by her apologies, and thus the circle of their six-way female bond is broken. From that moment on, each woman has to fend for themselves. By the end of the film, Sarah has accumulated enough reasons to wound Juno and leave her to the mercy of the ravenous ‘crawlers’ while she scrambles for escape. Juno cowered away when Sarah needed her after her family were killed, she led them into an underground labyrinth filled with monsters with no escape, she accidentally murdered Beth with a pick-axe thinking she was one of the creatures, and finally, it is heavily implied that she had been having an affair with Sarah’s husband, Paul. The case for her death sentence in comparison to Sarah, who lost everything and was unwillingly lured into a monster-filled hellscape, is strong; even we, as an audience, want to see her devoured.

The downfall of this mostly progressive horror narrative is that it does, inevitably, play on a fight for a man’s affections. There is no need for the suggested affair between Juno and Paul given all the other reasons there are for Sarah to sacrifice her in the final few minutes, yet it is slipped in as an unnecessary extra motivator. As Final Girls go, Sarah is an inspiration. To go into the cave at all would be a nightmarish adventure for most women, particularly since she is still reeling from the gruesome deaths of her husband and child. But not only does Sarah keep it together in the face of Juno’s treachery, the deaths of all of her friends, and the horrifying ‘crawlers’ that lurk in the caves, she lurks in wait in muddy pools, wields pick-axes, flares, and grapple hooks, spares nobody mercy, and fights her way, bloodied and wild-eyed back to the surface.

Final Girl rating: 8/10.

Halloween (Green, 2018)

In recent years, the most positive representation of women in horror is a Reformed Final Girl: Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween, who reprises her role as Laurie in a continuation story of the same name. In this 2018 Halloween, Laurie is a weathered, tough old woman with her own daughter Karen, and granddaughter Allyson. It is revealed quickly that Karen was removed from her mother’s guardianship by the state as a result of the strict, overbearing and military parenting style of Laurie the Myers veteran. As a result, Karen and her mother do not see eye to eye; this is the central conflict of the film behind the horror, as Laurie is still convinced that Myers is alive and coming for them all (spoiler: he is), whereas Karen is strongly of the opinion that her mother is deranged from the trauma of watching her friends be murdered as a teenager.

There is, of course, great appeal to the idea of the terrorised Final Girl growing up to be a shotgun-wielding badass with a fully fortified house and zero tolerance for unexpected visitors. My problem with this aged-up Laurie is that, despite how she clawed her way through three films to survive, her life, as it turns out, was hardly worth living. By the end of the film Karen and Laurie are back on good terms, but it is implied that they spent most of Karen’s life estranged from one another. Laurie does not have friends, or a partner, only a drinking problem and a psychotic paranoia about a killer returning to slaughter her once and for all. Props to Laurie for being smarter than everyone else around her that underestimated Michael Myers’ ability to spring back up after being stabbed, shot, or blown up, but I can’t help but feel that as a representative of the Future of the trope, she is almost there, but not quite.

Final Girl Rating: 9/10

To consider the future of the Final Girl is to consider the future of female representation. As a character, she is in one way admirable, and in another, a tool to provide public satisfaction of bloodlust. The horror spectator should ask oneself what it is that they truly want to see from a protagonist, particularly a female one, and why. The Final Girl should be a weapon with which the viewer can arm themselves, a lens in front of the most unspeakable situations of horror through which anyone can align their own eye.

The Final Girl has the potential to represent all women, to define our strength and capability through her response to the worst catastrophe, and the resilience of moving on from it, to enjoy the life she has fought for. As feminism progresses, and the constraints of male-authored perversity are lifted from the horror genre, we will surely begin to see more Ripleys, and less Lilas. We will be able to cheer on our Final Girl as she takes ownership of her body, as opposed to having it plundered by knives and saws. The Future Final Girl will rise up against both the killer, and the oppression of generic, outdated horror tropes, and slash her way through to a more hopeful, equal future.

#final girl #horror #horror film #halloween #suspiria #horror trope #feminism

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myupostsheadcanons · 6 years

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More of the Same (Halloween Franchise Edition) :

(i did one for people who were complaining about VLD, suggesting other shows to watch that did things the same or better, might as well do a list for my current obsession)

Halloween 1978:

Christine (John Carpenter and Steven King. Besides the Rockabilly music, the rest of the score is very much like Halloween) Made in 83, but is set in 78. The visuals are very reminiscent of Halloween as well.

The Thing. John Carpenter’s remake of the classic B-movie.

Friday the 13th (Part 1) Intentionally made to be a Halloween Rip-off. The killer twist was one of the better ones, and likely more of a Psycho reference.

Those that Came Before Halloween:

Psycho. The Grandfather of Slasher Movies. Hitchcock. Has Jamie Lee Curtis’s mom Janet Lee in it.

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick)

Carrie (more Steven King)

Dual (1971) (Steven Spielberg)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Black Christmas

The Exorcist

The Omen

Rosemary’s Baby

Halloween 2 (1980):

Came out the same year as “The Empire Strikes Back”.... “Laurie, I am your brother.”

My Bloody Valentine (1981) Another “cash grab” Holiday movie. Has another killer twist ending, much like F13 and Psycho. Decent practical effects and outside of the “love triangle” the rest of the characters are pretty well done in that ‘cheesy and dated’ way.

A Nightmare on Elm Street. Debut of Freddy Kruger, bacon-man dream eater.

Alien (1979). Single location. Soulless killer. Sigourney Weaver.

Halloween 3:

An American Horror Story (TV Show). The Halloween name was going to be an anthology of different movies that were going to be loosely connected to each other. This concept wasn’t liked during an era of Slasher Movies.... HOWEVER, this concept was revived under American Horror Story, as each season is set in a new location with new characters and are loosely based on other seasons.

Halloween 4 & 5 (the “child-in-danger” movies)

The Shinning. A dad turns on his family and attempts to kill them while cooped up in a snowed-in ski and retreat lodge in Colorado. The supernatural and mysterious “shine” allows the young son Danny to see ghosts of the past.

IT (TV and Movies): Children of small town tormented by supernatural alien creature that feeds on fear and in disguise as a “friendly” clown named Pennywise.

The Sixth Sense: Child Psychiatrist trying to help his young patient with a supernatural problem. (If Loomis left a sour taste in your mouth Malcolm is more palatable)

The Babadook. Mom is driven to her wits-end by the loss of her husband and the demands of a child with special needs. A mysterious creature called “Mr. Babadook” starts stalking the child and begins to torment the mom.

Child’s Play. Little boy gets the doll he always wanted, only for said doll to have been possessed by a murderer by voodoo magik.

