Brains!
Well season 3 or 24 finished up strong. Almost made up for that shitty beginning.
So now I'm in this weird stage where Netflix sends me DVD's that aren't 24. Going to take a little time to get used to.
First non-24 viewing was the new Land of the Dead. I was excited for it because I just watched the original Land of the Dead. Romero did the new one too and even a bad zombie movie is good. Or so I thought. Good Lord did this suck. Just a really, really horrible movie.
******SPOILER ALERT********
(like that matters here)
Ugh, terrible actors. Dennis Hopper being Dennis Hopper in a role where he doesn't do drugs - enough said. The main character was Simon Baker - completely bland and wooden.
The plot sucked. OK, zombies becoming somewhat sentinent. Sounds interesting. But George managed to fuck that one up.
I did like the fact that they weren't the superfast zombies that have become so popular recently. They are your old school shambling zombies. Problem here is that, while I expect a certain level of "How the fuck did those slow-ass zombies catch that person?" in my zombie films - here it just went overboard. One scene has the zombies banging on the lobby doors of a downtown high-rise for a few minutes while people inside are running away. Then the zombies break through and there's all these fucking people there just waiting to be eaten. Also, the ninja-zombie level is high here. You know how zombies are moaning and shit all the time? Oh yeah, except when you're going into that creepy warehousem shed, barn, etc. then they're quiet as churchmice until you turn around real fast and AAAAAGH! Zombie!
And c'mon, George invented the fucking genre and he can't get the rules right? How do you kill a zombie? Destroy it's brain or cut off it's head. Every movie is in agreement about this. In two situations in this movie zombies were without heads and the head still remained animated (in one this army guy gets surprised by a headless zombie but it whips it's body foward and it's head is attached behing it by a thin strand of tissue whips foward and of course lands perfectly on the dude's arm and bites him).
Then, this is supposedly the last human outpost but Leguizamo steals their supertank thingie (named Dead Reckoning) and wants the evil corporate mayor of the city (Hopper) to pay him $5 million so he can leave. To go where? And why the fuck does he need money if there are no more humans around?
I'd bitch more but time is short today. Topiary Girl is defending her doctorate and I have to get a bunch of shit done before this afternoon.
Let me end with...the ending. Which was the worst fucking part of the movie. OK, Baker gets dead reckoning back and fucks up some zombies that are eating people. Then him, his retarded buddy, a few army guys (and girl), and his hooker girlfriend say goodbye to the survivors in the city (the revolutionaries that were against Hopper - that's another poorly done story in the movie) are going to go to Canada because there are no people up there and no people = good because we're all supercool loners. And they see a bunch of zombies walking away from the city led by the head zombie (that still doesn't make sense). Tankdriverchick goes to blast them but Lam-O Baker stops her saying "They're just looking for a place to go - just like us." and lets them go.
WHAT. THE. FUCK?????!!!!!?!?!?!?!
Ugh. I want that 1 hour 37 minutes back.
The online reviews at imdb.com are almost all incredibly positive. With people saying how excellent this movie is, etc. Some nerds need to get laid I think.
(yes I realize I just said that after I wrote all of that other crap... shutup)
OK, off to work.
posted by The Head @ 9:58 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Sort of agree with you on this one, but I have no idea what you're talking about with "the original Land of the Dead". Huh? Do you mean/have you seen original Dawn of the Dead? The acting was pretty bad in that too. Actually the acting is always pretty bad in Romero's movies so I don't know what you were expecting. Seriously, watch more zombie movies. Or even better read the Zombie Survival Guide and you'll know that as long as the blood from the brain reaches the body the zombie is good to go. The flip top zombie bite was pretty kick ass. And Romero's zombies are always just like us -- that's the whole point of his movies, it's all a metaphor. In this case there's kind of a homless/illegal alien thing going on. Whatever, it's an enjoyable movie for what it is and has enough social commentary in it to stand up to his others. Unfortunately the thing looks like a made for USA Network special. Have you thought of changing the title to Does the head ever stop bitching? Just kiding... sorta...
NONONONONONONONONONO!
Sean, if you were in my state I'd kick you square in the nuts. I usually take criticism fairly well but don't dare presume to tell me to watch more zombie movies. And thanks for explaining all the obvious shit to me like I'm 8 years old.
First off, there's a completely different type of awful acting here. More hollywoody crap as opposed to George's old stuff where the actors seemed like community theater rejects, which made it wonderful. I think the biggest mistake was giving him a decent budget.
That bite sucked. And it was hanging by a thread of skin, no way blood's getting up to the brain. And it lands perfectly? Please.
The 2nd worst part of your comment (after telling me to watch more zombie movies) is mentioning the "social commentary." Yeah it's fucking great - if you're a melancholy 16 year old with black fingernails. C'mon, really lame, obvious, softball shit there.
I give more positive reviews than negative on here.
I'LL FAKKING KEEL YOU!
I guess I just don't know what you were expecting with this movie. The only thing I felt let down on was the look of the movie itself -- bad lighting, bad composition. Bad acting is bad acting to me, and bad hollywood acting ranks slightly higher in my book than bad my-first-movie acting. All Kevin Smith movies are going to have bad acting in it, just like Romero, but I'd rather see horrible line readings from Jason Lee and Ben Affleck than those two dudes from Clerks. But all the folks in this movie are strictly B-listers anyway, there's not a lot of hollywood baggage that comes with John Leguizamo. And by all means, I'm not saying that this movie is great. But placed alongside all the other "serious" zombie movies -- this is a decent way to spend a Sunday morning. I liked the leader zombie thing -- other zombies being able to recognize a leader, it's not the first half hour of 2001 or anything but it worked for me. And I didn't mean to sounds like an ass explaining the obvious stuff but the "WHAT. THE. FUCK?????!!!!!?!?!?!?!" at the ending -- I mean, that's pure Romero zombie shit. They all end on some half-assed moment of profundity. And it isn't just fan boys on imdb that gave it good reviews. Anyway, I didn't like it enough to spend much more energy defending it, but I will go out and say that it's better than Day of the Dead, I mean, remember that movie? Wasn't much fun.
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