Josh / 33 / T2D (Full Remission) / Freelance Photomanupulist / Ethelonarchist / When I say something out of pocket, racist, sexist, or otherwise istophobic; 4 times out of 10, it's sarcasm
If your solution to some problem relies on “If everyone would just…” then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At not time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they’re not going to start now.
In 1978, the farmers in a small Chinese village signed a secret contract. They thought it might get them executed. Instead, it wound up tran
In 1978, the farmers in a small Chinese village called Xiaogang gathered in a mud hut to sign a secret contract. They thought it might get them executed. Instead, it wound up transforming China's economy in ways that are still reverberating today.
The contract was so risky — and such a big deal — because it was created at the height of communism in China. Everyone worked on the village's collective farm; there was no personal property.
"Back then, even one straw belonged to the group," says Yen Jingchang, who was a farmer in Xiaogang in 1978. "No one owned anything."
At one meeting with communist party officials, a farmer asked: "What about the teeth in my head? Do I own those?" Answer: No. Your teeth belong to the collective.
In theory, the government would take what the collective grew, and would also distribute food to each family. There was no incentive to work hard — to go out to the fields early, to put in extra effort, Yen Jingchang says.
"Work hard, don't work hard — everyone gets the same," he says. "So people don't want to work."
In Xiaogang there was never enough food, and the farmers often had to go to other villages to beg. Their children were going hungry. They were desperate.
So, in the winter of 1978, after another terrible harvest, they came up with an idea: Rather than farm as a collective, each family would get to farm its own plot of land. If a family grew a lot of food, that family could keep some of the harvest.
This is an old idea, of course. But in communist China of 1978, it was so dangerous that the farmers had to gather in secret to discuss it.
One evening, they snuck in one by one to a farmer's home. Like all of the houses in the village, it had dirt floors, mud walls and a straw roof. No plumbing, no electricity.
"Most people said 'Yes, we want do it,' " says Yen Hongchang, another farmer who was there. "But there were others who said 'I dont think this will work — this is like high voltage wire.' Back then, farmers had never seen electricity, but they'd heard about it. They knew if you touched it, you would die."
Despite the risks, they decided they had to try this experiment — and to write it down as a formal contract, so everyone would be bound to it. By the light of an oil lamp, Yen Hongchang wrote out the contract.
The farmers agreed to divide up the land among the families. Each family agreed to turn over some of what they grew to the government, and to the collective. And, crucially, the farmers agreed that families that grew enough food would get to keep some for themselves.
The contract also recognized the risks the farmers were taking. If any of the farmers were sent to prison or executed, it said, the others in the group would care for their children until age 18.
The farmers tried to keep the contract secret — Yen Hongchang hid it inside a piece of bamboo in the roof of his house — but when they returned to the fields, everything was different.
Before the contract, the farmers would drag themselves out into the field only when the village whistle blew, marking the start of the work day. After the contract, the families went out before dawn.
"We all secretly competed," says Yen Jingchang. "Everyone wanted to produce more than the next person."
It was the same land, the same tools and the same people. Yet just by changing the economic rules — by saying, you get to keep some of what you grow — everything changed.
At the end of the season, they had an enormous harvest: more, Yen Hongchang says, than in the previous five years combined.
That huge harvest gave them away. Local officials figured out that the farmers had divided up the land, and word of what had happened in Xiaogang made its way up the Communist Party chain of command.
At one point, Yen Hongchang was hauled in to the local Communist Party office. The officials swore at him, treated him like he was on death row.
But fortunately for Mr. Yen and the other farmers, at this moment in history, there were powerful people in the Communist Party who wanted to change China's economy. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who would go on to create China's modern economy, was just coming to power.
So instead of executing the Xiaogang farmers, the Chinese leaders ultimately decided to hold them up as a model.
Within a few years, farms all over China adopted the principles in that secret document. People could own what they grew. The government launched other economic reforms, and China's economy started to grow like crazy. Since 1978, something like 500 million people have risen out of poverty in China.
Today, the Chinese government is clearly proud of what happened in Xiaogang. That contract is now in a museum. And the village has become this origin story that kids in China learn about in school.
