Trilogy of the Dead
by Marcus on December 15, 2007
It’s 5:57 AM and I just finished watching the three classic zombie movies by George A. Romero.
Released in 1968 this is the first movie in the Dead Series, it’s shot in black and white and is seen by most people as the defining influence on the way zombies are portrayed today. The setting is simple, a group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a rural farmhouse. Before I start criticizing the movie I should mention I have a hard time seeing popular, old movies in the perspective they deserve. A movie like Night of the Living Dead would, of course, be horrible if released today but 40 years ago it was very popular and extremely gory. So, even though the editing is ridiculously bad, the acting is horrible and the zombies are quite comical it’s still worth a watch.
The sequel came out 10 years later, in 1978. Once again we follow a group of people, this time seeking refuge in a secluded shopping mall. Compared to its predecessor it focuses more on the effects a zombie apocalypse would have on society, and it’s also a lot more comical. I quite liked the 2004 remake and I’ve been wanting to see the original for a long time. As mentioned, the movie isn’t really about a struggle against zombies, sure there are lot of run ins with the undead, but they never seem threatening. They are extremely slow and clumsy, and never seem to be able to bite even though they’ve grabbed somebody. Still, the movie is pretty awesome, I should mention I love post apocalyptic movies, and Dawn of the Dead really nails that part. It’s longer than the other two, appr. two hours and 20 minutes, but I was never bored, even though you just follow the characters around in the mall, barricading stuff and exploring. The make up and special effects are also very well made, even though all the zombies are painted in weird blue or green colors. The gore is very explicit, all gun wounds result in exploding cascades of blood, no matter where the zombies are hit, so you’ll definitely have a laugh watching it.
I knew nothing of the third movie in the series, and didn’t expect much, but it was surprisingly good. This time we follow a group of scientists and soldiers in a military base underground, the scientists’ leader, Dr. Logan, is determined to make the zombies behave as we want them to, as killing all of them is impossible. The soldiers are growing weary and impatient of the lack of results. The movie’s setting is very cool, although you begin to miss nature scenes, especially after watching Dawn of the Dead. The base is built in a huge cavern, most of it is closed off, a huge maze of caves, and that’s where they bring zombies, so whenever they need new specimen to examine they can bring them in like cattle. The special effects are mind blowing, they would be acceptable even today, and this movie is more than 20 years old. Since this was released seven years after Dawn of the Dead they’re now using realistic looking blood instead of the weird ketchup-red stuff they used before. This also makes the zombies a lot scarier than in its predecessor, that and the fact that they’re actually a threat. They still move slow, but whenever they get a hold of somebody you’re done for, this movie has some of the most violent zombie killing scenes I’ve ever seen, and Rodriguez was obviously heavily inspired by this movie when he made Planet Terror. For instance, Doc Block looks exactly like one of the scientists in Day of the Dead (he can be seen at 7:58 in this clip). The movie is mainly interesting because of all the theoretic talk about how zombies work and how they can be manipulated, and one zombie, Bub, has a pretty big role in the movie.
Xbox 360 becomes more awesome
by Marcus on December 10, 2007
With the recent fall update of Xbox 360, Microsoft introduced a series of new features. I haven't really gone in to depth with checking them out, except for two. The first one is Xbox Originals, a service that let's you download original Xbox games for the console, they cost 1,200 Microsoft Points, which is around 110 DKK, so far the following games have been released on Xbox Originals:
Halo: Combat Evolved
Fable
Psychonauts
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
Fuzion Frenzy
Fahrenheit
I've been wanting to try Fable, Fahrenheit and Crimson Skies for a long time, and 110 DKK is pretty cheap for those games. So far I've bought Crimson Skies, it takes up 4.1 GBs of space though, so I have to be careful not to fill my hard disk with games.
The other awesome feature is DivX and Xvid playback, I tested it yesterday by putting an Xvid video of 28 Weeks Later on my USB Drive, inserting the drive into the 360's port and then playing it from the media section. It runs very smooth, you can even rewind and go fast forward, and if you stop watching you can resume the playback later. Now I just want to be able to download tv shows and movies, a feature that's been available in the US for some quite sometime. Today it will actually also launch in UK, Ireland, France and Germany, but it'll probably still be some time before we see it in Denmark.
2nd Project with Egmont
by Marcus on December 3, 2007
The second movie project is right around the corner, here at the European Film College. The theme of the first project was musicals, this time around we’re doing it a bit different though. The school has made an agreement with Egmont, the big Scandinavian media group who owns most of TV 2 Norge, all the rights to sell Sony products in Scandinavia (which means there are a bunch of PSPs and a PlayStation 3 in our Reading Room at the moment) and a lot more. Their 2006 revenue was circa 9 billion DKK.
The agreement is quite simple, we’re going to make a series of one minutes movies for them, which will be shown on their website, at conventions (as an introduction to what Egmont is all about) and maybe even in Danish television. We can more or less make whatever we want, the logline of the movies have to be “We bring stories to life” since that’s also the slogan of Egmont. We do have to include some of their products in some of the movies though, but that can be an issue of Donald Duck in the background or something simple like that. I’m going to be writing the script for at least one movie, so I’m looking forward to that a lot. The production starts next week.
Review: Stardust
by Marcus on December 1, 2007
Spoilers ahead!
