The original “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” was made for television movie that premiered in 1973. It isn’t very scary compared to today’s horror movie standards or the superior remake but the creepy voices in both films may keep those of you who are less courageous up at night.

Contributed

Making the main character a child was a gamble but they ended up with a winning hand. Sally had the same personality in both movies but I think it fits a child better. In the original Sally was hard headed and felt like Alex didn’t really care for her. In the remake the feeling of neglect is strengthened by Alex having a new girlfriend named Kim, played by Katie Holmes.

The movie takes place when the family moves into an old home where something mysterious happened in a closed off room. Throughout the movie the protagonist, Sally, hears voices coming from the room and the vents in the house.

During the movie Sally goes from trying to let these creatures free to being hunted down by them. In the original she wanted to open up the fire places to make an office but in the remake Sally wants to set them free because they “want to be friends”. It was a small change to why the things were released but a child wanting an office that’s able to “set the mood” is a bit far fetched.

Sally then tries to convince Alex that there are things actually trying to attack her but being a stubborn workaholic he is too busy and thinks she is making everything up. Alex doesn’t believe Sally so she has to turn to her best friend Joan, who is most similar to Kim in the remake. Neither of them is sure if Sally is telling the truth but both support her anyway.

Many were a little cautious about the movie with Holmes as the lead, after all her post Tom Cruise marriage career hasn’t been spectacular, but she did an excellent job. The remake answered many of the questions that the original neglected to follow up on. It may not be a blockbuster hit, but “Don’t be Afraid of the Dark” is a win for both horror movie remakes and Katie Holmes.

Mack Palmour, Director of Admissions and Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management at GSC, weighs in on what he believes should be done to increase enrollment and what is currently being done at the college.

The total enrollment for fall 2011 is at 8,659 students. This total number includes the GSC- Oakwood, Oconee, and Winder campuses.

The enrollment for the 2010- 2011 school year was at 8,883 students. “Last year, (GSC) was at its highest count at 8,883 students. This included all of the campuses,” Palmour said. The headcount for the GSC-Oakwood campus is 6,317 students, which dropped 5.8 percent from last year. While the headcount for the GSC-Winder campus came in at 35 students with enrollment dropping 46.2 percent from last year.

The GSC- Oconee campus is at 2,387 students which was the only campus to have enrollment rise at 3.8 percent.

According to Palmour, there has been an overall effect that has affected the school. “The economy, student’s not taking as many hours, changes in the criteria for HOPE, and increased competitions with schools have all been factors,” Palmour said. There are several ways to increase enrollment at GSC.

Some of the ways would include “more intrusive recruitment and taking a harder look at students that are getting into the college,” said Palmour.

A new virtual tour has been added to make the campus better known and more accessible to the general public. This virtual campus tour allows students to see the campus before taking a step onto the property. An “avatar student” will be able to give a potential student a tour of the campus. The main goal at GSC is to provide “all resources to have success and do well inside and outside of the classroom,” Palmour said.

photo contribution: Josh Jones

There have been complaints among the student body that the price of food at the café is too high and should be changed. While Barot and Jones are pushing for student suggestions, changes in price appear to be out of the question. However, Jones (a big fan of the café’s turkey croissants as well as its coffee) is confident that the pricing (which averages at about $5-$6 for a small meal) is fair and reasonable. “You would pay more down the street at Zaxby’s,” said Jones “and he has enough money already!”

Campuscafe, based in Atlanta, has provided food services to various schools around the state such as Georgia Perimeter College and Dalton State but in many ways their presence at GSCO is the biggest risk they have taken yet.

GSCO Business Services Director Mark Jones described investing in food services at GSCO as a “dice roll” after lamenting on talks between GSCO and Chik-Fil-A breaking down before they could make a deal. Eventually GSCO sent out an RFP (request for proposal) and Campuscafe was the first and only company to make a bid.

Barot described the level of commitment and confidence they have put into GSCO as “not typical” when compared to some of their other clients. The evidence is in the receipts; Campuscafe has provided their own serving license and build out with virtually no budgetary help from GSCO.

Campuscafe pays a high premium to be here and both Barot and Jones are hoping it pays off in the long run. “This is a moneymaker for the school” said Jones with Barot hoping that the café’s “state of the art sustainability” will ultimately lead to success.Jones helped arrange for Campuscafe’s arrival on campus and spoke highly of the company’s “high level of marketing and professionalism” adding that he appreciated that the café was “specifically aimed at students.”

Campuscafe has already had a “soft-open” for their new store with a grand opening planned for a later date. Once that happens, students should expect a bigger menu, special events, and other surprises throughout the semester. Barot is open to any and all suggestions as long as you don’t ask him to add French fries. “I have nowhere to fry the fries! Show me where to fry them and I will do it but right now I can’t do it, y’know?”

