Dawn of the Dead`

Ving Rhames, Sarah Polley. Universal Pictures, 2004.

This movie wastes no time getting right to the zombies - there here at minute 4, which is really interesting because the build-up is actually very good. Goes like this: that little girl from down the street is suddenly standing in your bedroom doorway just before dawn, and right as you as her what she's doing there she growls ferociously and tears off your husband's neck, he goes down and comes up five seconds later as a flesh-eating zombie himself and then you're out the bathroom window in the car and the world has gone straight to . . .

HELLO!!!

And the action keeps going from there. Plot-wise, it's a fairly typical movie: our characters are locked down in a mall, making their plans to escape through a sea of nasty zombies. Also, there are the typical personality conflicts: the guard who wants to lead (but can't because he's really just a schmuck), the rich selfish jerk, the nerd who becomes hero, etc. Also, there's the pregnant woman. She gives birth to a bouncing baby zombie! (that's one scene that just makes you go . . . "ew!")

This one is well-paced, well-written (i.e. good dialogue . . . for an action zombie-flick), and very very intense. Most heart-wrenching aspect about the movie is the guy on the other building - all alone, held up inside his own sporting goods store. They communicate through binoculars and writing on dryboards to each other, because the streets are impassable. Sadly, though, the man has no food, and for days we watch him slowly grow weaker and weaker. Strange as it may sound, it was heartbreaking to watch. I know, you're thinking, "this is a ZOMBIE flick" but you know, that's what I call good writing, when you can stop in the middle of the gut-blowing action to find yourself caring about the characters.

Very very very good movie. Definitely watch it.

But I think I wouldn't be truthful if I didn't say that, of all the zombie movies, Shaun of the Dead is currently and should remain throughout my lifetime, the grade-A numero uno BEST ZOMBIE FLICK EVER!

So there!

VG

Palmer's Pick-up

Robert Carradine, Richard Hillman with cameos from more people to name here (but Rosanna Arquette, Morton Downey Jr, and Grace Jones - to drop a few names!) Directed by Christopher Coppola (any relation to FF?). Winchester Films, 1999.

I wished I had actually been able to watch it in '99, because it would have been fantastic to watch this spoof when the rest of the world was stocking up on cigarettes and bottled water, preparing for the Millenium Bug! This movie actually plays into that, as a road movie, with two goofy guys hauling a crate that they dare not open, but MUST be across country within a week, when, basically, the recipient can use the contents to bring about the end of the world. (this, of course, unbeknownst to our hapless heroes)

Good Road B-movie, with various twists and turns and interesting little sideshops along the way - it shows back road America as a freakshow, held up to highlight the dullness of our heroes. Also, there is the typical assassin following them, always behind by just one step.

In all honesty, there are several things at work in this film, and truly I think it demands a second viewing to understand fully what's happening - especially with the Virgin Mary images that Pearl keeps seeing. That was strange. Suffice it to say: this is not your typical road-movie, but it does have the implication that all of us are subject to fate and have a Divine Destiny, a specific purpose, if you will, even throughout the schizophrenic, melodramatic lunacy that we like to call "America."


VG

The Unnamable II

Lions Gate, 1992.

The problem with adapting HP Lovecraft works is that quite frankly, while I'll admit he was tremendously imaginative, he was not a great writer in the sense of, oh, say, plot or character development. The man simply didn't care. If it was demon that crawled its way out of a pit and had eighteen tentacles, then that's pretty much all he cared to write about.

That being said, the movie was rather the same way. B-movie horror film. Not all that bad, but nothing to write home about
(but obviously something to blog about!)

Highlights: the Godiva-esque brunette who wore nothing but her long hair for the first 30 minutes her character was there. And a monster all in plastic body suit with plastic claws - that was pretty funny! "Grrrr!!"

heh heh.

Oh well.

VG

The Breed

Adrian Paul, Bokeem Woodbine, Bai Ling. Motion Picture Corp of America, 2001.

Regarding the filming - would someone please take the fog machine away from this director? Seriously, about halfway through the film it ceased to be "mood-enhancing" and became merely annoying. Until the final shot when I just wanted to scream.

'Nuff said about that. Vampire film - this one: Vamps jes like us, only subjected to intense racism. Nice counterpoint with the African-American cop, being prejudiced against Vampires. That made for some good lines and really presented the case well.

