Day of the Dead (1985) Review

DAY OF THE DEAD (1985) Dir. George A. Romero

Stars:

Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander and Joseph Pilato

In 1985 Laurel Entertainment offered George Romero $6 million to make a third Zombie movie, but he had to create a movie that would have an R-rating.  Romero always doing things his own way declined saying that he would only make it if he could do it his way. Laurel told him he could but that the budget would now only be $3 million.  George went to work…

DAY OF THE DEAD continues the saga with a new cast of characters, this time scientists and military men holed up in an underground bunker.  They are believed to be some of the final living people alive in the world, or at least in the USA.  This time around George changes things a bit.  It has been almost twenty years since Night of the Living Dead was made, and the female character Barbara spent almost the entire movie catatonic on a couch, unable to cope with the events going on around her. This time around we get Sarah, played by Lori Cardille, who is not only the antithesis of Barbara, but truthfully is the hero and sanest person in Day of the Dead.  Romero has come a long way since Night with his female characters.

The set up to this film is simple.  The military men are a bunch of out of control, angry, trigger happy soldiers who think that anything other than shooting zombies is a waste of time, while the scientists, Sarah being amongst them, believe that a solution or cure is important to reversing what is happening and maybe saving the world.   Day of the Dead is slow on action, although there are some moments of pure terror, in favor of dialogue.  Although Day of the Dead is the lowest grossing of all the Romero Zombie flicks, it has become a cult favorite with Romero himself referring to it as his favorite of the lot.

This film is about trying to understand what has happened and what should be done, and it features some of the lengthiest infighting and overacting of any of Romero’s previous Zombie films.  And this time around our African American character is Jamaican and really doesn’t want to be bothered with any of this.  He spends his time with the drunk Irish man in their own little created utopia deep underground and away from everyone else.  These two men are smart, but they are not interested in getting involved.  The change of purpose for the African American character is a big departure for Romero, again done intentionally or not. 

Day of the Dead creates two of the most memorable characters from any Romero film and that is the characters of Dr. Frankenstein and Bub.  Frankenstein is a crazed scientist always covered in blood who is trying to domesticate Bub, a zombie.  And although he is crazy, it is Frankenstein who shows the most sound reasoning and probable solution.  Bub is a zombie, but a calm one, who seems to have retained some memory from his “living days”.  He can use a toothbrush, open a book and enjoys music. But most important is that when Frankenstein sticks his hands near Bubs mouth, Bub does not immediately go in for a feeding frenzy. 

The gore in Day of the Dead is top notch and stomach churning, once again being supplied by the great Tom Savini, although this is the last film Savini would do Make Up FX for George for reason’s I still have not been able to discern.  Romero loves his gore and this movie, although slower than the other two has more gore than Dawn and shows a real progress in the FX by Savini, at this point the Go-to man in the industry.

Yes the characters are a bit one dimensional, and at times the acting is hammy and laughable, but this is also easily the darkest of the three zombie films.  Day is filled with nothing but dread and the feeling that it’s already all over.  Frankenstein says that there are probably 400,000 zombies for every 1 human.  But this movie ends similarly to Dawn in that Sarah, the Jamaican and the Irishman survive and take a helicopter to a remote island to hopefully begin anew.  In Day of the Dead mostly those who deserve to die do die, and those who deserve to live do survive, but not completely.

In my opinion, although it would take another 20 years for Romero to make his next zombie film, this so called Trilogy is the work of a master at his craft and the three films that would come out from 2005 on saw the man diminish greatly with the genre he created.

GRADE: B+

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD review

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD (2009)

Director:

George A. Romero

Stars:

Alan Van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh and Kathleen Munroe

“Last time anyone counted, fifty-three million people were dying every year, a hundred-fifty thousand every day, a hundred and seven every minute, and that was in normal times.”

After watching Survival of the Dead, the only thing that was dead was George Romero’s Zombie franchise and Romero’s career.  Now this film is not as bad as the utterly atrocious Diary of the Dead, but it isn’t much better either. 

Thankfully George goes back to the more traditional method of filmmaking and rids himself of his pathetic attempt at first-person camera perspective.  The story here is simple and strange at the same time.  The O’Flynn clan and the Muldoon clan have been feuding for years over a shared piece of land called Plum Island off the coast of Delaware.  Now that a zombie outbreak has occurred, the O’Flynn patriarch goes around shooting the zombies while the Muldoon patriarch believes that the dead should be kept around in the hopes that they can be cured.  This concept is exactly the same territory George covered in Day of the Dead back in 1985, so just like with Diary of the Dead, here we go again with George repeating himself for no other reason than to make another zombie movie with almost no redeeming qualities. 

