Land Of the Dead
"When there is no more room in Hell...
"The dead shall walk the earth.": Preacher-Dawn of the Dead.


George A. Ramero is a legend in Hollywood. Having created a genre of horror films that are enjoyed to this day, his works in the B-movie, low budget movie industry is known world wide. He is credited for "Creating the rules of zombie movies." The "Dead" movies are well known for their amazing make-up and special effects; the intense gore that includes intestines, eyes and limbs being torn out and eaten; decapitations and beautiful head shots. His most infamour movies were

Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Day of the Dead

and finally, after almost two decades, George has returned to bring us his zombie masterpiece: Land Of The Dead.

Zombie films have finally come to the publics eye. Thanks to the British Independent film, "28 Days", zombie films have become popular once more. "28" also gave the idea of zombies that can run, jump, and much more ferocious than George's "Dead" series. The '04 remake of Dawn of the Dead increased the horror by having a city full of these grotesque "runners". It made the movie that much mroe scary and even more frightening to think about.

However the "true zombie fans" were upset with the running zombies. The British would soon come out with a zombie parady movie called "Shaun of the Dead" which returned to the classic walking dead.

And then came the masterpeice Land of the Dead. After a year of waiting, I finally saw it.



Land of the Dead is the 4th installment in the "Dead" series. Based in a world where the dead are in control, Land takes place in a small city that is walled off from the rest of the world. People strive and work hard to maintain an ideal sense of living while always on guard for their undead counterparts. On the side of good are Riley (the classic "troubled hero") Charlie (the lovable hanicapped man who has great aim) and the prostitute . Hooper (Waterworld, Mario Brothers) plays the "president" of the city and his henchman Cholo (John Legimzomo) are trying to keep things nice and quiet. However when he crosses Cholo by refusing his demands, Cholo steals the city's strongest tank and threatens to blow the city up if he isn't given what he wants. Riley is sent to stop Cholo...

Howver there is another threat. The zombies are thinking. Led by a large, black gas-station attendent zombie, these legion of the dead begin a long trek to take over the city. As they travel they learn how to use weapons and bypass obsticals that once hindered their movement. Will Riley steal back the tank in time to save the city? Watch and find out!


Now my review. While I can easily say that I truely enjoyed this movie, I have to say I was still a bit dissapointed. First the media has hyped this film up to be 50x better than what it really was. While I am not saying the movie was bad (I loved it personally), it didn't live up to all the press releases.

The best thing of this entire film was the gore. The story was fantastic, simple, don't get me wrong my followers, the story was new but as I said; simple. The gore however is the best I've seen in the history of horror films. You will witness guts being devoured, eyes torn out, throats, arms, hands, fingers, toes; everything gets eatened. The make-up effects were breathtaking ( I stll don't know how they did the girl without a lower jaw and cheek) and the action was nice and bloody...

But...

*Sighs* This movie lacked many things. First of all I didn't care about any of the main characters. George spent very little time developing the characters thus I really didn't have an emotional bond with them. I liked Charlie and Pillsberry because they were humerous, but that didn't really mean I cared about them. So, at the end of the movie, I felt let down. An hour and 40 minutes of gore with little emotional bonds. Dissapointing.

Also there was very little horror. I have noticed this in gore films. Pleanty of jaw dropping, stomach wrenching gore but no horror. I jumped maybe once; every other time I was like "saw that comming."

Adn finally the ending. I didn't get the climatic battle I was hoping for. I won't say what happened, let you see it.


I give Land a 7.5 out of 10. It is worth seing in theaters, worth owning, but it still lacks in some of the crucial departments.






**Trivia**

George HATED 28 Days and Dawn of the Dead. He says that zombies are not supposed to run and that walking ones are scarier.

The entire cast of Shaun of the Dead (At least the man characters) make an appearence as zombies. George is a big fan of Shaun.

Some of the biggest zombie movies are: Evil Dead, Zombi 1-8, Undead and Resident Evil.

George actually walked off the set of Land about 1-2 weeks before they finished. This was because of arguments with the production department (or so I have heard)

The biggest parody of the Dead series was the Return of the Living Dead. Terrible knock offs that were usually more funny than they weer scary.

