Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!


Contact
Ace:
aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck:
buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD:
cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix:
mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum:
petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton:
sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com


Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups






















« I Love The America... That Can Be | Main | Australia-Based Writer Slams Freed Hostage For Insensitivity... For Calling Kidnappers "Assholes" »
June 26, 2005

Land of the Dead: Kinda Sucky, Says Dave

The sort of review that puts me off of a movie.

You know how some reviewers trash a movie, but in a way that makes you distrust them? Or else their criticisms are of the sort that you don't sweat?

This isn't one of those pans. The stuff he talks about makes me hesitant about seeing this, except maybe on DVD or Pay Per View.

Not happy about the central premise-- that zombies have begun to form a rudimentary intelligence, engaging in primitive communication and basic military strategy.

I didn't mind the "fast zombie" alteration to the basic zombie rules. But I'm afraid I must draw the line at semi-intelligent zombies.

Guilding the lily ruins it sometimes.

And the obligatory social commentary? Class is stratified between the haves and have-nots and gated communities are bad and the people who smugly live in them are bad, etc.

Um, isn't that bit of social commentary better suited for a film coming out in 1991 or so? And didn't they already make the movie, under the title "They Live"?

Why not do a biting satire about the Eisenhower Administration instead? That would be equally topical and "edgy."

Oh, well. The master of zombie survival horror seems to be a master no more.

(Actually, his color remake of Night of the Living Dead was pretty sucky, too. Let's face it, he peaked with Dawn of the Dead, and that was from the early eighties.)

Allah Says It's Even Worse Than That: Apparently George A. Romero casts the film as an America vs. terrorists analogy, and, of course, he's not quite with the WoT program:

His zombie sagas, which also include the critically lauded 1979 masterpiece "Dawn of the Dead" (the remake of which was a hit last year), are splatter-happy and sweat-inducing survival dramas, but, as Romero says modestly, he likes "to throw in some observations about what's going on in the world."

"Night" evoked Vietnam-era bloodshed and, with its black male lead trapped in a farmhouse, echoed civil rights hysteria. "Dawn" poked fun at soul-deadening consumerism. And "Day" addressed ethics in science. With "Land," Romero tackles issues of safety and boundaries, showing a community fortifying itself against a murderous horde while its wealthiest keep alive class divisions separating them from the powerless.

"It's the folly of saying, 'Everything's OK, don't worry about it,' " says Romero, who wrote "Land" before the events of Sept. 11. Its focus then was about "ignoring social ills, setting up a synthetic sense of comfort."

He says he didn't have to tweak it much to reflect new fears of terrorism. When told that it's hard not to think of Iraq watching an armored car of trigger-happy humans roll through a zombiefied suburb shooting anything they see, Romero smiles. "That's one of the things I put in there afterward."

One of the mistakes these dopes keep making is that they set up a film with an inarguably real threat but then attempt to suggest the threat is fictitious-- a dramatized version of Michael Moore's famous "fictitious war" Oscar screed.

But... see, guys? Even if that's what you believe is going on in the real world, in the fantasy world you've set up, the threat is genuine. So the political point you're making is in direct contradiction of the dramatic situation you've constructed.

Was there a real threat in the Star Wars sequels? Well, there ought to have been; Lucas never really seems to be able to decide if the menace is a phantom one (his political take on the real world) or a genuine one (which is what the movies require if we're to care about who wins or who dies at all).

It's pretty tough to make an anti-war fantasy war movie. It's much easier to make an anti-war movie about real war, because there's obviously so much horror in war.

But these sci-fi/fantasy guys really ought to give up trying to make "complex" points in movies with rayguns and flesh-eating shambling dead.


digg this
posted by Ace at 02:27 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Seems Legit: "How odd, I thought everyone understood that electr ..."

rickb223 Gold & Silver Spot Prices [s][/b][/i][/u]: "You’d think they would’ve come up with ..."

Commissar of Plenty and Lysenkoism in Solidarity with the Struggle : "MiG-29 has two sets of intakes Bonus hole. ..."

It's me donna : "270 242 To be fair, Elon did advise that there isn ..."

West Frisian Women's Auxiliary : "The red head gene mutation also enables them to dr ..."

eleven: "If there wasn't a steel re-enforced concrete wall ..."

SMOD: "DC_Draino @DC_Draino Think about this If Tr ..."

Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "[i]thus, his push to ship congolese lithium mining ..."

garrett: "What is the increased Mass of an Electric School B ..."

Thomas Paine: "242 To be fair, Elon did advise that there isn't e ..."

Skip : "Bet they won't get 10 years of use out of a EV Bus ..."

Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "[i]They handle 25% more pain than others, and repo ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64