30 Days of Night - Review

Director: David Slade
Writers: Niles/Beattie/Nelson
Based on the Comic by: Ben Templesmith
Starring: Josh Hartnett/Melissa George

Vampire fans won't be disappointed in 30 Days of Night, but they won't find anything new, either.

That isn't a damning statement. With horror and its myriad sub-genres, you go in expecting certain things to happen. When they do, you feel strangely satisfied, as long as they are handled well.

30 Days of Night is about the downfall of smalltown Barrow, Alaska. As the film's title suggests, the town suffers from 30 straight days of night during the winter. When you throw vampires into the mix, you know that the film is going to be a bloodbath for the Barrow locals.

The film asks for some suspension of disbelief beyond the usual "vampire-bit-me" stuff. In the film, Barrow, Alaska is cut off from the outside world for the entire month, because planes can't land there. Planes can't land at night? This seems dubious, and it is: if you go on Alaskan Airlines' website, you'll see that they have flights to Barrow every day throughout the winter.

But that's nitpicking. As I said in a review of Vacancy, horror films are getting harder and harder to make. It's simply impossible to cut anyone off from the outside world. Cell phones, airplanes, the internet, you name it. So when the filmmakers use the old "last plane out of town," or, "Damn, the cell phone doesn't have reception," you have to forgive them for it.

I enjoyed 30 Days. It harkened back to John Carpenter's The Thing. I like movies where the locals think they are king of castle, only to have their safe little habitat become a nightmare prison.

Josh Harnett does an okay turn as the hero of the movie, once he stops snivelling and whining. Male leads have recently decided to get in touch with their sensitive side. It's all right in a Dr. Phil kind of way, but when it comes to killing vampires, I want my heroes to have some backbone.

The rest of the cast is pretty good. Danny Huston, as the head vampire, is suitably menacing and mean spirited. Gone are the days of classy vampires seducing young women. Now they swoop from street corner to street corner, expose terribly sharp teeth, and utter a grunt once in a while.

In this film, the vampires "speak," which is a shame. Made-up gibberish doesn't sound convincing no matter how many times you run it through the special effects lab, so it comes off as hokey. I wish they'd just let actors speak, or not speak. Not speaking is creepy. Speaking gibberish pulls you out of the movie and makes you ask yourself questions like, "I wonder if that's Hungarian, or if they just made all that up?"

If you can avoid thoughts like that, and keep your mind on the fact that this is meant to be moderately mindless, somewhat gory fun, then 30 Days will entertain you this Halloween.

Saw IV Buzzing at Box Office

Every October they release a Saw movie, and every opening weekend it does well.

I wasn't really a big fan of the Saw horror franchise when it came on the scene. The premise was sound, but Danny Glover's acting in the first one turned my stomach more than the gory special effects.

See the full weekend box office here.

Black Day in October

Well, I saw this coming all season long but, of course, I put off wanting to believe it.

Read the story here.

Merci...and Good-Night

I've pointed out before that Sarkozy walks to the beat of a different drummer. Being French, he gets away with it. Still, I can't fault him for this one. If a reporter showed up from the "most respected news magazine show in TV history" and started asking about my wife, I'd say au revoir, too.

Tonight on 60 Minutes, they aired an interview between Lesley Stahl and the French President. In the interview, Stahl asked Sarkozy about his marital relationship (not long after the interview was taped, Sarkozy and his wife separated). Sarkozy got up, said, "Merci," took off his microphone, and walked out.

The press would have a field day with any British or American leader that did that. Instead, 60 Minutes promoted the piece by calling Sarkozy "smart, energetic, and tempestuous."

Here's what I had to say about Sarkozy and his views on Iran a few weeks ago.

More on what Sarkozy called a "stupid" interview here.

Condom Testing Sounds Great - But How Much For Overtime?

Here's a job posting you don't see that often. Durex is accepting applications for condom-testers until November 4th. Their website asks if you're a "sexual intercourse enthusiast" and if you'd like to win $1000.

Hmm. Sounds like a no-brainer. Could also be a hoax, but it would be interesting to see their comeback.

You can find the application here.

Amsterdam Burning

No, not the bongs, but the city itself.

These two stories from Amsterdam deserve consideration. France is not the only country with riots on its hands.

Check out the story here, and the choice of words here. Meanwhile, an Amsterdam blogger gives his perspective and the breaking news here.

"Lost" Stars Get Drunk - Lose Jobs

According to the AP, another star of the ABC program Lost has been busted under the suspicion of drinking and driving. Daniel Dae Kim, one of the stars of the show, was taken into custody in Hawaii on Friday morning. He posted bail and was released.