The Ring. creepy child drowns in well, wants everybody to keep circulating the tapes. Mom has to save her creepy son from the ghost girl.

Halloween 6

Hereditary. A dark secret was left dangling over a family after the passing of the grandmother. The mother struggles to get over the abuse and trauma she grew up with, and at the same time cope with issues with her own children. The sins of the past return to consume their lives.

Split (more accurately: Unbreakable, Split, and Glass): A man with multiple personality distorter, one of which being a super-powered cannibalistic killer that demands “pure” women to be sacrificed. Secondary plot of one of the victims growing up living with an abusive uncle.... Glass sees a return of the characters from Unbreakable and Split, but they had been captured and institutionalized... Shyamalan twists abound, and why it is in this part of the list.

Jason Goes to Hell (Friday the 13th), made 2-years prior to H6, has a similar gimmick of Jason trying to kill off his family (a sister and niece we previously didn’t know about), bonkers dark magic, and him chasing after a baby.

Halloween: Twenty Years Later (H20)

Halloween (2018).... yes... recommending a different Halloween movie.

Scream. the movie makes a cameo in the background.

Jeepers Creepers. Killer that comes back every 20-something years.

Freddy vs. Jason. Same Late-90′s to early 2000′s problems with making horror-slasher films too camp. (Child’s Play had the same problems with Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky)

The Blair Witch Project (1999), the movie that killed slasher horror until Saw came out 5 years later. Why “shaky cam” took over horror and action movies.

Halloween: Resurrection

Don’t Breathe. The better version of this movie. YA’s break into this guy’s house to rob him. Only to find themselves in a Murder Home.

The Boy. Woman that is escaping from an abusive relationship is hired by an odd family to take care of a doll that they treat like their own lost son.

Unfriended. If you want more of that cyber-horror, and being a bleh movie.

The Gallows. Takes place at a school...

SAW. why we have Escape Rooms now.

Rob Zombie’s Halloween (1 & 2)

House of A Thousand Corpses

The Devil’s Rejects

Machete

My Bloody Valentine (2009)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

Nightmare on Elm Street (remake)

Friday the 13th (remake)

The Blair Witch

Rings

Halloween (2018)

The Visit. (when Shyamalan began to be good again) Kids go spend vacation with Grandma and Grandpa, only to discover something is not quite right with them.

Prometheus/Alien: Covenant. Reboot/sequels to the Alien Franchise.

The Prodigy (2019). Child genius turned sociopathic killer.

No Country For Old Men, not a slasher/horror, but Anton Sugur practically qualifies as one.

Widows. Heist action movie of vengeful angry wives.

#halloween

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nightmareonfilmstreet · 6 years

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Let’s Try That Again; The 10 Best Horror Movie Remakes

The horror movie remake is a polarizing topic that drives the horror community crazy. You either love remakes, or hate them. Few horror movie re-imaginings have been able to rise above their “remake” branding. Too many fans chalking their existence up to exploiting a film or franchise’s existing fandom, being made purely for profit, being rushed, or re-envisioning iconic characters to a lesser extent.

Despite not being received with open arms, there are a select few remakes that stand above the pack – converting their audiences of naysayers into rabid fans, re-invigorating the franchise they birthed from. Here are our picks for the 10 best horror movie remakes!

10. Friday the 13th (2009)

Against the advice of locals and police, Clay (Jared Padalecki) scours the eerie woods surrounding Crystal Lake for his missing sister. But the rotting cabins of an abandoned summer camp are not the only things he finds. Hockey-masked killer Jason Voorhees lies in wait for a chance to use his razor-sharp machete on Clay and the group of college students who have come to the forest to party.

Alright, I may get a lot of flack for putting this one on the list. But I really do love the Friday the 13th remake. It’s over the top, it’s got everything you want in a slasher, and there’s exactly 13 kills. While it doesn’t hold a torch to the original from 1980, this 2009 remake directed by Marcus Nispel ain’t half bad. There’s some really fun kills and a bit of back story about Jason.

9. Piranha 3D (2010)

Spring break turns gory when an underground tremor releases hundreds of prehistoric, carnivorous fish into Lake Victoria, a popular waterside resort. Local cop Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) must join forces with a band of unlikely strangers — though they are badly outnumbered — to destroy the ravenous creatures before everyone becomes fish food.

Piranha 3D is the perfect summer film! The original was released in 1978 and was titled simply Piranha. In 2010 we got a 3D remake that took the thriller element from the original and added way more boobs. And humor. And blood. Piranha 3D is a cheesy gore-fest. Directed by Alexandre Aja, it has an all-star cast including Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd and Jerry O’Connell. A great flick to watch in a group while vacationing at a lake. Just make sure to maybe check there’s not another lake under that lake.. filled with ancient piranhas.

8. Quarantine (2008)

Reporter Angela (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) are doing a story on night-shift firefighters for a reality-TV program. A late-night distress call takes them to a Los Angeles apartment building, where the police are investigating a report of horrific screams. The TV team and emergency workers find an old woman, who suddenly attacks with teeth bared. What’s more, Angela and company find that the building has been sealed by CDC workers. Then the attacks really begin.

[REC] (2007) is a Spanish found footage film directed by Jaume Balagueró. The film is absolutely terrifying and exactly how found footage should be done. One year later came the American remake Quarantine, directed by John Erick Dowdle. Both films follow the exact same story, so there’s not a lot of surprises watching the American remake. Both films also set up for a bunch of sequels, some of which are really great. The American version stars Jennifer Carpenter in the lead role, who does a great job carrying the story. I won’t say much more because both of these films should be watched with no prior knowledge of the story. The first time I saw the ending was one of the few times I’ve screamed out loud while watching a horror film. I apologized profusely to my neighbors.

7. Evil Dead (2013)

Mia (Jane Levy), a drug addict, is determined to kick the habit. To that end, she asks her brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez), his girlfriend, Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) and their friends Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) to accompany her to their family’s remote forest cabin to help her through withdrawal. Eric finds a mysterious Book of the Dead at the cabin and reads aloud from it, awakening an ancient demon. All hell breaks loose when the malevolent entity possesses Mia.

Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead was originally released in 1981. A campy, low-budget film that became an instant cult classic. In 2013, Fede Alverez’s re-imagined the beloved story of Ash and his deadites, creating a darker, more sinister interpretation. One of the biggest changes, was opting for an incredible female lead played by Jan Levy. The film is deliciously dark, and only embellishes the silly, zany palate of the Evil Dead Franchise. There’s been a lot of chatter about a sequel being in the works, but nothing concrete.