_________________________
This would be the moment when china began to abandon socialism, because even when they were suffering they wouldn't work harder until there was something in it for them.
Amazingly quite the opposite of what is says in that tweet has managed to be the truth of what happens.
They tried socialism and realized that it needs capitalism to survive.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 was, uh... an experience. It's weird seeing Patricia Arquette so young.
It wasn't bad, but the dream warrior shtick is kinda goofy, and I have another 2 Dream Warrior movies to get through.
The next one, Patricia Arquette's role of Kristen is recast with Tuesday Knight.
Fun fact, Lisa Wilcox, who plays the lead in this film, Alice Johnson, initially auditioned for the Kristen role in Elm Street 3. I guess she kind of got caught in Arquette's Legacy-wake on her way up. She finally booked a role when Arquette didn't want to continue with the franchise, albeit, not the role she originally wanted.
Dream Master, like Dream Warriors before it was another odd one. This time it barely felt like an Elm Street movie. This franchise went off the rails just as fast as Friday the 13th.
Well, I say "off the rails" but the producers were probably sucking down rails before every meeting.
Tomorrow I'll move on to the next installment, The Dream Child, followed by Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which is the conclusion of this continuity. After that, I'll move on to Wes Craven's New Nightmare (the Meta-Reboot), and since I watched Freddy vs Jason yesterday, I see no reason to re-watch it, so I'll move straight on to A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), the full-on, ill-conceived, ill-received, and ill-advised gritty modern remake.
I know people hated Dream Child, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting once I settled into the Dream Warriors concept. Some of the acting is a tad clunky, and the plot has a couple of holes, but honestly, it was entertaining enough, and the special effects are really pretty good. I think Freddy's arm transforming into a bunch of Tarantulas effect could have used another pass, though. Cool concept regardless.
The idea that Freddy can hide inside of your subconscious, and infest the dreams of your unborn child are really interesting concepts that could do absolute wonders in the hands of a more careful production team.
The last In-Movie-Universe continuity movie is next, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which was far better received than Dream Child, so if I liked Dream Child enough, I know this one will be one of my favorites.
This one is a bit different. The premise is very good; The last teenager in Springwood, trying to avoid sleeping lest Freddy finally bag-and-tag him, is wandering the streets of an adjacent city after developing sleep deprivation-induced amnesia. He ends up in a shelter, where his caseworker figures out where he's from and takes him, along with three stowaway teens, back to Springwood to jog his memory.
Springwood is a little different than we remember. And by that, I mean it's an entirely different town altogether from the last installment. It seems smaller and more rural, and the surrounding landscape is very much not Ohioan. Something they went to varying lengths to hide in all the previous movies.
The acting is pretty good, except for a couple of lines from the leading man that should have been given another read. It comes off a bit like a TV movie at first, but that feeling goes away as the movie gets along.
We get a weird cameo from Rosanne Barr and Tom Arnold, and a very good cameo from Johnny Depp.
There's some really good, clever special effects, and some not so great visual effects (a couple of instances of green screen where the matte was out of focus, which really messed up the key). The movie actually opens with a classic miniature model effect that was quite a treat.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a very smart movie. With Wes back at the helm, pulling the lens out into the meta-reality where all the previous films were just that —films—, and centering the plot around the making of "The Definitive Nightmare" is probably the most economical use of the IP after it being stretched fairly thin in the public eye.
Absolutely fantastic special effects adorn this film like priceless gems on a golden chalice. The writing is Gold Standard, the acting is absolutely top notch, and we have the Horror Movie Industry's own son, Miko Hughes!
Wes Craven has been a Horror Icon since 1972, but he was the King of Horror in the 90s, and it really shows here.
My temptation is to suggest skipping Freddy's Revenge through Freddy's Dead and go straight to this one as the de-facto "Elm Street 2"
I just want to make it clear that I do not think this is necessarily a bad movie.