It doesn't bode well for Kim. Two other stars of the show, Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Watros, were busted for the same offense in 2005. Shortly after pleading guilty to the charges, their characters were killed off and the show went on without them. In 2006, Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje had a run-in with the cops for driving without a license and disobeying a police officer. His character, too, was quickly given the axe, though criminal charges were later dropped because the prosecutor determined they could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

I have to hand it to ABC. I'm not sure if the criminal charges alone led to the show dumping the actors, but I can see why they would. It's bad business dealing with people that get into trouble with the cops or threaten people's lives by driving drunk. Hawaii is a small place, and the locals wouldn't be too enamored with the show if it is was loaded with actors that got away with breaking the law.

Kim is just another in a list of actors that makes me shake my head and ask, "You can't afford a driver?"

Another Final Wake Up Call - This Time We Mean It!

The UN has come out with another of its weird reports on the state of the environment and, no shock here, it is "the final wake-up call to the international community."

Tick...Tick...Tick...
As if we can take this seriously. The UN and their enviro-boob friends have been giving "final wake-up calls" for so long that I long ago hit the snooze button and called reception to tell them not to bother.

Who exactly is in this "international community?" Nobody agrees on anything, and nothing ever gets done. It might take a village to raise a Clinton kid, but the UN hasn't even managed to construct a mud hut without screwing it up, swindling cash, and letting people get massacred before their very eyes.

In their latest report, the UN tells us that there are too many people on the planet, and that the Earth can't sustain humanity's growing population. They then go on to report that children are dying at an alarming rate, and that people in Africa will starve to death in short order.

So which is it? Too many people, or too many people dying? They're opposites of the same pole, so if one is bad, the other must be good.

Starvation, by the way, is never caused by a food shortage. There's tons of food lying around. Famine has always been caused by political regimes keeping food from people, not by people wandering into a desert and realizing that there's nothing to grow so they might as well sit down and die. The UN could try to do something about thug regimes not feeding people, but they're too busy writing bogus reports on climate change. Not as messy that way.

I especially love the line in the UN's report that claims humans aren't leaving enough areas alone to nature. And here I was thinking that homo sapiens are a part of nature.

The UN jokesters never get tired of issuing "final wake-up calls." Us, the patient idiots, never seem to get tired of hearing them.

Wake me when it's over.

Borat Lawsuit

If you saw the film Borat, you might remember the five Alabama dinner hosts that invited Borat (actor Sacha Baron Cohen) into their home for an American cultural lesson with Kazakhstan Television. Borat, of course, was not working for Kazakhstan Television. His dinner hosts were ignorant of the fact that Borat was an actor, and the scene was being taped for the Borat feature film.

Now they're suing for the humiliation that they claim he put them through. I was wondering how many lawsuits might be filed against the filmmakers not only for insulting unwitting participants, but for not getting releases to have them in the film in the first place. 20th Century Fox claims that releases were signed, but I wonder what the language in them looks like. It should be an interesting case.

Catch the story on the lawsuit here.

Here is what I wrote about Borat back in August:

I watched Borat last night. It disturbed me.

I’d been putting it off for quite a while, because the commercials told me everything I needed to know. He was going to make Americans look dumb, and he was going to do it in a faux-reality TV format.

One thing the film did show me is that it’s becoming more and more hip to pick on Jews. Antisemitism is returning to the days of being acceptable as long as its done to a laugh track. One scene that particularly bothered me involved the title character throwing money at two cockroaches. The roaches represented the elderly Jewish couple that had given him a place to stay for the night.

Yes, yes, I know. It was only a comedy. I can laugh at most anything, and I can dish it out as much as I can take it. Still, I had an unsettling feeling creep over me with every new Jew-bash in the picture.

I pointed out some time ago that Hollywood has no problem bashing Asians. Jews get the same treatment. Try that with blacks, Hispanics, or gays, and your career would be over. It's interesting how the degree of your prejudice is measured by what group you happen to be picking on.

The film did manage to show me that while Americans can appear stupid at the hands of a comedian and his editor, they always appear extremely polite and welcoming. I doubt that’s the effect Borat was going for.