There is an estimated 10 new zombie movies comming out including The 29th day. Rumors have it that remakes of Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead are comming out (Re-done like 2004's Dawn of the Dead). unfortunatly, most of these movies are direct to video

According to my fiance; In every zombie movie there will always be 1 zombie who's jaw/teeth is exposed due to a cheek wound. (so we've heard)

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Fourth Entry: Star Wars Ep 3 Review
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away": Star Wars

And it was a long time ago when Star Wars was a fantastic film. Until, that is, in the year 1999 George Lucas decided to bring forth the long-awaited prequel The Phantom Menance. Torn apart by critics and old-school fans alike, TPM was too much politics and not enough Star Wars. The combination of Lucas's non-abilty to write and direct and bad choices for actors led tho TPM's demise. The only redeaming factor was the most hard-core lightsaber battle to date between Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jin, and Darth Maul. If it is one thing Lucas can do right, it is make awesome lightsaber battles.

However, the laughable plot and emotionless characters made TPM a real dissapointment. Due to Lucas's desire to make his movies mostly Computer Generated instead of the costumes and models that gave the original trilogy its realism, the movie just seemed, sadly, like just a movie. To me and many other fans alike, the original Trilogy seemed very real, very life-like and the actors' ability to perform their lines made A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi more like documentries instead of films.

George's 2nd attempt at "revising" the series came with the horribly named 2nd prequel film; Attack of the Clones. Not to be mistaken with fan's long awaited battle, The Clone Wars (something we have heard and waited for ever since hearing about it from Alec Guiesness in ANH), AOTC was much better than TPM, but that is not saying much. While Hayden played anger rather well, his other emotions made him seem very whiney and bratty. The relationship between Obi-Wan and Anikan (which you would guess would be a very close bond considering Obi-Wan being so saddened when talking bout Anikan to Luke in ANH), was nothing but a battle of wits. You could see that Obi-Wan and Anikan disliked, if not hated, one another. The love scenes between Anikan and Padme were decent in my opinion, and the acting was just as terrible as TPM. This film would have been much better if Lucas had a differnt director to get the actors into the film more, but alas, he did not. Again, Lucas went with Computer Graphics over costumes and this was very noticable during the lightsaber battles. The fighting against CGI beings was very sloppy. The actors just swung their weapons without looking at their enemies and when deflecting lasers, they just swung around (Unlike Luke in Return of Jedi when he actually made it look like he was swinging at the lasers instead of air).

Again, Lucas waited until the last 10 minutes of AOTC to give fans a reason to see the movie. The Yoda vs Dooku scene was bloody awesome. Though Dooku is no where near as intimidating or interesting as Darth Maul (my personal opinion is that Dooku should have died in Ep 1 and Maul should have stayed for 2 and 3).

Don't even get me started with showing how Boba Fett looks like without his helmet....*snarls*

Than, about a year after Clones came out, Lucas decided to release a Micro-Mini-Series (that translates into 5 minute long episodes) of the Clone Wars. The animation was laughable at best, the voice actors as dry and unbelievable as the real actors themselves, and only long enough for the fans to realize they hated it and turn off the TV, The Clone Wars is the biggest cop-out in Movie History. Instead of putting time, money, and actual effort into the biggest, most hard-core war in the Star Wars Saga, Lucas had these piss-poor animators give us a chibi-sized series. I mean, yes, it was neat seeing Anikan get bad-ass, but it wasn't enough. The sound was aweful and 3PO was turned into a homosexual instead of it just being an old joke. When he disrobed for Anikan to show off his new body and they played stripper music? WTF?

But on May 19th, my birthday, I gave George his very last chance with Episode 3, the Revenge of the Sith. The only reason I gave him the benifit of the doubt was because long time Star Wars fan and Ep 1 and 2 hater Kevin Smith (Silent Bob) gave it the thumbs up. Don't get me wrong, I would have seen it without his opinion, but trust me, it helped.

Revenge of the Sith was a beautifully made movie. Although the first 5 minutes were the slowest in Star Wars history (The sound and music didn't match the intense battle going on. It didn't drag you into the war), the fight between Anikan and Dooku was the most shocking fight in Star Wars history. George finally brought Anikan and Obi-Wan closer together and made their friendship more pronounced. Gone was Jar Jar (for those who didn't like him. I did) and the acting was much better. The main characters finally got into their roles (took them long enough) and the emotional shyt Anikan was going through was very belivable. I really sympathized with him. Palapitine was just as maniupulative and if you can believe it, even more sadistic than his previous appearences. Mace Windu was eh as usual. Always trying to be TOO bad-ass in my opinion during this movie. Yoda was animated even better and I honestly forgot he wasn't there at times. The final battle was bloody amazine and I wasn't dissapointed at all in this movie, which, comming from me, means a lot. However, this movie is still nothing compared to the original trilogy, but it is a close 2nd.

