What Should I Watch Tonight?

(Scorsese, 2006)

About a month ago, when I was leaving my Italian Cinema Class, one of my friends said that she really likes Italian mafia movies.  Now, this is exactly the sort of thing you don’t want to say to me, because I will call you out on it.  So I asked her exactly what Italian mafia movies she liked so well, and was completely unsurprised to hear her start listing Scorsese and Coppola movies.  Of course, after that I felt the need to point out that those movies were not actually Italian.  Yes, Scorsese does come from an Italian background, obviously, but this is the same logic that leads to people calling the cast of The Jersey Shore Italian.  My friends all immediately attacked my logic saying that directors like Scorsese may not be Italian, but you can’t just call them American.  I’m no expert on the matter, but I have to say, my personal thought process is that if I’m not Slovak, then Mr. Scorsese, brilliant as he may be, is not Italian.  Which is really not a bad thing.

We love America, remember?

A movie like The Departed is a dangerous thing, because you could use it to make both of our cases.  This is a Scorsese film, and if he’s so Italian, then why is it about the IRISH mafia? (side note: I’m not claiming that directors can’t make a movie about groups outside their ethnic identity).  On the other hand, if the Italian ethnicity isn’t implied with the word mafia, then maybe it would help to categorize the genre further.  Of course, then shouldn’t Ben Affleck be considered an Irish American filmmaker because of The Town (2010)?

Is Matthew McConaughey in the Irish mafia?

It should also be noted that while he was no doubt inspired by Italian film, and the neorealist movement in particular, structurally, Scorsese’s films differ from traditional Italian cinema in one very important way.  If Italian films are known for one thing, it’s endings that leave the viewer wondering what the hell just happened, because they don’t end the story in any really satisfying way.  Yes, Scorsese’s endings may be gritty, sad, or even heart-wrenching, but the man rarely leaves loose ends to the stories.

It usually involves something like this.

Well, really it doesn’t matter.  The point is that this is a great movie with a great story, a great plot, great acting, superb editing and directing (this is the film that finally won Scorsese the best directing Oscar), and some truly spectacular Bahston accents.  Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon get top billing (and Leo in particular is fantastic; this is one of the first movies where people accepted him as something other than developmentally disabled or Kate Winslet’s slampiece), but the cast also includes such icons as Marky Mark, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and, say it with me now, JACK NICHOLSON.

Well now you HAVE to see it.

Nicholson plays a deliciously evil mob leader, who reaches a level of sadistic creepiness unseen since Joe Pesci’s glory days.  He has moles in the Boston police force, he’s killing people every couple of seconds, he’s trying to start world war 3.  Basically, it’s a reprise of his role as The Joker, but without the Prince soundtrack.  Also, it’s based on a real person, Frank Costello.

Nicholson looked less like Richard Nixon.

It’s also worth noting that this film has a particularly fantastic imdb trivia page.  Also, if you’re already going to be watching sweet mob movies, you might as well check out Infernal Affairs, the movie The Departed is based on.

(Wai-keung Lau, Alan Mak, 2002)

2011
06/06
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What Should I Watch Tonight?

(Hoffman, 1999)

In my experience, bringing up Shakespeare in conversation is a risky move.  I enjoy Shakespeare, but I’m by no means an expert.  First of all, I’ve read ten of his plays, tops, and I haven’t read one single history.  For the most part, I prefer his comedies, which is basically like saying your favorite Dickens book is A Christmas Carol.  So, before you watch this with a friend, keep in mind the three responses to suggesting a Shakespearean movie night.

  1. You get the person who hates Shakespeare.  Most likely, this is because he or she had a horrible English teacher.  There are a lot of pretentious teachers out there who are teaching Shakespeare like it’s a sacred text.  I’m no professional, but personally I find him more enjoyable when you just read the plays like they’re light entertainment.  On the other hand, they might have had the English teacher who hated Shakespeare and came right out and said it.
  2. You get the person who loves Shakespeare.  Loves him.  LOVES HIM.  Either this is the pretentious English teacher from number one, or this is the person who has actually read the histories, and doesn’t consider you a real human unless you have too.
  3. You get the cool person, who might mention that they prefer Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing, but is generally okay about the whole idea.  This is your target, choose wisely.