Photo: Yahoo Movies

Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Review

Director: Shekhar Kapur
Writers: Hirst/Nicholson
Starring: Cate Blanchett/Clive Owen
Runtime: 1 hour 54 minutes

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is described as historical fiction, which is a good thing. I promised myself that I wouldn't harp too much on the film if it took liberties with the documented facts of Elizabeth's reign. History is covered in dust and cobwebs, and the further back you go, the thicker the dust gets. If you were to use only the primary evidence of written documents to make a movie about Elizabeth, you'd probably end up with a 30 minute film. Liberties must be taken, and forgiven, in order to fill out facts and turn it into some kind of emotional story.

This film, however, leaves you with one eyebrow raised throughout the showing. Not in surprise, but in incredulity. Would a Queen really break down and lose control like that in front of her courtiers? Not once, but four or five times? Would she really let commoners talk to her like that? And, if she would, how long would it be before a wily courtier used her instability to his advantage?

These are some of the questions that drift through your mind during a rather confusing story that is covered with a bombastic musical score and lavish costumes.

The film takes place towards the end of Elizabeth I's reign as ruler of England. Her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, is locked up in England and scheming to steal the throne with Spanish aid. King Philip II of Spain, a Catholic like Mary, despises the Protestant Elizabeth. He hopes to conquer England and knock Elizabeth from the throne. In the film version, he hopes to install his daughter Isabella as eventual Queen of England, which might have been news to Mary.

Henry VIII
Want backstory? Okay, follow this: Mary (Bloody Mary, not Mary, Queen of Scots), was Philip's wife. After she dropped dead, the throne went to Elizabeth, to the chagrin of English Catholics. Since Henry VIII, Elizabeth's father, had divorced Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Elizabeth's mother (Anne Boleyn), Elizabeth was regarded as a bastard, and not eligible to take the throne. Long breath. Therefore, Mary, Queen of Scots, who was a Catholic great-granddaughter of Henry VII, was considered by Catholics (and Phillip II in Spain) to be the rightful owner of the throne. That is why Philip was in cahoots (fine: secret communication) with Mary, Queen of Scots, in her prison cell. If he could get her on the throne, that would put paid to Elizabeth's Protestant reign, and Mary (not to mention the Pope) would owe Philip bigtime.

Got it? I don't blame the screenwriters for leaving this out of the movie.

Sir Walter Raleigh, however, does make it on the screen. Though he doesn't get much press in the history books vis a vis Elizabeth, the film gives him the full blown movie star treatment. Elizabeth is attracted to him, and enjoys hearing his stories of adventure on the high seas. He informs her that he has named a colony in New World after her: Virginia, for the Virgin Queen.

The rest of the story is convoluted, as the filmmakers seem unsure of where it should go. It could have been a story of political intrigue between Phillip II of Spain and Elizabeth I of England. Or it could have been a love story between Raleigh and Elizabeth (a love story with no foundation in fact). Or it could have been a story of the Protestant Elizabeth's troubles with the Catholic Church (the Pope in abstentia, Philip II as bad guy on the horizon).

In the end, the film tries to do all three, and you end up caring about none of them.

As far as the Catholic/Protestant angle, it was fairly obvious that the good old Christian/Western-bash has made it into historical films. The movie's modern day language and politics is a joke. Elizabeth I comes off as an agnostic, leaning towards atheist. The filmmakers were either unaware that the Protestant faith still considers Jesus Christ a top dog, or they ignored it.

The Spanish, on the other hand, are the film's Christian Neo-Cons. Philip II is a gibbering manic-depressive, constantly quoting scripture and declaring that a Catholic God will help him win the day. The main sails on the Spanish fleet are decorating with portraits of Jesus Christ and crosses. When he kneels to pray, his face is a sweating mask of religious zealotry. Back in England, when Elizabeth I prays, she says no words aloud and appears to be contemplating her next dinner party.

I was amused at the ignorance of the writers and the director. No matter which side you come down on with today's religious beliefs, they do not match the flavor and fervour of five centuries past. I was curious to see how they would handle the religious disputes of Elizabeth I's reign, and they completely fumbled, yet fumbled on purpose.

In Elizabeth's day, there was no such thing as a separation between church and state. Elizabeth's faith was not called the Church of England for fun. Her father established the Church of England so he could get a divorce and not kneel at the feet of the Pope. Mary I, Elizabeth's predecessor, brought the Catholic Church back to England. Then Elizabeth took over, and made it Protestant again. Religious conflict was common for the times, and Elizabeth was hardly as "above the fray" as a liberal Senator from California might be.

There is no question that the costumes and production value are top notch. Unfortunately, you might feel like you're watching a music video. There are a few short scenes where Elizabeth is filmed wearing beautiful clothes under beautiful lighting, while the camera twists and turns for the best angle. It's pretty, but it's bogus. The director of photography was obviously told to shut up when he said, "Um, boss...this doesn't look like it's lit with torches."

