We saw A Nightmare On Elm Street on Friday night and, uh…well it depends on how you look at it.

I’ve had time to think, and I wouldn’t classify it as “terrible.” There wasn’t much imagination and there certainly were some blown opportunities, but that’s always the case with these remakes — especially in the eyes of those who grew up loving the originals. There comes a point when we have to realize that these movies aren’t really made for “us,” but rather a new generation of moviegoers who know the basics, know the story, and in this case, know Freddy, but who aren’t so obsessed that they’ll go into theaters ready to pounce on anything that could have been better.

I’m trying to be fair. We were in a packed house, and everyone was having a great time. They reacted to the scares and kills. They turned bad dialogue into unintentional comedy. They laughed at Freddy — but in a good way. They cheered when a scene called for them to.

So, when I read critics’ reviews, filled with stuff like “by the numbers” and “soulless” and blah blah blah, part of me wants to join in. But another part of me understands that that’s all these movies ever were, and largely, it’s all they’re meant to be.

If nothing else, I thought it was miles ahead of the Friday the 13th remake.

Lest anyone mistake this as a outright positive review from a NOES diehard, NO. There were problems. The scare tactics too often relied on simple “boo” tactics, and the only kill scenes that seemed “energetic” were the ones they aped from the original films. Go back to one of the earlier movies, let’s say Dream Child, and you’re looking at some pretty clever ways to kill off teenagers. That was missing here. For the most part, this “slasher” film was pretty literal.

As for Jackie Earle Haley’s Freddy Krueger, he did what he could, but if you were of the mind that Robert Englund should have continued on in the role, Haley isn’t going to do much to change your opinion. Freddy belongs to Englund, and nobody will ever do it better. Knowing that, there should’ve been a bigger effort from all involved to make this particular incarnation distinct from Englund’s.

Diehards may not be too fond of Freddy’s origin story as told here. Without spoiling, the movie leaves little to the imagination as it relates to what Freddy was and did during his human life. Some will cry “TMI,” but I didn’t mind it. It was one of the few parts of the film that really showed some balls. Despite the “R” rating, this is still a mass-consumption popcorn movie, and they could’ve been more safe and “abstract” about who Freddy was before becoming the monster. Here, that’s actually the scariest part of the film. Plus, it makes the conflict between Freddy and his would-be victims a hell of a lot more personal than it’s been in the past. The more I think about it, the more it seems to work.

I was underwhelmed when we left the theater, but my expectations were unreasonable. Let’s be objective. If you’re not a militant purist, it’s not so bad, and it’s better than most of the slasher remakes that it will inevitably be compared to. Great movie? No. Impressive franchise reset? Nah. Worth seeing? Why not?

I can never resist browsing the “stationary & school supplies” aisle of any store that has one, this perhaps being the mental residue of a time when a fresh notebook was my favorite new toy. (Never for scholarly purposes. I just liked notebooks.)

There’s little reason for me to be excited by such items these days, as I can’t remember the last time I used a writing utensil for anything other than signing checks or doodling scars and Hitler mustaches over the proud newlyweds in the Sunday paper. Browsing these aisles has just become a mindless, fruitless habit.

Well, not always. Sometimes, Crayola puts out a new kind of magic marker so insane, I have to try it. Other times, my brain, struggling to justify even the smallest bit of frivolous spending, will conjure up some obtuse use for a package of index cards. These are rare exceptions, and so is the purchase I’m about to tell you about.

I feel like I must’ve seen these before, but it didn’t hit me until recently that they’re capable of changing lives. Rose Art has a line of crafts out called “Color Blanks,” and the basic idea is that you get naked, poseable figurines to design, color, paint and adorn in any way you see fit.

The concept made me giddy, and I could only imagine how much I would’ve been into these as a kid. Imagine — your very own action figure! So many possibilities! You could create yourself, or some creature known only to you, or perhaps best of all, you could finally pay tribute to an existing character who somehow never found himself immortalized in doll-form!

The “Color Blanks” kits vary with figures in different shapes and sizes. The one I picked up is a good starter set: Two blank figures, a bunch of Sharpie-style markers, and some “facial feature” stickers for anyone too lazy to draw their own eyes and ears.

If you’re feeling extra motivated, the manual urges you to create hats, hair and other accessories out of clay (of which a small brick is included), and this could be a necessary exercise for those who simply cannot come up with designs for figures with box and marshmallow-shaped heads.

When pressed to be creative when I’m not at all in the mood to be, I always wander to Krang. My Krang looks like shit, but he didn’t have to. The kit gives you enough to get the ball rolling, but if you bring acrylic paint and other tools into the mix, you can make some pretty dynamite figures.

I’m not sure what the dolls are made out of, but my catch-all description of “plastic” doesn’t really do them justice. As canvases, they work surprisingly well. The marker ink takes to them beautifully and dries quickly, and I’m confident that had I spent more than five minutes to create Krang, he wouldn’t have come out looking anywhere near this terrible.