What we simply have here is an Irish Western Zombie movie.  I know it sounds strange, but that is what George has given us.  All the citizens of Plum Island speak with thick Irish accents and walk around dressed as cowboys.  Even their homes look like they were built in the middle 1800’s.

Alan Van sprang plays Sarge, a member of a military team who is just looking for a way and a place to survive.  It should be noted that George, in a moment of pure dementia and senility, decided to introduce us to the female military person as she has her hand shoved down her pants masturbating while her friend Francisco stands a few feet away chatting it up with her.  All the progress George had made over the years evolving his female characters was thrown out in that one moment. 

At some point Sarge and his team meet up with the exiled Patrick O’Flynn and soon they are all head back to Plum Island.  Once back, the feud continues.  But here Romero is very inconsistent in that Muldoon’s argument is that the zombies shouldn’t be killed, but when we are back with him and his men they seem to be killing every zombie they can.  He claims those who don’t show promise should be killed.  I cannot understand his motives or his change of thought, nor is a true explanation given. 

And of course the third act of the film consists of a good old fashioned western stand-off between the two feuding clans.  We learn that after seeing O’Flynn’s deceased daughter whom we met at the films beginning, that there is actually a twin daughter so the one we thought was dead really wasn’t.  What the fuck George?  What’s the point?

Muldoon captured the deceased O’Flynn daughter to see if she will eat an animal rather than a human, and believes that by capturing her, he will force O’Flynn to realize that the Muldoon was is the true way.  This film is the ultimate pissing match between two old cranky codgers.  In Day of the Dead both sides of the argument stayed with their beliefs until the moment their stances killed them, but here in Survival everyone’s belief systems change at random. 

Ultimately Muldoon and O’Flynn kill each other, while Sarge and a few others escape.  O’Flynn’s surviving daughter puts her hand in her zombie sister’s face and then is shocked when she gets bit.  O’Flynn shoots her just in time to stop her from vocalizing that she saw her zombie sister take a bite from the horse that was in the pen with her, making sure that none of the survivors realize that maybe the zombies can be trained to eat something besides humans.

The final scene in the film is great.  It features O’Flynn and Muldoon standing in front of a giant moon during dusk, both holding empty guns and trying to shoot each other, leaving us to believe that these men will spend the rest of eternity as zombies still feuding because they never learned their lesson.  It’s too bad the entire movie fails to live up to that final scene, and it’s too bad that Romero doesn’t seem to be learning the old adage, “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  ENOUGH ALREADY GEORGE!!!!

GRADE- D

Diary of the Dead Review

Diary of the Dead (2007)

Director:

George A. Romero

Writer:

George A. Romero

Oh how the mighty have fallen.  Diary of the Dead marks George Romero’s fifth entry in his zombie saga.  He seems to be suffering from G.L.S. (George Lucas Syndrome) where his original three films were stellar; then he took a whole bunch of time off, and returned to give us garbage.  Land of the Dead was a decent monster movie lacking in the subtle messages of George’s previous films, but Diary of the Dead is just Romero at his worst.

George went from making a bigger budgeted Zombie Film with Universal the last time out to making a purely independent, back-to-basics film with Diary.  Why George won’t or can’t conform with a studio continues to shock me and has only served to handicap his projects while other, lesser directors get financed to rip him off.

Diary of the Dead is George’s first technically all Canadian film, with entire Canadian cast and crew.  Land of the Dead was shot in Canada but featured American actors.  Land was the first Romero Zombie film to not be shot in Pittsburgh and now Diary has nothing to do with America at all except for the claims that the characters in the film are from that area.  I do not intend to make a racial comment here, but there is something different about Canadian actors and locations that set those actors and films apart from American made and starred films.

George wanted to go back to basics and the beginning so here we are retreading the same waters as in Night of the Living Dead.  Diary takes place at the beginning of the Zombie outbreak, just like Night did, but Diary takes place in 2006 not in 1968, an odd choice for George, but his intention was to have the outbreak take place during an era in America when the internet and technology are all the rage.  The whole reason for this film is to show how citizens, here a group of college students shooting their own horror movie, would react to this chaos if they were equipped with camera’s and internet. 

Romero’s main character Jason Creed spends almost the entire movie behind a camera, as the film is seen and shot mainly through his perspective.  The trouble here is that George fails miserably at creating that same perspective that was so successfully accomplished in BLAIR WITCH and in both PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies.  In Diary we are always aware that there seems to be this mysterious third camera around covering what is obviously not being covered by the first person camera.  The other failure here is the shooting method of Blair Witch and Paranormal gives those films an absolute look of Cinema Verite while Diary of the Dead seems obviously plotted out and the actors don’t for s moment seem like real people, they seem like poorly trained actors.  George could have been on to something if he had created this film to have the look and feel of Paranormal Activity, etc., but he either doesn’t have the drive or he doesn’t retain the talent to pull it off.