They did try for some subtlety. There is one scene where a dwarf is standing by Elizabeth's throne. No mention is made of her, and she can't be a jester, because she's too cozy with the Queen and she's dressed too finely. This is probably Lady Mary Grey, sister to Catherine Grey. Catherine Grey was one woman who had a legitimate claim to the throne, but died leaving only two bastard (and therefore, out of luck) sons. In another scene, a ship's Captain calls out the name, "Drake!" to let you know that Francis Drake was there during the Spanish Armada invasion. Beyond that, however, the film is lavish, in your face soap opera.

As for the Spanish Armada sequence, when Philip II rolls the dice to invade England, I will not go into it too much and blow it for you. It takes place towards the end of the film, and is meant to leave you with the cozy feeling that after this, England's future is bright and cheery. As any armchair historian knows, England's future was never bright and cheery: political intrigue abounded at home, and England had to fight and swindle for everything that it got abroad.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age left me wondering what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish. I don't believe they accomplished very much, either as entertaining narrative or history lesson.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

CNN: We Didn't Start the Fire - But it Can Help Our Ratings

Here's a memo that Drudge leaked about a CNN news meeting, where network President Joe Klein discusses how CNN should handle the California fires and the network's upcoming TV special on global warming.

Anderson Cooper heard his marching orders and acted accordingly. On October 23, during his show Anderson Cooper 360, he said:

“At the top of the next hour, as I said, the big picture. These fires are really a piece of it. Fire, drought, global warming, climate change, deforestation, it is all connected, tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern…‘Planet in Peril’ starts in just 30 minutes.”

CNN: the Cynical News Network.

Halloween Movie Treats

I bid you...Vellcome...

Halloween's on the way, so it's time to take a look at some favorite horror flicks you should be ordering at the corner video store. First, let's look at the horror genre in general.

Horror has several sub-genres. By genre, I do not mean broad terms like horror or suspense. Both of these have sub-genres that are tried, tested, and sometimes true. Here's a look at some of them and their rules:

Vampire: The Lost Boys, Blade, Interview with the Vampire, Salem's Lot, Queen of the Damned, and the numerous Dracula movies. These stories always involve an innocent population being infiltrated by a vampire. This vampire is usually hidden until one, two, three, and sometimes four people are bitten. When the population realizes what is happening, it is almost too late to stop it, but only almost.

Generally, the human side of the bad guy is more apparent in the vampire genre than in any other monster movie, as the vampire can reason and be quite charming. The vampire is also well-to-do in the cultural context of the film: Bela Lugosi in a tuxedo, the cool kids in The Lost Boys, the rich party animals in Blade. In this genre, the monster is never less than middle class and often wears a suit. Sexuality also plays a large part in vampire films.

All vampire films owe their birth to Bram Stoker's original story, but they do not always keep his rules in play. In Salem's Lot, the religious angle still works, as crosses can be used to ward off vampires. Salem's Lot also follows the rule that vampires must be verbally invited into a house before they can enter it. In other films, this rule is cast aside.

The one steady rule in this genre is that vampires can't stand direct sunlight. This rule made the leap into the technical age when characters began using UV lamps (transportable sunlight) against vampires, as in Blade and 30 Days of Night. Another familiar rule that is still followed is the Renfield rule. Renfield was the name of the character that assisted Count Dracula (until he betrayed the Count, and paid with his life). Most vampire movies have a Renfield of one kind or another, acting as a human aid to the vampires.

Undead: any of Romero's zombie films, as well as the mummy pictures. In this genre, the dead rise up and try to kill people. They are often cannibals. The reason for their animation is seldom given, and doesn't much matter. In Undead films, the only way to kill an undead creature is to chop it apart or blow its head off. Brains matter more than the heart. Vampires are a technical cousin to the Undead, but they are never as stupid, enraged, lumbering, or outwardly disgusting.

Slasher: Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer. The rules behind this genre were well laid out in Scream, when Kevin Williamson had one of his characters state them. It was a funny scene, but also true. In the Slasher genre, the bad guy has something against the community he lives in (or returns to, after disappearing for a number of years) and exacts his revenge by killing people, mainly teenagers. Girls that have a sex scene in the film are almost certain to die before the closing credits. If you see a woman's breasts, she's a goner. The hero is usually a virginal teenage girl, and she becomes the focus of the bad guy's rage. By the end of the film, everyone else will be dead, and she will have to face him on her own.