6. Willard (2003)

Desperate for companionship, the repressed Willard (Crispin Glover) befriends a group of rats that inhabit his late father’s deteriorating mansion. In these furry creatures, Willard finds temporary refuge from daily abuse at the hands of his bedridden mother (Jackie Burroughs) and his father’s old partner, Frank (R. Lee Ermey). Soon it becomes clear that the brood of rodents is ready and willing to exact a vicious, deadly revenge on anyone who dares to bully their sensitive new master.

Willard was released in 1973 and the remake came years later to screens in 2003. It stars Crispin Glover in one of his best roles, and a crap tone of rats. Glen Morgan directed this awesome remake and fills it with everything you’d want in a terrifying situation about killer rats. Glover shines on-screen as a total weirdo and carries the film with perfection. If you weren’t scared of rats before, you will be after this flick ends.

5. The Grudge (2004)

Matthew Williams (William Mapother), his wife, Jennifer (Clea DuVall), and mother, Emma (Grace Zabriskie), are Americans making a new life in Tokyo. Together they move into a house that has been the site of supernatural occurrences in the past, and it isn’t long before their new home begins terrorizing the Williams family as well. The house, as it turns out, is the site of a curse that lingers in a specific place and claims the lives of anyone that comes near.

An American remake from the Japanese original Ju-On: The Grudge released in 2002. The remake, directed by Takashi Shimizu, the same person who directed the original, is terrifying. Back in the early 2000’s it was harder for North Americans to access J-horror and horror audiences were grateful for an accessible remake. Starring Sarah Michelle Geller in the lead role, she carries the story with grace. There’s so many memorable moments and jump scares. While I do recommend The Grudge, I say go crazy and watch both the original and remake one after the other. Have the pants scared off of you!

4. The Fly (1986)

When scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) completes his teleportation device, he decides to test its abilities on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a housefly slips in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. Initially, Brundle appears to have undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly’s cells begin to take over his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, Brundle’s girlfriend (Geena Davis) is horrified as the person she once loved deteriorates into a monster.

Originally released in 1958, it was a long time before The Fly remake came around in 1986. The original movie was adapted from a short story written by George Langelaan. The remake was directed by the always impressive David Cronenberg and starred Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. Both brought insane performances to this movie which makes it such a great remake. Of course, it is Cronenberg, so…you know…don’t eat while you’re watching it.

3. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

When her husband is attacked by a zombified neighbor, Ana (Sarah Polley) manages to escape, only to realize her entire Milwaukee neighborhood has been overrun by the walking dead. After being questioned by cautious policeman Kenneth (Ving Rhames), Ana joins him and a small group that gravitates to the local shopping mall as a bastion of safety. Once they convince suspicious security guards that they are not contaminated, the group bands together to fight the undead hordes.

The original Dawn of the Dead was a fantastic, beautiful, groundbreaking film from Romero, released in 1978. The remake came in 2004, helmed by James Gunn and Zack Snyder. What stands out about this remake is how far they veer from the source material. But it works! The film boasts a strong cast featuring Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, and Jake Weber, to name a few. There’s also some heart-breaking moments and genuine scares. Oh, and zombies. Lots of those.

2. The Ring (2002)

It sounds like just another urban legend — a videotape filled with nightmarish images leads to a phone call foretelling the viewer’s death in exactly seven days. Newspaper reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) is skeptical of the story until four teenagers all die mysteriously exactly one week after watching just such a tape. Allowing her investigative curiosity to get the better of her, Rachel tracks down the video and watches it. Now she has just seven days to unravel the mystery.

Another J-horror American remake. Ringu was first released in 1998 based on the book Ring by Koji Suzuki. In 2002, along came The Ring directed by Gore Verbinski. This was a huge deal for us teenagers in the early 2000’s and made us all terrified of our landlines. The Ring is beautifully shot and colored mystery. It’s a wonderfully done film. It stars Naomi Watts as the mother fighting to save herself and her child, played by David Dorfman.

1. The Thing (1982)

In remote Antarctica, a group of American research scientists are disturbed at their base camp by a helicopter shooting at a sled dog. When they take in the dog, it brutally attacks both human beings and canines in the camp and they discover that the beast can assume the shape of its victims. A resourceful helicopter pilot (Kurt Russell) and the camp doctor (Richard Dysart) lead the camp crew in a desperate, gory battle against the vicious creature before it picks them all off, one by one.

You didn’t think I’d make this list without The Thing did you? Come on! Originally titled The Thing from Another World and released in 1951, the remake was done by John Carpenter in 1982. The Thing is probably the one film everyone will agree on. It’s perfection on-screen. Giant, snowy, cold landscapes filled with unbearable tension and fear. An outstanding performance from all involved – but Kurt Russell stands out on top. Amazing practical effects and a terrifying premise, The Thing is the penultimate remake. They actually remade this again in 2011, but let’s not talk about that..

Those are our picks for the 10 Best Horror Movie Remakes! Are any of your favorites on this list? If not, let us know what your favorite horror remakes are in the comments below, or over in our Facebook Group!

The post Let’s Try That Again; The 10 Best Horror Movie Remakes appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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saxafimedianetwork · 6 years

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We unearth little-known tidbits of information about the King of Pop Michael Jackson’s life, on what would have been his 60th birthday

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1. He was born in Gary, Indiana. He remains the city’s most famous resident, with Gary never recovering from the loss of its factory industry in the 1960s. That said, it’s also home to Jesse Powell, Kym Mazelle and Sista Monica Parker.

2. His parents had musical ambitions of their own. Mother Katherine Jackson played the clarinet and piano, and aspired to be a country and western singer. Father Joe was a guitarist and made extra cash performing in local R’n’B bands.

3. His first public performance was in 1963. When he was 5 he sang Shirley Bassey’s Climb Ev’ry Mountain at a public event organized by Garnett Elementary School’s Kindergarten.

4. His father was the first to notice the talent in his children. He would invite music executives to the family home, where The Jacksons would audition in the living room.

5. James Brown was his major inspiration. The late Godfather of Soul inspired Jackson to hit the stage. Speaking at his public funeral in 2007, Jackson recalled how, “Ever since I was a small child, no more than like 6 years old, my mother would wake me no matter what time it was, if I was sleeping, no matter what I was doing, to watch the television to see the master at work.”

6. He made his recording debut at 9 years old. It was on Big Boy by The Jackson 5, which was released by a small label in January 1968. It didn’t sell in large numbers, but it was enough to notify the major labels that these kids had talent.

7. His love for books began as a young teen. His early favorites were Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. He reportedly amassed a library of more than 10,000 books.

8. His relationship with his sister La Toya was based on their love of practical jokes. His favorite was tormenting her with fake spiders and tarantulas. He would place a suspect creature on the phone in La Toya’s bedroom and would then call her and wait for her scream.