Pictured: family fun

There are summer books, and then there are summer books.  Everyone has their favorite.  For me, it comes down to three, which are all perfect for the sweltering season: The Great Gatsby, The Picture of Dorian Grey, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  In 1999, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kevin Klein, Christian Bale, and Stanley Tucci all decided to come together and turn my favorite summer book ever into the perfect summer movie.  Yes, the plot is absurd, and maybe the dialogue is a little hard to follow if you’ve never read the play, but even if that’s the case, there is still plenty to dazzle, visually, and the whole thing is so over-the-top gorgeous, that it’s absolutely worth the convoluted story.

Sensory overload

Apart from the great performances, and the extremely stylistic filmic quality, I love this play and this movie because of its homoerotic undertones.  Sure, Twelfth Night has cross-dressing, and men dressed like women dressed like men falling in love with men dressed like women, but A Midsummer Night’s Dream leaves it all unsaid.  Personally, when I’m watching all I can think about is what would have happened if Lysander saw Demetrius right after he’d been enchanted.  There has got to be a raunchy 70’s novel with that plot.

Plus, Beastiality!

Also, I’m not gonna lie, this is my second favorite movie to take a nap to.

2011
06/05
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The Worst Cinematic Experience of my Young Life (Or, an angry letter to Natalie Portman)

Reitman, 2011

Let me set the scene.  It’s unseasonably warm out, a high point in an otherwise hellacious winter.  Friday evening, I’ve just gotten off an extra shift that I took at work, and I’m feeling pretty awesome about how I’m going to get an extra $50 or so the next week, and some of my friends are really feeling the need to go out and watch a movie.  I’m all for it! What better way to celebrate the end of a long week?  I have a good group of movie friends, we have the actual process of going to watch a movie down.  There’s no awkward trying to figure out what car who’s riding in, there’s no awkward question of who sits next to whom at the theater, there’s absolutely no stress to the whole situation.

Pictured: stress-free friendship

The actual people involved are somewhat interchangeable, and that night it just so happened that a lot of people had gone home for the weekend, or had other plans, so the group was as follows:

  1. First, there’s Monica.  Monica was my roommate freshman year, and we have a lot in common, including, generally, a shared opinion of movies, good or bad.  Also, if something does get awkward, she’s the most likely to commiserate with me.  Plus, she’s the only friend I have who thinks Strangers with Candy is funny.
  2. Then there’s Alex.  Alex and I share a bathroom in our apartment, where we like to talk, while we’re getting ready, about how much we hate our hair or want some particular item of clothing that’s trendy right now.  We also generally have similar tastes in clothes, art, movies, whatevs.
  3. Me.  I sit there.
  4. Last, there’s Mike.  He’s funny and nice, I guess, but more importantly, he always gets an icee.  I mentioned that there’s no drama about who sits next to whom.  That was a bit of a lie.  I have to sit next to Mike, because icees are expensive, but delicious.

FIVE DOLLARS!!?!?!?!?!

So we’re going to watch a movie, and now the only question is what movie we should watch.  I wanted to watch I am Number Four (Caruso, 2011), not because it looked at all decent, but because it was filmed in my hometown, and a lot of the people I went to high school with were extras.  Mike wanted to watch something I don’t remember because we obviously weren’t going to listen to him, and Alex and Monica wanted to watch No Strings Attached.  What can I say, majority rule.

The poorly-written, unoriginal sting of democracy

Before I go on, you should know that I have what I feel is an undeserved reputation for hating all things rom-com.  In fact, I sort of have a reputation for hating all things girly or silly (which is totally undeserved.  I’m blonde and spent the first 18 years of my life juggling my time between ballet class and musical practice, for god’s sake).  My friends will talk about reality tv shows that I actually really enjoy with a strange assumption that I won’t want to watch them too, and every time someone suggests watching a chick flick there’s an awkward moment in which my mind races as I try to nonchalantly communicate that despite my reputation I am totally interested in this plan.  We all have our social cross to bear, and this is mine.  It could be a lot worse.