Possession: The Exorcist, The Evil Dead, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, 28 Days Later and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later. In the possession genre, evil forces cause a person to turn into the bad guy. The cause could be spiritual (Exorcist), or medical (28 Days Later), or supernatural (Event Horizon). In the possession genre, the bad guy does not always have to be killed. Instead, the supernatural element must be forced to leave the bad guy's body. In a way, all of the vampire and zombie movies are possession movies, with this key difference: you must kill a vampire. There is no cure.

Brilliant Psycho: Saw, Silence of the Lambs, The Vanishing, SE7EN. In this genre, the bad guy is omnipotent to the point of being a god. He seems to be everywhere at once, including inside his victims' heads. He (and it's almost always a he) knows their next move before they do, and he makes the cops look like fools. He never kills his victims immediately, but rather strings them along, playing games with them (literally and figuratively), until he decides to do them in. Even then, the bad guy doesn't always kill a victim directly. Instead, he forces them into clever situations where they will do his bidding and end up killing themselves or someone else. The Brilliant Psycho genre is the easiest one to draw a sequel from, because he often escapes.

Alien From Outer Space: Alien, War of the Worlds, Predator, The Thing, Slither. This genre is as straightforward as it can get. An alien lifeform comes down to Earth or invades a space ship. It murders people, destroys things, and generally wrecks havoc, until the hero can kill it. The alien is very hard to kill, and quite often gives birth or turns into a possession film by taking over the bodies of its victims. By the end of the story, the hero must not only save his own life, but that of all mankind, because the alien usually intends to colonize Earth and kill everybody on it.

My genre picks for this Halloween:

Vampire: Dracula (1958). Starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Campy and fun.

Undead: Dawn of the Dead (2004). A great re-make. Ving Rhames is perfect.

Slasher: Halloween (1978). What else would you watch around Halloween? Shun the re-make directed by Rob Zombie.

Possession: Normally I would say The Exorcist right off the bat, but you've probably seen it too many times on cable. If you haven't seen The Exorcism of Emily Rose, rent it.

Brilliant Psycho: Re-run The Silence of the Lambs and remember how good it is.

Alien from Outer Space: Go with Alien, just for the chest-popping scene.

Happy Halloween.

Gore's Advice: Save the Earth - Cut Back on Your Jet Fuel

I was bumbling around cyberspace today and saw an old interview between Al Gore and CBS Early Show co-host Harry Smith. It's on the MRC website. The interview was taped on April 1 (rightly so), a few months before the Swedes crowned Gore as King of the enviro-boobs.

Check this out:

Co-host Harry Smith: "Last week, former Vice President and Oscar winner Al Gore took Capitol Hill by storm, dazzling senators with his expertise, and today he joins us. Mr. Vice President, what do you say to those who still doubt that climate change is the Earth-destroying crisis that you and every environmentalist group says it is?"

Al Gore: "Harry, if your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the crib’s on fire, you don’t speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action."

Smith, chuckling: "I know a lot of moms out there are nodding their heads. Speaking of action, any tips for viewers who want to reduce their own carbon footprint?"

Gore: "Well, I try to use my personal jet only for important trips. We gas up our fleet of SUVs only after sunset, and the thermostat in my 10,000 foot mansion is set at 68 degrees when Tipper and I aren’t there."

Smith: "Boy, I wish I could cut back like that."

You can't make this stuff up.

I love this interview. Every time I look at it, I find new fascinating things to laugh at. The conceit is so palpable that you have to read it twice and say aloud, "Did they really say that on television?"

"If your baby has a fever...If the crib's on fire..." Well, thank you for clearing up all the scientific mumbo-jumbo with examples I can understand. Gore's right. The last time I saw a crib on fire, I didn't speculate on how fire resistant the baby was. I phoned the Sierra Club and asked them to lend me a jug of water, but they hung up after calling me a heathen for wasting our most precious resource.

"I know a lot of moms out there are nodding their heads..." Say what? What a lame brained segue. How many moms out there are nodding their heads and saying, "Yup. When I saw junior on fire, I knew it was as bad as climate change."

"My personal jet...fleet of SUVs...10 000 foot mansion..."

The bald arrogance of that statement is obscene. It would be amazing that he said it with a straight face, until you remember that this fat cat has known no other life except one of inherited privilege. Still, I know what Gore was up to. He was trying to head off the counter-arguments at the pass. People had ripped on him before for flying around all over the place and living the high life, while at the same time hearing him tell people not to use air conditioning. So this statement was meant as a sop to his own people as well as a defence against his opponents.