Other than that, this film is the "exotic Vampire" style, a la the Anne Rice-style of Vamps. Not a problem with that. I did however, have a problem with the Vamp cop being a former Polish Jew from WW2, so we had a lot of flashbacks to the time he lost his wife/daughter at the hands of the dirty German soldiers. Which is something I despise about using WW2 as a movie/character device. It's been used so many times that it has ceased to be what it was meant to be: the prime point in a character's life that defines what that character has become, and instead of being that "defining moment" to use the WW2 German/Jew problem, it has simply become a cliché: devoid of meaning - we as the audience are supposed to feel horror/revulsion (those dirty Germans!) but simply we feel nothing. Now, I write this at the risk of uncovering all those neo-Nazi hate mongers screaming "heck yeah! Go Verble!" just like kicking over a rock and seeing ten million roaches race freely across the ground, but I'm mainly talking about the use of it as a plot device. What I'm saying is that the Holocoust was the grand tragedy, possibly THE defining moment of the character of the 20th Century, and to see it reduced to a tepid (and often poorly used) stock flashback, simply makes me sad.

Whew! What a tirade. Now you know why my mammy named me "Verble."

The other thing I wanted to comment on was that I also feel about about me writing all these blogs about movies, becuase quite frankly, when you start writing about a certain topic, you begin to see similarities between things, when, in fact, each piece should stand on its own merits. In this case: The Breed somehow reminded me so much of Alex Cox's Death and the Compass. Both in style/mood/semi-futuristic-yet-somehow-40's-noir world.

Odd. (BTW - Death and the Compass was great! Albeit in a "What the . . . ?" way)

But - all in all, not a bad movie. I'd say watch it, but don't expect award-winning theatre.

VG

Sleepstalker

Lions Gate, 2005.

Main character had his parents murdered by psycho-killer when he was a boy. Psycho-killer put down, but through some unholy ritual has his soul transmuted into sand, thus becoming, the Sandman. Why they didn't choose this title I don't know, maybe it'd been taken.

The only real hokiness to the plot is that the main character, Griffin, is a writer who's worked his way into the good graces of the meanest LA chicano ganglord and has scored a once-in-a-lifetime interview. Apart from doing nothing to further the plot (except for getting him access to weaponry - which could have been used to much greater effect, by the way) it does nothing but seem tepid and stale. Even in a movie where a guy goes around, made of sand, burying people inside his shifting body, it still has to ring true in the less supernatural elements.

Oh yeah, here's the spoiler: The sandman had a bad childhood - killed his own parents to save his own little baby brother in the crib from the same abusive fate at the hands of a drunken father. The baby brother is, you guessed it, Griffin, and the Sandman has to kill him in order to free himself completely of any human attachments and be completely ruled by Satan. Got it.

Second spoiler - he does, indeed, kill Griffin - which I thought was probably the most original aspect of the movie. Griffin's girlfriend, however, kills the Sandman, so the rest of us are spared a similar fate.

OK - 'nuff said.

VG

Suicide Kings

Christopher Walken, Denis Leary, et al. Artisan, 1998.
[also starring a host of new guys that the younger generation would recognise]

PLOT: some Ivy League rich kids decide to kidnap a retired mob boss in order to ransom him for the amount of money needed to pay to ransom for one of the kid's kidnapped sister.

Already funny, and the rest of the movie is great as well - in fact, it would probably be a great stage play, which is what I always state about every movie that has a fairly static setting and relies mostly on taut dialogue in order to move the plot forward. This would be a great state play and that's one of my biggest compliments for anything.

Walken is of course, exceptional - the other actors excellent. And truly, I can't give away much more without ruining the plot.

Except that Leary interwoven diatribe about his stingray boots is hilarious - comic relief that's very well input, even though it's a device to extend the time and to break up the static living room scene. Another intriguing plot device are the personalities and the weaknesses of the would-be kidnappers, which are expertly manipulated by Walken's character - and the audience realizes very soon that even though he's tied to a chair and bleeding to death, he's still got a lot more smarts than these 6 doofi.

great movie - great dialogue - and if you can handle the constant stream of cursing, you'll have a fun time watching it.

[last note: twist ending! - and a pretty slick one, too!]

TTFN

VG

Hide and Creep

Asylum Home Entertainment.

This is the type of movie that I love - a b-movie that has a sense of its own identity, doesn't take itself too seriously, and doesn't depend too heavily on the gore factor.

Righteously enough, it does have its fair amount of blood n guts - it's a good ZOMBIE movie.

Basic plot - small town deeply imbedded in Alabama, taken over by zombies, and some of the more fortunate (and intelligent) folk simply don't put up with them kindsa goins-on.

NOTE: the video store clerk's lines definitely read like something out of Clerks, and I would suspect that the writer of this movie is a giant fan of Kevin Smith. Not that it's bad - those lines are some of the funniest of the movie; however, the resemblence is unmistakable.

Plotwise - the "alien probe," used as a humourous smirk at both the beginning and at the end - good for a slight smile, but really did nothing for the plot. The twist-bite at the end was a good grimace, as it actually brought a sense of serious and sadness to the movie - it left the viewer with something a little bit more than just the standard "stomp-kill-smash!"

VG