Think of me as the kid in the blue shirt who wants to raise his hand, but doesn't want it to be a big deal

So I agreed, not only because of my never-ending desire to stomp this stigma once and for all, but also because Natalie Portman was in it.  A month or two, or three, or however many, before this, three of us had gone on a two-hour road trip to St. Louis to watch Black Swan (Aranofsky, 2010) together before we went our separate ways for Christmas break, and I loved it, and especially Natalie Portman.  That heinous bitch.

You think it's funny to toy with people's expectations like this?!

Natalie.  Sure, you had a rocky leap to stardom, with the new Star Wars trilogy, but I thought you were on the right track now!  You’re beautiful, and talented, but I’ve learned my lesson, never go to one of your movies without checking the rotten tomatoes rating

I should have listened.

Yes, the trailer looked like something my beagle could have directed, and the pandora ads will go down as one of the most annoying ad campaigns in film history (and that’s some stiff competition), but I thought hey, this woman will soon have an Academy Award (or possibly already did; I’m having a tough time remembering exactly when I watched this), plus Kevin Klein’s in it!  How bad can it possibly be?  Well, at the risk of forever cementing my loathed reputation, it lost me in about ten minutes.  it had every bad rom-com stereotype in the book, and I didn’t see any chemistry between the leads to make it watchable.  Seriously, least believable on-screen affair I’ve ever seen.

Her face really says it all

Oh, yeah, Ashton.

High point in Ashton Kutcher's career trajectory

I love Ashton Kutcher in the same sense that I love Matt LeBlanc.  They’re really good at playing oversexed men with limited mental capacities on sit-coms that I have no shame in admitting I loved.  If I had to pick one, it would be Ashton, because he’s cute in a fraternity, paint by numbers, boring as hell kind of way, and because he’s decades closer to my age.

His face says it all. And by all I mean nothing. Because that’s what’s happening behind his face.

Still, I respect a man who can play dumb (and I hope to god it’s an act, because it is convincing, but not endearing), and movies like this were made for men like him.

There just aren't ANY interesting pictures of this guy

In fact, I’m going to come out and say it.  If this movie had been Ashton opposite Kate Hudson, Reese Witherspoon, any Kardashian (up to and including Bruce Jenner), or even Zooey Deschanel, I probably would have loved it.

I'd pick Kourtney. She's the cutest, and it would have made for a great episode when Scott got drunk and jealously punched Ashton Kutcher

Yes, Natalie, I hate to say it, but YOU were the problem with this movie.  The script sucked, the plot was about as boring as Ashton’s face, the direction was nothing to write home about, and, despite having an awesome background cast, even the parts that weren’t funny (when you weren’t talking) weren’t enough to save it. However, I do think it could have been saved if they had just gotten an actress who could successfully stand there and look pretty, then realistically look frazzled and emotional when it got to that point in the movie.

She's got an Oscar too, but she can still manage it.

This movie called for a certain type of actress.  One who could convincingly be in a movie that was just cute.  I’m not saying a bad actress, I love Reese and Zooey; I have to say, they are more multi-faceted than our beautiful swan queen.  Natalie, stick with Aranofsky, Fincher, and Anderson. Stay away from Appatow for your own good.  Accept your limitations.

I'd say they're pretty fair limitations, wouldn't you?

So the movie was a complete bust.  Within fifteen minutes, I went from staring, amazed and disgusted at the screen to desperately trying to fall asleep just to get away from the cliches and the horrible, horrible acting, Mike spent an ungodly 108 minutes wondering what he had done to deserve this punishment, I’m not sure what Monica thought of it, and Alex maintains to this day that it wasn’t great art, but she could have enjoyed it if I had been less judgmental of it.

I don't believe her

Next month Friends with Benefits (Gluck, 2011) comes out, and I intend to watch it.  I know what you’re thinking, it’s the exact same plot.  THE EXACT SAME PLOT.  Well, yeah, but I have a feeling that this second movie did it right.  Take an unbelievably boring plot, and throw in a teen heart throb and MILA KUNIS.  Yes, she is also a great swan, but she can handle a rom-com, I’m sure of it…or not.

