A Vampire, a Werewolf, and an Antifeminist. What's not to love?

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Directed by Chris Weitz

One and One Half Stars

“The Twilight Saga: New Moon” is composed entirely of attractive people making voluptuous expressions, sometimes at one another, usually at the corners of the screen.  The film is nothing more than a visual companion, a template of pretty faces that prepubescent teens can gawk at while they recall Stephanie Meyer’s popular novel in their minds.  It is a single note held for two hours, littered with thoroughly irrational characters occupying a dimwitted story.  But then again, the faces are pretty, the expressions voluptuous.

I guess that’s all that director Chris Weitz really intended.  Most of the people who see this movie will already know its secrets, which makes it more of an exhibition for the bare chests of its toned male leads.  Kristin Stewart, on the other hand, hardly ever even wears short sleeves.  This is a tale of chastity after all.

“New Moon” picks up more or less where last year’s “Twilight” left off.  Bella (Stewart) has just turned 18 and displays her innate knack for turning even the most modest of joys into cause for sorrow.  With another year under her belt, she is reminded of the simple fact that she is aging, a curse that her pale skinned hubby Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) could fix with a little nip on the neck.

But alas, after an unfortunate incident at the Cullen family mansion, Edward decides, in the film’s only application of legitimate rationality, that Bella’s obsession with becoming a member of the elite undead is call for concern.  The Cullens pack up and leave town and Bella is left, well, about as despondent as she seemed before.

Bella finds some arbitrary solace in the suspiciously buff Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), but is haunted by images of her beloved Eddy, usually advising her not to choose the stupidest option available at present (Don’t get on the bike with the potential rapist, Bella).  Bella works out all by herself that making stupid decisions will summon this image of Eddy telling her not to make stupid decisions, so she goes into adrenaline-junky mode, fixing up a pair of bikes with Jacob, introducing hers to a rock, and then literally jumping off a cliff.

All of this is a prelude to the film’s primary revelation.  I don’t feel as though I’m spoiling it for anybody when I say that Jacob is a werewolf, running with a gang of other werewolves who do a lot of running about topless in the rain until the story demands that they assume more animal like characteristics.

From here there’s some globetrotting, mind reading, and a lot more brooding.  Bella and Eddy’s love for one another is exemplified in moments of tender dialog in which they talk about how much they love one another.  There’s no real investigation of the couple’s feelings.  They love each other, now shut up.  Finally, after two hours and in true franchise form, “New Moon” ham-handedly sets up for the sequel.  Tune in next year to see if Bella and Edward will continue to be miserably in love together.

Why this story is popular with women I will never know.  Surely in an age of liberated, working, and independent women, they’re not sympathizing with Bella?   Here is an eighteen year old girl who is more than willing to sacrifice her education, her devoted and loving father, and even her soul so that she can be with her high school sweetheart.  Is this what you ladies find romantic?  Bella needs a therapist, not a husband.

If “New Moon” sends a damaging message about women’s place in society (and it does), it’s because it is written by a woman who doesn’t seem to understand what that place is.  Weitz does what he can with the material, but he’s too subservient to Meyer’s naivety to bring any substance to it.  The project is undone by its obsessive loyalty, which is strangely appropriate.

Rollan Schott

November 23, 2009

Originally Featured in the Daily Nebraskan

But He Didn't Do Anything!

A Serious Man

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

Four Stars

That poor Larry Gopnick.  His wife is leaving him for his best friend.  His daughter is stealing money from him to pay for a nose job.  His son is stealing money from his daughter to pay for weed and listening to Jefferson Airplane in Hebrew school.  His leach of a brother spends hours in the bathroom draining a cyst.

One of his students may have bribed him to improve a grade on an exam.  The student’s father may be suing him for accepting a bribe.  Someone is writing libelous letters to the college in an effort to foil his bid for tenure.  On top of bills from his divorce lawyer and his brother’s doctor, he’s been slapped with a $400 fee from the Columbia Record Club, of which he is not a member.  He finds some semblance of solace in his beautiful neighbor, but she’s definitely the type of woman he would avoid if he knows what’s best for him.  God only knows how those X-rays will come back. 