It understandably stepped on a lot of tails. There were some design choices that were criticized later in its release, I think because it evoked a shadow of nostalgia underneath a great big teetering rock of cognitive dissonance. "That's not Freddy, that's Fire Marshal Bill!" etc etc. What exactly did people expect? The classic Pizzaface Freddy? It's a take off of the original without the unsubtlety of a direct copy. It also is just as medically inaccurate for a burn victim as the original, a virtue which saves it from being hampered by both or either option.
Nancy's last name is changed to Holbrook, Glenn is transformed into Quentin, Tina is turned into Kris, and Rod is morphed into Jesse. Nancy's father is completely omitted. Freddy is confirmed as more than a "child murderer." In fact not a murderer in life at all, just the "other thing."
A lot of visuals were borrowed in homage to the original. Something fans unfairly criticized the movie for on the basis of "plagiarism" rather than the homage it was. They said "it lacks originality" and, well, yes! Yes of course it does! It's a Hollywood remake of a Hollywood movie! It was never going to be original. Ironically, that same kind of homage is lauded in remakes today.
Jackie Earle Haley does a fine turn as Freddy Krueger. He's dark, menacing, intimidating, obscene, and playful. He was absolutely the right man for the job.
It's obvious that this film should not have been made, but we can't misjudge its quality solely by the fact of its production.
I remember watching the 2010 nightmare movie in theaters and howling at the burial scene because they had like 10 different angles cut into the scene like bad boys movie.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 was, uh... an experience. It's weird seeing Patricia Arquette so young.
It wasn't bad, but the dream warrior shtick is kinda goofy, and I have another 2 Dream Warrior movies to get through.
The next one, Patricia Arquette's role of Kristen is recast with Tuesday Knight.
Fun fact, Lisa Wilcox, who plays the lead in this film, Alice Johnson, initially auditioned for the Kristen role in Elm Street 3. I guess she kind of got caught in Arquette's Legacy-wake on her way up. She finally booked a role when Arquette didn't want to continue with the franchise, albeit, not the role she originally wanted.
Dream Master, like Dream Warriors before it was another odd one. This time it barely felt like an Elm Street movie. This franchise went off the rails just as fast as Friday the 13th.
Well, I say "off the rails" but the producers were probably sucking down rails before every meeting.
Tomorrow I'll move on to the next installment, The Dream Child, followed by Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which is the conclusion of this continuity. After that, I'll move on to Wes Craven's New Nightmare (the Meta-Reboot), and since I watched Freddy vs Jason yesterday, I see no reason to re-watch it, so I'll move straight on to A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), the full-on, ill-conceived, ill-received, and ill-advised gritty modern remake.
I know people hated Dream Child, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting once I settled into the Dream Warriors concept. Some of the acting is a tad clunky, and the plot has a couple of holes, but honestly, it was entertaining enough, and the special effects are really pretty good. I think Freddy's arm transforming into a bunch of Tarantulas effect could have used another pass, though. Cool concept regardless.
The idea that Freddy can hide inside of your subconscious, and infest the dreams of your unborn child are really interesting concepts that could do absolute wonders in the hands of a more careful production team.
The last In-Movie-Universe continuity movie is next, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which was far better received than Dream Child, so if I liked Dream Child enough, I know this one will be one of my favorites.
This one is a bit different. The premise is very good; The last teenager in Springwood, trying to avoid sleeping lest Freddy finally bag-and-tag him, is wandering the streets of an adjacent city after developing sleep deprivation-induced amnesia. He ends up in a shelter, where his caseworker figures out where he's from and takes him, along with three stowaway teens, back to Springwood to jog his memory.
Springwood is a little different than we remember. And by that, I mean it's an entirely different town altogether from the last installment. It seems smaller and more rural, and the surrounding landscape is very much not Ohioan. Something they went to varying lengths to hide in all the previous movies.
The acting is pretty good, except for a couple of lines from the leading man that should have been given another read. It comes off a bit like a TV movie at first, but that feeling goes away as the movie gets along.
We get a weird cameo from Rosanne Barr and Tom Arnold, and a very good cameo from Johnny Depp.
