Movies

Zombies are all the rage nowadays. Sure, they've always been around but now it seems like they're in everything. Even Captain America has been zombified, is nothing sacred anymore? Actually, it's all pretty cool but I think it's gone a bit too far. Over saturation isn't good for anything, or anyone, unless you're making your living off of this new fad. Herein lies the problem. In our Mountain Dew Gamer Fuel culture, if it isn't EXTREME! then it isn't going to sell, and there isn't a whole lot extreme about zombies... Traditional zombies are slow moving, dim witted and relatively easy to neutralize. Dump a little gamer fuel on your zombies though and you've got Rage infected, scheming, juggernauts that keep you on the edge of your seat while the busty survivor does her best to live until the sun comes up. Here are just a few reasons why a zombie fad is a bad thing for the genre.

    Bruce Campbell is a bad ass. Always has been, always will be. The first time I saw Bruce Campbell was probably in Evil Dead II as Ash. Evil Dead II was an awesome movie about a guy and his girl friend who get stranded in a creepy cabin out in the woods. Sound lame? Yeah, it's a pretty cliche set up, but Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell pull it off. This wasn't just some slasher movie, it was hilariously funny and still a bit gory. Army of Darkness was the follow up to the Evil Dead movies and, in my opinion, even better. I've enjoyed all of Bruce Campbell's movies and if I could be bothered to read a book, I'd probably enjoy the hell out of his books... but for now I'll stick to the movies.

    Non-nerds are no doubt not familiar with the Postal franchise. Postal started out as a crappy computer game in the late 90s. Postal 2 was the breakthrough game of the franchise as it was built from the ground up to be the most offensive and violent game ever developed. Postal 2 wasn't revolutionary mechanically speaking, it was basically Grand Theft Auto 3 but in first-person mode and you couldn't drive the cars. Postal was a cult favorite because you could blow up pretty much anything, dismember fools and even piss on people. In fact, you can make the NPCs piss themselves... and vomit. There wasn't much of a story to the Postal games, the main character didn't even have a name... he was always just called "the Postal Dude." So when I head they were making a Postal movie, I wasn't expecting a whole lot...

    Everybody likes zombie movies. There is just something indescribably satisfying about watching a zombie get his comeuppance. For my money though I think the absurd zombie movies are the best way to get your zombie fix. Sure, movies like Dawn of the Dead (the original) and Night of the Living Dead (either the original or the remake) are good movies but they are intended to be taken seriously, which makes them a little lame. The same can be said for the Resident Evil movies and 28 Days/Weeks Later. They were fun to watch but nowhere as fun as Shaun of the Dead. And this leads me to my thesis, which is, light-hearted zombie movies are infinitely more fun to watch than serious ones. Do you disagree? Leave a comment!

    David Lynch makes some of the most fun films out there. Lynch's films are fun in a different way than most of the 'mainstream' movies that come out. Sure, everyone likes Will Ferrell, his movies are funny and you can be sure to have a good time watching one, but they don't really ask anything of you. Well, other than to laugh at childish shit. I don't mean any ill will on Will Ferrell, I like his movies they are just throw aways that I enjoy watching once or twice and then I'm done with it. David Lynch's films are different (not that anyone would argue they were similar...) in the sense that there are so many layers of crazy in them that it takes several viewings to even make the most basic sense of the main plot point. What's more is that there are all of the little bits of side story that all film makers put in to enrich a film. If you look at Twin Peaks alone there are hundreds of tangents in the series that are still keeping people guessing after nearly twenty years.

    Uwe Boll is many things, he's a German, he's bat-shit crazy and he's also a total douche bag. Uwe Boll is a film maker, best known for his pathetic big screen adaptations of lame video games. You may have seen some of his turds such as Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne and House of the Dead. I'm not going to go on and on about how much his movies blow, there is plenty of that on the internets already. I think Uwe Boll is awesome, sure he's a total douche that really has no business making movies and ruining video game franchises, but he sticks to his guns. No matter how many bad reviews are written about him and no matter how many online petitions are started that beg him to stop making movies, he has proven that he's the bigger man. Well, that's not entirely the case...

    Christian Bale as John Connor has to be the best idea,,,EVER!!! It's a scientifically proven fact that Christian Bale is awesome. You may remember him from such awesome movies as "The Machinist," "Batman Begins," and "American Psycho." You may not remember him from "The Dark Knight" because some a-hole named Heath Ledger died of an emo drug overdose. Personally I think Bale would have made a fine Joker, he does crazy pretty well... Hell, they should have just filmed "The Dark Knight" with Christian Bale playing every part. But I digress...

    Quentin Tarantino is back with a new script and it's the most bat shit crazy thing you've probably ever read. The title of said script is "Inglorious Basterds," and yes, he does spell bastads wrong but probably intentionally... although the rest of the script is full of similar misspellings. Everyone refers to this script as being 'much anticipated' and when you read it you certainly get the impression that is was crazy rushed. I didn't read the Kill Bill scripts so I don't know if this is just Tarantino's 'style' or if he's just too lazy to spell check hit shit. As the title of this post will tell you, this script is about Nazi scalp hunters, which is to say people who take the scalps from Nazis, not scalp hunters who happen to be Nazis. Not that one of those makes a whole lot more sense than the other, but whatever.