Category: Film
Zombies Go Mainstream… and it Doesn’t Bite
Lately, television and film have been flooded with sexy charactertures of Hollywood monsters. Vampires have become the glittering fantasies in teenage girl’s dreams and werewolves are now shirtless sex icons with rippling abs and wicked tats.
All in all, this isn’t that surprising because vampires and werewolves are inherently sexy. They are young and beautiful forever with an unbearable urge to ravage you, and in the case of vampires, literally suck the life out of you. These monsters have now softened up, but the basis remains… they are ageless, sexy and overwhelmingly attractive to young audiences. Zombies are not.
So, how have zombies become the next new/old big thing in Hollywood? In the past, the living undead were relegated to low-budget horror flicks whose main goal was to see how much red-colored corn syrup they could splash on the screen… and it was awesome. With the release of Marc Forster’s World War Z starring Brad Pitt last week zombies have officially gone mainstream.
The genre was created by George A. Romero when he released the ground-breaking late-night horror film Night of the Living Dead in 1968. In the years following, Romero became the end-all-be-all in zombie lore and culture, releasing smash zombie hits every few years including Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead.
In more recent years, zombies have taken on all new facets. Oscar-winner Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later… made zombies terrifyingly fast and bloodthirsty. The Simon Pegg horror comedy Shaun of the Dead made zombies a hilarious parody and the subsequent Hollywood take on the zombie horror comedy Zombieland finally gave the genre a budget.
AMC’s The Walking Dead has made zombies a weekly thing for horror fans and an actual zombie culture featuring books, conventions and massive amounts of makeup have all sprung from the small black and white movie made by Romero for a measly $114,000.
Despite the genres hugely successful history, World War Z is the first major mainstream project to take zombies seriously. Like Boyle, Forster’s monsters are fast and unrelenting, but the twist is in the funding the film received.
With a star like Pitt ready to face the undead and a budget that is more than 100 times what Romero was working with in ’68, Forster is able to show us how the rest of the world would handle the zombie apocalypse. In most cases, our heroes are relegated to a single location, a house, a mall or if they’re lucky an entire dead city, but Pitt has more pull than that.
As former UN Investigator Gerry Lane, he is recruited to fly around the world to discover the origins of this new and fast growing disease. With America faltering, he heads to Korea, Israel and Europe in response to the chaos.
It’s probably important to point out World War Z is PG-13 and all of the gore that is typically associated with the genre is cut and replaced by high-tension moments and off-screen screams, but the spirit still remains.
The interest lies in seeing how far the stumbling monsters Romero created so long ago who were hungry for brains and other yummy innards have come. Officially, zombies have become mainstream and there is no coming back from that distinction, but maybe it isn’t totally a bad thing. Maybe even next time we’ll get to see an A-list actor get his brains chomped on.
Out of Left Field: What Makes a Good Baseball Movie
For one reason or the other, sports are one of the hardest things to translate onto the silver screen, which is surprising because of the natural drama that is created on the field, the court or the diamond. Every sport has its defining moments and characters in history that have shaped eras, but those moments rarely create great fiction.
Exceptions to the rule include the uber-patriotic Miracle and the sappy but always tear-jerking classic Brian’s Song, but baseball films tend to lack that same passion and drama in recent years.
This is particularly surprising due to baseball’s long history and tremendously entertaining leading characters. Babe Ruth drank like a fish and ate up the press every minute of the day, but 1992’s The Babe fell flat. Ty Cobb once nearly beat a fan to death during a game, but 1994’s Cobb went mostly unnoticed.
Recently, 42 the story of Jackie Robinson’s trepidatious first year with the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first African American to play organized white baseball tried to break this spell. Although it is a fine film with a great performance by Harrison Ford as Baseball Hall of Famer Branch Rickey it too falls short of that dramatic punch that fictionalized stories like The Natural and Field of Dreams thrive off of.