There's some really good, clever special effects, and some not so great visual effects (a couple of instances of green screen where the matte was out of focus, which really messed up the key). The movie actually opens with a classic miniature model effect that was quite a treat.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a very smart movie. With Wes back at the helm, pulling the lens out into the meta-reality where all the previous films were just that —films—, and centering the plot around the making of "The Definitive Nightmare" is probably the most economical use of the IP after it being stretched fairly thin in the public eye.
Absolutely fantastic special effects adorn this film like priceless gems on a golden chalice. The writing is Gold Standard, the acting is absolutely top notch, and we have the Horror Movie Industry's own son, Miko Hughes!
Wes Craven has been a Horror Icon since 1972, but he was the King of Horror in the 90s, and it really shows here.
My temptation is to suggest skipping Freddy's Revenge through Freddy's Dead and go straight to this one as the de-facto "Elm Street 2"
I just want to make it clear that I do not think this is necessarily a bad movie.
It understandably stepped on a lot of tails. There were some design choices that were criticized later in its release, I think because it evoked a shadow of nostalgia underneath a great big teetering rock of cognitive dissonance. "That's not Freddy, that's Fire Marshal Bill!" etc etc. What exactly did people expect? The classic Pizzaface Freddy? It's a take off of the original without the unsubtlety of a direct copy. It also is just as medically inaccurate for a burn victim as the original, a virtue which saves it from being hampered by both or either option.
Nancy's last name is changed to Holbrook, Glenn is transformed into Quentin, Tina is turned into Kris, and Rod is morphed into Jesse. Nancy's father is completely omitted. Freddy is confirmed as more than a "child murderer." In fact not a murderer in life at all, just the "other thing."
A lot of visuals were borrowed in homage to the original. Something fans unfairly criticized the movie for on the basis of "plagiarism" rather than the homage it was. They said "it lacks originality" and, well, yes! Yes of course it does! It's a Hollywood remake of a Hollywood movie! It was never going to be original. Ironically, that same kind of homage is lauded in remakes today.
Jackie Earle Haley does a fine turn as Freddy Krueger. He's dark, menacing, intimidating, obscene, and playful. He was absolutely the right man for the job.
It's obvious that this film should not have been made, but we can't misjudge its quality solely by the fact of its production.
Ok, can we talk about spell check? Not autocorrect, which has some small ability to learn from its mistakes, but Chrome-based spellcheck? Because it drives me absolutely crazy.
I just tried to type the word "violate", but instead of hitting the "v" key I hit the "c" key. If you're really observant, you might notice, upon perusing your keyboard, that the "c" and "v" keys are right next to each other. A few of you who weren't raised by TikTok and didn't go through the California state public school system might be thinking right now, "Huh, 'violate' is a pretty common word and it's really easy to accidentally hit the wrong key on a keyboard. Meanwhile, 'ciolate' isn't a word at all. It really would make sense for any spellcheck program to put obvious typo corrections at the top of the correct word suggestion list, wouldn't it?"
And that's when your education and functioning brain would fail you, my friends. Behold the list of words the Chrome-based spellcheck (you know, the one made by Google, the biggest and most profitable tech company in the world) thinks I was trying to say instead:
Cholate.
Right now, you're probably asking yourself, "What is a cholate? Isn't that just "chocolate" misspelled? Is that what Professor Flitwick says when Cho Chang shows up late to charms class?" No, stupid, cholate is a bile acid anion that is the conjugate base of cholic acid. It has a role as a mouse metabolite and a human metabolite. It is a cholanic acid anion and a bile acid anion. Dumbass. How the hell could you forget that?
2. Collate.
Well this one is at least a word people use. Maybe the list is just in order from least to most common? Kinda weird, but okay. I'm not a moron. I can make inferences with the best of them and, not to brag, but my adult reading level lets me peruse three out of context words in mere seconds. And if that's taking too long, now that I've cracked the code I can just skip the first two suggestions and go right to the third and most commonly used word--
3. Cyolite!
....
What the fuck is a cyolite? Shit. This is embarrassing. Lemme just put that in the Google machine for a second and...