The writing in this film is also embarrassing.  George used to be simplistic in his writing, allowing the audience to draw its own conclusions about things, and his social and economical subtexts were always underlying and not in your face.  Here, the message is so often repeated and spoken so loudly it’s as if there is a scroll at the bottom of the screen reminding you that getting these events all on tape is what matters most.  It’s pushed so hard that in scenes where characters are in trouble Jason, holding the camera, doesn’t even stop to try and help his friends.  And in order for him to be successful at holding the camera nonstop, the zombies never come after him. 

And since we have gone back to the beginning of the outbreak, the make-up effects go back to being simplistic and the number of zombies’ goes way down, reversing the trend that with each sequel we get more gore, more decay and more zombies. 

Never once did I care for any of these characters or what they were going through because whereas in Night of the Living Dead those characters seemed scared and confused, these characters seem unable to perform as actors or lend any credibility to Romero’s awful script.  And why did George feel the need to retread on issues and situations he already dealt with prior and with more success?  It’s not like Diary of the Dead made any money with its ultra-limited release.  And why did George have to move everything to Canada?  The man turned his back on Pittsburgh and the United States and Diary is his punishment.  One of the worst zombie films I have ever seen, and to think it came from the inventor of the genre.  Shame on you George.

GRADE: D

SOPRANOS the ENDING!!!!

This is why I feel Tony lived.

The second half of season 6 starts off with the ending of season 5 and in a way continues (sort of ignoring the first part of season 6).  The gun charge gets him arrested, then it goes away, then it comes back as part of a RICO predicate the Feds are using against Tony.
Carlo goes missing.  We find out he is probably giving testimony to the Grand Jury.  Tony's lawyer, who always makes Tony feel better, now is sidetracked by naked women and ketchup.
He tells Tony there is an 80 to 90% chance of inditment.  Tony is frustrated but the lawyer responds, "Trials are there to be won." Not the most reassuring comments we've come to expect from the lawyer of the seasons.

When the show ends, Tony is facing a very probable court case and at this point the Feds may have a very solid case against Tony, therefore putting him in jail for a long time.
If there had been a season 7, I bet it would have dealt with Tony facing trial. Which is something most mobsters face at some point.

All the money spent on the trial would cost the Soprano's dearly. Tony in jail would lead to a power struggle amongst his crew and probably again with New York who itself no longer has a leader (re: Phil Leotardo's death).

I feel the Soprano's had a very clear ending.  I don't think hidden clues and suggestions served any purpose other than to create tension for those final moments.
Remember people were checking their watches knowing there were X amounts of moments left.  They knew the running time of the episode before it aired.  So as they counted down the final moments suddenly it seemed as if their cable went out, which has been widely reported. 

Most people cling to Torciano, Members Only, Baccala's quote, etc. in desparation to explain what they feel.

But the script itself, the death of Phil and the 80 to 90% chance of inditment are very clear plot points that Tony survived the war with New York, but would probably be brought down in the government.
Remember he told Bobby, "Our thing people either wind up in the can or in the morgure."
Why can't people accept that Tony probably wound up in the "can"?

LEXI SCHAFER the Missing Interview

So Dr. Teeth spent some time with LEXI SCHAFER back in 2003 in order to interview for a book he was working on about Blonde Bombshells in the 21st Century.  LEXI SCHAFER and I met at the Galleria in Sherman Oaks, made famous in the movie Valley Girl.  We sat and chatted over coffee

LEXI SCHAFER was dressed in a small white tshirt and jeans.  So simple and yet so cute.  Of course my being used to being surrounded by celebrities I could resist her charms, but only for about ten minutes.....

LEXI SCHAFER was so kind and nice and spoke extensively about her work as a blonde bombshell model recreating the looks of ANNA NICOLE SMITH, MARILYN MONROE and JAYNE MANSFIELD.  She is also known for her many modelling photo's with her pets.

What most people don't know about LEXI SCHAFER is that she is an animal lover and animal rescuer.  She does this for free rather than own a business.  She takes strays into her home and finds them Forever Homes.

This touches me since I own four cats, three dogs and two elephants.  And of course I have an ant collection but thats because I don't clean up my home very well.

LEXI SCHAFER told me she'd adopt my ants and find them a new place to live.  I mean is this girl amazing or what?

My hat is off to you LEXI SCHAFER.  God bless you and the wonderful work you do for all animal-kind.

Dr. Teeth's Average White Man

So I recently have discovered some alarming statistics regarding the horrific homicide rates in Chicago.  Now before I go any further I want you to know that I marched with Dr. King and saw Malcolm X when it came out and I never had a bad thing to say about Oprah, but the statistics show that in the city of Chicago each year 75% of the homicides are committed by African Americans and 76% of African American's are the victims of these crimes.  That's an alarming rate and the numbers speak for themselves.