This feels completely natural to me

2011
06/03
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What Should I Watch Tonight?

Anderson, 2009

There are two kinds of people in the world; people who love Wes Anderson, and people who think he’s okay but don’t really get what all the fuss is about.  Oh, and there are probably people who hate him.  And then the man himself and his friends and family probably have a more complicated view of him.  And I guess there are a lot of people who have never even heard of him, especially outside of America.  Okay, there are a lot of different kinds of people in the world, and whether or not they like Wes Anderson movies is probably not the most important aspect of their characters.

This is what I got when I searched "different kinds of people." Ironically, they all seem to be the same race, and almost all men. I'd also be willing to bet that they all love Wes Anderson

Still, Wes Anderson can be a bit much for some people.  His movies are quirky, over-the-top stylistic, all feature a similar cast, include a very manipulative soundtrack (think Star Wars but with folk rock standards instead of a symphony), each one has at least one slow motion shot, and  somehow just have some Wes Anderson quality that I don’t want to try to define.  Basically he’s an auteur, and if you don’t like it honey badger don’t care.

I don't think he's actually a honey badger, but I really wanted to relate this back to the movie somehow. Sue me.

Personally, I adore these movies.  They all deal with themes that are close to my heart (and the hearts of most people, or at least most people near my age).  Now, The Fantastic Mr. Fox is by no means my favorite (I’m saving my favorite for a day that I’m in a really bad mood and JUST FEEL LIKE SITTING IN MY ROOM AND WRITING ABOUT FILMS!), but I do still love it, and it’s on my mind right now because of something someone said in a film class about a year ago.

Jason Schwartzman shows that he possesses tremendous on-screen AND voice acting talent, proving once and for all that he's more talented than his childhood rival, Mark Hamill

The guy who said this was annoying.  Like, really annoying.  He was  a senior film studies major, and I have no idea why he was in a lower-level history of film class, because it clearly annoyed him that not everyone possessed his level of expertise, but that’s beside the point, and it was a good point.  The question with the movie is that it was “directed by Wes Anderson,” but what does that really mean when it’s an animated movie?  In this case, it doesn’t necessarily mean being in the same country.  The Fantastic Mr. Fox was shot in America, but Wes Anderson was living in Paris at the time, presumably to run away from his feelings, re: Natalie Portman.

Damn you, Natalie Portman

A lot of people took issue with this, but I’d say that if you’re watching the movie, there is absolutely no doubt that it is Anderson, through and through. Everything in it carries his musky scent, from the cast, which includes such Anderson standards as Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, and Wallace Walodarsky (not to mention Anderson’s brother, Eric, who also drew the pictures in The Royal Tennenbaums (2001), and even Wes himself), to the cluttered screen-space and quirky portrayal of domestic life.

If there are two things he knows, it's how to put a unique spin on domestic life, and how to wear the hell out of a light-toned suit

Personally, I’m of the belief that this is just as much Anderson as any of his other films, and that, if anything, the medium of animation allowed him to maintain artistic control because it is less expensive to make puppets redo a scene at his whim than it is to make Meryl Streep and George Clooney redo it.  Also, it’s not like he was communicating by telegram, he could send a video message of exactly what he wanted, and see what they were doing almost instantly.  I’m going to say right now that it’s not 100% necessary to be breathing the same air as your actors and crew in order to claim directoral power.

Professional chemistry

So watch it, and keep in mind the controversies surrounding it.  Also, be sure to note the animation style (it’s shot with an extremely high-def camera, but at 12 frames per second, as opposed to 24, so that you can really notice the stop-motion technique), and look out for Adrien Brody’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo.

Here's a hint

2011
06/03
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What Should I Watch Tonight?

Phillips, 2011

This movie has been generating a lot of controversy lately.

  • It should be noted that it is extremely graphic, and not for those who, for some weird reason, don’t want to see naked transexual prostitutes.

But that’s not really what the controversy has been about, which is pretty impressive.  No, the controversy has been about whether or not this movie is art, and, more importantly, whether it’s funny.

Oh, come on, there's a monkey! Of course it's funny!