You can find sets like this in most toy and department stores, or you can buy ‘em online. I suggest you do a bit of browsing first, since “Color Blanks” figures come in a pretty wide variety. No sense in buying a blockheaded Color Blank if, say, you’re more inspired by one with a vaguely rhino-shaped head. They have those, too.

Just another bullet on the ever-growing list of things that make me wish I was seven.

PS: My kit came with two figures. Haven’t gotten around to turning the other guy into anything yet. What should he be? Tell me in the comments. If you’re more persuasive than your fellow readers, I will obey your command and present the finished product this coming weekend.

I wanted tonight’s SNT to come with content, but I can’t do that until I finish coloring something in. Seriously. So, here’s your bland SNT. Your job: Make it not bland. I’m going back to coloring. Find out why tomorrow.

Ugh, I can’t shake it!

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was on cable last night, and even though the so-bad-it’s-amazing Planet of the Apes was a mere two channels away, I couldn’t flip. It’d been years since I’d seen Roger Rabbit, and the memories of how absolutely huge that movie was came rushing back.

I found myself mindlessly mouthing along with the characters, having seemingly memorized every moment of the film. Roger Rabbit is an odd movie, but it seems even odder in retrospect: Like a movie made for old people that looked like a movie made for young people, but not in any kind or ironic or purposeful way. And, of course, the film’s gimmick of mixing live action with animation was masterful in its day, but now seems so dated that I can’t possibly imagine another film being made with the same theme, at least to this degree.

And that might be a good thing, because I really would not be able to stand watching another innocent shoe die.

Oh God, the shoe! The poor shoe!

In the film, cartoons are actual, living things, coexisting with humans as best they can. Long thought to be ageless and impossible to kill, the evil Judge Doom (played dementedly by Christopher Lloyd), presents the first known way to end a toon’s life: The dip, a gloppy, steaming slime that can turn any toon into dead syrup.

As if thinking about a cartoon melting wasn’t scary enough, Judge Doom felt that a demonstration was in order. As boozy Eddie Valiant watches with awe and horror, Doom grabs a wide-eyed anthropomorphic shoe, drags it over to the barrel of sludge, and methodically dunks the poor little thing in as it screeches and steams its way through a slow, painful death. OH MY GOD.

If you haven’t seen the movie, I know what you’re thinking. How “scary” can it be for a guy to chuck a cartoon shoe into slime? You only think that because you did not see this shoe! The pinnacle of cuteness and innocence! Worst of all, Judge Doom only chose him for this grim fate out of convenience: The shoe, not knowing any better, cozied up to Judge Doom’s leg, much like a cat brushes up to let you know how awesome you are. If only that shoe picked someone else to befriend, it could’ve had a spinoff.

Picture it. You’re a kid, and there’s this cute little shoe guy on the screen, with adorable facial features and happy sounds. When that shoe touched the dip, darting its dying eyes to Judge Doom with a look of utter confusion and fear, our hearts sank. Forever.

Roger Rabbit was well-received, but some critics commented that the film was too dark, pointing to its alcoholic hero and cynical humor. It was dark, but that had little to do with Valiant’s scotch or Baby Herman’s dick jokes. It was dark because Christopher Lloyd murdered a fucking shoe! Christ!

The scene was haunting, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Search around — pretty much anyone who has ever seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit cannot write a paragraph about it without mentioning that shoe.

I’d seen Optimus Prime die in theaters. Not just in the heat of battle, either. I had to watch the guy on his death bed, with sad robot eyes, giving his last commands before turning brown like exposed apple meat. I barely bat an eye at it. A few years later, I had this damned shoe making my stomach feel like it had cars crashing inside it. And not just while I was at the theaters, either. Every time I thought about that shoe, I felt horrible. I still do. It was a great shoe and it did not deserved to be dipped.

Guess this all lends itself to a survey. Have there been any movie or television scenes that, despite being totally absurd, just completely ruined your life? Discuss in the comments.

I still miss you, shoe guy.

I like living under the belief that everyone, everywhere has a junk drawer in their kitchen. You know the kind. These drawers, lacking any one dedicated storage use, evolve into the twisted, foreboding collectors of inanimate souls from all walks of life. Pens, batteries, loose change, mystery keys, or in my case, I don’t know what the fuck.

Over the years, our junk drawer has transformed from a benign collection of potentially-useful things into a legendary heap of dusty pain. How some of the drawer’s contents got there, I cannot explain. Headless Easter bunny statuettes and instruction manuals for devices we’ve never owned far outnumber anything that might be described as a “keeper,” and the crud collection has grown so enormous that we’ve been unable to properly close the drawer for several months.

I decided that it was time to see what we actually had in there.

