‘Startling' head slaps are part of alligator courtship, Georgia lab says. See video
'Have you heard of an alligator head slap?' the University of Georgia's Coastal Ecology Lab asked in a Feb. 17 Facebook post.
'Like bellowing, a head slap is used for courtship and territoriality displays, however, it is not observed in the wild as frequently as bellowing.'
'Amazing video' of a head slap was captured by a visitor to the 640-square-mile Okefenokee Swamp and shared by the lab on social media.
It shows a large alligator moving in slow motion in the seconds before it explosively slapped its head against the water.
The video had been viewed 18,000 times as of Feb. 26, with some viewers likening the sound to 'a shotgun blast.'
'It kind of does, louder than you would expect,' the lab wrote on Facebook. 'It can be quite startling if you aren't expecting it!'
A warning of what is to come happens when the alligator lifts its head and tail out of the water — the same position they assume when making those notoriously loud bellows, lab officials said.
'Rather than emit a deep rumbling bellow, however, the alligator instead rapidly brings its head and tail toward the water, creating a loud slapping sound,' the lab said.
'This behavior is typically done by large males and how loud the slap is signals to any other alligator how big the male alligator in the area is.'
The video was recorded by writer and film producer Jennifer Berglund of Savannah, who reported another alligator appeared to pursue the male through the swamp after his display, officials said.
'It would appear as if his performance was well received,' the lab said.
The Okefenokee Swamp is in southeastern Georgia, about a 45-mile drive northwest from Jacksonville, Florida.
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Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
From the Farm: Simple fudge recipe marks 75th anniversary of film noir ‘Sunset Boulevard'
I'm not always so easily persuaded to spend a night out at the cinema. Usually, dinosaurs can do it (yep, 'Jurassic Park'), since I've always been fascinated by these 'thundering lizards' ever since I was a young lad with a vast plastic collection at play in our farm backyard sandbox. (Even as a boy, I could name and identify each one by their scientific tongue-twister names.) Last Monday night, my co-workers convinced me to join them to see the 1950 black and white film classic by Paramount Pictures, 'Sunset Boulevard' on 'the big screen' at AMC 16 in Schererville. This was a one-night-only screening presented by Fathom Entertainment as part of their Fathom's Big Screen Classics, as explained at with more special classic film screenings in the coming months. This screening was scheduled in advance of this weekend's celebration for the 75th anniversary of the film's release on Aug. 10, 1950. Today, it holds the distinction of ranking No. 12 on the American Film Institute's list of the '100 Best American Films' of the 20th Century. I've seen the movie many times, while my co-workers were new to the movie. This film also holds a ranking as one of the favorites of my parents, as well as myself. The AMC 16 anniversary screening included about 30 patrons in the audience, and the night began with a special recorded brief narration by bearded and bespeckled film critic Leonard Maltin, who is now 75. Masterfully directed by Billy Wilder, who also assisted with writing the screenplay, it is the all-star iconic cast adding to the legendary success and long-lasting celebratory reputation of the film, which gives a harsh insider's look into the dark underbelly industry insights of Hollywood's studio star system and the fickle flavors of filmmaking throughout the decades. Cast as the lead of faded 50-year-old silent film star Norma Desmond is the glorious Gloria Swanson, who was age 50 and an early star who lived and succeeded in the silent film industry but opted to retire when 'talking pictures' became the transition rage. During the film, character Norma credits Greta Garbo as one of the few faces and talents still worthy of the Hollywood big screen. It's an intended ironic twist since Swanson's fellow retired contemporary Garbo was offered the role of Norma originally but turned it down, as did the silent era's 'It Girl' Clara Bow. Cast as Norma's unwilling yet compromising writer companion Joe Gillis is William Holden, who was 31 years old during filming. According to studio archives, other potential pairings cast for the roles of Norma and Joe under consideration were Norma Shearer opposite Fred MacMurray as well as Mary Pickford opposite Montgomery Clift, and Mae West paired with Marlon Brando. Rounding out the cast is Nancy Olson as Betty Schaefer, a studio scriptwriter competing for Joe's attention and affection, and Erich von Stroheim as Norma's devoted butler Max, who once enjoyed earlier career success as Norma's movie director during the silent film era. Delicious cameo appearances abound in the film with moments of Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson and B.B. Warner (a trio of noted silent era film stars playfully referred to as 'the waxworks' during the movie's bridge card game scene), and director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper portraying themselves. An interesting fact I learned from watching the film screening is that I'd not realized the decaying mansion and estate used for the film's exterior scenes was the real home that had belonged to eccentric billionaire J. Paul Getty of Getty Oil fame, and at the time was vacant for a decade but owned by Getty's ex-wife. As viewers of the film know, the elaborate inground concrete swimming pool in the side courtyard plays a key plot