News to Gore: good job. It worked. Six months later, they handed this bozo a Nobel Peace Prize.

Photo: Reuters/Kimberly White

Sox In - Tribe Out

It's to be the Red Sox and Rockies in the World Series this year.

You have to feel for Indians fans. Watching your team score only five runs in the last 3 games of a series is bad enough, but watching the Red Sox score 30 runs in the same span must make you want to war whoop your way off the nearest cliff.

In other baseball news, Cleveland pitcher Paul Byrd has been outed by the San Francisco Chronicle as the latest player caught using human growth hormone.

According to the report, Byrd purchased $25 000 worth of HGH from 2002 to 2005. If you guessed that his supplier was from Florida, as seems to be the case with everybody else getting caught with HGH, you would be correct. According to Tim Brown at Yahoo Sports, it's the same clinic that the Feds are investigating for the illegal distribution of performance enhancing drugs.

Byrd's excuse? Surprise! He was taking them under a doctor's supervision, and he never took anything "that wasn't prescribed to [him]." This is the standard defence taken by most of the juiceheads that have been outed in the past couple of years. It's the "doctor did it" defence.

Let's get this straight: a professional athlete that knows drug testing may destroy his career is willing to purchase $25 000 of HGH, and not once does he ask his team, agent, lawyer, or the league if it's all right? Not only that, he wasn't visiting the "doctor" to get his injections. His shipments of HGH came with a do-it-yourself supply of syringes.

The timing of Byrd's HGH shipments is akin to the Troy Glaus case which I wrote about last month. Byrd says the HGH was prescribed because of a pituitary gland problem, yet strangely won't confirm if this problem cropped up before or after he started taking HGH. Tim Brown reports that, "In spring training 2002, Byrd was so alarmed by his lack of velocity that, fearing the end of his career, he radically altered his windup."

Funny that his 2002 fear of a declining career coincided with the 2002 receipts of HGH, and continued after he had Tommy John surgery in 2003, then the receipts dried up in 2005 when the league banned HGH. Funny.

Byrd's excuse of a doctor's prescription grows even more shady, as the Chronicle reports that one of the prescriptions was filled out by a dentist whose license was suspended in 2003 for fraud. That does not sound like the kind of high-end doctor that teams provide to their players. I'm not an anatomist, but I do know that the last time my dentist asked me how my pituitary gland was doing was never.

Photo: AP/Elise Amendola

Coppola's Comeback

Nobody's heard much from Coppola in the past 10 years, as he took a hiatus to write, grow grapes, drink wine, and enjoy life. His latest effort, Youth Without Youth is heading to theaters after a stint at RomeFilmFest.

I wasn't impressed or turned off by Coppola's last effort, The Rainmaker. Based on the John Grisham novel, it was a good legal thriller that starred a decent cast.

One thing that I've always liked about Coppola is that he gives credit where credit is due: The Godfather was called Mario Puzo's The Godfather at Coppola's insistence, and same with John Grisham's The Rainmaker. We'll see if this latest Coppola flick has Mircea Eliade's name in the title. Eliade was the Romanian writer and philosopher that wrote the novel.

More on the story here.

Writers Authorize Strike

It looks like the Writer's Guild of America has voted to authorize a strike. Writers are looking to get better residuals for such things as DVD sales and internet content. Producers are against it.

The last writers strike in Hollywood happened in 1988. It lasted 22 weeks and the industry lost $500 million. The impact of a strike on the public is that some of their favorite TV shows could be knocked off the air and replaced with re-runs until the dispute is settled.

Check out the story here.

Fade to Black - Deborah Kerr

Somebody forgot to tell me.

Deborah Kerr died on October 16th. She'd been suffering from Parkinson's Disease, and according to one family member, she "just slipped away" shortly after her 86th birthday.

A Shot for the Ages: Kerr and
Lancaster in From Here to Eternity

How the stars fade. I surf the net regularly, and had no clue that one of Hollywood's greatest First Ladies had passed on.

Kerr will be remembered best for her charm and manner, but I especially liked her role in From Here to Eternity. That is one of my must-see Fade to Black films this week. The Sundowners and An Affair to Remember are two others.

RIP, Deborah Kerr.

Where There Be Zombies

I've been on a zombie kick of late, having watched 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Dawn of the Dead (1979), and Dawn of the Dead (2004) all in the past few weeks.

