The Zombie Uprising

Well, I see from Zombie Tom, the Zombie Uprising has begun. Hell, it might as well. There's nothing good on TV anyway.

You're not going to believe it, but I swear to you, I was already reading The Zombie Survival Guide before the Uprising began. I'm totally serious. Just saw it in the store last week and picked it up. Lucky for me! I'm on page 124. I hope that's far enough for me to get through this thing with my brains intact.

Okay, I'm on the second floor. I've got a bathtub full of drinking water (a handy tip from the book: if this turns into a long-term siege kind of thing, you're going to want all the drinking water you can get in case the pipes are destroyed), all the food in the house, a camping stove, a first aid kit, and a crowbar, an axe, and a carving knife for weapons. Also, I've destroyed the staircase (zombies can't climb). Oh, and earlier, I killed my next-door neighbor. He was making moaning noises like a zombie, so I figured, better safe than sorry.

Now that I think about it, those might have been wheezing noises. Larry always did have bad asthma. Man, if this turns out to be some kind of internet hoax, I am going to be pissed.

MOVIES: Top Ten

I lied again. Today's top ten list is movies, not comics.

Wow, I saw a lot more movies this year than I thought I had. According to this list, these are all the films I saw in 2004 whose first theatrical release in America was during this calendar year. The ones I saw first on DVD or TV are marked with an asterisk. (Links go to my original review of the film, where applicable.)

We'll start with my ten best first:

1. Fahrenheit 9/11
   The most powerful, infuriating, chilling, and yes, important film of the year. I wish more of the people filling the seats for Passion of the Christ had seen this film instead, and had opened their hearts and their eyes to the real pain, the real horror, the real suffering happening to real people, right now.



2. Hero
   Epic in scale and emotion, this martial arts masterpiece was ceaselessly thrilling to behold. I look forward to seeing the current release House of Flying Daggers by the same director, which is, by all accounts, even better.



3. The Incredibles
   I can't believe an animated film better than Shrek 2 came along this year. That's a good year for animation. This is simply a great movie, not just a great cartoon.



4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
   Ceaselessly amazing in its visual inventiveness and its unflinching look at the power -- and the pain -- of love. Anyone who still denies Jim Carrey's acting prowess after seeing this film deserves a poke in the eye.



5. Spider-Man 2
   Is it the best superhero movie ever made, as Roger Ebert claims? Could be, could be. Only the original two Supermans even come close. It was certainly a giant leap forward for the genre, investing as much attention in its characters as in its spectacular action sequences.



6. Kill Bill Vol. 2
   The ultra-violence took a back seat to character development this time around, but that just meant more opportunities for the trademark Tarantino dialogue to flow. Super-cool, as are all things QT, but with an emotional resonance he's never before achieved.



7. Shaun of the Dead
   A great comedy and a great horror film, with surprisingly touching dramatic moments interspersed throughout the laughter and gore.



8. The Dreamers*
   I've tried before to write my review of Bernardo Bertolucci's wonderful film, but words failed me. It's a chronicle of cultural revolution, cinematic revolution, and sexual revolution. It's beautiful, it's ethereal, it's provocative, it's compelling, it's smart and seductive and it's the most erotic thing to hit the screens this year -- every word of which applies as equally to the film as it does to its breathtaking leading lady, Eva Green, making her transcendent film debut. She's as luminous and electric as Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, as Grace Kelly in Rear Window, as Kim Novak in Vertigo. But with copious amounts of nudity.



9. Shrek 2
   Funny, touching, exciting, beautiful, even better than the original, with a great vocal performance by Jennifer Saunders as the Fairy Godmother nearly stealing the movie from that big green ogre.



10. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
    The funniest movie of the year. Will Ferrell is unquestionably the new king of comedy.

TIED FOR ELEVENTH PLACE

Dawn Of The Dead
Best straight-up horror movie of the year, with incredible special effects and action, and an ending true to the zombie genre.

Garden State
The first half deserves to make the top ten; the second half kept it out. Still a tremendous debut film from Zach Braff.

Spartan*
A truly smart and suspenseful thriller, from writer-director David Mamet, with Val Kilmer showing he still knows how to act.

Team America: World Police
Another contender for funniest movie of the year, just edged out by Anchorman.

The Terminal
Spielberg and Hanks, together again. Funny and sweet, but with a miscalculated romantic plot with Catherine Zeta-Jones gumming up the works.