point. However, the Getty mansion estate didn't have a pool. Wilder got the Getty family to agree to have a full concrete pool installed, but minus the pumps and usual engineering since it was only needed for a few days of shooting. It is said prior to the film being released, Swanson was granted permission to screen it for some of her closest friends and Hollywood contemporaries. According to Swanson, Mary Pickford left halfway through, and Barbara Stanwyck lamented the theme of a has-been Hollywood star. Swanson, who died at age 84 in 1983, was used to making scandalous headlines, including whispers about her association as the mistress of Joseph Kennedy, the latter who was an early investor in RKO Movie Studios, later purchased by Howard Hughes. Swanson was nominated for an Academy Award for 'Sunset Boulevard,' and she loved the story despite having to live her later years with the notion that she was just like the character she played so convincingly on screen. Long before 'Sunset Boulevard' was adapted into a Broadway Musical in 1994, Swanson was already promoting that same New York stage treatment for the story in the late 1960s. Carol Burnett resurrected interest in the characters from 'Sunset Boulevard' when she joined co-star Harvey Korman to parody the characters for recurring skits on her popular 1970s variety show. When I interviewed Carol Burnett a decade ago about Swanson, she reminded me that the actress welcomed the lampooning of her great character and found it comedically entertaining. Swanson herself was flattered to be a guest star during the 1973 season of Burnett's show and was especially fond of getting to work with the show's handsome supporting star, Lyle Waggoner. Burnett, 92, always a fan of the great movie stars of yesteryear, said only Swanson accepted her invitation to appear on her variety show, while other stars she also famously parodied from iconic movies, such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, declined invites. In an early scene in 'Sunset Boulevard,' Norma has her butler wheel out a cart filled with what is described as 'overly sweet champagne and chilled caviar.' With her busy Hollywood career (her final movie was the 1974 airplane disaster film 'Airport 1975' playing herself), Swanson, who was born in Chicago, likely didn't spend much time in a kitchen. However, a 1929 Photoplay magazine cookbook includes her recipe for an easy 'cream-based fudge,' which has a butterscotch flavor. Best of all, it only has four ingredients. But be warned! It's even sweeter than Norma's favorite bubbly. 1 1/2 pounds light brown sugar 1/2 pint heavy cream 1 cup pecans, chopped fine Butter, as needed Directions: Combine sugar and cream in a heavy saucepan and whisk to combine as heated over boiling water in double boiler. Heat until sugar granules are dissolved. Test candy temperature by dropping a small amount from the tip of a teaspoon into a glass of cold water and a 'soft ball stage' is achieved. Continue to beat well, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon another 3 minutes. Remove from heat and fold in pecans. Generously butter a jellyroll pan or cookie sheet and pour fudge and spread evenly. Allow to set-up to firm in cool place on kitchen counter or in refrigerator. Once fudge candy is firm, break apart into pieces and store in canister.
Time Magazine
4 days ago
- Time Magazine
'Freakier Friday' Is Humiliating to Everyone Involved
No one, as far as we know, actually asked Disney for a sequel to 2003's buoyant, surprisingly unsyrupy generation-gap comedy Freaky Friday, in which Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan—one a seasoned actress with superb comic timing, the other a teenage star poised, it seemed, for a skyrocketing career—played a mother-daughter duo who mystically swap bodies, and lives, for one day. But more than 20 years later, we've got one: in Freakier Friday, Curtis and Lohan return in the same roles. Curtis' Tess is still a psychologist, only now she's dabbling in podcasts. Lohan's Anna has given up a career as a rock star to raise a child, now a teenager, on her own. That daughter, Harper (Julia Butters), is much more interested in surfing than in hanging out with her mom. But the person she really despises is her new stepsister-to-be, Lily (Sophia Hammons), a princessy student who's come to Los Angeles from London and lords her alleged classiness over everyone. In Freakier Friday, the mind-body switcheroo goes four ways, and more is less. Harper and Lily find their bodies have been taken over by Tess and Anna: The older women can stuff their faces with whatever they want, with no ill after-effects! They can ride scooters! And the teenagers are mortified to learn that they're trapped in adult bodies—and one of those adults is actually a senior citizen. Lohan, a gifted actor whose career has had some shaky turns, is left to build a performance on her costumes, an assortment of allegedly kicky but in reality horrifically ugly teenage-girl getups. Curtis fares even worse: she's more good-natured than she needs to be about the movie's adult-diaper gags and jokes referencing the frequency with which old people tend to pass gas. Freakier Friday is a movie that manages to humiliate everybody. And it appears to exist largely for one reason: to grift off the fondness many adults have for the original, even though the sequel has none of that picture's breezy, observant charm. Worse yet, Freakier Friday isn't even an isolated case. This summer's releases, much like in recent years, have leaned hard on sequels and rebootings, offering ostensibly freshened versions of things we've seen before. There's the Naked Gun revival starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. Adam