The zombie genre was invented by George A. Romero. His status as Master Zombie has been intact since his first zombie classic, Night of the Living Dead (1968). Shot in black and white, Night of the Living Dead was like nothing anyone had seen before. It was gritty, low budget, scary, gory, and funny. It was an entertaining horror picture that became a cult classic, and as with all cult classics, it found a rabid fan base that will protect it and its creator at all costs.

I have bad news for the cult fans. I'm not one of them. Having re-run George Romero's films in the past few months, and most recently compared Dawn of the Dead to its 2004 re-make, I must confess: Romero's movies are not very good.

I will be met by a hail of dismembered body parts for saying that, but I can no longer live in the Romero closet. For a long time I talked up Romero's work as much as the next horror fan. His work was "groundbreaking." His films were "classics." He "changed" modern cinema.

I recently went on IMDB and read some fan reviews of Romero's work. Time and time again, I found the words "social commentary." Romero fans have often said that Night of the Living Dead is a 60's social commentary, and they go on to paint every Romero zombie picture with the same brush. Romero, they say, is a director with a message.

Early on in his career, Romero denied the social commentary angle. Night of the Living Dead was a decent horror movie made on the cheap, which he threw in the back of his truck and took to NYC in hopes that someone, anyone, would want to screen it. He couldn't have cared less if anyone saw a message in it. He simply wanted to freak people out while they ate popcorn and, hopefully, they'd make Romero a buck in the process.

The Romero cult will have us believe that everything in Romero's films somehow illuminates our societal ills. Many see the zombies as a metaphor for people walking through their crummy lives. In Night of the Living Dead, when Duane Jones (who is black) takes refuge in a house with a white woman, the Romero cult tells us that this is a commentary on the '60s: the black guy hiding out with the white woman while the angry zombie hoards (a metaphor for the lynch mob) try to kill him for it.

It's simply not true. Romero has said himself that Duane Jones was right for the part, and that any "commentary" seen in the film is purely coincidental.

You can't tell that to the cult crowd. Saying that zombie movies don't have social commentary reduces zombie movies to what they are: zombie movies (it should be noted that the word 'zombie' never appears in Night of the Living Dead, and only once in Dawn of the Dead; the tag was applied by the fans). Using the ruse of "social commentary" gives the cult crowd something to feel good about. It raises the genre to new heights. If someone knocks a cheap zombie movie for being what it is, the cult crowd have a natural defence: they see the secret, while others do not. They're "in the know," while others are the zombies.

I would be fine with leaving the cult crowd alone for believing whatever they want, but I take issue with them when they demand that others believe their "social commentary" theory, too. Film critic Danel Griffin's statement concerning Romero's zombie series is typical: "[Romero] uses them to represent the rich class’s pathetic attempts to exploit the feeble and then turn on each other as they fight for the bones."

If you say so, but not according to Romero. While drafting Night of the Living Dead, the filmmakers weren't sure what the zombies were even going to do. They came up with cannibalism because they felt it was the most shocking thing to film. They were right, but they did not do it to depict the exploitation of the poor.

It wasn't until later in his career that Romero read his fan mail and got on board the commentary train. When he did, it was a disgrace. Land of the Dead's "commentary" is so transparent that it is literally laughable.

Here's another typical review from a revisionist-critic, in this case Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe:

In his " Dead" trilogy ("Night of," "Dawn of," and "Day of "), Romero used the zombie to satirize America. "Dawn" was released in 1978, and it was both a pioneering work of suspense-schlock and scathing social commentary: The dead come back to life in order to keep consuming - and in a mall no less...[In the 2004 re-make] few of the original movie's political and philosophical preoccupations (abortion, capitalism, patriotism, individualism) remain.

Morris' theory goes like this: the film takes place in a mall, so it shows materialism. The dead come back to "consume" the "consumers." Abortion is also mentioned. Ken Foree asks if a woman wants a baby aborted. She says no. This shows that people were talking about abortion 6 years after Roe v. Wade. Scathing! As for the patriotism, I wish Wes would show me where that is in the original. And the individualism? I guess that is a reference to not wanting to be become a zombie, but if that is the case, how is the 2004 re-make any different?

Time makes people nostalgic. Morris was turned the way many people are that remember things from their youth: sentimental, even about zombies. They remember things that weren't there. They have been told so many times that Romero's zombie movies are poignant, gritty, low budget social commentaries, that they believe it. Trust me, if Romero had the cash in 1979, Dawn of the Dead would not have been shot in one mall location, and he wouldn't have had a minuscule cast. Years later, for Land of the Dead (2005), he did have the cash and it was a flop.