ALSO WORTHY

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Mean Girls*
The Punisher*

PROBABLY COULD'VE WAITED FOR THE DVD

Broken Lizard's Club Dread
The Bourne Supremacy
Hellboy
Starsky & Hutch

WISELY DID WAIT FOR THE DVD

50 First Dates*
Eurotrip*
Home On The Range*
The Lion King 1 1/2*
Man on Fire*
Napoleon Dynamite*
Taking Lives*

THE WORST PIECE OF CRAP OF THE YEAR (TIE)

The Butterfly Effect*
The Grudge

COMICS: More Wed. 11/10/04

Finishing where I left off yesterday:

Fables: There doesn't seem to be an overriding story to the most recent couple of issues. I mean, there's a story -- the administration of Fabletown is changing, Snow has her babies, Snow and Bigby go their separate ways -- but there's no menace or villain to combat. (There's something suggested by Piggy on the last page, but that's all.) And that's fine with me. The writing is so fun, and the art such a joy, that I'm relishing these relatively uneventful issues just for the time we get to spend with the characters. Although I hope we finally get to meet the Adversary some time soon.

The Walking Dead: My main complaint about this series continues to be the new artist, Charlie Adlard, who replaced the excellent Tony Moore; half the time I can't tell one generic-looking light-haired bearded man he draws from another. Very abrupt ending to the time on the farm. Kirkman explains in the letter column that he had originally planned on the farm story ending five issues earlier; I guess the extension of the story allowed him to shake things up a bit with the characters, but the ending was so sudden and anti-climactic, and the pacing's change from leisurely to sprinting forward in time was so jarring, he either should've ended it earlier, make the whole thing go by quickly, or he should've taken a little more time to make the ending more satisfying. I mean, that's how we're going to leave Farmer John (I forget the character's real name, and don't have the comic in front of me to reference, but you know who I mean) -- shell-shocked, muttering, "I think I've lost my mind" -- now we're going to leave that character? And leave David behind with him? Maybe that's the point -- it's a horror story, there aren't really supposed to be satisfying ends -- but it just didn't work for me. Still enjoying the comic overall, though. Oh, also: fan letter from Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) this issue. Cool. I wish I got fan letters from the creators of cult-classic British sitcoms.

MOVIES: Shaun of the Dead

Shaun of the Dead is brilliant, the kind of idea I could kick myself for not having first -- but, I have to admit, realized far better than I ever could have. (On the other hand, I think Dorian -- who was one of the people I saw the movie with -- and I, as we joked on being subjected to the horrible, horrible preview for Hilary Duff's Raise Your Voice, really could write a generic teen movie far better than the actual teen movies that get made, and make a mint.)

Shaun is a zombie comedy, and amazingly, it succeeds at both genres. (It's also supposed to be a romance, I guess -- the creators have referred to it as a "rom zom com" -- but while it doesn't utterly fail at that part, it doesn't really contribute to its success.) It's truly hilarious, one of the funniest movies I've seen this year. I laughed out loud often, from the small details -- Shaun being completely oblivious to the bloody handprints all over his local market -- to the grandly hysterical --- the simultaneous pool-cue beating of a zombie, synchronized to a Queen song on the jukebox. Or there's Shaun and his best friend Ed confronted with advancing zombies, with only Shaun's record collection as weapons, and they actually take time to debate which record can be sacrificed. (Shaun wants to save Purple Rain and the Stone Roses, but Prince's Batman soundtrack is fair game.)

And it's also good and horrifying. There's no skimping on the gore -- Shaun is a true zombie flick, in the grand Romero tradition, with blood and guts and everything. Though the creatures are often played for laughs, there are more than a few scenes of genuine, frightening menace, gripping action, grisly violence, and emotionally affecting tragedy. The film plays off all the familiar elements of the classic zombie films (complete with in-jokes -- when Shaun and Ed call Shaun's mom on the phone, and tell her they're going to rescue her, Ed yells, "We're coming to get you, Barbara!" -- a great reference to Night of the Living Dead), but it uses them well, satirizing them and taking them seriously at the same time. It all works out to one of the best movies I've seen in the theaters this year.

MOVIES: House of the Dead

Speaking of that actress I refuse to name again, a lot of the search queries I've been getting have included the phrase "House of the Dead". (Not to be confused with House of the Ded). And, yes, this actress appeared in that film. (And she does get naked in it, so you're on the right track, search engine people, but you ain't gonna find anything here. Try a Google Image Search, you stupid bastards.)

