June 24, 2005
In my (mostly embarrassing) review on The Ain’t It Cool News, I jokingly called George A. Romero’s LAND OF THE DEAD “the actual, genuine most anticipated movie of the summer,” despite all the excitement over the Batman one and the Star Wars one. I don’t know if that was true even for me, but it was certainly a long-awaited event. In the review I mentioned there had been other recent zombie works including 28 DAYS LATER and Zack Snyder’s DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, but my love of zombies was really more of a love of George Romero movies. There had not been one of those since BRUISER in 2000, there had not been a good one since THE DARK HALF in 1993, he had not been involved in a zombie one since the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake in 1990, and hadn’t directed one since DAY OF THE DEAD in 1985. Twenty years. And now it’s been twenty years since that.
I really liked LAND OF THE DEAD at the time, and for a while after. But when I last watched it in 2017, having bought the Scream Factory special edition, I wasn’t as into it. I was hoping that would change this time, but I’m sorry to report that LAND OF THE DEAD just doesn’t do as much for me these days. And that’s a shame because it has plenty of cool ideas, and its central theme of the powerful living in luxury locked safely away from most of the world (including the people who actually do all the work they got rich off of) is somehow even more relevant now than it was then. (read the rest of this shit…)
Hollywood George Romero is not my favorite George Romero, but he’s the most underrated one. With THE DARK HALF (1993, but shot in ’90 and ’91) he’s still filming in Pennsylvania (portraying Stephen King’s Castle Rock, Maine), but funded by Orion, with enough of a budget ($15 million) for Academy Award winning movie star lead Timothy Hutton (
You know, MUNICH is almost the movie I was hoping SYRIANA would be. SYRIANA has alot to say about the complicated way the world works, but it doesn’t get you excited about it. You’re probaly not gonna be sitting on the edge of your seat. More likely you’ll be scratching your chin saying, “Interesting, interesting.” I’d rather see a movie that can be complex and political without sacrificing in the awesome department. A good balance of substance and badass. And that’s what this is.
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