Why is all of this happening?  Why poor Larry?  Why now, and why all at once?  Is it something he did?  Karma perhaps?  Could it be because one of his ancestors allowed a dybbuck (A dead man’s lost soul) into his home?  Could it be that someone upstairs just has it in for him?  He keeps saying “I didn’t do anything,” which may or may not be the answer to all of his problems.

The Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man”, a reenactment of the book of Job set in a quiet Jewish neighborhood in Minneapolis, is about a man’s painful search for answers that aren’t there, about how we try to prove our worth to fate rather than to ourselves.  It won’t likely play at any nearby theaters, but I hope you take the time to seek it out.  It is a tough pill to swallow, but it is also one of the year’s very best films.

Rollan Schott

November 20, 2009

Originally Featured in the Nelson Gazette

The Mayans Predict a World Undone by Ambitious Cliches

2012

Directed by Roland Emmerich

Two and One Half Stars

Roland Emmerich, it seems, exists as a filmmaker for the sole purpose of destroying the planet more authoritatively than the last time Roland Emmerich destroyed the planet.  His list of credits, in order (some titles excluded), include “Independence Day,” “Godzilla,” and “The Day After Tomorrow.” Look at these titles and you can see how he has steadily upped the ante. Emmerich lays pretty thorough waste to the planet in his latest, “2012,” which I suspect will become some sort of opus for end-of-the-world epics.

Some peculiar shift in the sun’s rays is his latest justification for worldwide pandemonium, transforming our sunlight essentially into microwaves that have cooked out planet from the inside out. And now, with the earth’s mantle melted and unstable, the tectonic plates twist, turn and tango into oblivion, and we humans are not strapped in for the ride.  With this premise, Emmerich obliges himself to turn cities upside down, flood them, blow them up and scramble them around until China is a puddle jumper’s hop from Hawaii.

These events are primarily witnessed through the eyes of novelist Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) who pieces together the pending disaster during an evening long vacation with his estranged son and daughter to Yellowstone National Park, when he stumbles across the U.S. government’s head geologist (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and a hippie conspiracy connoisseur (Woody Harrelson) stumbles into him.

The government has long been aware, we learn, and have been assassinating anyone who threatens to release the information in an effort to avoid widespread panic. Soon rumors are surfacing of spaceships or something of the like being built to save a small, wealthy sliver of the human race.  Jackson pieces it together pretty quickly. No one else has a clue.

From here Jackson and his estranged family join a typecast Russian bureaucrat who has tickets for him and his children to enter these survival pods, whatever they may be, and set off around the world to China, so that we might see that disaster has not confined itself this time to the United States alone.

As is usually the case in effects epics, the human story of “2012” is weak, populated only by stereotypes in place to shout expository lines and provide emotional cues. That the human drama is not the focal point of movies like this does not make this entirely forgivable.

Emmerich’s special effects are exciting and ambitious, but suffer from that artificial big budget gleam that prevents them from being particularly realistic and involving.

This brings me to “2012’s” biggest problems. Special effects, no matter how breathtaking, cannot carry a film for 158 minutes. A film that cannot invest its audience in its characters cannot convince them to care. After 2 1/2 hours of earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves, none of the previously mentioned phenomena can be particularly engaging if we have no stake in them.

“2012” is inspired by predictions from countless ancient civilizations who predicted that our world would come to an end on or around Dec. 21, 2012. Most notable of these were the Mayans, whose astronomical studies led them to believe that one of the many stars they had tracked would eventually collide with earth.  We are close enough now, as NASA informs us, that if this were actually the case, we would be able to see this celestial body with the naked eye.

“2012” takes a different approach, one that deals not with “When Worlds Collide” sensibilities, but with the “When Earth Strikes Back” mentality that M. Night Shyamalan explored a couple years ago in “The Happening” and that Emmerich himself had already explored in “The Day After Tomorrow.”

I’m not sure the earth can be more thoroughly destroyed than it is here, which provides it with a sort of audacious charm that many people will probably enjoy. And for all the casualties and chaos, Emmerich remembers that what is really interesting about this material to us Americans is not how the human race will survive, but rather whether or not Jackson and his estranged wife Kate will get together again.