9. He began touring as an 8-year-old. As part of the first run of shows in America’s Midwest, The Jackson 5 supported soul legends Etta James, Gladys Knight and Sam & Dave.

10. He was never particularly fond of his voice during early recordings with The Jackson 5. Despite the acclaim, he would often lament the high pitch of his voice in later interviews, describing it as similar to that of Minnie Mouse.

11. It could have been The Jackson 6. Nearly 18 months before he was born, his mother gave birth to a set of twins, Marlon and Brandon. As a result of a severely premature pregnancy, Marlon survived but Brandon passed away 24 hours later.

12. Berry Gordy initially wasn’t a fan of Michael and his brothers. The star-maker and head of Motown Records dismissed the idea of signing them to his label, preferring to focus on Stevie Wonder. But he was eventually convinced to give them a shot and he signed them up in 1969.

13. You may not know her name, but Suzanne de Passe had a big role in his artistic development. She was assigned as a mentor and stylist to The Jackson 5 after they joined Motown. That relationship extended to Michael’s solo career, and she was the first one to see him rehearse the iconic dance The Moonwalk in 1983.

14. The Jackson 5’s global hit I Want You Back in 1969, was originally written for Gladys Knight and The Pips and Diana Ross. What’s unusual about the song is that the lovelorn lyrics are sung by Michael, who was barely in his teens at the time.

15. ABC is the first of Jackson’s songs that 50 Cent recalls hearing. Speaking to NME in 2015, the rapper said the track was responsible for him becoming a fan. “I’ve always loved MJ, so I guess it was probably a good place to start music: right here, with the ABCs.”

16. He broke barriers from a young age. When he was a 12-year-old with The Jackson 5, the group became the first black male group to release four back-to-back chart-toppers with 1969’s I Want You Back and 1970’s ABC, The Love You Save and I’ll Be There.

17. There was solo life before Off the Wall. For many, Michael arrived with 1979’s Off the Wall, but he released his debut solo album, Got to Be There, in 1972. It was a solid collection of soul and pop, with covers of Leon Ware’s I Wanna Be Where You Are and Bill Withers’s Ain’t no Sunshine.

18. He won his first and only Golden Globe in 1972. For Ben, a song he wrote for the 1972 horror film of the same name.

19. He always had his ear to the clubs. Jackson was a frequent visitor to the legendary New York City club Studio 54, where he was exposed to beat-boxing, which was an early harbinger to the upcoming hip-hop movement. He went on to incorporate the vocal technique into many of his future songs.

20. His first venture into film was The Wiz. He starred as a scarecrow in the title role of The Wiz, an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. The film was horrible, but it was here he struck up a life-changing partnership with Quincy Jones, who went on to produce his biggest albums.

21. Quincy Jones nicknamed him “Smelly”. This was during their time on The Wiz. “I used to call Michael ‘Smelly’, because he wouldn’t say ‘funky’. He’d say ‘smelly jelly’.”

22. He broke his nose in 1979 during dance practice. He then consulted Hollywood favorite Dr Steven Hoefflin who reportedly performed Jackson’s first rhinoplasty.

23. He only worked with the best. In addition to enlisting Jones to produce the 1979 blockbuster album Off the Wall, the songwriters who helped him on the record included none other than Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.

24. Unlike many of his peers, Jackson hated singing from a sheet. While recording Off the Wall, he spent the evenings learning lyrics and harmonies, and would arrive at the studio the next day singing them off by heart.

25. Prince visited him during the Off the Wall sessions. Speaking to The National, Quincy Jones recalled how Prince arrived “into the studio like a deer in the headlight – clothes and shirt off – but he was always competing with Michael”.

26. He was the only musical mind behind one of his biggest hits. Off the Wall was full of songwriting collaborations, but Jackson was solely responsible for one of its biggest tracks, Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough. He decided to write the song after constantly humming the melody at home.

27. The change on 1979 single Rock with You. It was originally called I Want to Eat You Up, but that was deemed too risque for Jackson’s heartthrob image.

28. Off the Wall was almost a hit for Karen Carpenter. The hit title track from Off the Wall was originally written for the late Karen Carpenter’s debut solo album. She declined to use it and Jackson made it a top 10 hit instead.

29. The tears in She’s Out of My Life are real. Jackson would break down in tears at the end of each studio take. “We recorded about – I don’t know – 8 to 11 takes, and every one at the end, he just cried,” producer Quincy Jones said. “I said, ‘Hey – that’s supposed to be, leave it on there.’”

30. Jackson surrounded himself with talent in both the studio and the boardroom. With Off the Wall he secured the game-changing royalty rate of 37 cents wholesale per sale. It went on to sell more than 20 million copies.

31. Thriller was a blockbuster fueled by frustration. Despite big sales and critical acclaim, he was irked that Off The Wall didn’t win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. “It was totally unfair that it didn’t get Record of the Year and it can never happen again,” he told manager John Branca. Thriller went on to win a record-breaking eight Grammys in 1984.

32. Billie Jean doesn’t exist. Despite being the subject of one of his biggest hits, the woman – who in the 1983 song admits she is carrying Jackson’s unborn son – is pure fiction. “The girl in the song is a composite of people my brothers have been plagued with over the years,” Jackson wrote in his memoir Moonwalker.

33. Billie Jean was the first video by an African-American artist to air on MTV. The video revealed Jackson’s new look of a leather suit, pink shirt, red bow tie and his signature single white glove. It was a style copied by kids throughout the United States. It caused one school, New Jersey’s Bound Brook High, to ban students from coming to class wearing white gloves.

34. Jackson introduced his famous Moonwalk in 1983. It was during a live performance of Billie Jean for the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever concert special. He was taught the move by veteran dancer Jeffrey Daniel, who went on to be hired as Jackson’s co-choreographer.

35. Jackson was a music investor from 1983. He bought the rights to select music from funk pioneers Sly and the Family Stone, and the iconic Dion DiMucci songs The Wanderer and Run Around Sue, before landing the rights to the 4,000 song catalogue of ATV Music Publishing, which included the lion’s share of The Beatles’ songs.

36. Jackson’s Beat It was a fiery single … literally. When Eddie Van Halen recorded his blistering solo, the sound of his guitar caused one of the studio speakers to catch fire.

37. The gritty music video for Beat It was a landmark production. The lavish production cost US$100,000 (Dh367,250) at the time. It was set in Los Angeles’ Skid Row and featured up to 80 real-life gang members from the notorious street gangs the Crips and the Bloods.

38. Toto were heavily involved in the making of Thriller. Keyboardist Steve Porcaro co-wrote Human Nature, and Steve Lukather contributed rhythm guitar on Beat It.

