Zombie Rights!

The Republican Party has created a website where you can make suggestions for their political platform. This, naturally, is a horrible idea. Why? Well...for one thing, it means that I can submit something. Finally, an oportunity to have my voice heard and see if the GOP can adapt themselves in the modern world to become the kind of political idealists that I can get behind.

Filed under National Security: Military Policy

It's high time that someone took the initiative to ensure the safety of the American people (even the liberals and hippies) from the inevitable zombie apocalypse. What is being done? Do we, as a nation, have a plan to combat the rapid spread of the newly risen dead? What advice does the government have for us? Should we just resort to plastic sheeting and duct tape?

Is our military properly trained and ready to protect us from walking corpses? How will we handle our poor grandmothers rising from the grave and attacking us, rather that providing us with cookies and fresh apple pie?

It is this threat, and this threat alone, that we must prepare ourselves for. We must relax our current gun laws so that we can all be properly armed when the time comes. If I'm being chased by the living dead, I don't have time to wait 7 days before I can get a gun! I need one now!

And once the zombies are here, and the government has subdued the zombies through the use of force, and we've subjugated them, we'll need laws on the books to protect us from communists and necrophiliacs who will undoubtedly want to marry the wretched creatures! we must add a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between the living, and the living only! Before those patchouli stink ridden liberals decide otherwise!

It took two submissions (stupid 1000 character limit!), but finally, I can sleep at night knowing that the GOP is aware of my concerns and actively working to resolve them!

Just out of curiousity...

Am I the only movie blogger who does not care about the impending release of The Dark Knight?

In which I ramble about my view of humanity

I was thinking that I would review The First Men in the Moon for you today. You know, the movie I posted the poster of yesterday? You remember? Come on, it wasn't that long ago! Well, for those of you who don't recall, The First Men in the Moon was the 1964 film adaptation of HG Wells' story of an expidition to the moon in 1899, you know, 70 years before it actually happened.

On the moon, they meet some insectoid creatures. The scientist wants to try to communicate with them and to learn from them. However, it is Arnold Bedford who takes over, throwing the creatures into a pit and fighting with them before even attempting to learn the slightest thing about them. And, to be honest, it made me very sad.

You have to assume that it is Bedford's reaction to the strange creatures that humanity would emulate should we ever encounter some peoples from another planet. While some people, like the scientest, Cavor, would want to greet and learn from the new creatures, it is much more likely that we would instintively lash out and attack them without waiting for provocation. And, at the end of The First Men in the Moon, it is Bedford's glee that the creatures had been wiped out by an accidental germ from Cavor that really kind of sticks with me.

It strange, sometimes, to see a mirror held up to humanity in film. Think about The Lord of the Rings. It is Aragorn, the noble king who stands by his friends and would never betray them, that we hope to emulate. However, it is the tragic Boromir who is more of a true encapsulation of mankind.

Boromir is a good person, but he has many flaws. He wants only to do the right thing, but he doesn't realize that the right thing is the wrong thing until it's too late. He believes only in himself and his ability to succeed. Where Aragorn sees the ring as an evil thing that cannot be wielded by man, Boromir only sees a weapon. A weapon that he believes can save his land and his people. The truth, ultimately, is that they're both right. Boromir is simply too short sighted to see that the only way to use the weapon is to destroy it.

Of course, Boromir is tempted to take the ring. Who among us would pass on that? If all you saw was the ability to save the ones you love, wouldn't you try to take the ring as well? How many of us could truly pass that kind of power up the way that Aragorn did? Aragorn is the ideal, but Boromir is the reality.

We fear what we don't understand. Boromir and Bedford both show us this. We want to do the right thing, we want to help those around us, but sometimes, I think, we lose track of the right way to do that.

Monster Movie Poster Monday

And I'm you're back from outer space I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face I should have changed my stupid lock I should have made you leave your key if I had known for just one second you'd be back to bother me

Ok, so I didn't go to 'outer space' or even leave the state of Michigan over the weekend. Nothing cool like that at all. All I did was hang out downtown, ride my bike, drive with the top down and read a couple books. Actually, now that I think about it...it was a pretty cool weekend. Sure, I didn't see a bald eagle flying around like some people I know, but I did get a good view of the back of George Clinton's drummer's head. And, you know, that's good enough for me.