There are few true (or mostly true) films that get you there. A League of There Own and Eight Men Out illustrate small parts of baseball history wonderfully while the filmmakers still display a keen knowledge of the sport and a love of the game. Moneyball also is a good flick, but it sticks mostly with the movements in the front office than of that on the field.
Humor is also an important part of what makes baseball so great. The Bad News Bears, Major League and Bull Durham all mix the comedy of errors that baseball is on the field and off incredibly well.
In the end, only a few baseball movies have truly hit the mark well. Bull Durham and The Natural are quite often sited as two of the best, but many more with good intention, such as For the Love of the Game and The Rookie have fallen just short.
With all the drama and fun surrounding the great game of baseball it is hard to say what must be done to make a great baseball film. Humor is an important factor, but the heart-pounding action and drama that is so rarely seen in sports films is also a necessity.
So while I sit here and wait for the next Natural to hit the theaters, maybe something truly fresh will sneak up on me when I least expect it. Play Ball!
And the Nerds Inherit the Earth
It used to be tough out there for a wimp. In the ’80s and ’90s nerds were nothing but comedic after thoughts for jocks and dropouts to laugh at as they jammed them into lockers. Anthony Michael Hall literally had to create a woman that would give him the time of day (even Ally Sheedy got Emilio), Screech couldn’t land a date with Lisa to save his life and though Revenge of the Nerds was awesome not even Robert Carradine could ever land a gig that didn’t require thick-rimmed glasses.
But if you havn’t noticed, things have changed for the socially awkward, vertically challenged and chronically asthmatic as of late. The nerdly sidekicks have become award-winning stars and in some cases even get the girl! Hall had an inspired stint in The Dead Zone, Carradine and Nerds costar Curtis Armstrong host a reality gameshow centered around geek culture and Screech… well let’s not talk about Screech.
With the entertainment industry fluttering over the awkward, quirky and intelligent it’s only right to acknowledge the nerdiest of them all with the top 5 geeks in entertainment:
Joss Whedon: The creator of nerd favorite television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it’s spinoff Angel, he has also invented two cult classic series that ended before their time in Firefly and Dollhouse. This past year he lived out every nerd’s dream when he directed the massive blockbuster, superhero smash The Avengers. Nothing is slowing this nerd down as his followup Cabin in the Woods (written by Whedon and directed by Buffy alum Drew Goddard) was a fun and scary romp of satire and homage.
Dr. Sheldon Cooper: While Sheldon may not exactly be real, Jim Parsons’ portrayal of this obsessive compulsive genius in The Big Bang Theory has made him one of the most popular characters on television. Cooper has coined numerous catch phrases (Bazinga!) and caused a spike in The Flash t-shirts. Parsons has also won two Emmys and a Golden Globe for the role, but that’s neither here not there.
Felicia Day: Her first appearance in nerdom was when she guest starred in the final season of Buffy as a prospective slayer, but since then Day has become the premier female character actor on only the geekiest of television shows. Her breakout role was playing Codex, the nerdy yet lovable lead in The Guild a popular web-series created by Day herself. Since then she has starred in Whedon’s web-series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and has had small roles in Dollhouse, Eureka and Supernatural.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: There’s already one fake scientist on this list, how about a real one? This American astrophysicist is best known for his push and eventual success in officially declassifying Pluto as the ninth planet in 2006. More recently, deGrasse Tyson continues to be a forerunner in his field as well as being a frequent guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show and the king of all nerd shows Jeopardy.
Pauley Perrette: Better known as Abby Sciuto, the tattooed rocker chick who doubles as Mark Harmon’s forensic scientist in the extremely popular crime drama N.C.I.S., Perrette has become one of the most recognized characters on television during the show’s ten-year run. With her trademark Big Gulp, long black hair and occasional studded collar she has became a frequent fantasy for nerds and geeks alike.
There they are. The leaders of the loser, the sultans of social awkwardness, the deans of dork and also some of the most interesting and fun people in the entertainment industry. The nerds are here to stay as cult classics become mainstream and the unnoticed become the center of attention. GO GEEK!