I would advise that if you (somehow) haven’t seen the original, then you should not watch this movie.  No, there’s no important plot that you’ll miss if you don’t watch the first, but the second movie relies a lot on the absurdity of certain events taking place…AGAIN!  Basically, the second movie is high-budget fan fiction, and if you remember that I think there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it.  So, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if you enjoyed the original, you should watch this, it’s worth $6 with a student discount (although I saw it for free, because some guy left his ticket in the machine, and when I tried to give it back he told me to keep it).

Completely unrelated

Now that that’s sorted, let’s get to the analysis so I can pretend this post isn’t just an excuse to link to pictures of Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifinakis.  One reviewer wrote:

 [as opposed to more traditional comedies] “The Hangover Part II” offers instead shrieking, squirming, beatings, panic, a severed finger and a facial tattoo. It’s like a “Saw”-style torture-porn movie with a laugh track, into which the shaved-headed (and autonomously funny) Zach Galifianakis has wandered, lost and bewildered and looking for the exit sign. (Sternbergh, New York Times)

I think that might be a bit rough, but really, the man has a point (the Saw analogy is especially apt, the two genres have a lot of similarity, really).  His article goes on to expand his theory that, where the comedies of yesteryear (think Mel Brooks) relied on jokes, today’s comedies are more bros hanging out with bros.  Before I go on, the article I’m referring to is “‘The Hangover’ and the Age of the Jokeless Comedy”

I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish Bradley Cooper was my bro

In these new comedies, the audience becomes wrapped up in the sexy, charismatic lives of Bradley Cooper or Paul Rudd, while Zach Galifinakis or Steve Carell stand around saying stupid things.  Basically, you spend two hours feeling like your part of a funny, sexy group of friends, and miraculously, you’re not the idiot of the crew.  That much I can get behind, I mean, I admit that I love the feeling these movies give you that you’re not actually sitting in a dark room, surrounded by boring people who aren’t funny, sexy, or rich.  However, where I disagree with this particular review (as I understood it) is where he says that Mel Brooks style comedies are more absurdist, while Appatow or Phillips-style comedies are all within the limits of reality.

I take issue with this theory

Sure, for the most part the things that happen in The Hangover are technically possible, but does that really count as staying within the perimeters of reality?  If you said yes, then I invite you to try and drunkenly kidnap a tiger from a boxing legend and tell me that again.  No, I’d say The Hangover and it’s sequel are both very nearly as absurd as Blazing Saddles (Brooks, 1974), if not more so.

Practically neorealist

When I was a senior in high school, my AP lit teacher, Mr. Berzonsky, decided that we would spend about three weeks talking about comedy (this was, for no apparent reason, at the same time that we were reading Hamlet.  Go figure).  I don’t remember much about what he said, except thinking that it was stupid to try to define what makes something funny, and that he seemed to feel that the two main categories were:

1.  Crossdressing

Downright Shakespearean

2.  Puns

Pictured: wit

Maybe this is why I have, stemming from my late adolescence, an immense distate for anyone who tries to claim that something is, or is not, funny; let alone tries to define or categorize comedy.  Hey, can’t we just accept that there is probably someone out there who thought Strange Wilderness (Wolf, 2008) was laugh out loud hilarious?

Is that so much to ask?

So, to summarize: yes, there is definitely a difference between Mel Brooks’ comedy, and The Hangover, but you should watch both, because statistically, you’ll probably enjoy both.

Also, I want to bro out with Bradley Cooper

2011
06/02
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What Should I Watch Tonight?

Nichols, 1967

Before there was Garden State (Braff, 2004), Elizabethtown (Crowe, 2005), 500 Days of Summer (Webb, 2009), or countless other movies with along the same line, there was The Graduate.  It makes sense that this same general skeleton of a film is used again and again, because the themes relate to anyone who is young, disenchanted, socially awkward, uncertain of the future, uncertain of their emotions, overly sensitive, or just into cool music.

TEENS!

Now, there’s a good chance you’ve already seen this movie, or at least know something about it, in which case, you’re probably thinking to yourself that this movie is different from the more typical teen rom-coms.  It’s bold, stylistic, and daring! It has themes of great distress, lack of personal fulfillment, and general uncertainty of the future!  If so, then calm down, I agree with you.  If I didn’t I wouldn’t have suggested watching it.

