Thursday, November 3, 2011

Diving into Darkness: A True Story of Death and Survival

  • iParenting Media Award for excellent product and Top Toy of the year from Creative Child magazine
  • Indoor or outdoor
  • comes with 4 rockets
  • Refill rockets available
No one loses their mind instantly â€" Sanity seeps away one drop at a time. Yoshimi simply wanted a better life â€" for both herself and her daughter Ikuko. Unfortunately, such wishes may sometimes be hard to come by. The custody battle has grown embittered and hurtful, her new job is less than desirable, and Ikuko’s schoolwork has taken a turn for the worse. But, Yoshimi has something bigger to worry about. Something upstairs. Something cold and dank. Something that should have never been.Dark Water is Japanese horror auteur Hideo Nakata's return to the genre after his Ring cycle made you too scared to watch television ever again. Where Ringu dealt with a supernatural force wreaking re! venge via technology, this film is a much more traditional ghost story. After winning a custody battle for her daughter, single mother Yoshimi moves into what she thinks is the perfect apartment with her daughter Hitomi. No sooner have they unpacked than strange things begin to disturb their new life. A water leak from the supposedly abandoned apartment above gets bigger and bigger, a child's satchel reappears even though Yoshimi throws it away several times, and she is haunted by the image of a child wearing a yellow mackintosh who bears a striking resemblance to a young girl who disappeared several years before. The conventional narrative follows Yoshimi's increasingly desperate attempts to discover who or what force is haunting her daughter, but the story's execution is far from predictable. Nakata is the master of understated suspense: there's always a feeling of motiveless malignancy that runs like an undercurrent through his films--far more frightening than out and ou! t shocks--and here he also practically drowns his audience in ! water im agery. The film is saturated; the relentless dripping in the apartment, the constant rain outside and the deliberately washed-out photography make any color, such as the yellow coat, seem incongruous and unsettling. Nakata also clears the film of unnecessary characters--this is an almost deserted Tokyo--preferring to concentrate the action on Yoshimi's rising hysteria as she struggles to understand what is happening and how to save her daughter. Granted, the special effects are somewhat unconvincing and the ending confused, but even so the result is a stylish and disquieting chiller that will do for bathtubs what his Ring films did for video recorders. --Kristen BowditchAngelo Badalamenti a classically-trained performer, is best known for his hauntingly atmopsheric work with filmmaker David Lynch. The two worked together on the soundtrack of the director's 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet and on the features Wild at Heart, Lost Highway and The Straight Story. Perha! ps the most famous fruit of their collaboration was the cult hit television series Twin Peaks, for which Badalamenti created one of the most distinctive and evocative theme songs in TV history.

FILM SYNOPSIS: Based on a film by the creators of the Japanese version of 'The Ring' comes this haunting, chilling film about a young mother who goes to extreme lengths to solve a mystery and protect her daughter. Acclaimed director Walter Salles ("Central Station," "The Motorcycle Diaries") helms and Academy Award®-winner Jennifer Connelly stars in DARK WATER, a psychological thriller featuring a stellar cast, including Academy Award®-nominees John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, and Pete Postlethwaite, as well as Dougray Scott and newcomer Ariel Gade. Based on a film by the creators of the Japanese version of "The Ring" comes this haunting, chilling film about a young mother who goes to extreme lengths to solve a mystery and protect her daughter. Dahlia Williams (JENNIFER CONNELLY) is s! tarting a new life; newly separated with a new job and a new a! partment , she's determined to put her relationship with her estranged husband behind her and devote herself to raising her daughter, Ceci. But when the strained separation disintegrates into a bitter custody battle, her situation takes a turn for the worse. Her new apartment - dilapidated, cramped, and worn - seems to take on a life of its own. Mysterious noises, persistent leaks of dark water, and strange happenings cause her imagination to run wild, sending her on a puzzling and mystifying pursuit to find out who is behind the endless mind games. As Dahlia frantically searches for the links between the riddles the dark water seems to close around her. But one thing trumps all others in Dahlia's world: no matter what it is that's out there, she'll stop at nothing to find it.

Stomp® on the Launch Pad and a blast of air propels the Stomp Rocket® over 100 feet in the air! The kit comes with 4 glow in the dark foam rockets.  The Junior is designed for ages 3 and up.

Kids can ge! t rid of some excess energy with this air-powered outdoor rocket toy. No battery or fuel is needed to get the rockets airborne--just some old-fashioned stomping power. Set up the simple launch stand in a clear outdoor area, connect the 38-inch-long vinyl air hose and blast pad, load one of the 9-inch yellow foam rockets--and watch out. Our 5-year-old assistant reviewer really got a kick out of jumping on the purple blast-off pad and watching her rockets soar 50 feet or more, though she had to fight the adults for a turn. If the three rockets included with the kit aren't enough fun, you can order stomp parachutes and spin copters from the manufacturer. --Marianne Painter
On New Year's Day, 2005, David Shaw traveled halfway around the world on a journey that took him to a steep crater in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa, a site known as Bushman's Hole. His destination was nearly 900 feet below the surface.
On January 8th he descended into the ! water. About fifteen feet below the surface was a fissure in t! he botto m of the basin, barely wide enough to admit him. He slipped through the opening and disappeared from sight, leaving behind the world of light and life.
Then, a second diver descended through the same crack in the stone. This was Don Shirley, Shaw's friend, and one of the few people in the world qualified to follow where Shaw was about to go. In the community of extreme diving, Don Shirley was a master among masters.
Twenty-five minutes later, one of the men was dead. The other was in mortal peril, and would spend the next 10 hours struggling to survive, existing literally from breath to breath.
What happened that day is the stuff of nightmarish drama, but it’s also a compelling human story of friendship, heroism, ambition, and of coming to terms with loss and tragedy.

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