Beer Growlers offers customized store growlers as well as a variety of other breweries' growlers
photo courtesy of: Josh Jones

But if you’ve ever experienced the dissatisfaction of that bottled beverage not reflecting its true character you experienced on draft, you’re not alone. Nor are we any longer out of luck, dear reader. Athens is now home to three – count ‘em – three growler shops. What’s a growler, you ask? A growler is simply a 64-ounce glass jug that holds a half-gallon of beer poured from a tap. What’s a growler shop? A growler shop is a magical place that offers several beers for your enjoyment — all on tap.

While three shops exist in Athens one made it possible for the other two to open for business. Athens’ Beer Growler was the first to offer freshly tapped beer, not only in Athens, but also in the state. Georgia law prohibited the pouring of growlers until the three owners of the Beer Growler, Paul Saunders, Denny Young and Sean Galvin, told them those laws weren’t going to fly with them and wrote their own legislation to get the outdated nonsense corrected. “We were the ones responsible for changing the law at the state level,” Saunders told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We basically wrote the legislation the department approved for us to be able to fill glass bottles.”

And it was so. The Beer Growler began pouring for Athens in December 2010. Since then I have had my Dogfish Head growler filled and refilled multiple times. On my last visit I spoke with Allegra Yeley, a Beer Growler Employee who knew a thing or two about the livelihood of craft beer in Athens.

“We have a lot of repeat customers at this point,” Yeley said. “Obviously we have several people coming in and just asking what a growler is, too. And they were excited about it once they understood it.”

Not only does the Beer Growler offer 25 different taps, but they offer only the finest craft beer available, meaning no macro brews such as Bud, Miller, Coors, Pabst and the like. “The beer we sell is only the beer we drink,” Yeley said. “We’re not going to put up something that has a terrible ranking on beeradvocate.com, either.”

photo courtesy to: Josh Jones

With two other growler shops alive and well in Athens Yeley acknowledges there is always competitiveness between businesses. “We have people come in with 5 Points growlers,” Yeley said, “and we’re happy to fill them. We have a good location, and so do [5 Points Bottle Shop], but I think we have a rapport with loyal customers and we’re solely dedicated to growlers.”

Not only can beer lovers get their fix of a fresh growler, but they can also take advantage of free glassware specials every Wednesday. The store is also hosting a New Belgium Fat Tire bike giveaway throughout September with donations going to Partnership for a Prosperous Athens.

The store has seen a rise in clientele since its inception into Athens’ craft beer scene. Yeley said the demographic is varied, ranging from late-20s to 60s. The college-age clientele isn’t as “tapped in” to the idea, she said. She does see many young men come in on Friday and Saturday nights and crunch some numbers. “Without fail I’ll see a group of college guys come in, stand and stare at the board and compare the ABV to price, looking to get sloshed.” According to Yeley, those customers don’t accurately represent the store’s goal, nor does it represent the idea held by most customers.

Even though Galvin, Saunders and Young were successful with getting their initial legislation approved, hurdles still lie ahead for Georgia’s growlers. “In the South, in general, you tend to have strange alcohol laws,” Yeley said. “We’re about to be able to sell 32-ounce growlers, but the legislature has to vote on it first.”

Despite the bits of red tape in front of the state’s first growler shop, Yeley believes the store will continue to grow — literally. The Beer Growler just opened its second location in Avondale Estates, just a few minutes from Atlanta. The new location offers 40 taps and has seen a tremendous response since opening its doors in August.

Yeley hopes to see a rise in student patrons at the Athens location. Grasping Athens’ large student population, the store offers $1 off to students with a valid school ID.

Don’t get me wrong, the game is beautiful, the dialogue was funny, and the story is compelling. What hero doesn’t want to lead a revolution and become king of his or her little world? However, Fable III commits the number one worst crime that a game can make, it’s boring!

They’ve taken nearly all of the role-playing aspects of it, the customization, the inventory, the weapons, and thrown it all away. Now we have the Sanctuary, a little room that takes a few seconds to load in order to get to. From there, you have to actually walk to where your status, clothes, armor, weapons, and items are hidden in order to even know what you have. Then, you have to walk up to the specific podium and hold the select button for about two full seconds before you can access it. Then you equip the item, cancel out, and leave the sanctuary through another few seconds of loading. How is this better than an inventory screen? It isn’t!

In order to do pretty much anything, you have to stop and teleport to the sanctuary. It even stores the only map of your world in the game, making things a hassle if you’re trying to find something. Of course you have the glowing breadcrumb trail to take you to a specific quest, but it often disappears on you or forgets where it’s going. There’s no mini-map of any sort to let you know where you’re going unless you go to the Sanctuary and go through the loading screens just to know where you are! The breadcrumb trail was a bad idea from the start, because even if it works, it makes you focus on the trail rather than letting you take in this beautiful world around you.  The only time you get to take in the scenery is when you’re lost in it.