39. Thriller was almost Star Light. The lyric “thriller” in the track of the same name was originally “star light”. The decision to change it was down to marketing appeal.

40. PYT (Pretty Young Thing) was never performed live by Jackson. Despite being a well-received single from the Thriller album, the star never featured the song in any of his live sets.

41. Thriller was included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. The music video for the title track was also placed in the National Film Preservation Board’s National Film Registry of “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films”.

42. It was with his seventh album, 1987’s Bad that Jackson really came into his own as a songwriter. He wrote nine of the 11 tracks and co-produced the album with Quincy Jones.

43. The title track for the Bad album was supposed to be a duet with Prince. But the latter walked away from it due to the opening line “Your butt is mine”. “Now, who is going to sing that to whom? Cause [he] sure ain’t singing that to me, and I sure ain’t singing it to [him],” Prince said in a TV interview with American comedian Chris Rock.

44. The smooth 1987 ballad I Just Can’t Stop Loving You is a duet with singer Siedah Garrett. She was the third choice after Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston rejected the offer.

45. The Way You Make Me Feel was his mother’s request. Jackson wrote this track after his mum asked him to write something with a “shuffling kind of rhythm”.

46. Man in the Mirror is one of the few music videos he is hardly in. Other than appearing at the end standing in a crowd, the video is a montage of major events and historical figures.

47. His Superbowl XXVII half-time show in 1993 was game-changing. His pyrotechnics-laced four-song set was watched more than the game itself. It has set the standard for half-time shows ever since.

48. Michael Jackson’s 1991 album Dangerous was hot property. Five days before its release, three armed men broke into a music warehouse in Los Angeles and stole 30,000 copies.

49. The explosive video for Black or White was directed by Hollywood stalwart John Landis. It starred an 11-year-old Macaulay Culkin fresh from his starring role in Home Alone.

50. The music video to Scream was, at the time, in 1995, the most expensive ever produced. It had a US$7m budget. The menacing and arty video starred Jackson and his sister Janet.

51. Even when he wasn’t trying, Michael Jackson broke records. His album Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix, released in 1997, remains the bestselling remix album of all time, with more than six million copies sold, after virtually no promotion.

52. Jackson consistently mixed music with charity work. He was behind a series of Michael and Friends concerts in Germany and Korea, which featured performers such as tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, as well as rockers Slash and The Scorpions. The money raised went to the non-profit organization War Child.

53. Jackson’s final studio album Invincible was the bestselling album of 2001, despite moderate reviews. It features the song Unbreakable, which had, until then, the unreleased vocals by slain rapper The Notorious BIG.

54. After years of scandals and court cases, Jackson re-emerged on the music stage by announcing his final live tour This Is It. The first 10 shows alone, to be held at London’s O2 Arena in the summer of 2009, would have netted him £50m (Dh236.49m). The residency was extended to 50 shows, but the tour was cancelled following his death on June 25, 2009.

55. This Is It was his first posthumous release. With the This Is It tour abandoned after Jackson’s death, the tour’s title track became the first of many posthumous releases. The song was originally written in the 1980s by Paul Anka.

56. The secrecy of Xscape. Michael Jackson’s second posthumous album, released on May 13, 2014, was such a big deal that journalists were invited to secret listening sessions around the world days before its release. The session for this region was held at Dubai’s now-closed Qbara restaurant.

57. The life and times of Michael Jackson were discussed in detail at the inaugural Dubai Music Week in 2013. It featured a sold-out special panel session on Jackson’s career featuring producer Quincy Jones and other collaborators, the late Rod Temperton (via live video feed) and singer Siedah Garrett.

58. Abu Dhabi and China were discussed as possible sites for the world’s first Jackson family-themed hotel called Jermajesty. Speaking exclusively to The National in 2013, Jermaine Jackson said he was looking at Yas Island as a possible site for the hotel, which would be filled with Jackson family memorabilia. Nothing has been built as yet.

Read also: Jermaine says Michael Jackson was on the verge of converting to Islam

59. To celebrate Michael Jackson’s 60th birthday today (August 29), a large street party was held in New York City last Saturday to celebrate his life. It was organized by the director, and his collaborator, Spike Lee.

60. It is only fitting that the Apollo Theater in New York is hosting its legendary Amateur Night today. It was on the same stage that, in 1967, The Jackson 5 launched their career.

60 Things You May Not Have Known About Michael Jackson

#Birthday #Jacksons #Janet Jackson #Jermaine Jackson #King of Pop #Michael Jackson #Music

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glanzer2 · 5 years

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You probably want to read it, so here it is… EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED ON OUR ROAD TRIP!!!!

Day 1: Austin-Dallas-Tulsa

The trip got started bright and early Thursday morning. In a very rare instance of John out-sleeping me, I woke him up. “John, wake up, it’s time to go on our trip!” The boy leapt out of bed and threw his clothes on. We said our goodbyes and were on the road by 8am.

The first item on my to-do list was brunch in Dallas at the acclaimed Maple Leaf Diner, a Canadian themed breakfast spot. Johnny opted to eat only a scone, while I snarfed down an eggs Benedict. The most difficult driving I encountered on the trip was in southern Dallas on 35-E, where road construction had the interstate down to two very narrow lanes. I was in the left lane attempting to get around a semi, going 75mph, with literally two inches of space on each side between a concrete barrier and the truck. White knuckle driving, indeed.

North of Dallas, things cleared up and it was a pleasant drive to the small town of Denison, TX. I stopped to see the birthplace and museum of 34th president Dwight Eisenhower. Johnny screamed, pouted, and threw a fit that we stopped because it interrupted his watching of Ghostbusters cartoons. He perked up though when he remembered he had $50 of souvenir bucks for the trip, and bought a cheaply made army tank kit from the gift shop. Onward we went into Oklahoma, where I came upon a famous peanut shop, the Peanut Shoppe. We loaded up on peanuts, pretzels, taffy and jerky and hit the road again. Later, I slammed on the brakes and pulled over to buy the boy some fruit at a roadside fruit stand. Even then, the shop proprietor gave him a popsicle. He fell asleep as we headed up the turnpike to Tulsa.

Upon arrival in town, we checked into our cozy little Airbnb and relaxed. The boy would have been highly content staying at the house for the rest of the day, but I coaxed him into the van and over to Tulsa’s renowned park, The Gathering Place. Wow. This park had it all. Apparently the heir to an oil fortune donated $600MM to construct the most amazing playground I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. We played in 100º heat for two hours and left with both of us soaked to the bone. We returned to the Airbnb and showered, and planned our dinner. Johnny wanted pepperoni pizza, so I texted my company’s CEO and asked if he knew a good spot. My company, ConsumerAffairs, is based in Tulsa, after all. That was part of the reason for stopping there overnight. Rather than direct us to a good restaurant, he instead invited us over to his house for dinner. John played with my boss’s two kids while I enjoyed a couple beverages with the adults. Good but late night! We were asleep around 11:30.