GOOGLE! WHY ARE YOU CORRECTING ME WHEN I SEARCH FOR THE WORD YOU USED TO CORRECT ANOTHER WORD I MISTYPED! WHY ARE YOU SUGGESTING TO ME A WORD YOUR OWN FUCKING SEARCH ENGINE DOESN'T THINK ANYONE WOULD ACTUALLY BE SEARCHING FOR??
And just in case you think I just got unlucky with "violate", try mistyping any word by hitting the key right next to it and see what Chrome (or any Chrome based browser, which is most of them) suggests. Hell, I'll try one more right now.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 was, uh... an experience. It's weird seeing Patricia Arquette so young.
It wasn't bad, but the dream warrior shtick is kinda goofy, and I have another 2 Dream Warrior movies to get through.
The next one, Patricia Arquette's role of Kristen is recast with Tuesday Knight.
Fun fact, Lisa Wilcox, who plays the lead in this film, Alice Johnson, initially auditioned for the Kristen role in Elm Street 3. I guess she kind of got caught in Arquette's Legacy-wake on her way up. She finally booked a role when Arquette didn't want to continue with the franchise, albeit, not the role she originally wanted.
Dream Master, like Dream Warriors before it was another odd one. This time it barely felt like an Elm Street movie. This franchise went off the rails just as fast as Friday the 13th.
Well, I say "off the rails" but the producers were probably sucking down rails before every meeting.
Tomorrow I'll move on to the next installment, The Dream Child, followed by Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which is the conclusion of this continuity. After that, I'll move on to Wes Craven's New Nightmare (the Meta-Reboot), and since I watched Freddy vs Jason yesterday, I see no reason to re-watch it, so I'll move straight on to A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), the full-on, ill-conceived, ill-received, and ill-advised gritty modern remake.
I know people hated Dream Child, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting once I settled into the Dream Warriors concept. Some of the acting is a tad clunky, and the plot has a couple of holes, but honestly, it was entertaining enough, and the special effects are really pretty good. I think Freddy's arm transforming into a bunch of Tarantulas effect could have used another pass, though. Cool concept regardless.
The idea that Freddy can hide inside of your subconscious, and infest the dreams of your unborn child are really interesting concepts that could do absolute wonders in the hands of a more careful production team.
The last In-Movie-Universe continuity movie is next, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which was far better received than Dream Child, so if I liked Dream Child enough, I know this one will be one of my favorites.
This one is a bit different. The premise is very good; The last teenager in Springwood, trying to avoid sleeping lest Freddy finally bag-and-tag him, is wandering the streets of an adjacent city after developing sleep deprivation-induced amnesia. He ends up in a shelter, where his caseworker figures out where he's from and takes him, along with three stowaway teens, back to Springwood to jog his memory.
Springwood is a little different than we remember. And by that, I mean it's an entirely different town altogether from the last installment. It seems smaller and more rural, and the surrounding landscape is very much not Ohioan. Something they went to varying lengths to hide in all the previous movies.
The acting is pretty good, except for a couple of lines from the leading man that should have been given another read. It comes off a bit like a TV movie at first, but that feeling goes away as the movie gets along.
We get a weird cameo from Rosanne Barr and Tom Arnold, and a very good cameo from Johnny Depp.
There's some really good, clever special effects, and some not so great visual effects (a couple of instances of green screen where the matte was out of focus, which really messed up the key). The movie actually opens with a classic miniature model effect that was quite a treat.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a very smart movie. With Wes back at the helm, pulling the lens out into the meta-reality where all the previous films were just that —films—, and centering the plot around the making of "The Definitive Nightmare" is probably the most economical use of the IP after it being stretched fairly thin in the public eye.
Absolutely fantastic special effects adorn this film like priceless gems on a golden chalice. The writing is Gold Standard, the acting is absolutely top notch, and we have the Horror Movie Industry's own son, Miko Hughes!
Wes Craven has been a Horror Icon since 1972, but he was the King of Horror in the 90s, and it really shows here.