Then there are loading screens. If you’ve played Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360 (AKA Sonic ’06) then you know that loading screens can make or break a game. In this case, it made the game incredibly boring. Not only do you have to hold the select button for two seconds to do just about anything, but then you have to wait through a ten second loading screen, then watch a cinematic, then a loading screen, then a bit of dialogue, another loading screen, and then you are finally free again for about a minute before hitting another loading screen! The obnoxious posters that they put up for the loading screens don’t help, in fact it makes the loading screens even worse.

Let’s talk about combat…oh wait, maybe we shouldn’t. The battles are pathetically easy, made even easier as soon as you realize that melee combat is completely useless. Either enemies die in one swing of your sword or hammer, or they dodge and block your attacks obsessively. By the way, you only have a choice of a sword or hammer as far as melee is concerned, no more katanas, claymores, broadswords, axes, or battle picks for us. Why?! The only thing that makes melee combat worth a second glance is the flourish system. If you use the flourish attack continuously, you unlock pretty cool looking combos that can rip your opponents apart.

The ranged weaponry is pretty much the same, only rifles or pistols with no bows or crossbows for you to use. The sniping mechanic is simplified beyond the original Fable, and the enemies fall so easily that there’s hardly a point anymore anyway. Just spam the shoot button, and you’ll automatically lock on and shoot down your enemies. It’s Simple…way too simple to make it any fun at all.

Magic is the game breaker. It kills everything, no questions asked. It’s absurdly powerful, made even more powerful when you learn how to combine two spells. If you want to make this game any fun at all, you have to limit yourself and not use the spells. You should never have to restrict yourself in order to make it fun!

Don’t bother interacting with NPCs. It was fun in Fable, funny in Fable II, and simplified to oblivion in Fable III You can’t even choose what emotion you get to portray! I find myself romantic dancing, doing the chicken dance, or farting in people’s faces in completely random order. Of all of the boneheaded moves to make, this has to be the most idiotic! There’s no reason to rip out our emotion control and tack on cheap animations for the few emotions we can give.

Lack of emotion, boring boss battles, overpowered fighting and a simplified morality set makes this game break my heart. It makes me so sad to see one of my favorite gaming franchises bomb so badly. Alright, I’ve ranted enough. It’s time for a rating.

The Good

1. Funny dialogue
2. Good concept
3. Beautiful Landscape
4. Large world to explore

The Bad

1. BORING!
2. Bad Ending
3. Overly Simplified
4. Too Short

I give Fable III a 6/10, Slightly Above Average. It’s definitely worth playing if you can forgive its shortcomings. Fans will be disappointed.

The new boxing drama “Lights Out” on FX is one to stand up and take notice of. The series stars Holt McCallany (Fight Club) as Patrick “Lights” Leary, a fighter who has fallen out of the boxing limelight after a controversial split decision five years prior that stripped him of the heavyweight title. Patrick Leary retires from the sport he loves and assumes the role of family man at the behest of his wife and three daughters. With his accumulated winnings from years of boxing, Leary attempts to maintain his wealthy lifestyle by running a local gym, sending his wife to medical school and his three growing daughters to one of the most prestigious private schools in the area. But the walls quickly begin to close in on Leary and he begins to experience personal blows more damaging than anything he has ever encountered in the ring.

Leary is blindsided early on by news from doctors that he suffers from Dementia pugilistica, a common form of dementia often associated with fighters who have taken one too many blows to the head. Leary also discovers his brother and manager Johnny has mismanaged his assets and the IRS is sweeping in to collect the money they are owed. Coupled with the fact that he is removed from the sport he loves, we watch “Lights” cope with the feeling of being powerless and struggling to stay afloat in his ever changing world.

The series draws on its lead Holt McCallany, who displays the believable physique of a former heavyweight fighter, but also has the acting prowess to convey the emotional depth of a struggling husband and father needed for the role. McCallany is supported by veteran actor Stacy Keach who plays his aging father and former trainer, Pablo Schreiber who plays his irresponsible brother and by Catherine McCormack who plays his nagging but caring wife.

Overall, the show is reminiscent of the Rocky series with shimmers of Marlon Brando’s “On the Waterfront” and Russell Crowe’s “Cinderella Man” sprinkled in for good measure. If the series continues to shine and impress as the pilot episode did, it seems FX has another sure-fire hit on their hands to add to the networks already impressive resume. “Lights Out” airs 10pm on Tuesday nights only on FX. 