So long, suckers! Road trip ahead.

That’s why this place is famous.

Big silverware

John enjoys breakfast at the Maple Leaf Diner in Dallas

My tasty Canadian eggs Benedict dish

John and a patriotic horsey

The boy pays his respects to Dwight Eisenhower

The Eisenhower house

The boy was saying “I like Ike!” by the end of this visit.

Peanut Shoppe sign

The Peanut Shoppe was a fun stop for some road snacks

Roadside fruitstand. Yes.

All tuckered out by 3.

Wow, cool Airbnb!

The American Pie family in the Airbnb house was a nice touch.

The Gathering Place in Tulsa is le-GIT. Coolest playground/park I’ve seen.

Day 2: Tulsa-Independence-Topeka-Auburn

We awoke and headed to my office first thing in the morning, where every Friday they cater breakfast and have an all-company standup meeting. I was called to the front to say a few words, and was surprised when my colleagues pulled out masks of my face, forming a Glanzer flash mob. How welcoming! We had plans for more Tulsa stops, but it was raining heavily so we just hit the road north into Kansas.

I stopped near the small town of Independence to check out one of the Laura Ingalls homesteads. John again showed zero interest of this roadside attraction and sulked on the front porch, refusing to budge. As we were there alone, way out in the country, I left him to sort out his feelings and explored on my own. He later perked up and wasted a few bucks in the gift shop on a log cabin toy and a cowboy that grows in water. In town, we spotted a free zoo, so I pulled over. Turns out it was the zoo where the original monkey blasted into orbit was from! A bit of space history. We motored on north through miles of rolling prairies of eastern Kansas with virtually nothing to stop and see.

Finally we made it to Topeka, where I had a handful of items to check out, but we wound up visiting only one—the Evel Knevel Museum, which is inside a Harley dealership. If you ever get to Topeka, it’s worth a visit! We each took our turn on a virtual reality 4D bus-jumping motorcycle experience. While it made me a little nauseous, Johnny loved it and went twice! We were running a little behind schedule, so I skipped plans to see the Brown vs Board of Education building and state capitol and ventured on into Nebraska, where we arrived at the home of Dorrie and Ken Heronimus, parents of my good friends Jason and Jeff LaPlant.

The Heronimuses and LaPlants were very welcoming. We enjoyed a home-cooked shrimp boil dinner and caught up. Once nearly inseparable, I had not seen either LaPlant brother since at least 2012. Johnny was wound up on sugar and caffeine and put on quite a display of silliness in the basement, whacking people with pillows and stealing socks. In the morning, we enjoyed a tasty biscuits/gravy breakfast and headed out.

First to work! John enjoys breakfast at ConsumerAffairs in Tulsa

Johnny poses with the Glanzer masks made by my colleagues

Ingalls gift shop

Ingalls porch

This Laura carving is guaranteed to haunt you in your dreams

John was furious with the stop-off and vowed to stay on the front porch.

Pa built that with his own two hands!

The Ingalls’ shanty

The Ingalls post office

The Ingalls schoolhouse.

A very interesting exhibit – home to the first monkey in space. In… Independence, Kansas? Apparently so.

Angry like a lion

You guessed it – another stop, buddy boy!

Some Knevel jackets

Outside the refurbed Knevel bus

Evel’s cushy lounge in his bus

Evel himself

Ready for his first VR experience

Johnny loved the VR Knevel experience

Some Knevel toys

Jeff meets Johnny

Jason meets Johnny

I reunite with the LaPlant boys after far too long

Day 3: Auburn-Vermillion

The long drive along I-29 through Nebraska and Iowa was uneventful. Sure, I could have stopped off and done some fun stuff in either Omaha or Sioux City, but in the end the boy was sick of stopping, and I am already quite familiar with that area of the country. So, we cruised straight into Vermillion, SD, home of my sister’s family. Jordan and her boys Hudson and Colton were eager to take Johnny to the town’s new pool. Johnny had a blast swimming with the cousins all afternoon. In the evening Jordan left for a photo shoot and Abul and I were in charge of heating pizzas for dinner for the kids, but wound up with black smoke billowing out of the house. 13-year-old cousin Emmy graciously volunteered to babysit the younger kids so the adults could enjoy a trip to the bars. Some of Jordan’s co-workers joined us and we were out til around 1am. I’d venture to say not everyone woke up feeling terribly perky, though I was A-OK.

What’s this, daddy?

Swimming, swimming, swimming… so much swimming.

I later found out I was using the little kid tubes.

High dive, no floatie… what could go wrong? Yes, I did have to jump in and rescue him.

Vermillion pool

Fun in the cousins’ room

Big dog

Cousins and dog

Pizza and cousins and screens

Trampoline time! I guess this beast was laid to rest after we left.

Abul stokes the flames

Dessert on the trampoline

Bar fun in Vermillion with the old gang!

Abul bought a growler to pass around AT the bar… I like this guy!

Vermillion bar

Day 4: Vermillion-Sioux Falls-Watertown

We made the quick drive north to Sioux Falls primarily so I could get fitted for a tux for a friend’s upcoming wedding—I had to get fitted there or Des Moines, so it worked out well that it happened to be on the path. We also wandered the mall, ate lunch at Huhot Mongolian Grill, and I saw Falls Park for the first time. Afterwards we headed north to Watertown, specifically Lake Kampeska, where good friend C.M. Walsh allowed us to stay at his family’s lake cabin free of charge for two days. I could have just headed to the family farm in Carpenter, but I figured this would be more fun. Brother Alex and his family joined us at the cabin Sunday night, and we enjoyed dinner at The Prop and then swam off the dock until dusk. There were no late-night shenanigans this time!

The legendary DakotaDome, last thing we spotted leaving Vermillion

John climbs the rocks at Falls Park. An adventurous little scamp.

My first trip to Falls Park. Some South Dakotan I am.

Taking in the beauty of the falls

John was getting a little too close to the water for my taste

Nice.

Lunch at Huhot. Sioux Fallsians love this spot.

Shirt shopping for Luke’s wedding

Culver’s at the world’s largest single story mall

Cute little niece Auden sucking down some lemonade at the bar

4 of the 5 cousins who bear the Glanzer name. Edie not present.

My dollar bill (borrowed from Alex) immortalized on the Prop’s ceiling.

What’s a trip to a SD bar without some video lottery? Alex won big.

Some evening swimming off the Kampeska dock

Swimming at Kampeska

Look there, nephew John, a beached whale!