Some of the stuff was fine. On a stretch, I could justify the many dried-up markers, pennies and near-dead rolls of masking tape. Still, in far larger quantities was an esoteric group of items that I do not remember ever owning, much less wanting to save. Highlights below!

Dead “AA” Batteries: In my many years spent with various digital cameras, I’ve very rarely bothered with rechargeable batteries. Thus, the deaths of nearly seventeen thousand “AA” batteries can be directly attributed to me. But I’m a battery brand whore, and I have no idea how to explain this particular bunch. Check out Battery #3, with the ancient Eveready “cat” logo. I swear it has to be twenty-years-old. How did I get that, and why did we save it? Most of these don’t even look real, seeming more like movie prop batteries implemented by directors who refused to provide mighty Duracell with free advertising.

Bakery String: You’ve all seen this sort of string, right? The kind that bakeries use to tie up boxes of cookies? As a child, I was enamored with this string, often using it as makeshift climbing equipment for my action figures. Now? No idea why I’d ever need bakery string, but there it is, in such insane volume that I’m certain I could use it to bind a Teumessian fox to my living room recliner. [more]

I never find anything good at Wal-Mart. Unless I squint.

Wow, how have I never seen these before? Hasbro’s Handful of Heroes is a truly life-altering series of tiny Marvel Comics figurines, sold in packs of eight. I shouldn’t have to name the toylines this reminds me of, but I will: M.U.S.C.L.E., Battle Beasts, Army Ants and many other great reasons to italicize.

Love, love, love. There are dozens of characters represented, and though none of them are exactly “obscure,” it still warms me to see guys like Mandarin and Absorbing Man get their little moments of glory. Really hope the line is doing well, because if it is, it’s a safe bet that less obvious characters will become represented in future sets. I’ve got a bookshelf full of Marvel Universe Handbooks, chock full of random assholes who deserve to be immortalized in shiny plastic. My kingdom for a two-inch Speedball.

Oh, and to seal the deal: Each 8-pack comes with seven “visible” figures and one “secret” figure, hidden beneath the package’s unforgiving cardboard. No idea if the secret figures are rarer than the rest, but for whatever it’s worth, I got “Hulkbuster Iron Man.” Hulkbuster Iron Man will double nicely as Juggernaut until Hasbro gets around to making a real one.

The figures come in an assortment of happy colors, sort of like inedible Tropical Starburst, and they’re pretty finely detailed. Hasbro, having learned their lesson from past failures, crafted nearly every hero and villain to be posted with their arms outstretched, which keeps them well-balanced and not at all impossible to stand. Anyone who has collected “little figures” can attest to the usefulness of this, even if it’s caused most of the figures to look like they’re saying “WHASSAMATTA?”

Toys like these make me wish I had a son. I’m going to put pants on one of our cats and tell him why Red Hulk is better than Classic Hulk.

Recommended, even if they’re essentially vending machine toys in a prettier box.

It’s Saturday night, and I’ve got half a bottle of great Chianti that comes in a bottle wrapped in raffia. Suburban Italians may know the kind.

As I mentioned on my Twitter thing, we watched Orphan last night. I have no idea how they managed to make such a good movie out of that. Pretty incredible cast considering what type of film it is, and…well, I don’t want to spoil anything, but after you see it, you’ll know what I didn’t want to spoil, and the thing that I don’t want to spoil was pretty awesome. To guarantee the complete failure of this mini-review, I’ve neglected to mention the plot basics until now: Family adopts a “sweet” little girl who ends up being violently psychotic. Think Good Son without the conscience. Orphan is as good as it possibly can be, and Ebert agrees with me.

In other news: I’m slowly but surely getting back into the swing of running X-E, and man, do I have my work cut out for me. My numbers aren’t too thrilling right now, I guess proving that you really can’t let a site sit dead for half a year without taking a traffic hit. (And this makes me twice as thankful for those of you who kept the faith.) In a larger sense, the site badly needs to be restructured. The main page and blog need to be merged into one happy page, somehow. That’s going to take time, as well as the design and coding abilities of someone who is not me. For the moment, I’m just focused on getting some content rolling. Stay tuned, because there’s more of it coming.

And since I couldn’t think of anywhere else to stick this:

We went to some random sushi place last week. I ordered “Black Tobiko.” If you’ve never heard of tobiko, it’s caviar, but the fish eggs are too tiny to really resonate as such. Sushi lovers won’t bat an eye, but I’m sure I’m alienating some of you right now. (Perhaps even more with this than the time I made a Bullshot.) No matter your stance, you must admit this: On those table standees at sushi joints — the ones that show the different kinds of sushi and tell you their secret names — tobiko always looks the most fun.

As for “Black Tobiko,” they somehow get away with charging twice as much as they do for the standard red, even though it’s the same exact lumpfish shit and costs them the same exact lumpfish price. I’m getting away from the point that I wanted to make, which was this: “Black Tobiko” would be an amazing name for a band. Or an evil Pokemon.