After watching The Seeker (or The Dark is Rising, or whatever you wanna call it) I was actually looking forward to Stardust. It seemed like a more mature fantasy movie compared to most of what’s on the market now, ie. it hasn’t got a kid in the lead role. The plot is quite simple, in a countryside town bordering on a magical land, a young man, Tristan, makes a promise to his beloved Victoria (Miller) that he’ll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm. Inside he meets the star, in the form of a girl, Yvaine (Danes).
I don’t think I’ve seen a movie that varies so much between really good and extremely bad. The script could really have used a couple of rewrites, the movie would’ve been a lot better. All in all, the movie suffers a lot under the writers taken advantage of creative licence. On the other hand, the movie is funny as hell, and the fight scenes are awesome; for example, the protagonist has to fight a corpse being controlled by the main antagonist, a witch (Pfeiffer), who’s manipulating a wax figure, one witch is hit by a flying sword making her crash into the wall and a goat-turned-human tries to head butt an unicorn, which also sets him flying into a wall. Also, Robert De Niro’s character Sheakspeare, a flying pirat who collects lightning, is very cool. You’re initially totally convinced he’s a psychopath who’s gonna rape Yvaine, but as it turns out he’s a fruity transvestite. Another antagonist is one of the seven heirs to the throne, Septimus, who’s searching for a ruby Yvaine’s got, which will make him king. The entire story line about the heirs is very entertaining as well, it starts out in their castle with the four remaining sons of the king, who explains that the son who finds the ruby will be the king (although the tradition is that the last surviving son will be the king), so the four sons set out to find the ruby and kill their brothers, a killing spree that starts of in the king’s chamber as one son is pushed over the balcony and the king laughs hysterically. Also, the sons have blue blood; a nice little touch. One of the really bad and cliché parts though, is the fact that Tristan is the last heir to the throne, because his mother, who’s been imprisoned by a with since he was born is the long lost daughter of the king (all the sons die).
There’s also a lot of cliché crap, for example, the witch, who’s trying to kill the star, thus being able to live forever. She has at least three chances to kill her but doesn’t. As mentioned the writers also took advantage of their creative licence, there are a lot of coincidences and stuff that doesn’t make sense, for example the part with the witch not killing the girl when she’s got the chance. The ending especially ruins a lot of the movie, first of all, after Tristan falls in love with Yvaine he goes back to the real world to tell his former love, Yvaine misunderstands this so she thinks he doesn’t love her, and the setup is just ridiculous. Afterwards Tristan is fighting with the witch, she is about to kill him, but then she cracks down because her sisters are dead and she has nothing to live for anymore, at this point you could literally hear the cinema go ‘WHAT?!’ Seconds later, as the couple is leaving, she starts laughing and shuts all the doors with her magic, okay, it was just a trick, stupid. Then Yvaine hugs Tristan and suddenly a blinding light from within her disintegrates the witch… Apparently she couldn’t do this before, because ‘she needed Tristan’, kinda dumb.
All in all it was a bit disappointing compared to what I had hoped for, but I’d still recommend it.
Stardust: 6/10.
Movies I’m looking forward to
by Marcus on November 30, 2007
Plot Outline: “A genetic anomaly allows a young man to teleport himself anywhere. He discovers this gift has existed for centuries and finds himself in a war that has been raging for thousands of years between “Jumpers” and those who have sworn to kill them.”
Starring: Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson.
Trailer: HD 480p*
Why I’m excited: The concept is awesome, just check the trailer. I’m looking so much forward to the action scenes.
Why it may suck: Hayden Christensen.
Plot Outline: “Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable, and man-made. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and maybe the world.”
Starring: Will Smith.
Trailer: HD 480p (1), HD 480p (2)*
Why I’m excited: Once again, check the trailer, the concept is just cool, and the look of the movie is pretty cool. I have a thing for post-apocalyptic worlds, so I’m really looking forward for this one.
Why it may suck: Well, Will Smith has starred in a lot of crap. As seen in the trailer he fights zombie like creatures, which is pretty cool, but it’s also quite easy to ruin the movie. Also, I have no idea what the story line of the movie is, so I can’t really say much about it.
Plot Outline: “Laura returns to the house where she was raised, and decides to transform it into an orphanage. Soon, her son, Simón, makes an invisible friend…”
Starring: Some Spanish actors.
Trailer: HD 480p*
Why I’m excited: It seems to have the style of Pan’s Labyrinth, in some way, and children with masks are fucking scary.
Why it may suck: Well, it may just be another mediocre horror movie, it’s been a long, long time since a proper movie of that genre was made, outside Japan.
Plot Outline: “Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.”
Starring: Unknown actors (yay!),
Trailer: HD 480p*
Why I’m excited: I love Lost, and this seems to be mysterious in a Lostish kind of way.
Why it may suck: It won’t (please).
Plot Outline: “Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.”
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, and more.
Trailers: HD 480p (1), HD 480p (2)*
Why I’m excited: I love the Coen Brothers, and the has gotten great reviews.
Why it may suck: As Cloverfield, I doubt it will.
* All trailers can be downloaded in 480p by right-clicking the link and pressing ‘Save Link As…’. You may have to rename the file extension to .mov afterwards. All trailers can be downloaded in other formats on Dave’s Trailer Page.