Rollan Schott

November 17, 2009

Originally Featured in the Daily Nebraskan

For Those of You Who Thought Health Care Reform Was a Waste of Taxpayers' Money...

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Directed by Grant Heslov

Three Stars

Albert Stubblebon III makes an interesting point. In the British documentary “The Crazy Rulers of the World” that inspired “The Men Who Stare at Goats”, he tells us, “You know the electron, or the atom, is mostly made up of space,” he said.  “My space is made up of atoms.  The wall’s space is made up of atoms.  All you got to do is merge the spaces.”  In other words, if you can realign your atomic structure, you can pass through the empty space of the atoms in the wall.  You’ll know when you’ve figured it out, I think.  Your clothes will fall to the floor.

Stubblebon was a U.S. Military sergeant in 1983.  He was a part of Project Jedi, a small and confidential branch of the military who were trying to find ways to walk through walls, bend spoons, and intercept the thoughts of others.  That this is true is why “The Men Who Stare at Goats” is funny.  Director Gant Heslov treats the film mostly as a history lesson.  No need to go out of your way to make this seem absurd.

There are essentially two stories at work.  One is a history of the early years of Project Jedi, now the New Earth Army, how it was formed by a zenned out general (Jeff Bridges) and how it operated within and outside the tapestry of the military, as documented by a present-day journalist, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) who travels to Kuwait to pick up some story, any story, on the outskirts of the war.

He meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a former member of the New Earth Army, who is venturing into Iraq after sensing telepathically that he should.  That the two should meet can be accredited only to fate.  Anyone who can sense which way to turn at a fork in the road probably knows fate when they see it.

It is through Lyn that the flashbacks are constructed.  He was the most promising soldier in the New Earth Army, the only one who once killed a goat just by staring at it.  He recalls the Army’s rise and fall, how and why it was formed, how it was paid for, how it was received, how it was misused and how it was destroyed.  All the while, Lyn and Bob are travelling deeper into the war looking for, well they don’t know what they’re looking for, but Lyn will know it when it comes.

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” is an intermittently funny movie, occasionally rising to the level of hilarity.  Every major player in the film is given a memorable one-liner and director Heslov takes the right approach to the material.  By looking at the paranormal the way the members of the New Earth Army did, as a reality, there is a kind of comic absurdity bubbling beneath the skin of the narrative.

But the film also spends far too much time waiting for itself, and its pacing issues reach their peak with its all too neatly packaged climax that wouldn’t have felt like one had it not loudly announced its arrival.

“More of this is true than you might believe”, reads the title card at the beginning of the film.  Well, I believe that there are people in this country who find such madness plausible, and I believe that they have occasionally risen to stature of high office in our government.  The United States military funded research in the field of paranormal weaponry.  I think that title should have read, “More of this is true than you’d probably be comfortable with”.

Rollan Schott

November 15, 2009

Originally Featured in the Daily Nebraskan

Ghost on Screen's Top 13 Horror Movies

Over the past one hundred years, horror has proven to be the most durable genre of the cinema.  It has survived countless failures and relentless critical disapproval, and has continued to sell well since it was popularized in the thirties.

I think it is because fear is such a universal sensation, and that we have always been excited by its capacity to thrill us and to heighten our senses.  The following thirteen films have done that.  Many continue to do that.  Here are the top thirteen horror films of all time.  Why thirteen?  Why not?

13. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Tobe Hooper shot “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in triple digit heat in Texas over a period of about thirty sixteen hour (plus) shooting days.  The result is about as close to sadism as high art can get and still be high art.  Many think the film is based on a true story.  It isn’t, but it’s a testament to the film’s raw power that its myth has become so engrained in American culture.

12. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

“Dr. Caligari” might not be the most frightening horror movie on the list, but it is the first.  The film was a first in many ways.  It contained the first wild twist of an ending, and it was also the first film to use set design and lighting to convey the distorted mind of its characters.  It also scared its 1920s audiences out of their seats.

11. The Night of the Living Dead (1968)

George Romero invented zombie horror with “The Night of the Living Dead”, which was one of the first Vietnam era horror movies to exemplify the darker direction in which horror was headed.  There were no gleefully creepy bumps in the night here.  Romero deeply rooted his film in hopelessness and despair.

10. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Hannibal Lector has become one of the two or three most iconic movie villains of all time.  Anthony Hopkins plays the role with a quiet but daunting intelligence, a man who gets under our skin because he so easily gets into the minds of everyone else.  Jonathan Demme’s masterpiece is the most recent of only three examples to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay)

9. Freaks (1932)

Director Tod Browning had worked in the circus before “Dracula” (1931) launched him into the limelight.  One year later, casting real circus freaks for all of the lead roles, “Freaks” destroyed his career.  The film premiered only once in 1932 and was so shocking that it wasn’t shown again in the U.K. until the 1960’s.

8. Diabolique (1955)
Henry-Georges Clouzot pleaded to his audiences that they not reveal the shocking twist at the end of “Diabolique”, a gimmick that Alfred Hitchcock would later borrow for “Psycho”, among most everything else that made the film so revolutionary.  Both films are inspired examples of sly misdirection.

7. Halloween (1978)

If director John Carpenter had patented the slasher movie formula he coined with “Halloween”, he would now own four islands in the South Pacific and half of Frito Lay.  Modern horror movies begin here, with what has become one of the most profitable independent films of all time.

6. Jaws (1978)

Many people might not consider Stephen Spielberg’s aquatic thriller a horror movie, but note that for weeks after “Jaws” was released to theaters, beach attendance plummeted across the country.  Why?  Because people were scared to go in the water.  If that’s not horror, I don’t know what is.

5. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Roman Polanski founded his paranoid chiller set in sixties Manhattan on the inherent fears of motherhood, that something could be wrong with your child while it grows inside you, that someone you know could be plotting to take your child from you.  “Rosemary’s Baby” is a slow-burning candle in a room full of dynamite.

4. Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror) (1922)

F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” is the greatest vampire movie of all time.  It will not scare movie audiences today, but I admire it for the beauty of its composition, and for the sincerity of its delivery.  Complimented by the constraints of silent cinema, “Nosferatu” feels now like a half-remembered nightmare, the residue of evil left over after we wake.

3. Psycho (1960)

It’s hard to find any movie lover who doesn’t know the secrets to Alfred Hitchcock’s remarkable “Psycho”.  The reason for this is simple.  Hitchcock earns the right to manipulate us by selling his misdirections so sincerely.  “It wasn’t a message that stirred the audiences,” Hitchcock later revealed in an interview with Francois Truffault.  “Nor was it a great performance…They were aroused by pure film.”

2. The Shining (1980)

Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” is like one of those closed-door mysteries as seen from the inside out.  Nothing makes sense, because there is no one there to make sense of it.  Widely regarded as the most epic horror movie ever made, “The Shining” was Kubrick’s most financially successful film and immortalized Jack Nicholson with the great horror catchphrase, “Heeere’s Johnny!”

1. The Exorcist (1973)

William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” dropped like a bombshell into theaters across the country just in time for Christmas in 1973.  The result was a documented spike in church attendance.  Ambulances were called to theaters to treat viewers who suffered violent panic attacks and seizures. 

People fled theaters screaming.  Those who stayed often wept or occasionally vomited.  Televangelist Billy Graham declared that the original celluloid reel of the film was possessed by evil spirits.  The Pope even took time to publically condemn the film.  Unsubstantiated rumors would eventually surface of a devout Christian couple committing suicide hours after seeing it.

What a visceral movie this is, how mercilessly it preys on our sympathies.  The tale of a beautiful twelve year old girl falling pray to the devil is in itself unsettling, but Friedkin’s realistic presentation and unrestrained courage pushed the project over the edge.  Shots of young Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) projectile-vomiting pea soup and stabbing her crotch with a bloody crucifix are images that have still not lost their staying power.  When it comes to truly terrifying movies, “The Exorcist” is in a league of its own.  It is a black, evil, soulless movie.