Oh, that film. That horrible, horrible film. Now, I've seen a lot of bad movies. I've seen a lot of horror movies. I've seen a lot of bad horror movies. But House of the Dead may very well be the single worst film I have ever seen, horror or non-horror. And that's including on MST3K. In fact, it may be the single worst thing ever to exist. (Opus: "Well, maybe it wasn't that bad, but Lord, it wasn't good.")

When I watched the DVD earlier this year, I had to keep taking breaks from its hateful idiocy. And each time I took a break, I wrote a little bit about the movie in my other blog. I'd like now to share with you those posts, in the hope that all who read them will avoid the tragic mistake of viewing this cinematic crime against humanity. Note: as bad as I make it sound, and as many bad things about it that I list, the truth is it is actually much, much worse.

---

House of the Dead Break #1

Taking a break from watching the painfully stupid House of the Dead, currently listed at #28 on IMDb's bottom 100. The director has carved out a bizarre little niche for himself: the horror-film-based-on-a-video-game genre. (He is in post-production on Alone in the Dark, and his next announced project is Bloodrayne. What's after that, Ghosts n Goblins?)



It's very sad when you can honestly say that a movie is wasting Clint Howard's talents. And didn't Jürgen Prochnow used to be a somewhat reputable actor? He was in Das Boot, for Christ's sake! Now he's following one horrible film based on a video game with another.

I am enjoying in an ironic way how everyone who asks a question in this movie ends up dead. "What is that?" "Where are you?" "Did you hear something?" Dead, dead, dead. Declarative statements only on Zombie Island, please.

Also of note is the shameless fashion in which the film revels in the degradation of women -- and one woman in particular, who is vomited on directly in her face, then, when she's cleaning her top in the sink (no bra for this liberated gal!), Clint Howard enters the room. Instead of covering herself, she turns around and gives him a lingering, unobstructed view of her bare breasticles. "You like what you see there, perv?" she demands. I don't know if she's talking to Clint, me, or the director. I'll speak for all three of us: uh, yeah.

By the way, that was a question, young lady. I'd start writing my last will, if I were you.

---

House of the Dead Break #2

The five survivors are holed up in a cabin surrounded by zombies. They're low on ammo, and one of them has been bitten by a zombie. But wait! There's hope!

"Guys, check out this book!" says one of them. "It looks pretty old, maybe it'll help us."

That is where my brain, motivated by self-preservation, forced me to stop the movie and leave the room.

"It looks pretty old, maybe it'll help us."

Yes, that makes logical sense. Of course a random book, found by chance, will help you out of whatever situation you might be in, by sheer virtue of its being old. Don't bother reading it, or even finding out what kind of book it is, before announcing your discovery to the group.

"It's a book about defeating an island full of zombies?"

"I assume so, due to the fact that it is old."

"Don't you think you might want to, I don't know, skim the first couple of pages before jumping to any conclusions?"

"Maybe I haven't made myself clear: it's a book. And it's old. Problem solved."

"This... this is an atlas of Portugal! And it's written in Portuguese! Can you even read Portuguese?"

"I said: PROBLEM SOLVED."

---

House of the Dead Break #3

Actual dialogue:

"You created it all so you could be immortal. Why?"

"To live forever."

Oh... kay.

As opposed to that other kind of immortal, which means of or relating to egg-bearing animals. No, wait, it means the irrational fear of clowns. No, wait, it means two words spelled the same, but pronounced differently. No, wait, it means TO LIVE FOREVER, you fucking idiot.

MUSIC: Rotting faces full of slime, don't you know it's terror time

I shall now admit to you possibly the very guiltiest of all my musical guilty pleasures:

"It's Terror Time Again," by Skycycle, from the soundtrack to Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.

I can't defend it, other than to say: it rocks. Seriously. As does the movie. Seriously.

Skycycle also does an excellent cover of "God Only Knows," for those who may be into that sort of thing.

COMICS: Wed. 7/28/04

Avengers: As a long-time non Avengers fan, I don't even know what to make of this. I'm totally buying it only because Bendis is writing it. Okay, before anything else, I have to say, TWO double-page spreads of the Avengers Mansion blowing up seems excessive. I barely know most of these characters, but Bendis does a decent job of giving them personalities before the shit starts to fly; the Hawkman/Madame Hydra bit is funny and believable, and got an extra kick from his turning it around on She-Hulk (even though I know from her own comic that she doesn't even live in Avengers Mansion anymore... details, details). So, Ant-Man's dead. Moment of silence, please (in which I try to remember who the hell Ant-Man is. I thought Hank Pym was Ant-Man. Who's this guy? Was he the guy dating Jessica a year ago in Alias?). And the Vision crashes into the Mansion, melts like the Wicked Witch of the West, and coughs up Ultron hairballs. Cool.

