A few films recently watched.

[J3FF3R00]

roger eberts review from 79.

 

Dawn of the Dead

 

BY ROGER EBERT / May 4, 1979

 

 

Cast & Credits

With David Emge, Ken Foree, Scoff H. Reiniger and, Gaylen Ross.

 

United Film Distribution presents a film written and directed by George A. Romero and produced by Richard P. Rubenstein. Music by the Goblins with Dario Argento. Special effects by Tom Savini. Not Rated.

 

 

"Dawn of the Dead" is one of the best horror films ever made -- and, as an inescapable result, one of the most horrifying. It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling. It is also (excuse me for a second while I find my other list) brilliantly crafted, funny, droll, and savagely merciless in its satiric view of the American consumer society. Nobody ever said art had to be in good taste.

 

It's about a mysterious plague that sweeps the nation, causing the recently dead to rise from their graves and roam the land, driven by an insatiable hunger for living flesh. No explanation is offered for this behavior -- indeed, what explanation would suffice? -- but there is a moment at which a survivor solemnly intones: "When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth."

 

Who's that a quotation from? From George A. Romero, who wrote and directed "Dawn of the Dead" as a sequel to his "Night of the Living Dead," which came out in 1968 and still plays the midnight circuit as a cult classic.

 

If you have seen "Night," you will recall it as a terrifying horror film punctuated by such shocking images as zombies tearing human flesh from limbs. "Dawn" includes many more scenes like that, more graphic, more shocking, and in color. I am being rather blunt about this because there are many people who will not want to see this film. You know who you are. Why are you still reading?

 

Well ... maybe because there's a little of the ghoulish voyeur in all of us. We like to be frightened. We like a good creepy thrill. It's just, we say, that we don't want a movie to go too far. What's too far? "The Exorcist"? "The Omen"? George Romero deliberately intends to go too far in "Dawn of the Dead." He's dealing very consciously with the ways in which images can affect us, and if we sit through the film (many people cannot) we make some curious discoveries.

 

One is that the fates of the zombies, who are destroyed wholesale in all sorts of terrible ways, don't affect us so much after awhile. They aren't being killed, after all: They're already dead. They're even a little comic, lurching about a shopping center and trying to plod up the down escalator. Romero teases us with these passages of humor. We relax, we laugh, we see the satire in it all, and then -- pow! Another disembowelment, just when we were off guard.

 

His story opens in a chaotic television studio, where idiotic broadcasters are desperately transmitting inaccurate information (one hopes the Emergency Broadcast System will do a whole lot better). National Guard troops storm public housing, where zombies have been reported. There are 10 minutes of unrelieved violence, and then the story settles down into the saga of four survivors who hijack a helicopter, land on the roof of a suburban shopping center, and barricade themselves inside against the zombies.

 

Their eventual fates are not as interesting as their behavior in the meantime; there is nothing quite like a plague of zombies to wonderfully focus your attention on what really matters to you. Romero has his own ideas, too, and the shopping center becomes a brilliant setting for a series of comic and satiric situations: Some low humor, some exquisitely sly.

 

But, even so, you may be asking, how can I defend this depraved trash? I do not defend it. I praise it. And it is not depraved, although some reviews have seen it that way. It is about depravity.

 

If you can see beyond the immediate impact of Romero's imagery, if you can experience the film as being more than just its violent extremes, a most unsettling thought may occur to you: The zombies in "Dawn of the Dead" are not the ones who are depraved. They are only acting according to their natures, and, gore dripping from their jaws, are blameless.

 

The depravity is in the healthy survivors, and the true immorality comes as two bands of human survivors fight each other for the shopping center: Now look who's fighting over the bones! But "Dawn" is even more complicated than that, because the survivors have courage, too, and a certain nobility at times, and a sense of humor, and loneliness and dread, and are not altogether unlike ourselves. A-ha.

[halisray]

Thor - 6/10

 

Cool effects.

Same old story line.

Evil brother, lover mortal, guy loses powers, gets them back, beats the bad guy, and so on.