Why David O. Russell is the Best Director in Hollywood
When the glitz and glam of the Academy Awards strut down the red carpet this evening all the cameras and Ryan Seacrests in the press will be focused on the likes of Oscar-shoe-ins Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) and Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), but one of the most interesting awards to be given tonight is for Best Director.
Many are billing it as a two-horse race between directorial juggernaut Steven Spielberg (also Lincoln) and the Asian sensation Ang Lee (The Life of Pi), each previous and well-deserved Oscar winners. While this may be true, fellow nominee David O. Russell has quickly become the single most interesting filmmaker in the business.
The innovative film school punks of the 1970s led by the likes of Spielberg, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese revitalized the industry, but in recent years their impact has seemingly dwindled. Lucas sold his piggy bank of a film franchise to entertainment behemoth Disney and has been hold up at Skywalker ranch (presumably watching and rewatching Revenge of the Sith), Scorsese has gone soft due to the influence of his young children, and our Oscar favorite Spielberg has directed and/or produced epic blockbusters while atop the mound of Benjamins he keeps on his 282-foot megayacht.
While these Greek Gods of filmmaking have still produced some of the most successful, entertaining and acclaimed films in recent memory, over the last fifteen years Russell has cemented a spot for himself in yearly Oscar talks. Since his breakthrough hit Three Kings (starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube) Russell’s writing and directorial style has been noticed for his innate ability to mix intense drama and wry humor.
In 2010, he finally broke through to the yearly extravagance that is the Academy Awards, earning a Oscar nom for directing The Fighter (as well as wins for his stars Christian Bale and Melissa Leo). The film, also starring Wahlberg and Amy Adams, earned a total of seven nominations and gave Russell the freedom to pursue a project like one of this year’s Oscar favorites Silver Linings Playbook.
Drawn to the films subject matter due to his son’s sufferings from Bi-polar Disorder and OCD, Russell set out to make a personal film and at the same time made one of the most popular films of the year and most original rom coms of all time.
Russell’s impact on his actors in undeniable, and in the last three years has earned 15 nominations between two films, including seven for his starring and supporting actors. Tonight’s eight nominations for Silver Linings Playbook makes it among the favorites and even though Spielberg or Lee will probably walk away with that little, gold statue Russell will be the most important director there tonight.
Insert Annoying Title Here
Sly Stallone hits the big screen again today with the ridiculously named action thriller Bullet to the Head. Despite this film’s uncreative and most likely appropriate name, it doesn’t even begin to approach the most maddening film title of all time: Rambo: First Blood Part II.
At least Bullet to the Head has a good excuse, being based on and named for the French graphic novel Du Plomb Dans La Tete which roughly translates to (you guessed it) Bullet to the Head, but is often referred to as Headshot. 1985’s First Blood Part II is a sequel to Stallone’s original Rambo flick First Blood.
Not only does the sequel have a dumbfoundingly confusing title (how can their be a second first?), Part II has nothing to do with the earlier film, except for the inclusion of John Rambo and his perpetually sneering superior Col. Trautman (played by Richard Crenna). In fact, it doesn’t even take place on the same continent!
Rambo returns from the events of the earlier film (which took place in Washington) as he is sent back to Vietnam in order to rescue some POWs. Stallone and James Cameron’s script isn’t completely horrible, but it has no relation whatsoever to First Blood, so how the hell can this gruesomely explosive body count of a film ever be called part II?
Sly slaps the most upsetting and unsettling film title of all time on his first of three sequels to First Blood. And even though the original film is a pretty good action flick, the laughable sequel only begins with the headache of a title.
Though, Rambo: First Blood Part II is not even close to the worst film of all time (it’s not even the worst of the Rambos), it’s title will put it among the most irritating films in memory. The very least the producers could have done is include an absurd subtitle, First Blood Part II: STILL BLEEDING has a ring to it.
Mostly I'm Right 