All that's interesting enough, but it's the personality changes in other characters that really intrigues me. What is making Tony Stark feel like he's drunk? What is driving She-Hulk berserk (and causing her to rip the Vision in half and pummel Captain America senseless -- which, as bad as the situation is, was still completely badass)? This issue has gotten me hooked. I'll stick around for more of this Disassembled nonsense, even though I hate crossovers and don't really care about the Avengers. By which I mean, I'll stick around for the books written by the good writers, like Bendis and Kirkman. (Assuming Kirkman's next issue of Captain America is better than his first.)

Powers: Am I supposed to remember who this new girl who's dressing up as Retro Girl is? Cause I don't. Is this a character that was introduced ages ago, or is she brand new, and I shouldn't feel bad about not recognizing her? Second issue of the reboot wasn't as excellent as the first; Oeming's art looks rushed in places, and Bendis draws out the interrogation scenes a little too long (Bendis padding a story? Shocking!). But it's still a good issue.

The Walking Dead: The new artist is starting to bug me. Tony Moore was so excellent at creating detailed, individual characters; with Charlie Adlard, I can hardly tell one character from another. Which bearded man is this? And Kirkman's foreshadowing was a little blunt: Carol is suddenly content, and accepting of things she had so recently condemned; I'm sure she's going to live a nice, long, happy life. As long as a zombie doesn't eat her face... oh, DAMN!! Didn't see that coming!!

Fantastic Four: This storyline had potential in the beginning, but I was disappointed with this finale. First of all, strange as it may be to say it, what with my constant criticism of the padding of Marvel arcs out to unnecessary lengths: this issue felt rushed and crowded; it might have been better with one more issue to wrap things up. Then again, that might only have added one more unenjoyable issue to the story. Waid seemed to lose his control of the villain characters; instead of the interesting individuals they started out as, they fell back into corny villain cliches at the end. I stopped caring about Cole and stopped believing in her mini-romance with Johnny. Glad there's a new story next issue.

Astonishing X-Men: Last week, it took me forever to remember one of the comics I had bought. Same thing this week, and this was the comic. Still not astonished by it. The art, yes; the art is gorgeous. But the writing... I want to like it, because it's Whedon, but I just don't. The conflict in this issue is especially contrived: I didn't for a second believe that Wolverine and Beast would attack each other full-out, claws bared, smashing through the walls of the school, because of that stupid serum. Not for a second. It was so blatantly, "we need a fight scene, who would it be cool to see fighting?" And would any student, anywhere, ever, actually ask a teacher, "Are you a fucking retard?" (And not get the shit kicked out of him.) I guess I'm sticking with this book because I want to believe it could be great, even though it isn't even close yet.

MOVIES: Mid-Afternoon (About Threeish, Let's Say)... of the DEAD

A month old, but new to me, found via Distorting the Medium:

George A. Romero has suddenly gotten financing in order for not one, but TWO horror movies. One is Diamond Dead, some rock 'n' roll horror comedy type thing that, eh. Big whoop.

But the other is the long, long, LONG overdue fourth entry in Romero's legendary zombie series, which is now being called Land of the Dead! (Previously known as Dead Reckoning, and before that, Dusk of the Dead, which is my favorite title of the three, but what are you gonna do.) It could actually be in production as early as October. For real this time! (I hope.)

I guess the recent hit remake of Part 2 of Romero's Dead trilogy (soon to be tetralogy -- yes, that's the proper word), Dawn of the Dead, got some geniuses to thinking -- hey, what if we gave some money to the guy who did the original? What a concept.

Oh, man oh man, do I love me some zombies. I dig all kinds of horror movies in general, especially the Friday the 13th series (Jason kicks ASS), but I still think Day of the Dead may be the best I've ever seen. Talk about gruesome! And zombies are the perfect villain. They don't have a backstory, or any hammy dramatic speeches. They don't justify their actions, and they don't waste time explaining their plans to the hero. There's no reasoning or bargaining with them. They're not even evil, really. They don't care about taking over the world. All they want is to eat your brains. Eat 'em right the fuck up! I admire that kind of straightforwardness in a monster.