 

Sigh... why did I just waste $12 to see this?

[Atop]

Odin, Loki and Thor's relationship is indeed an old storyline. An amazing tale I think.

 

'Thor' did not portray it as well as an in depth mythological based film could, nor accurately, but I have never seen Norse mythology on film, so this was not the same old superhero film. I enjoyed the fuck out of it.

 

Don't go see films that you know you might not like, FUCK!

 

*reads Ulysses*

[AJW]

Romero is and will always be an hack, seems people just accepted that those movies were great and ran with it, they aren't, "dawn of the dead' is a masterpiece" fucking lol, a movie with painted light blue/purple zombies a masterpiece.

 

Hack or no hack, inspired by anothers work or not. Regardless, Night Of The Living Dead is in no way a bad film.

 

A bit lol that you got through all three films without anything seeping through, and 28 Days Later? More of a gore/action flick than zombies in the proper sense.

 

 

 

Watched Rashomon for the first time last night, completely enthralling. Recommendations for more Kurosawa? I've seen this and Seven Samurai.

[keltoi]

Recommendations for more Kurosawa? I've seen this and Seven Samurai.

 

definately watch yojimbo and sanjuro next.

i can recommend throne of blood and the hidden fortress.

ran is impressively grandiose, epic (from his later stuff).

[dr lopez]

every fucking shot in throne of blood is a work of art. it is amazing.

 

also ikiru

[patternoverlap]

Queen Beetle Conquers Tokyo - Fun, if a bit whimsical/artsy in places, documentary about Japan's love for insects. Excellent soundtrack as well.

[baph]

Recommendations for more Kurosawa? I've seen this and Seven Samurai.

 

definately watch yojimbo and sanjuro next.

i can recommend throne of blood and the hidden fortress.

ran is impressively grandiose, epic (from his later stuff).

 

Ran is a complete masterpiece, but brush up on King Lear first.

Kagemusha is great, too.

 

 

Ikiru and Red Beard are also really good, but Kurosawa could push the sentimental angle a little hard sometimes.

[AJW]

A big thanks for the recommendations. Hard to imagine Kurosawa making colour films, that black and white he does is so intensely crisp! but I see some of his later titles are in fact in colour.

 

 

 

Mr. Vampire - what great fun this film is, "what are you talking about, there is no hospital this is a b movie" even the translators were mucking around. Great balance of humor and stunts. And jumping vampires.

[Guest futuregirlfriend]

Beau Pere - Very good.

[Guest Coalbucket PI]

Six Shooter, by Martin McDonagh of In Bruges fame. Very good and funny short film. Brendan Gleeson is great but this guy just writes fucking nice dialogue.

 

28 Days Later? More of a gore/action flick than zombies in the proper sense.

 

This just sounds stupid. It's a film about zombies. What's the proper sense of zombies? It can be other things too but it's a zombie movie.

[Guest Z_B_Z]

true zombies dont run.

[Guest disparaissant]

 

28 Days Later? More of a gore/action flick than zombies in the proper sense.

 

This just sounds stupid. It's a film about zombies. What's the proper sense of zombies? It can be other things too but it's a zombie movie.

zombies are the undead, not people with some mutated rabies virus

a-duh

[awesomeperson]

 

Hack or no hack, inspired by anothers work or not. Regardless, Night Of The Living Dead is in no way a bad film.

 

A bit lol that you got through all three films without anything seeping through, and 28 Days Later? More of a gore/action flick than zombies in the proper sense.

 

Didn't I mention the social commentary earlier? How's that nothing? Explain yourself.

 

Zombies in the traditional sense were dead people who came to life but even Romero broke that and many other zombie "rules" that people today accept like how they can't use objects and such... he was experimenting and exploring the genre, so yes I don't care if purists don't think 28 Days Later wasn't a traditional zombie movie, it was better than any zombie movie I'd seen, love that movie, hate the sequel so much...

 

80's ruined the zombie genre, I understand if people respect Romero Dead trilogy since they aren't trashy and are actually coherent and stings american commercialism culture (which doesn't mean much to me) but as movies they're not great, you can't put them in the same spot as Repulsion or A Clockwork Orange.