Rollan Schott
November 6, 2009
Originally Featured in the Daily Nebraskan

The King of Pop Still Reigns

This is It

Directed by Kenny Ortega

Three and One Half Stars

“This Is It” works best as a eulogy.  It captures the king of pop on stage, the only place he was ever really at home, still deeply passionate about his music and still in fine physical and vocal form during what we now know were the last few months of his life.  The film should lay to rest most of the rumors about Michael Jackson, that he was too dooped up on tranquilizers and sedatives to perform, that he was alienated or isolated from those around him, or that he was just plain crazy.  The Michael Jackson in “This Is It” is gracious, humble, intelligent, and keen.  He treated his technicians and fellow performers with the utmost respect, and that respect was returned.  The Michael Jackson in “This Is It” was a great a man.

It should be know that “This Is It” is not one of those ‘concert-experience’ movies like the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cirus have been cashing in on lately.  It would have, though, if Jackson had not passed away between the time this footage was shot and the series of sold out London concerts where the serious shooting was meant to take place.

Fortunately the concert director Kenny Ortega, who also directed the film, kept quality cameras running for most of the rehearsals.  Likely intended for behind-the-scenes special features or maybe some intercut footage cut between live songs of the feature, Ortega used the rehearsal footage to paint a portrait of Jackson and the farewell concerts he was preparing that is far more intimate and personal than a concert film would have been.

A concert film would have been just that – a concert on film.  “This Is It” shows Jackson synchronizing with engineers, communicating with his backup dancers, making mistakes and correcting them, and doing so with grace and confidence.  The man knew his music inside and out, and had a very particular vision for its presentation.  He was fortunate to have such talented people around him to realize that vision.

Because the rehearsals were not meant to be the whole of the film, much of the footage is regrettably low in quality, often grainy or slightly out of focus.  The limited number of cameras however, means that the average shot length is much longer than it might have been with more, so we get a cleaner, more revealing look at Jackson’s performances.  Also, in a disappointing moment, Jackson explains to his vocal director that he isn’t singing to his full potential because he’s saving his voice for the shows.

I have always felt that Michael Jackson’s music was missing a key component if Jackson himself wasn’t there dancing to it.  The music itself was always just well made pop music.  It was the thrill of the performance that made Michael Jackson a superhero.  There are times, though, when Jackson’s music does becomes political.  His message is simple and pure, and delivered with heart.  There is a monologue in “This Is It” in which Jackson explains his deep love of nature and the beauty of the earth.  To quote any of it would be redundant.  Like everything else in Jackson’s remarkable career, the magic is in the delivery.

Rollan Schott

November 5, 2009

Originally Featured in the Daily Nebraskan.

He's He-ere...

Paranormal Activity
Directed by Oren Peli
Four stars

Like all good horror movies, Paranormal Activity taps deeply into what makes us scared. I’m not talking about heads on pikes, explicit violence or gore. Those things tend to disgust rather than terrify. Like Rosemary’s Baby, Paranormal Activity contains almost no blood and guts (and what little gruesomeness there is leaves more of an imprint on your psyche than on your stomach), and most of its terror is implied. While the film is about supernatural forces and demons, chances are it will scare you regardless of whether or not you believe in spirits. The reason Paranormal Activity is so effective is because it expresses the very real human fear of being unable to escape from something horrifying. In its own pared-down way, Paranormal Activity is just as brilliant and scary as any horror movie of the last twenty years. Yes, including The Blair Witch Project, its forefather which it has often been compared to.

The film’s scenario is simple -- a couple who have recently moved in together, Katie and Micah (Katie Featherstone and Micah Sloat), have been experiencing weird things in their San Diego home. Doors opening and closing by themselves, footsteps from downstairs, the occasional thud. Katie is convinced that it’s a ghost that has haunted her throughout her life. Micah is not convinced that the disturbances have been caused by anything paranormal (the film intimates that he thinks it’s an intruder of some sort), but he buys an expensive, HD camera to capture whatever strange things happen on film. The conceit of the movie is that all of the footage is filmed by Micah’s camera, and was found after the events depicted in the film.

Katie and Micah invite a ghost expert into their home to see what he makes of the situation. In any other context, this character would seem like a deluded and superstitious charlatan, but the situation that the film creates make him seem wise and plausible. Once again, as in Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, we know intellectually that the suggestion of something paranormal happening is silly, but the evidence keeps mounting in its favour. The crazy idea is the only one that makes sense.

