Friday the 13th’s Camp Crystal Lake Sign
Even though Slashfilm didn’t make it out to the set of the Friday the 13th reboot (what happened Platinum Dunes?!? Grrrr), we remain stoked on what we’ve seen and heard from our peers, including the one who watched his first F13th ever right before the visit. 
In keeping with tomorrow’s festive date, Bloody Disgusting has revealed the first photo of the Camp Crystal Lake sign from the 2009 effort and it rocks, silently hinting at many a twisted tale before it while exhibiting the knack for careful detail, fun and tone that’s been praised by bloggers thus far. (Slashfilm commenter/snarkologist “gocitizen” says that I sound like The Onion. Basically, the sign is cool enough to consider yanking it off a tree and throwing it in a friend’s car if nobody was looking. Better?)
Of note: the reboot’s last day of filming down in Texas is tomorrow, while the release date is set for Friday, February 13th, 2009. I might fire up one of Jason Voorhees’s cornerstones of the American film diet tomorrow night on a moderately snowy VHS tape with a nice Pabst. Do any of you have a similar tradition or related plans?
Discuss: Did you have a Jason facsimile that was said to haunt your summer campgrounds? My camp was terrified by Hatchet Man, who was fond of moonshine, the neighboring girl’s camp (that may have been nonexistent), and questionable relations with bear cubs.
The Brooke White Reboot: How Big a Sin?
To stop or not to stop?
The American Idol judges couldn't agree if Brooke White did the rightor wrongthing last night by rebooting her performance of "You Must Love Me."
And there's not quite a consensus among outside singing experts, either.
"Unless it's a total trainwreck, I think you try to make it through," James Lugo, a record producer and vocal coach, said today. "Personally, I think starting and stopping is kind of hack."
To Gina Eckstine, a singer and vocal teacher, going forward is the only way to go. Most of the time.
"If there's no more, and you can't move ahead, sometimes you just have to admit it," said Eckstine.
White opted for the latter route on Tuesday. Some 13 seconds into her performance, she turned to the house band and said, "I'm sorry." Taking the hint, the band restarted the song. White made it through the number, introduced by Madonna in the movie version of Evita, without further incident.
After the song ended, Paula Abdul, the nice Idol judge, looked pained as she considered her words. Firmly but gently, she offered White the following edict: "You must never start and stop."
In a twist, Simon Cowell, the non-nice Idol judge, gave White a pass on the do-over, apparently because it entertained him. "This is why I love live TV," he said. "It was so dramaticthe beginning, you know."
Under questioning from host Ryan Seacrest, White said she restarted because "I lost the lyric."
Cowell claimed he would have done the same thing, and called White's decision "brave." Abdul persisted, telling White she should have vamped until she found the words. Cowell and Randy Jackson, the wild-card Idol judge, disagreed.
On the matter of to vamp or not to vamp, Abdul offered the best advice, the singing experts said.
"I'm not always in agreement with Paula Abdul," Lugo said. "But I am this time."
Eckstine was also on board with the "Straight Up" star. "Most of the time the audience doesn't [realize you've] made a mistake," she said.
The daughter of the late singing great Billy Eckstine, Gina Eckstine said her father taught her how to cover a muffed lyric: "If you forget the second verse, sing the first verse again."
In general, Lis Lewis, a Los Angeles-based vocal coach, concurred. But she reminded that American Idol is unique in that the judges, Abdul included, have tended to point out when a singer misses a lyric.
"Who cares? Except them [the Idol judges]," Lewis said. "The audience wouldn't care. The audience wouldn't really notice."
Lugo sounded a big amen. "Dude, you're singing cover songs," he said. "Who gives a s–t if you forget the lyrics? I think it's irrelevant."
Interestingly, on Tuesday's Idol, botched lyrics, outside of White's botched performance, were, for once, rendered irrelevant.
Both David Archuleta and Carly Smithson missed lines. Archuleta even mumbled through a rough patch. But neither was called out on the breaches. (Archuleta did, however, get a talking-to from Abdul during the first Beatles week when he sang gobbledygook for a few measures of "We Can Work It Out," and, to compound the sin, let the mistake show on his face.)
Lewis said she wouldn't even consider White's faux pas all that bad"if she hadn't done it before."
Four weeks ago, White started, stopped and restarted "Every Breath You Take." The relaunch stood out less than Tuesday's because it came after White, providing her own accompaniment, had played but a few notes on the piano. Indeed, even White seemed to forget about the gaffe, saying that last night was the first time she'd missed a lyric. And, technically, she was correct. Her problem with "Every Breath You Take" was the key, not a lyric.
Whatever the case, both do-overs stood out to Lewis. "It seems to be a crutch she's relying on," she said.
Eckstine, who didn't watch Idol last night (not to worryshe TiVo'd), said she wasn't surprised to hear that it was White who suffered the meltdown. "She's been very unsteady and unsure," she said.
But will White's latest trouble be her last trouble? Will it seal her fate as Wednesday night's unchosen one?
"Unfortunately, if you're on a show like American Idol," Eckstine said, "you are being judged."
On every breath you take. Or not.
The latest revamp in the works: Blake’s 7
Sky One plans to create a new version of the 70’s BBC cult hit, Blake’s 7. The original series was a creation of Terry Nation, who also created the famous Doctor Who aliens, the Daleks. The original concept centered around a group of rebels fighting against a totalitarian planetary Federation.
The original Blake’s 7 was a great experiment and had two qualities that were unique for its time. First, it used a continuous storyline between episodes before such things were commonplace. Second, in its final episode the enemy seemingly killed all of the primary cast, including Roj Blake (the character for whom the show is named).
The program has far more of a cult status in England than America and the DVD set has yet to be released in Region 1.
Will the program be a continuation of the events of the 70’s program or a complete reboot? In terms of quality, will it be more like Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica or more like Flash Gordon? I guess we’ll see.
The Incredible Hulk: Two New Video Clips
Last week three new clips from The Incredible Hulk hit the net, and had everyone talking. It seems like Marvel’s plan of having no one care about the Hulk sequel/reboot until the last minute might actually be working. Universal has released two new clips. I’m convinced that by the time the film comes out, we’ll be able to piece all of these clips together to see the entire full length action sequences from the film. Watch both clips.
You can watch the first new clip embedded below or in High Definition on MSN.com.
The second comes from AOL, and can be seen in High Definition on their site.
Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.