This ain't no Nicholas Sparks tear fest.

The Graduate is the best kind of movie, a commercial AND critical success.  It’s funny and sad at the same time, has a rockin’ Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack, is immensely relatable, has some sexy times (with bonus awkward oedipal issues), and represents the new lost generation.  PLUS MR. FEENY’S IN IT!

Pictured: life lessons for flower children

Yes, this film has it all, and it’s quirky enough that even the most jaded of hipsters love it (and if they say they don’t, it’s a good sign that you won’t want to be their friend).

I have no reason to believe that these men don't like this movie.

Be sure to look out for the ending, which is one of the most debated in film history.  If you get to the black screen with the scrolling names, you’ve gone too far.

2011
06/01
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The Social Network

Fincher, 2010

I’d like to start by saying that I love The Social Network.  I saw it three times in theaters, and have, of course, watched it several more times since it came out on dvd.  Following the release of the movie, there were a lot of people out there comparing it to Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941).  This wasn’t simply because of the obvious narrative similarities (they’re both biopics about media tycoons who were still alive at the time of release), it was also because people were seriously saying that The Social Network is on the same level, artistically, as Citizen Kane.  Now, I’d hate to fall into the trap of thinking that just because something is new, and cool, and stars dreamy men (including a childhood boy band icon) that it’s great art, but I have to say, I really think The Social Network is great art.

Pictured: art. GOT IT?!?!?!?!?!

Justin Timberlake, in a comeback for the ages, got to spend two hours making every 90′s pop star’s nemesis, Sean Parker, look like the world’s biggest jerk, Jesse Eisenberg got to finally star in a movie without Michael Cera getting all the credit, Armie Hammer landed not one but two career making rules, and millions of girls worldwide got to watch Andrew Garfield smash a Macbook Pro.  Honestly, there’s not much more one could ask for.

Pictured: sex

HAVING SAID THAT

If I have one problem with that movie (and I have a few, but this is the one that bothers me again and again), it is, say it with me now, the CGI breath.

I am not alone

Now, I’m from Pennsylvania, which, while by no means arctic, is still cold enough that I know what cold breath looks like.  So, for those of you who don’t, it is subtle.  It is something you can see if you’re looking for it, but it’s not so obtrusive that you can barely make out what people are saying behind it.  This movie, which is in most other respects essentially perfect, is tragically marred by breath that looks like the character’s soul is leaving his body.

Pictured: The demon possessing Andrew Garfield escaping through his mouth

However, I still think that The Social Network will go down in history as a movie that was robbed at the Academy Awards.  just as Citizen Kane was better than How Green was my Valley (Ford, 1941),

and The Shawshank Redemption (Darabont, 1994) was better than Forrest Gump (Zemeckis, 1994),

The Social Network was a much better film than The King’s Speech (Hooper, 2010).

You laugh now, but Eisenberg will have his revenge

2011
06/01
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What Should I Watch Tonight?

Breathless (Godard, 1960)

If you like gangsters, the French language, shots of Paris, art films, fedoras, newspapers, smoking in bed, or sex, this is the movie for you.

Smoking in bed: sexy in movies, dangerous in the real world

Godard represents one of the first of a new wave (literally) of directors, who approached film making not from a technical standpoint, but from an academic one.  He was a writer for Cahiers du Cinema and eventually decided that he had seen and reviewed enough films that there was no reason he couldn’t direct one.  The film takes inspiration from American gangster movies, and is about an ineffective French gangster who is obsessed with Humphrey Bogart (keep your eyes peeled for all the Bogart references.  They’re not exactly subtle), and his cute American slampiece.  The movie features dynamic use of jump cuts (when a scene got too long or boring, Godard would just hack bits out, leaving dialogue that doesn’t always make sense), tremendously stylistic imagery, and, (I can’t stress this enough), a sizable portion of the movie takes place while the two main characters are half naked.

While they're not strolling down the Champs-Élysées

If you’re interested in French cinema, this is a great place to start.  Godard is an extremely important filmaker, and this is probably his most popular, and most accessible work.