My temptation is to suggest skipping Freddy's Revenge through Freddy's Dead and go straight to this one as the de-facto "Elm Street 2"
if you want someone to love you it’s important to participate in their hypotheticals. like when i said okay what if we saw a dolphin right here who would you call and he was like thats the end times a dolphin would not come inland like that and i was like okay yeah end times so who do we call and we decided the lsu conservation biology center would probably be closest to send people out. and it was of importance to me.
If a troll was trying to charge you a toll to cross a bridge, would you pay it or would you try to convince him that you don't have to pay because it's not his bridge?
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 was, uh... an experience. It's weird seeing Patricia Arquette so young.
It wasn't bad, but the dream warrior shtick is kinda goofy, and I have another 2 Dream Warrior movies to get through.
The next one, Patricia Arquette's role of Kristen is recast with Tuesday Knight.
Fun fact, Lisa Wilcox, who plays the lead in this film, Alice Johnson, initially auditioned for the Kristen role in Elm Street 3. I guess she kind of got caught in Arquette's Legacy-wake on her way up. She finally booked a role when Arquette didn't want to continue with the franchise, albeit, not the role she originally wanted.
Dream Master, like Dream Warriors before it was another odd one. This time it barely felt like an Elm Street movie. This franchise went off the rails just as fast as Friday the 13th.
Well, I say "off the rails" but the producers were probably sucking down rails before every meeting.
Tomorrow I'll move on to the next installment, The Dream Child, followed by Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which is the conclusion of this continuity. After that, I'll move on to Wes Craven's New Nightmare (the Meta-Reboot), and since I watched Freddy vs Jason yesterday, I see no reason to re-watch it, so I'll move straight on to A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), the full-on, ill-conceived, ill-received, and ill-advised gritty modern remake.
I know people hated Dream Child, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting once I settled into the Dream Warriors concept. Some of the acting is a tad clunky, and the plot has a couple of holes, but honestly, it was entertaining enough, and the special effects are really pretty good. I think Freddy's arm transforming into a bunch of Tarantulas effect could have used another pass, though. Cool concept regardless.
The idea that Freddy can hide inside of your subconscious, and infest the dreams of your unborn child are really interesting concepts that could do absolute wonders in the hands of a more careful production team.
The last In-Movie-Universe continuity movie is next, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which was far better received than Dream Child, so if I liked Dream Child enough, I know this one will be one of my favorites.
This one is a bit different. The premise is very good; The last teenager in Springwood, trying to avoid sleeping lest Freddy finally bag-and-tag him, is wandering the streets of an adjacent city after developing sleep deprivation-induced amnesia. He ends up in a shelter, where his caseworker figures out where he's from and takes him, along with three stowaway teens, back to Springwood to jog his memory.
Springwood is a little different than we remember. And by that, I mean it's an entirely different town altogether from the last installment. It seems smaller and more rural, and the surrounding landscape is very much not Ohioan. Something they went to varying lengths to hide in all the previous movies.
The acting is pretty good, except for a couple of lines from the leading man that should have been given another read. It comes off a bit like a TV movie at first, but that feeling goes away as the movie gets along.
We get a weird cameo from Rosanne Barr and Tom Arnold, and a very good cameo from Johnny Depp.
There's some really good, clever special effects, and some not so great visual effects (a couple of instances of green screen where the matte was out of focus, which really messed up the key). The movie actually opens with a classic miniature model effect that was quite a treat.
if you want someone to love you it’s important to participate in their hypotheticals. like when i said okay what if we saw a dolphin right here who would you call and he was like thats the end times a dolphin would not come inland like that and i was like okay yeah end times so who do we call and we decided the lsu conservation biology center would probably be closest to send people out. and it was of importance to me.
If a troll was trying to charge you a toll to cross a bridge, would you pay it or would you try to convince him that you don't have to pay because it's not his bridge?
if you want someone to love you it’s important to participate in their hypotheticals. like when i said okay what if we saw a dolphin right here who would you call and he was like thats the end times a dolphin would not come inland like that and i was like okay yeah end times so who do we call and we decided the lsu conservation biology center would probably be closest to send people out. and it was of importance to me.
If a troll was trying to charge you a toll to cross a bridge, would you pay it or would you try to convince him that you don't have to pay because it's not his bridge?