 

I don't like Roger Eberts or paid reviewers in general but I've read what he wrote and he doesn't mention anything I didn't notice while watching Dawn, guess I just don't care for Romero zombies, Eberts probably never seen a Euro horror at the time of the review, his awareness of the genre is and probably was very minimal.

[Guest Z_B_Z]

as far as euro horror is concerned, im sure ebert had at least seen 'susperia' in 79.

[Guest Z_B_Z]

and thinking about it some more, im sure he had/has at least a competent knowledge of euro horror. theres no way he went through the 70s without seeing a fulci film.

[Guest disparaissant]

i dunno man ebert tends to not really like horror from what i've seen

 

anyways we all know the true best zombie film ever is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkUdGkIwMFQ

[AJW]

 

Hack or no hack, inspired by anothers work or not. Regardless, Night Of The Living Dead is in no way a bad film.

 

A bit lol that you got through all three films without anything seeping through, and 28 Days Later? More of a gore/action flick than zombies in the proper sense.

 

Didn't I mention the social commentary earlier? How's that nothing? Explain yourself.

 

Zombies in the traditional sense were dead people who came to life but even Romero broke that and many other zombie "rules" that people today accept like how they can't use objects and such... he was experimenting and exploring the genre, so yes I don't care if purists don't think 28 Days Later wasn't a traditional zombie movie, it was better than any zombie movie I'd seen, love that movie, hate the sequel so much...

 

80's ruined the zombie genre, I understand if people respect Romero Dead trilogy since they aren't trashy and are actually coherent and stings american commercialism culture (which doesn't mean much to me) but as movies they're not great, you can't put them in the same spot as Repulsion or A Clockwork Orange.

 

I don't like Roger Eberts or paid reviewers in general but I've read what he wrote and he doesn't mention anything I didn't notice while watching Dawn, guess I just don't care for Romero zombies, Eberts probably never seen a Euro horror at the time of the review, his awareness of the genre is and probably was very minimal.

 

If the things in 28 Days Later infact are zombies, then they're unlike the ones in films like Night Of The Living Dead to an extent where you can't really compare the two.

Likewise with the mood; Night has slow moving, groaning zombies gradually encroaching on the living where 28 has rage fuelled people that act like they're on PCP or something to that effect. The whole behaviour of the zombies in 28 bear too many comparisons to a living thinking human. Coupled with the fast paced editing and effects it makes for a good action film though. I suppose it boils down to how you define a zombie.

 

Romeros films are not exactly pieces of art no, but Night especially has a defining mood to it which makes it a classic.

 

And yes, the sequel to 28 was very bad.

[awesomeperson]

My favorite scene in Braindead is when the priest jumps in and starts doing all these kung-fu kicks, I laughed so hard at that part, even today just thinking about it.

 

AJW I get your point but to me the poster for Night had better atmosphere and mood than the actual film and I was disappointed that the film didn't match it at all (imo), was expecting much more.

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

bridesmaids

it was good but my expectations were higher. sometimes the humour fell flat (like bad improv) but mostly it hit

[baph]

i dunno man ebert tends to not really like horror from what i've seen

 

anyways we all know the true best zombie film ever is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkUdGkIwMFQ

 

Goddammit, I miss the real Peter Jackson.

[sneaksta303]

My favorite scene in Braindead is when the priest jumps in and starts doing all these kung-fu kicks, I laughed so hard at that part, even today just thinking about it.

 

haha me too. "I KICK ASS FOR THE LORD!"

[blackdust]

pirates 4 - 8/10 pretty fun and funny, also first anything I have seen in imax maybe that's cause of a higher rating, or maybe its cause they got rid of knight and bloom that its better

[Guest futuregirlfriend]

Dogtooth - Very good

Les Valseuses - Also very good. Haven't seen many Bertrand Blier films but none have disappointed.

[essines]

God i am watching commando and it is the best fucking movie ever. jesus fucking christ.