2011
05/31
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Zombies aren’t funny (or epic)

Romero, 1968

Everyone who knows me in real life knows how I feel about zombies.  In recent years (and by recent years, I mean about the last seven; I’m not sure who still remains convinced that zombies, pirates, or ninjas are still cool and original, but whoever they are, they’re wrong) the zombie world has been oversaturated.  We let ourselves get to the point where books like The Zombie Survival Guide or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are actually allowing people to make a living.

Also not funny: demotivational posters

Let me repeat that, America is currently battling an enormous, seemingly insurmountable problem with unemployment, but there are people out there making their living by writing some of the least imaginative, least funny books I’ve ever read.  And I’ve read a lot of books that are neither imaginative nor funny.

"I went to the woods to piss off English students 150 years from now"

To drive this point further home, let me remind you that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is seriously just Pride and Prejudice with zombies artlessly thrown in.  Ladies and gentlemen, Seth Graham-Smith is rich because for some reason we keep paying for what reads like the laziest, most sophomoric message board post of all time.  Why do we do that to ourselves?

Shown: not art.

Now, my problem with zombies, or, more importantly, the people who won’t shut up about them, is not that they aren’t original, it’s that people act like they’re funny or cool when, in fact, they’re actually terrifying.  Zombies are an important part of our popular imagery.  I like to think of them as the opposite of ghosts.  Ghosts represent a mind without a body, and perhaps the fear that

1.  We will fail to do anything of real import while we still have the capacity

or alternatively,

2.  All of the downtrodden of world history are still floating around out there, and they’re pissed.

Pictured: vengeance?

Now the thing about ghosts is that they can easily be turned into a positive force, simply by making a movie about the disembodied spirit of a nice person.  Zombies have not yet managed to secure this ability in popular culture.

All zombies are douchebags

This makes perfect sense.  Ghosts are a mind without a body, zombies are a body without a mind.  Ghosts represent sorrow and loss, zombies represent brute force and cruelty.  When George Romero made Night of the Living Dead people were horrified, but, in fairness, not necessarily by the idea of zombies (zombies had been around in popular culture for decades, but they were voodoo zombies, not the undead), but by the idea of cannibalism.  Night of the Living Dead (1968) was a runaway hit, and is still one of the most important horror films of all time, and, I’ll admit, one of my favorite movies.

Cinematic gold

It is one of the earliest examples of how a little originality can be scarier and more thrilling than enormous budgets and outrageous special effects.  It also has some important social messages.  Most of the people in the film aren’t killed by zombies, they’re killed by other people.  I don’t think you need me to explain what Romero was doing there.  Then, of course, at the end he invites the viewer to compare this fictional zombie apocalypse with the civil rights movement.  The guerilla police force tears the noble hero we’ve come to respect to shreds and then burns him.  Romero insists this isn’t supposed to be reminiscent of a lynching, but I mean, come on.

You're not fooling anyone

The movie, which is the slow-moving, laughable grand-daddy of modern zombie flicks, is really about two things:

1.  The red scare (if you don’t remember where the zombies came from, you should watch it again)

2.  The civil rights movement

The idea of zombies was scary and insightful, reminding us of two things that we, as a society, had mismanaged to the point that they now appeared to have the ability to kill us all.  If the theme could be summed up in one sentence:  The commies want to kill us, but we’re stupid and cruel enough that we’ll tear each other to pieces before they get the chance.

Not cool, not funny, not original, not insightful.

Now every college town in America has an avid Humans versus Zombies community.

In case of zombie apocalypse, we will not have time for group photos in the town square.

Guys, I just want to remind you all that zombies are scary.  Really really really scary.  They are stupid, brutish, and want to kill and eat you for no reason.  If you thought The Strangers  was a scary movie, zombies are worse.   The point of The Strangers is that there might be people out there who will kill you for no reason.  In a zombie apocalypse, there are millions of people who want to kill and eat you for no reason.  The zombie apocalypse is not awesome or epic.  It’s scary.

Boyle, 2002. Still haunting my dreams in 2011.

 

2011
05/31
CATEGORY
Film
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