A "doughnut chicken sandwich"? Really? You know, the City of Los Angeles just banned fast food restaurants in low-income areas. Does this mean they now have to travel to County fairs just to get their fill of unhealthiness?
At least you get honey AND raspberry sauce for the delectable "sandwich" above. And you can enjoy a "Totally Fried" Pop Tart for dessert!
Read some amusing talkback reactions here on Ain't It Cool.
Gremlins: The ScoreWhat I really like about Goldsmith's score - besides how instantly it brings back the fun of the movie it was written for - is how it captures both the film's lighter and darker tones. Goldsmith uses an interesting synth sound for some parts of the score used when the Gremlins are running amok. A combination of this synth music and some skillful violin work bring uniquely identifiable and eery cues for scenes with the Gremlins. He also does a great job of weaving in some lighter, holiday themed cues with Gizmo's theme throughout as the score threads between its heros and Gremlins.
You may also find it interesting to know that Goldsmith's violin based Gremlins theme didn't actually make its first appearance in the titular movie. Movie score fans will know that Goldsmith scored the Twilight Zone movie from the early 80's, which cmainly onsisted of 4 separate stories. One of those stories was about a man (played by John Lithgow) who sees a monster on the wing of the airplane he is flying on. During this story, the monster is referred to as a "gremlin", one of those little monsters that cause mechanical things to go wrong and break down, but that people never see. If you listen to the track for "Nightmare at 20,000 feet" on the Twilight Zone score, you'll hear a familiar violin theme when the Gremlin appears at about 3:20.
Or, you can hear part of the music in the first minute of this clip, especially from 00:47 - 1:03:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwEclI_ffOA
Come to think of it, this segment of this film a) is really well done, and b) really left an impression on me when I saw it as a kid.
Steven Spielberg directed one of the four stories in the Twilight Zone movie, so it's no coincidence at all that Goldsmith was chosen to score Gremlins when it came along.
Here's some random trivia for you:
- This original TZ episode starred William Shatner. Shatner starred in Star Trek.
- Jerry Goldsmith scored the original Star Trek movie.
- Goldsmith also scored this segment of the Twilight Zone movie that was executive produced by Steven Spielberg. Goldsmith also scored Gremlins, which was also exec produced by Spielberg. Not coincidentally, the Gremlins movie features very similar "gremlin" music for the little green monsters as the little bit of violin music you hear when Lithgow sees the monster on the wing of the plane.
- Spielberg also exec produced The Goonies, which was directed by Dick Donner.
- Dick Donner directed this original TZ episode of Nightmare at 10,000 feet.
Gremlins: The Movie
I watched this movie recently for the first time in a number of years and darn it if it still isn't enjoyable! As a kid I always remembered the movie being funny, but sometimes scary. Watching it again now, I see a much greater dichotomy between the film's comedic moments and the moments that are downright horror-like. One minute Gremlins are popping out at a character for a cheap scare, then their killing an old lady mischeivously, but then you get a whole 60 second scene with nothing but Gremlins hanging out in a bar, dancing to 80's disco wearing a Flashdance outfit, beating each other up with cartoon sound effects in the background, and a Gremlin flasher who exposes, well, nothing underneath his mini, Gremlin-sized trenchcoat.
Some might cite all these things as evidence of just how uneven the film's tone is. However, I think these guys knew exactly what they were doing. They wanted it to be a little scary, a little funny, and a little heartwarming. In fact, I think it's a pretty rare breed of movie that can pull off that kind of combination HALF as successfully as Gremlins does.
Anyway, enjoy listening to Gremlins!
Gizmo, ka-ka!
Do Beware of SPOILERS in reading the track titles. I know, I know - if it's on published material, is it really still a "spoiler"? I say "no", but as this is the first Indy movie anyone's had in almost 20 years, some of the fan community on the web has become uptight about this kind of thing.
There are alot (oh MAN are there alot) of stories about this place, as most people have heard by now. In fact most of us have been hearing about it on and off since the very early 90's when Bob Lazar went to the media about his alleged and contested experiences there.
Enthusiasts, truthseekers, and others just curious have dared to venture through the desert to the place some call "Dreamland" and report encountering many of the same things: conspicuously blunt signage, armed "camo dudes" in Jeeps and sunglasses, "mailboxes" in the middle of nowhere,", and a whole bunch of other oddities.
No doubt, some people dedicate alot of time to watching Area 51.
And then there was me while I was in Las Vegas the other week. I guess I'd list myself under the category of "curious". I pulled up alongside a "private" terminal reported to be the highly secure terminal for the "JANET" aircraft which alleged shuttle people from Las Vegas McCarran Airport to the "Area 51" base at Groom Lake and the Tonopah Test Site further north.
A view from just outside the "JANET" terminal."JANET" is the supposedly the code name at McCarran for the unmarked aircraft used to shuttle the top secret staff supposedly aboard them. The white and red craft use a terminal building on the far western edge of McCarran Airport, just a block east of Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and the Tropicana Resorts on the Strip. There's alot more details on JANET here, here, and here.
I can't tell you much more than what I already read on these sites, but I did observe that the arrival and departure times people note still seem fairly accurate. I showed up just after 3pm on a Tuesday (3/4/08) and caught the last few people getting off a "JANET" plane about the same time the one in my picture below taxied down the runway for take-off. As those people hit the parking lot, it was like a sudden rush hour. Those cars started streaming out of the secure lot onto Haven St and turning right onto Four Seasons Drive behind me to head to the Freeway. Likewise, I saw them stream in the next afternoon about 45 minutes before another JANET plane took off.
"Big ol' jet airliner....."