Picture Courtesy of FX

No Strings Attached Movie Poster

The movie is just as predictable as it sounds. Besides the gender-role reversal of having an emotional man chase an emotionally unstable woman, the movie gives the audience what every chick flick entails: a few laughs, quirky romance, and a happy ending. “No Strings Attached” was entertaining to watch, but it was nothing special. It was a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy with gratuitous amounts of vulgarity. Some of the scenes over-utilize “awkward” humor and Portman’s character tries so hard to keep her emotions out of the picture, that she begins losing all human-like characteristics. The majority of the film, however, was effortlessly funny and the theater erupted into laughter multiple times. The supporting actors in this film, including rapper Ludacris, were very amusing and their one liners end up being the saving grace of the movie.

Despite its predictability and over the top level of awkwardness, “No Strings Attached” ended up being quite an entertaining romantic comedy, especially as the love story developed. It’s worth seeing, but may be in the viewer’s best interest to wait for the film to release on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Marc Webb be the director of the new Spider-Man

Film critics and devotees alike are waiting patiently in anticipation for the reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise.

Upon cancellation of “Spider-Man 4”, Sony Pictures announced the rebooting of the series with a fresh approach. The film will be directed by Marc Web, who recently made his debut as a Hollywood director with the 2009 blockbuster hit, “500 Days of Summer”. Playing a young Peter Parker will be Andrew Garfield, who most recently has starred in films such as “The Social Network”, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”, and “Never Let Me Go”.

Sony has confirmed that this rendition of Spider-Man will depict the hero as less of a mutant freak, as his web shooting abilities will come from hidden web canisters, and not from magically obtained spider powers.  Peter Parker will also be styling around in his newly designed costume, which will look slightly more rugged and realistic than his previous one.  However, Spider-Man’s new revival will be no cakewalk.  The villain this time around will be the uncontrollable Dr. Connors (but you may know him as The Lizard), played by Rhys Ifans.

Upon speculation of the reboot, one would think that perhaps it is too soon for them to reboot the series. Technology hasn’t advanced much and the production wouldn’t exactly be defined as “next generation”

Yes, Spider-Man 3 received rough reviews, and rightfully so but perhaps Hollywood is too quick to give up and start over. Many have questioned whether or not Sony is merely trying to get in on the Twilight craze with their new teenage Spiderman, however I feel that these thoughts are a bit premature and shouldn’t be seriously considered until we see clips of Peter Parker fighting crime with his shirt off. The film is expected to fully embrace the current 3D craze but the Spider-Man reboot won’t be swinging into theaters until July of 2012.

Machinima.com logo, their main source of content is on youtube

Machinima has proven to have many advantages over other types of filmmaking.  For instance, you don’t have to go scout places to film—just connect all equipment to your television, and film right there in your living room. Recruiting actors comes as a pretty easy task as well because once you tell someone that you’re making a movie and that they may be on Youtube, you can pretty much get any stranger to do some acting for you.  Furthermore, you are not limited to real life physics or environment and you definitely do not need to own gun props or pay to reserve a road for a car chase.  Since you are using a video game, you can basically write anything in the script and make it happen.  The last major advantage of Machinima is its cost efficiency: while it is not completely free because you do have to buy a capture card, the preferred recording device, and editing programs to help you put everything together, there is still a huge cost advantage when compared to other types of filmmaking.  Overall, you could get started as a Machinima maker for as cheap as fifty dollars.

Machinima has gained a lot of popularity over the last decade.  In fact, Machinima.com’s YouTube channel is now the most viewed youtube channel of all time with nearly two billion views.  It is not just on YouTube where Machinima has been recognized, though.  The band Weezer recognized Machinima production company Hollywood Halo for creating a Halo music video using one of their songs.  Other bands have made deals with online communities to reward the Machinima maker who can make the best music video using one of their songs.  Some gaming companies such as Bungie (creators of the Halo series) will advertise quality Machinima sites and videos on their news feed.  If a production group has enough success, they can even make a career out of it, the primary example being the massively popular Machinima company RoosterTeeth who have gained much of their attention from their popular Red vs. Blue comedy series. 

Whether you are looking to make money, just want an easy way to progress yourself as a filmmaker, or are just looking for a new hobby to enjoy, Machinima is a great thing to get into and can be very rewarding.  For those talented enough, there are Machinima film festivals and expos to show off one’s creations.  Fairly new, there is even a Machinicast Awards which is the Machinima version of the Oscars that gives out awards such as best story, best voice actor, best picture, and many others.  Considering how much success Machinima has had recently, it is possible that in another decade, everyone will know about this new up and coming video medium.  One day, people might even go to the theater to see the new Machinima that just came out.  Perhaps that is a bit optimistic, but one thing is certain: the future of Machinima is very bright.