Sandler returns in a sequel to Happy Gilmore, more than 25 years after the original hit big. The Jurassic Park franchise has recently been rehatched with Jurassic World Rebirth. And even if the Marvel faucet is no longer gushing, there's still no shortage of comic-book characters being reimagined for the zillionth, or even just the second or third, time: in the DC camp, there's James Gunn's recent Superman; in Marvel's, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It's as if Hollywood—or what now passes for it—were executing a masterplan to turn us all into nostalgia zombies. A remake or two per summer is hardly a problem, and reimagining old material is one way Hollywood has historically revitalized itself. Think of how many times A Star Is Born was remade across nearly a century, beginning with the 1937 version featuring Janet Gaynor and Frederic March (which, incidentally, riffed on some elements of an earlier film, 1932's What Price Hollywood?) and ending, for now, with Bradley Cooper's 2019 rendering starring Lady Gaga. There's always a new audience that's never even seen the older movie, and an older audience that's happy to revisit material they've enjoyed before. Who doesn't want to try to reclaim familiar pleasures? But as the number of remakes and sequels remains steady if not increases year over year, why does our current era feel staler than ever? Hollywood has always been big business. The point has always been to pack 'em in and make money. Even so, it appears we've entered a new era of calculating moneygrubbing. Most of the old Hollywood studios now have a streaming component as well, and as theatrical ticket sales flounder, they're placing bets that they can still get plenty of people to eventually watch at home. We've always had bad, or at least substandard, movies mixed in with great, good, or merely OK ones. But today's mainstream movie products feel more slapdash than ever. It's almost as if the studios/streamers making them are, by their own indifference to quality, willing people to stop caring. We're deep in the era of the 'It's OK, it's fine' movie. Maybe that's why the studios have invested so much in trying to entice us with versions of things we've already seen. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with enjoying a silly movie, especially in summer: Happy Gilmore 2 is exquisitely dumb, the kind of thing that makes you laugh despite your better judgment—which, after all, is the whole point of comedy. The gags in Naked Gun wear thin, but Neeson and Anderson are wonderful together. And yet—why can't we have new stuff? The nostalgia glut is bad for movies, and it's bad for us. Neary everybody on the planet right now seems to be living with the idea that things were better 4—or 10, or 20, or 40—years ago. We were doing better financially; movies, books, and music were more original and fun; we were just having a much better time overall. Where did all that go? It's natural for us to want to regress to that state of bliss, even if things weren't really as great as we remember them. No wonder Hollywood thinks the best strategy is to help us turn back the clock. For so many reasons, no one is optimistic these days. Though the encroaching age of artificial intelligence has its proponents (mostly in big business), almost no one engaged in the current cultural conversation wants it: we see its potential to crush human creativity. Then again, how much flowering are we seeing, anyway, in most big- or midbudget studio movies? In the larger picture, not all hope is lost: plenty of filmmakers, young and old, are still managing to make independent films almost against all odds, and there's a new breed of studio—exemplified by Neon and A24—that seeks to give audiences movies that feel original and surprising. We've reached the point where a flawed picture like Ari Aster's Eddington—a mixed-up parable about how the pandemic broke American brains, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal—feels like a cracked masterpiece. At the very least, it's a movie with human fingerprints all over it. And maybe that's what the movies need most: to take chances that don't work, rather than relying on the safe bet. Hard as it is for all of us, we have to get beyond the idea that the past is our happy place. This is no time to give up on the future. Our future past depends on it.
San Francisco Chronicle
5 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
You're invited: Inside the Amber: SF Chronicle x Cal Academy on the science of ‘Jurassic Park'
It may be the summer of 'Jurassic World,' but this August the San Francisco Chronicle is teaming up with the California Academy of Sciences to pay homage to the movie that inspired countless young paleontologists: Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster 'Jurassic Park.' On August 19, join us inside Cal Academy's Morrison Planetarium for a discussion of dinosaurs, DNA and the science behind the landmark film. We'll screen some of our favorite 'Jurassic Park' scenes as Chronicle Culture Critic Peter Hartlaub leads paleontologist and Executive Director Scott Sampson and Academy scientists Peter Roopnarine and Elora López-Nandam in a conversation about the film's depictions of these awesome creatures, what 'Jurassic Park' gets right (and wrong), and how scientists' understanding of dinosaurs has evolved in the past three decades. The Cal Academy's experts will also discuss the concept of de-extinction, what inspired them to study dinosaurs and some little-known details of the 'Jurassic Park' films. Plus, guests can arrive early to check out Cal Academy's ' Dino Days ' exhibit, featuring 13 animatronic dinosaurs in the gardens.