Now before you go writing me off as a racist, ignorant asshole I want you to realize one thing.....

I DID NOT MAKE THOSE STATISTICS UP FUCKERS!!!

In an attempt to figure out why African Americans kill each other in record numbers I decided to rent John Singleton's 1991 film, BOYZ IN THE HOOD.  I watched this movie several times until I realized the answer lied within Furious Style's speech.

"Well, how you think the crack rock gets into the country? We don’t own any planes. We don’t own no ships. We are not the people who are flyin’ and floatin’ that shit in here. I know every time you turn on the TV that’s what you see, black people, selling the rock, pushing the rock, pushing the rock, yea, I know. But that wasn’t a problem as long as it was here, wasn’t a problem until it was in Iowa and it showed up on Wall Street where there are hardly any black people. Now if you want to talk about uh, guns, why is that there is a gun shop on almost every corner in this community? … Tell you why, for the same reason that there’s a liquor store on almost every corner in the black community. Why? They want us to kill ourselves. You go out to Beverly Hills, you don’t see that shit. But they want us to kill ourselves. Yea, the best way you can destroy a people, you take away their ability to reproduce themselves. Who is it that dyin’ out here on these streets every night? Y’all. Young brothers like yourselves. … You doin’ exactly what they want you to do. You have to think young brother, about your future, huh?"

Well I for one was moved by his speech, but I don't think the White Man wants African American's to off themselves.  I think they want to off themselves.  But I cannot tell you why.  Labeling them as ignorant or animals or criminals is just a short cut to real thought.  

They have higher drop out rates, unemployment rates, incarceration rates, etc..

They are less likely to receive a loan.  They are less likely to own a home.  They are less likely to watch the Brady Bunch (just making sure your paying attention)

But after all is said and done, why are the African American male population under that age of 30 killing each other off in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York in such horrific numbers?

Gangs!  Drugs and money have completely corrupted the black youth and with generations teaching other generations that there is no alternative, the cycle repeats itself over and over. 

And in an age where guns and money seem to equal power, what else would you expect. 

Even the rich and successful African American rappers and actors can't seem to avoid the shootings (Biggie and Tupac) or the fights, (Drake and Chris Brown) and these events occur all the time.

You'd think once they were famous and could get out of the Hood, they would.  But you can take a man out of the Hood, but you can't necessarily take the Hood out of the man.

And that's another part of the problem. 

In the end I will quote a zombie film, "You must stop the killing to win the war."

At least stop listening to the movies, songs, and media. 

Dr. Teeth: A Muppet Amongst Men

What a restless night for Dr. Teeth.  I spent part of my day on the phone with Stella Blue trying to get that train of love back on some sort of forward track, but my own mental disqualifications made my play very difficult.  Imagine Billy Crystal trying to convey to Meg Ryan his love right after a lobotomy and that's how it felt. I felt like the town drunkard in an old black and white film.

The entire day was like a slow motion nightmare to which I couldn't awake.  My own mind was finally turning against me.  Moments of mental emptiness coupled with moments of dry heaving made for a fine Saturday.

There were upshots like receiving the photo's from Lex.  She is such a beautiful and amazing person.  She is the Smurfette in a kingdom of Smurfs.  She stands alone.  But even Lex and a pair of jumper cables couldn't get Dr. Teeth's brain working again.

Depression, uncertainty and loneliness make for strange bedfellows.  I feel like my mind is actually turning to melted butter, but this was no errant LSD trip, no not this time.  This is life how I know it.

And after a few hours of work, where I managed to come alive.  It was back home in the safe sanctity of my "hospital bed".  Where I lie, where I hide, where I moan, and where I'll probably die.

Late night gives itself over to sleep.  What a relief to sleep.  The only way to escape being awake.  But then those dreams begin.  The Using Dreams.

Using Dreams are common amongst addicts.  In these dreams we are using the drugs we shouldn't be in the waking world, and sometimes these dreams of using are great but sometimes they are nightmarish. In the beginning the dream would start the second after I took that first hit.  Now they mainly involve me purchasing  or being involved somewhere in the drug world.  But at some point no matter the style of the Using Dream, I will get high.  And within the dream I will realize that I have relapsed.

Usually these dreams will end in my waking up nervous as a man on a tightrope, only to realize that it was a dream and that I haven't lost my sobriety. It was only a ill-mannered dream meant to make me worry.

The part of the dream I like is waking up realizing I hadn't used though.  Its always a relief.

Dr. Teeth needs to find a hobby.  But more importantly he needs to have the mental capacity and ability to actually get out of bed and do it.  So far he's struck out........