Predator - Misunderstood
There is no way to change the tune of the cult crowd. You can't refute their reasoning because you can make "social commentary" statements about any film ever made. Take Predator, the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. You might think that it is about an alien lifeform coming down to Earth and killing people. But you're wrong. I think it is a movie about illegal immigration. Note how the Predator migrates to earth and only kills what he finds. He doesn't go into towns or cities to mutilate people. He stays in the forest, acts in an environmentally responsible way, and tries to live in peace. Then Arnie and his militaristic regime move in and murder him merely because he's different. Shame on them.

Right now you think I'm crazy, and you're right: the Predator theory is a laugh. The reason it is a laugh while the Living Dead theory is not (at least to the cult crowd), is this: Predator cost a lot of money to make and it was a commercial success.

Dawn (2004)
That's what a cult film is: a movie that that does better in home theater sales than it does at the box office. If Romero's series had been highly successful in theaters, there wouldn't be a cult crowd to draw up all kinds of interesting theories about it. Yes, I know that Romero's Dawn of the Dead grossed well worldwide during its release. But it will disappoint (or perhaps not, come to think of it) the cult crowd to know that the Dawn of the Dead re-make was the most successful zombie move in history, beating Romero's by a long shot.

Does Romero deserve respect for kicking off the zombie genre? Of course. Do I enjoy Romero's movies? Absolutely. But that is about as far as it goes. I enjoy them for what they are.

Unfortunately, they have become very, very dated. The effects simply do not hold up. The zombie make-up is poor (most of the green/grey paint ends at each background actor's neckline). The foam body parts are obviously foam. The intestines are kind of gross, but only kind of. The character development that the cult crowd talks about is simply not there. The character are fun and at times humorous, but in a campy way. Which is fine, because that is how I view Dawn of the Dead: campy fun. As a horror movie, it does not instill much horror.

Reiniger - Dawn (1979)
Before anyone writes in to tell me that I shouldn't go after a film for its effects when it was made in the 70s, too bad. A film must be judged on all of its merits. People born fifteen years ago will not be scared by this movie, but they will be scared by The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Halloween (1978), Alien (1979), and The Amityville Horror (1979). My advice to filmmakers everywhere is if you do not have the funds to produce believable effects, don't use them. Find another way to frighten people. Having said that, I will admit that the make-up people on Dawn of the Dead (1979) made Scott Reiniger's the most frightening 'zombie face' in film history. It's the ultra-phony blood and guts that turns me off.

I will surely get creamed by the cult crowd, because I think that the 2004 Dawn of the Dead re-make, directed by Zack Snyder, is heads and tails better than the original as a horror movie. It is more frightening, the characters are well developed, it is fun, and it is humorous where it intends to be. I am stunned that the cult crowd tries to pass off the original as social commentary, but seemingly find none in the re-make. How is this possible? All of the same elements are there, so the social commentary is theirs for the taking.

Why don't they? Again, we go back to the same reason why any film becomes a 'cult classic,' while another does not. The re-make is not a cult classic because it was a commercial success. It's not welcome in the club. It made a lot of money by reaching not just a keen, knowledgeable cult crowd, but a wide spectrum audience.

You know, the zombies.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

Mailer in Hospital

Mailer has gotten under my skin more than a few times for his political views, not to mention his arroagance. I don't like most of his work, but he deserves respect for The Fight, his account of the Rumble in the Jungle. It was the 1974 heavyweight title fight between Foreman and Ali in Zaire. Mailer's book captures it perfectly.

Mailer, now 84, is in hospital and recovering from surgery. Get the story here.

Photo: Adam Nadel/Polaris

Super Bowl in Limey Land?

It looks like the NFL might hold the Super Bowl overseas some time in the future.

The NFL has been pushing the NFL to foreign market for a while now, but this is the first time the Super Bowl's been mentioned. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Wembley Stadium would be a good venue.

On October 28th, Wembley Stadium will host the first-ever regular season NFL game on foreign soil, between the Dolphins and Giants. Tickets are selling well, and it might be a sellout.


I can't see football ever beating out soccer for attendance records overseas, but it would be nice to take a run at them. The rugby guys would be especially ticked. Rugby plays second fiddle in foreign lands, and they never get any credit (not that they deserve any).

A Super Bowl in England would be fine, except for the Limeys running around all over the place telling you, "It's no' bloodeh fooooball, ya wankah!"

Whether Goodell will be able to sell Americans on the idea that the number one game of the American sporting year will be held overseas in a country whose people are notorious for calling Yanks idiots does, of course, remain to be seen.

More on the story here.

Photo: HOK Sports