This week's poster is from 1964's First Men in the Moon. An adaptation of the HG Wells novel of the same name (and not the first adaptation either, for that you'd have to go back to 1919...I don't think that it had much of a poster for me to post though). And, of course, Dynamation can only mean one thing, effects by Ray Harryhausen.

I will never be able to explain why it is that I am such a fan of Keanu Reeves, but I am

I look at it this way...Nothing Keanu Reeves does will ever be as painful to watch as his performance in Much Ado About Nothing. I don't know who told him he could do Shakespeare, but whoever it was should be shot.

I'm not exactly excited about a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day The Earth Stood Still. It's a favorite of mine to begin with, and I just don't see how it can be improved upon. However, it is now and old and outdated premise. The cold war is no longer a pressing concern (though war in general and nuclear threats are still quite real and relevant). If I'm not excited about it, I am interested in it. For the same reasons I just mentioned. I want to see what they do with it. I want to see the approach they take to the story and I want to see how well that story resonates.

There are going to be some fun easter eggs in this one when it hits DVD I think.

I went out and saw Wanted last night. I expected it to be a kind of brainless but fun action movie. The kind that, if I believed in such a thing, would be best enjoyed on 'The Big Screen', or something like that. I don't know. I'm usually just as happy to watch something on my own TV as I am to watch it at the theater. Maybe it's just me.

We start off at a generic office birthday party attended by a generic office worker named Wesley. Wesley's father left when he was a week old, his best friend is sleeping with his girlfriend and Wes suffers from panic attacks. All in all, it's a pretty shitty existence. That all changes the day he meets Fox.

Fox is an assassin and she prevents a rogue assassin named Cross from killing Wesley. She then takes him to Sloan who explains to Wesley that the panic attacks are actually a special ability to slow down time and allow him to react quicker than normal people. This allows him to do some amazing things like shoot the wings off of a fly. It's not long after this that Wesley decides to join The Fraternity, and ancient guild of assassins. Wesley has one objective in mind, to find Cross, the man who killed his father.

That's the short, abridged, version. It's a bit more complicated than all that, but, you know, people hate spoilers. And, there will be some spoilers soon. I'm just that kind of guy.

Wanted was simply high intensity fun. Pure escapism. There is nothing here that you haven't seen before in other movies, but director Timur Bekmambetov did an amazing job of making the movie fresh and entertaining. It was a wonderfully dark sense of humor while still being able to get serious when it needs to. James McAvoy plays the everyman who finds out that he has special powers, but instead of stopping purse snatchers like Spiderman, he uses his power to kill people.

And, I have to admit that I got a kick out of Konstantin Khabensky being in the movie. Khabensky has previously worked with Bekmambetov as Anton, the main character in both Night Watch and Day Watch. And Chancellor Vallorum was pretty cool.

However, there was also something that I didn't like. The ending. This is your warning, I'm about to talk about the end of the movie. If you don't want to read about it, stop now. Here's the thing, movies are all about suspension of disbelief. You have to allow yourself to accept that there is a way to curve a bullet like a cue ball. You have to accept that in this world, the laws of physics are slightly arbitrary. And, you know, for two hours, I was able to believe in that. And then, Wesley confronts Sloan and reveals to the Fraternity that Sloan has been lying about who their targets are supposed to be, and in his defence, Sloan shows everyone that they had been marked to be killed too! And they believe him! Sloan admits he's been making up their targets himself and then they accept it on faith that he didn't just make it up that they had been targeted too! To me, that seems a little unbelievable. I can't imagine why no one would question him on it. Then, after Sloan escapes, he walks right into a trap by deciding to get right up close to Wesley for a point blank kill. Why not do it from a distance?

Overall, it was a well made movie though. It's really fun. It's everything you could want in a post-Matrix action movie. The effects look good. They throw in a couple new ideas and in the end, it's 2 hours of easy on the brain entertainment. I can't wait to see it on DVD now! 8 trains derailing on a mountain bridge after you drove your car into the side of it out of 10.

Is Jason Statham the new Steven Seagal?

Is Jason Statham the new go-to guy for 'blow shit up' generic action movies? Is he Hollywood's new Seagal/Van Damme? It's okay if he is. I mean, someone has to be, right? It's just...I used to like his movies. He was so great in Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells! I guess it's just a little dissapointing that he keeps just turning up in every cheesy action movie that comes out any more.