Swimming at Kampeska at sunset

Sun setting on Kampeska

Cousin hijinks at bedtime

Not at all edited sunset

Day 5: Watertown

The first day totally off the road was spent at the Walsh family cabin. I did, however, make a quick trip into town for breakfast groceries. There was more swimming in the morning, and around noon my parents arrived. The original plan was that Dad would be bringing his boat and we’d spend the day zipping around the lake tubing, but due to mechanical problems the boat was left at home. Instead, it was just a lot more swimming and a little kayaking. Some of the adults did some quality day-drinking, otherwise things stayed pretty calm and some of the kids even napped during the day. At night, all the family left for home. John and I were faced with a tough decision of following them out to the farm for the night or just staying in Watertown at the cabin. Seeing how going to the farm would have added 125 miles of driving onto our trip, we opted to just stay by ourselves at the cabin and bid the family adieu.

Breakfast fixins from HyVee

Lunch moments later!

No boat, so… more swimming!

Grandma Marcie and Grandpa Dick bask in the hot summer sun

The view from the kayak

Not our first or second kayaking adventure

Alex wears a very small life jacket to kayak

Me in the kayak on the rough waters

Toss the kids in

Farewell for now, grandson

Grandpa and John say goodbye

Ouch! Back injury for boy

A safe return to shore

Day 6: Watertown-Minneapolis suburbs

After packing up the cabin in the morning, John and I embarked eastward for the first time on the trip, heading into Minnesota on backroads due to road construction. As I approached the Twin Cities, we stopped in Chanhassen at the site of my first job, Microboards Technology, better known today as Afinia. There, we were given the tour of the changes to the building since I last was there in 2011. It was a very weird feeling being back there—in some ways it felt like I had been to work just yesterday. So little had changed. The personnel was almost all people I had known from before. I walked into a bathroom and immediately remembered every word to the Abraham Lincoln poster hanging on the wall. Johnny, needless to say, was bored senseless.

Next, we had a pretty wide open agenda. It was only 2pm, and we had a couple hours to kill. There were numerous friends, restaurants, bars, or attractions I could have taken the lad to, but he wanted to see his Grandpa Steve and Granny Anne, so off we went to Bloomington to visit with them for a couple hours. After being carted around for 1,300 miles and stopping for many piddly things, John looked perfectly content to just stay at his grandparents house and play Legos all night, but it was not to be. I loaded him back in the van and headed to Eden Prairie to visit friends Liz and Curt right before their big move. John was forced to acclimate to more new friends in short order, and just as they were getting acquainted, we loaded up and headed further west!

We arrived in Minnetrista where our friends the Walshes were enjoying National Night Out, serving root beer floats on the street corner. After Johnny and his old buddy Lorenzo got reacquainted, they attempted to have a sleepover. Naturally, Johnny wound up in bed with me again. I was up relatively late catching up with Walsh and Sarah, but we just ain’t as crazy as we used to be. Midnight was about all I could handle.

Microboards still looks about the same as I left her

Amuk the elephant, Microboards’ famous mascot.

John got some brief Lego playtime in with the grandparents

Popsicles with the Burke-Assmann kids

More new friends

John and Lorenzo get reacquainted

National Night Out in Minnetrista… it was a par-tay!!!

Bedtime for the boys

The boys’ sleepover lasted all of six minutes

Day 7: Minneapolis

This day was 99% based around the Twins-Braves day game at Target Field. It was a scorcher, too. Our seats were in the direct path of the sun and there was nowhere to hide. Before the game even started, we were seeking shade. John burst out in tears in the top of the first. I assumed it was because he was hot and uncomfortable, but it was due to the Braves hitting a pair of solo homers! This poor kid, what have I set him up for… The boy pleaded to leave early many times, but was bought off with sno-cones and mini donuts. As we departed the stadium in the eighth inning, we popped into a lower-level section to see if a friend was sitting there. He wasn’t, but we snagged some seats near the playing field and immediately had a foul ball wiz past us, and were spotted on the JumboTron. As we left the park for good, an usher asked if the boys wanted to go on the field and run the bases… of course we did!

The kids seemed to enjoy the experience, but I am sure Walsh and I were even more eager to step foot on the sacred grounds. I attempted to film ourselves running the bases, which was a mistake… I should have just enjoyed the moment. The kids were both out cold in the car on the drive home, and it was an early bedtime for me on the couch as we attempted to watch TV with Mr. Bradley Feeney.

Lorenzo and John at First Ave

In our seats, in the sun’s direct path

Me at my favorite place on Earth

Popcorn and a cap were first on the order for the boy

Grainbelt Nordeast, a Mpls favorite

Popcorn in the shade

The kids were being filmed for something… I wonder what?!

The boys meet TC Bear

Cooling off at the Bat & Barrel

Braves and Twins duking it out

The Twins rallied a little while we were sitting here

Just after the Twins turned a triple play

The boys stack hats on Walsh

Walsh and Lorenzo on the warning track

Me touching home plate

The boys at the Twins dugout

John and I on the field

Walking the field

Me at the dugout

Day 8: Minneapolis-Wisconsin-Iowa-Galena, IL

We said goodbye to the Walshes and headed to the Minneapolis airport to pick up Lauren and Edie for the Poulter family get-together. This was the part of the trip we probably would have done in some form, week-long road trip leading up to it or not. Johnny sure missed his baby sister! We loaded them in the car and made a quick pit stop for breakfast at Hot Plate Diner. The road to the northwestern corner of Illinois took us through Iowa and Wisconsin where we saw some surprisingly nice scenery.

The ride with the baby in tow certainly slowed things down compared to just the boys. We had to stop off fairly often as she was screaming and sick of the car. Around 4:00 we got to the small town of Galena and headed out into the country to the Eagle Ridge Resort. Lauren’s family arrived from around the Midwest throughout the night and we hung around chatting and such.

Good to see Pops again!

Siblings reunited after a week apart

Edie at a random Iowa gas station

Edie and I enter Wisconsin briefly

Edie frolicks in the meadow

Our townhome at the resort

The Farmstead townhomes at the resort

The van reached the elusive 55555 on the way to Galena

Edie makes her Wisconsin debut.

Day 9-10: Galena

The time at the resort was mostly very laid-back and relaxing. There were a couple of connecting townhouses rented out, a floor for each family basically. We ate all meals in, with different groups in charge of preparing each meal. Activities during the day ranged from swimming and pontoon rides to horseback riding and board games. But swimming at one of two pools seemed to be the kids’ preference. One day while Lauren was out with Johnny and the cousins, I took Edie into town on my own and saw the home of former president Ulysses S. Grant. Edie, unlike her brother, was a good sport and posed nicely for all of the pictures I asked for without making a fuss.

