"Land of the Dead" and tiny tigers too
Last weekend, I hooked up with Kitten and Starburst and we headed off to George A. Romero's "Land of the Dead."
For those of you who don't know, George Romero is pretty much the father of the modern zombie movie.
From the early, black & white, filmed on something less than a shoestring "Night of the Living Dead" (which I saw in algebra class - thanks Mr. Hart!!) through "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead," Romero is simply The Man. Sure, there's been other zombie things - Lucio Fulci's classic "Zombie" (or "Zombi 2" or whatever else it's been called), the recent 'Dawn' remake (a fun movie but it lacked one super-important feature - I'll get to that later), "Return of the Living Dead" (zombies that ran before the 'Dawn' remake - they also carried on conversations and ordered out for dinner) and the excellent "Shaun of the Dead." All of which owe their existence to Romero and his movies.
And now there's a fourth one - "Land of the Dead." Zombies have pretty much taken over the world. There's small pockets of civilization walled up in some cities, but the countryside is filled with the walking dead. 'Land' focuses on members of a team of folks who stage raids into the outside world to get supplies for the city.
There's some of Romero's observations about the state of society - Dennis Hopper is refreshingly restrained as the leader of "Fiddler's Green," a shining tower in the city inhabited by only the "upper crust" while the folks who actually do the work live in squalor in the streets below.
But more importantly for someone like me - there's BLOOD. Sorry, but high-minded ideals and pointed political satire is fine, but if you're doing a zombie movie there had better be loops of intestines spilling out somewhere. This where we get to what was missing from the 'Dawn' remake - zombies actually eating people. Sure, in the 'Dawn' remake there was the random bite, but that was it. The zombies here do what zombies do best - pull the insides out and munch away. Very refreshing.
This time around, the zombies are gaining some sense of self-awareness. Here they're learning to organize and use weapons. Since they already outnumber the survivors about a billion to one, once they start actually thinking a bit about what they're doing....well, let's just say that's bad for the live ones.
I enjoyed the heck out of it.
Beforehand, we hit the mall for a bit, which was still reeling from the 4th of July celebrations. On hand was one of those groups that cart exotic animals around to malls and such, raising money by charging money for pictures and such. We didn't have cash on hand for pictures, but we did have enough to get the three of us into a cage (which, by itself could be plenty interesting) with three tiger cubs.
Loving animals as I do (not in a freaky illegal way) and cats in particular, this was way cool. And Kitten loved it even more. They were so...neat. One kept yowling for the first few minutes like a baby that just woke up and wanted it's bottle. It ended up being content with turning Kitten's sandal into a chew toy. She got it back at the end and got to walk around with tiger slobber on her foot for the rest of the day.
A very cool day all around.
For those of you who don't know, George Romero is pretty much the father of the modern zombie movie.
From the early, black & white, filmed on something less than a shoestring "Night of the Living Dead" (which I saw in algebra class - thanks Mr. Hart!!) through "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead," Romero is simply The Man. Sure, there's been other zombie things - Lucio Fulci's classic "Zombie" (or "Zombi 2" or whatever else it's been called), the recent 'Dawn' remake (a fun movie but it lacked one super-important feature - I'll get to that later), "Return of the Living Dead" (zombies that ran before the 'Dawn' remake - they also carried on conversations and ordered out for dinner) and the excellent "Shaun of the Dead." All of which owe their existence to Romero and his movies.
And now there's a fourth one - "Land of the Dead." Zombies have pretty much taken over the world. There's small pockets of civilization walled up in some cities, but the countryside is filled with the walking dead. 'Land' focuses on members of a team of folks who stage raids into the outside world to get supplies for the city.
There's some of Romero's observations about the state of society - Dennis Hopper is refreshingly restrained as the leader of "Fiddler's Green," a shining tower in the city inhabited by only the "upper crust" while the folks who actually do the work live in squalor in the streets below.
But more importantly for someone like me - there's BLOOD. Sorry, but high-minded ideals and pointed political satire is fine, but if you're doing a zombie movie there had better be loops of intestines spilling out somewhere. This where we get to what was missing from the 'Dawn' remake - zombies actually eating people. Sure, in the 'Dawn' remake there was the random bite, but that was it. The zombies here do what zombies do best - pull the insides out and munch away. Very refreshing.
This time around, the zombies are gaining some sense of self-awareness. Here they're learning to organize and use weapons. Since they already outnumber the survivors about a billion to one, once they start actually thinking a bit about what they're doing....well, let's just say that's bad for the live ones.
I enjoyed the heck out of it.
Beforehand, we hit the mall for a bit, which was still reeling from the 4th of July celebrations. On hand was one of those groups that cart exotic animals around to malls and such, raising money by charging money for pictures and such. We didn't have cash on hand for pictures, but we did have enough to get the three of us into a cage (which, by itself could be plenty interesting) with three tiger cubs.
Loving animals as I do (not in a freaky illegal way) and cats in particular, this was way cool. And Kitten loved it even more. They were so...neat. One kept yowling for the first few minutes like a baby that just woke up and wanted it's bottle. It ended up being content with turning Kitten's sandal into a chew toy. She got it back at the end and got to walk around with tiger slobber on her foot for the rest of the day.
A very cool day all around.
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