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Prom Night – Review

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On Saturday night, I checked out the movie Prom Night. Let me just cut to the chase here. It was bloody awful. And no, I’m not turning British. I say that because it was both bloody (albeit fake) and awful. Brittany Snow stars as Donna, a contender for Prom Queen. We learn in the beginning of the film that one of her high school teachers became obsessed with her. He was fired after acting inappropriately and subsequently subject to a restraining order from her family. As a result, he killed her entire family as Donna watched in horror.

Flashing back to the present, her and her boyfriend Bobby (played by Scott Porter) descend on their prom at a historic local hotel, just as her aunt and uncle, with whom she now lives, find out that the killer has escaped from prison and is on the loose. As predictability would have it, he shows up at the hotel and, through a series of poorly-orchestrated scenes and events, systematically kills her friends as they go back to their rooms one by one for different reasons.

The plot is boring, stagnant, extremely predictable, and just overall terrible. The supposed gory stabbing scenes reminds me of the blatantly fake and outdated shower stabbing scene in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic, Psycho. I’m telling you, it couldn’t have been made much worse. Honestly, I’d go so far as to say I’d be embarrassed to have had any part in this film.

Oh, and tell me this: What’s up with having older actors play teenagers? It’s not just in this movie, but it’s so obvious in this one. Brittany Snow is 22 years old, which isn’t extremely noticable, but come on, Scott Porter is 29 and it shows! That’s just another thing to add to the list of things that were fake or not believable in this film.

I also saw editing flaws. For example, there’s a scene where the couple is talking on the side of the dance floor (Side note: What’s up with the dance floor? It looks like something out of a ridiculously-overdone bubblegum-pop music video. Completely unrealistic) and as they’re chatting, the music cuts out and you hear nothing. Then it starts again once they walk back on the floor. I thought it was some weird technique, but no, it’s not.

There’s no plot in this movie, just people dying (in as many phony ways as possible). And I was even more surprised to learn that this is a remake of the 1980 film by the same name? Apparently it starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen. Interesting. From reading about it, it seems like a typical ’80s slasher film, but I bet it was better than this.

I found myself (as well as my friends and the rest of the audience) laughing through many of the supposedly scary parts. It was one of the most poorly-made movies I’ve ever seen, period. I wish I could somehow give it negative stars.

Overall Rating:

Music Monday: David Guetta – “Love Is Gone”

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So today for Music Monday, I wanted to feature something a little different from what I normally post. I like a lot of dance music, mainly after discovering the BPM channel on XM Radio in my car late last year. A lot of people who hear it in my car quickly say “I don’t like techno,” and, well it’s dance music. Techno is completely different. I don’t like techno all that much either. But I love dance music, and this one’s a great tune from world-renowned DJ David Guetta, featuring the vocals of Chris Willis. This one will get you on your feet.

2008 Deep Run Marathon Dance Opening & Closing Videos

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I finally figured out how to compress these videos for YouTube and still have them look relatively decent. I made them for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Deep Run Marathon Dance and had a ton of fun doing it! Can’t wait for next year.

Opening Video (shown at the opening ceremony to dancers to get them pumped up for the 27 hours ahead):


Closing Video (includes charity interviews, dance footage (cut out for YouTube time restraints), and a dramatic grand total at the end):

The 2008 Deep Run Marathon Dance Raises $105,931.81 For Local Organizations!

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I still can’t believe just how much money was raised at this year’s Deep Run Marathon Dance. $105,931.81! I headed up the Film Crew this year and had so much fun filming throughout the duration of the 27 hour dance. I’ll talk more about how that went in a moment. But I made an opening video to get everyone pumped, including a pep talk from the movie Miracle, that was shown before the dance started, then had a closing video at the end that included interviews with leaders from all ten of the benefiting organizations, video footage from the dance, and a dramatic grand total at the end.

I was kind of on the edge of my seat at the closing ceremony because it had taken me eight hours to compile and edit the closing video and I didn’t even have time to render a DVD. So I basically just played an AVI that I exported to my computer and held my breath hoping my Mac wouldn’t freeze while playing it. It was a huge 2.5 GB file, so I had plenty reason to worry. Fortunately it didn’t freeze and I think it turned out pretty good. I had been up for just about 40 hours straight by the time I finished it, so I also wondered if I had made any big editing mistakes based on the fact that I was so mentally tired I didn’t know what I was doing. No one had even seen the video but me until I presented it to hundreds and hundreds of people at the closing ceremony. But there again, it turned out pretty good I think. Both videos will be posted later today and will be accessible here, on my YouTube page, and Facebook.

I was on the fence about whether to do this on an annual basis, but after doing this for my second year in a row and seeing the energy, enthusiasm, and huge benefit of this dance, there’s no question that I’ll do this again every year. It was so liberating to be able to head up my own video project and manage five other people who filmed the dance this year. I usually work under other people and have less creative control. It was great for once to be able to have the final say in what was produced and call all the shots, with no one to tell me otherwise. Because of that, I was a lot less frustrated and more motivated to produce a great end result. It was an amazing feeling (and that’s not a knock on anyone I normally work with, because they do great work; it was just a big thing for me personally). It was also cool to be recognized for once and I was honored to be so warmly received at the end.

Some have said that I should focus even more time on other video production efforts instead of doing this, but I would argue that it’s something that I’m really proud to be a part of and have so much fun doing it because of the role I’m given to creatively produce something really exciting and unique. Plus the end result is amazing. An event that raises almost $106,000 for charity is something really spectacular to be a part of. I may even consider taking on other projects and helping out other charitable causes around the area at their respective events because I found working with the Deep Run Marathon Dance to be very impacting and rewarding. It was just incredible.

Running On Empty

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I’m completely, utterly exhausted. I was running on adrenaline but am now out of that too. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my life, and I’m about to stay up for 27 hours tomorrow night to film the Deep Run Marathon Dance. I’ll tell more about that later, but for now I’m going to bed. Lots of interesting things to post when I have more time, so stay tuned.