Baby hanging in jammas

A hearty breakfast

The cousins

Swinging

Cousins on a swing

Giant checker board

Baby swimming

Family swimming – man I’m getting sick of typing captions, can you tell?

Grandpa Steve and Edie

Tim and kids

Baby on daddy belly

Caption

John and great uncle Dave pontooning

The navigator

Pontoon

Resort pool

Edie getting a history lesson

Ulysses S. Baby!

Edie and the first lady

Birthday cake time for Julia

Happy birthday

Poulter siblings and offspring

Three girl cousins born within about a year of each other

Glanzer family normal

Glanzer family crazy

Day 11: Galena-St Louis-Rural Arkansas

When the Poulter family fun was through, the Glanzers hit the road around 10am and started south towards St. Louis. At one time, it was believed that the drive home would be just as leisurely as the first two days. John and I would dump the gals in St Louis at the airport to fly home, and we’d take our time seeing fun sites, and grazing parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Unfortunately, we received word too late in the game that John had to be back in Austin by Monday at 4pm for kindergarten orientation, which did turn out to be very important and something we would have regretted missing. So out went the fun and it was pedal to the metal. We dropped Lauren and Edie at the airport around 5:30pm Sunday, giving us 22.5 hours to make it 14 hours back to Austin. Even though there was a more direct route through Missouri that connected back with I-35, I decided to do something different and see a part of the country I’d never visited before.

So, we went south of St Louis through Mark Twain National Forest. It was very nice scenery and very minimal traffic on a 4-lane divided highway for hours. When we finally hit the state line in far northeast Arkansas, however, the roads turned to two lanes, the sun went down, and towns were very sparse. At this point, John was sick and tired of the trip and regretted not flying home with the girls, which at one time was on the table. He bawled and bawled. So I gave in and let him grab whatever junk he wanted at gas stations to calm him down—he bought a toy gun, Gatorade, and M&Ms. It quieted him down for a while, but soon he was bawling again. He cried himself to sleep as we continued through Arkansas well into the night.

I had made the decision earlier in the night to try to pull an all-nighter, so I stopped for coffee at every McDonald’s on the way. But at 1:30, even though I was still feeling alright physically, I was getting blown off the road by semis on I-30. I kept spotting deer in the ditches, and was afraid of hitting one, so I was going at best 58mph. I guess the semis wouldn’t have cared too much if they hit one cause they kept blowing around me at 80mph. So, I finally vowed to pull off at the next lodging sign I saw. It happened to be a random motel called the Southfork Inn, outside a town called Gurdon, Arkansas. I buzzed on the intercom holding a limp child, asking for a room. I got the key and tossed him on the bed. Despite being wildly caffeinated, I quickly went to sleep. I got about four solid hours before waking at 6 to continue onward.

Day 12: Gurdon-Texarkana-Austin

The final push was Monday morning. A road-weary Johnny was promised fresh donuts for the drive, but had to settle for pre-packaged powder mini donuts from a dumpy truck stop. We reached Texarkana, and I had the option of heading south towards Shreveport or heading on west towards Dallas. It wouldn’t have been too much further to hit the Louisiana border and then drive over to Austin, but I decided the quickest route was best, and continued on towards DFW, site of the worst traffic of the trip. And once again, upon reaching the giant metro, it was more white knuckle driving. I regretted the decision to cut a few miles off and visit a new state only to wind up back in that mess. With a brief stop here and there for snacks, we finally reached Austin around 1:30 and had arrived home with 3,008 miles on the van. So close to a round 3,000!

The IA/IL border

Roadstop rest

Bye girls! Dropping Mama and Edie at St Louis airport

Sun setting somewhere on the road

A fricking exhausted kid

Wiped out at the rural Arkansas roadside motel

HOME AT LAST

Post-Trip Thoughts

Unlike last year’s Black Hills trip, I returned home from this trip feeling very good about the things we were able to do and see. I upped my game tremendously in terms of pre-trip research this time around. I had about three possible attractions in every town between Austin and Vermillion to stop off and see, and every time the mood struck, we pulled off and saw one of them. The trick for researching fun road trip to-do items is not to rely on sites like RoadTrippers.com or RoadsideAmerica.com or whatever. Strictly Google the town, and Google provides a “travel guide” with top attractions. That’s where I found almost everything fun we did. No, we didn’t do everything on my list due to time constraints, but the fact that we did even half of them is pretty amazing.

We also had a blast catching up with old friends, colleagues, family and strangers along the way. Special thanks again to the Carmans, the LaPlants and Heronimuses, the Krogmans, and the Walshes for their hospitality!

What might I do differently if we were to do this trip again? For the first three days, nothing. Those days were perfect! Day 4 where we went from Vermillion to Sioux Falls to Watertown, I rushed things a bit. We could have easily found more interesting things to see on the way. I was anxious to get to the Walsh cabin, believing the whole family would be there when we arrived. But it turned out we had several hours alone. I might also have gone out to the farm for a day instead of spending two nights at the cabin. We were sad to not get to see Grandma Bell! Same goes for the drive from Watertown to Minneapolis… we made great time and got into town early, but didn’t really have a plan. I should have thought that out a little more and capitalized on a rare free afternoon in the greatest city on earth. After that, there wasn’t really much room to rethink things. The Galena part was pretty well structured, and the drive home left for virtually no lallygagging. I think it was the right amount of time to be away… Johnny was sick and tired of it by the very end, though, so I wouldn’t have extended it any. And I came back to work very refreshed.

Future Trips

Oh, my 2019 does not slow down at all. In the coming months are trips to Tulsa, a mystery Luke Katuin bachelor party destination, Des Moines for Luke’s wedding, probably Tulsa a second time, and maybe even a 10-year wedding anniversary trip in November if we can make it work. But for road trips like this? I fully intend to do something of this nature every year from now on. The kids have long breaks from school and daycare, and I work remotely and have a great PTO plan at my job, so it should be easy to get away. Also, I kind of enjoy driving in general. I get to drive outside the Austin city limits so infrequently, it feels very good to just hit the open roads for an extended period of time. I just wish I could avoid Dallas! The kids probably won’t actually enjoy long car rides for a while yet, but they will learn to like them eventually. I remember distinctly in 1991, nearly 9 years old, so stoked to go on the 7-hour drive to the Black Hills. I sat in the backseat of the Oldsmobile with a notebook and wrote down everything I saw on the way: every town name, every attraction, etc. But to that point in my life trips were extremely rare/nonexistent, so of course it was a thrill.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing every detail about my journey.

Road Trip 2019 You probably want to read it, so here it is... EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED ON OUR ROAD TRIP!!!!

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