The ghost expert, after listening to Katie’s story, tells the couple that rather than dealing with a ghost, they’re being haunted by a demon, a malevolent being who exists purely to create terror in the humans it targets. It wants something from Katie specifically, the expert says, and that’s why the demon has followed her all her life. Micah, in alpha male fashion, tries to isolate the problem and find a solution for it. “Why don’t we find out what it wants and give it to it?” He asks. The expert looks at him, and says almost with derision: “Because it probably wants Katie.”

The movie gets really interesting once Micah sets the camera up in the master bedroom, to record what happens when he and Katie are asleep. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that the introduction of the camera was a big mistake for Micah and Katie. The demon seems to perceive the introduction of the camera as an invitation to put on a show. One of the best sequences in the film is seeing what it does with an Ouija board (a horror movie cliché, subverted brilliantly in this film) that Micah erroneously decides to use to communicate with it. If that scene doesn’t convince you that this thing’s raison d’être is to freak Katie and Micah out, I don’t know what will.

That’s another thing about Paranormal Activity -- this demon, this intangible villain, is given so much personality. We can feel its presence as a being, rather than as an abstract thing introduced into the film only to create conflict. This demon knows perfectly how to push Micah and Katie’s buttons, and how to make them feel deep anxiety. When we see it flicking lights on and off, hear it thumping around downstairs, we may wonder ‘why is it doing that?’ The answer is: for the camera. Everything that the demon does is for the camera. One fun aspect of the movie (and despite the scares, Paranormal Activity is a very fun movie) is that we see what the demon is doing before Micah and Katie do. On the mornings after, we see how Micah and Katie react to the footage that we’ve already seen.

The performances are perfect for this material. This story doesn’t call for ‘big’ acting moments that we expect from movies like this. These are two young people, one a cocky stock-broker, the other a student aspiring to be a teacher. There were discussions, prior to the film being released, of remaking it with a larger budget and different actors (those discussions were quashed after Steven Spielberg saw the original and just how brilliant it is). Not necessary -- both of these actors find exactly the right note for their characters. Micah Sloat, as the cocky and kind of jerky boyfriend basically invites the demon into their lives by constantly antagonising it. There are moments where we just want to throttle him, but that’s because we can see what the demon is capable of before Micah or Katie can. Much of the apprehension we feel in the film stems from the fact that we could shout warnings to the couple, but are powerless to help them.

Paranormal Activity was made for around $10,000, uses only two principal actors and two secondary actors, is set in one house (first-time director Oren Peli’s own house) and is relatively light on special effects, although one or two of the effects are astounding.

There are one or two minor flaws with the movie, but I was, and most people probably will be, too engrossed in the terror to notice them until after it’s over. For instance, Micah and Katie are given the details of a demonologist that is an expert in cases like theirs. When the situation becomes dire, they attempt to contact him only to discover that he’s overseas for a few days. Seems to me that these guys would be desperate and scared enough to try and find another demonologist, of which I imagine there would be several in an area like San Diego. Even if there aren’t, these guys are desperate enough to do more than call after just one demonologist.

The film’s conceit may also be a little egregious, particularly as the demon’s behaviour escalates. I bought the idea that Micah would film everything up to a point, but once real fear and desperation sets in, I can’t imagine he would ensure that the camera was set up to record certain events, particularly the final scenes.

Those minor issues aside, Paranormal Activity is nearly a perfect terror delivery system. Why bother going to see a movie that will unsettle and terrify you? For me, there’s an adrenalin rush in seeing any movie that succeeds so supremely in achieving its goals. Paranormal Activity’s aim is to frighten its audience senseless. Just watch the movie’s trailer, featuring reaction shots of normal people at a test screening to see how it succeeds.

And what a triumph of film-making this movie is! This is a movie that understands that terror doesn’t need to be explicit, loud, over-stylised or overtly gory. Much of the experience of watching Paranormal Activity is waiting for something to happen. But it’s the waiting that will get to you.

By Jonathan Fisher (www.thefilmbrief.com)
October 31st, 2009