staging a comeback?

It happened to the Evil Dead.

Ditto The Wedding Singer (who's since sung his last song).

Monty Python is still doing well enough.

Next up: Chester Copperpot, live on stage? I'm both excited and reluctant.

UPDATE: I just realized that the title of this post implies that "The Goonies" once faded away into obscurity and could therefore experience a resurgence. While its popularity could indeed grow as the mainstream spotlight returns to the film, I (as the others of my generation) am well aware that Goonie appreciation, like the kids themselves, never says die.

JustinTV

This is surprisingly sort of interesting, mostly because it's happening right now.

Would you be willing to spend your day(s) this way? I figure a lot of people would, at least for awhile, considering the proliferation of personal Internet content, from day-in-the-life blogs to MySpace profile pages to Webcam chatting. I wonder how much of that me-oriented Web content just sits around taking up space without many people actually checking it out. Meanwhile, I keep checking back to watch bits of a video of a guy driving. Woo-hoo.

(See related story here.)

rated R

I remember being scared, when I was little, of the "Friday the 13th" previews that came on before films at the movie theater. I don't think I was afraid of the character or plot — I could just sense the "you-should-be-scared" tone and responded accordingly.

In junior high my best friend and I liked to watch scary movies. One particular favorite was "Nightmare on Elm Street 3." As I stop now to remember the characters, I am surprised to be able to recall many of their names. Patricia Arquette's character, Kristen, is one of the couple who survived. I can easily remember how the others died.

It wasn't until college, or right after college, that I decided to officially scale back on my horror-movie-watching. It wasn't that I watched them a lot; when I did, though, I noticed a change in my susceptibility to irrational fears (often brought on by nighttime). The Bible said God didn't give me a spirit of timidity, and I thought I shouldn't encourage a mindset that claimed otherwise.

Now I sometimes watch scary movies, mostly if they're considered pretty good by critics ("28 Days Later," "The Descent"). They do often provide some food for thought about the human condition. But this post isn't really supposed to be about horror movies. It's about the MPAA decision to add a new advisory to R-rated films: "Generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children with them to R-rated motion pictures."

I don't know if my movie-watching habits had any long-term effects on my psyche, though I should point out that as a kid I didn't go to R-rated films. Without children of my own I can't fully appreciate the natural impulse to protect one's kids from bad influences. But you don't have to be a parent to question the wisdom of adults who bring two toddlers with them to watch "Braveheart" from the front row.

I doubt the advisory will have much of an effect on parents' decisions, but it does spotlight a common problem in our society: How much is too much? Can people be trusted to choose appropriate limits? This goes for children and adults, too. As an adult I decided to stop watching "Law and Order" every week after I realized how paranoid I was getting about someone climbing in my bedroom window and committing crimes against me. The paranoia has since vanished. (And it really seemed like that show was spending a lot of time on "sick" crimes rather than interesting mysteries.)

What do you think? Do you have set rules for your kids, or yourself? What do you think is most damaging — violence, sexual content, profanity or something more difficult to pinpoint, like the condoning of vengeance or selfishness?

one is the loneliest number

This just in: It just might be difficult to find a mate in West Virginia. Really? You're kidding.

Make that Charleston, W.Va., though, to be accurate. So says Men's Health magazine, anyway. As a single woman in Mercer County who's older than traditional high school and college students, I'll say this report confirms what feels like the truth. Charleston landed in the bottom three of 101 cities listed, scoring an F along with Buffalo, N.Y., and Toledo, Ohio. The full list is here.

This brings to mind the option of online dating for people who live in less (allegedly) dating-friendly places. When my friend Jen worked lived in Harrisonburg, Va., while working at James Madison University, she tried out eHarmony after getting to know a couple couples from her church who'd met that way. Jen met Jeremiah and eventually moved to the Chicago area where he lived, and they were married in January. I met him, and I'd say definitely that he's no freak. Neither is she. According to MSN's "10 dating statistics you ought to know," "40 million Americans use online dating services; that's about 40 percent of our entire U.S. single-people pool." That's a lot of people. I think the individuals themselves have a lot to do with whether the connections work: an immature person + questionable motives ≠ a great match.

What do you think? Have you ever tried an online dating site? Does online dating still carry some stigma with it? Are you considering a move, or at least a visit, to top-rated San Francisco, where Men's Health says your chances of finding a mate are greatest?

all the albums that you can't leave behind

Over at the Entertainment Weekly Popwatch blog, Whitney Pastorek rightly shakes a finger at the National Association of Record Manufacturers' list of the "Definitive 200" albums. I read it over to see what bizarre choices (Linkin Park, the "Titanic" soundtrack, Creed, Kenny G) it included, and also how many of said definitive albums I myself already own. I counted a surprising 30, plus about nine that I used to have and am not sure about now, or that I had and no longer own (like Nirvana's "Nevermind," lent to a friend in college never to be heard from again), or that might technically be my mom's but I grew up thinking of them as mine. I also am what (I presume) music snobs shake their heads at — a greatest-hits-collection fan, rendering it unnecessary to own five albums by one band if I, like other sorta-fans, know only the singles anyway and don't mind keeping it that way. Not all of those 30/39 albums I do own are ones I'd put in a "definitive 200" list, either. Some of the choices make sense when you consider their influence as well as their music quality alone. What do you think?

not cool, dude

I have finally gotten used to the word "hoodie." At first I'd cringe a bit whenever I read or heard it, but now it almost seems like a normal, everyday word to me. I still haven't accepted "preggers" and don't imagine I ever will. The new and reigning least favorite slang term of the '00s, though, is "baby daddy," the skin-crawl-inducing variant of "baby's daddy," which also is becoming/has become an overused phrase. Is it so difficult to speak or write the apostrophe and "s"? I'm not against slang or all forms of word shorthand. I welcome contractions. But some slang particularly makes us sound lazy and less intelligent. Consider the "redneck" genre of comedy, for example — any of those slang words/mangled versions of actual words not dumb down their speaker? One of my favorite words is "y'all," so I'm not claiming to be better than all that. I'm just sayin'.