I give it 8 out of 10. ^.^

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The Following contains huge spoilers. If you don't want to know certain scenes, stop reading now.










What I liked

Likes:
The Light Saber battles: More realitistic. Still sloppy when blocking lasers and attacking the driods, but the timing has improved 10 fold.

The Humor: Anikan, Obi, and R2-D2 were hilarious. There were many scenes (like in the elevator shaft when Obi-Wan wakes up dangling from Ani's leg) where I was laughing tears. I missed the light humor that was pronounced between Han, Leia, and Luke in the original trilogy

The Intesity: OMG! What Ani did to Dooku was the most hard-core scene EVER! And what he did to the kids, I had never though Vader to be that cruel. Plus the downfall of Anikan, when he is turning darkside just to save his wife, by the gods, the emotion was so rich and powerful, it was heart-wrentching. Vader started out doing this to save his wife and son but turned utterly evil in the process. Beautifully written George. Bout time!

The relationship: Ani and Obi-Wan were so much closer this time around. They were bickering but very brotherly, very father/son. I was very pleased.

The Ending: The fight of Yoda and Palpitine and Anikan and Obi-Wan was powerful. Obi-Wan's final speech to Anikan as Anikan is burning up was heartbreaking. The tears in his eyes looked real and you could feel his pain at this betrayal.



What I disliked:

The battles: Lucas should have made the Clone Wars movie. Because he didn't, we missed out on how bad-ass Grevious was and how cruel Dooku was. The Wookie War, the battle between Grevious was TOO SHORT! Not even 5 minutes. You see the wookies start the war and then BAM it is over. That was it! If he added another 30 minutes (yes it would be 3 hours but who cares!) and added to the battles, i would have been very happy.

Grevious: General Grevious. I have seen him fight in the Clone Wars cartoon and I was very excited for him to fight in this movie. He was very evil and was a genius. I loved when he tore open the window of his ship to escape into space. Very well done. However, he died in a 2 minute battle. It was kinda a cop-out. The big lightsaber battle I was looking forward too (since he fights with 4 sabers) was reduced to him cutting apart the floor before his hands got lopped off. It was sad. If you wanted to see Grevious battle, you had to see the cartoon which, George is you read this, IS A COP-OUT and George has cheated the fans horribly.

Mace Windu's death: Sam Jackson had in his contract to have one of the best deaths in the movie. While his death by Palpitine was nice, it wasn't as hard-core as I expected it to be. But damn did he suffer.

The Names: How the names Luke, Leia, and Vader came to be was horrific. Palpitine pulled the name Vader out of his ass and when Padme was giving birth it was like this:

while Padme is screaming and panting due to labor

"It is a boy. What shall he be called?"
AHH! Ahh! Luke!"
"It is a girl. What shall she be called?"
(Same as above. Replace Luke with Leia)

I would have liked to see Anikan and Padme talk over names. Just a bit to know why she chose the names, same with Palpitine. I don't like how these names were just pulled out of everyone's ass.

The Ending: Okay, so I said I liked the end. I also hated it. We have all scene the trailer where Vader rises on the platform in his suit. That was awesome. Hearing him breath for the first time was awesome, but when he found out Padme died and ripped himself off the table (looking like a black sci-fi version of Frankenstien) and screaming out "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" while waving his arms dramatically...WHAT THE F*CK?! I couldn't believe that hard-core Vader, the man who destroyed his daughter's planet, who chopped off his son's hand, who slaughtered the entire Jedi Order, started his career like a little bitch screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. *sighs* That was horrible.

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Entry Three
"Darkness sat..."
"And nothing more..." - Edgar Allen Poe


And nothing more is what we see. My co-worker, who had stayed home the other night, told me how he awoke to watch TV early in the morn. He claimed how saddended he was that the televison no longer held the quality shows of the early 90s and mid to late 80s. No longer were their shows such as DarkWing Duck, Muppet Babies, David the Gnome, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Wizard...etc.

It is a shame that today, in a self-esteeme society where parents are too busy to watch their kids, where dumb-down tv shows are the newest wave of education. Dora the Explorer, the show about a hispanic girl who is always looking for things and expects the kids watching to point the lost items out. However, these lost items are very close to Dora and, to me, I find it insulting that these clues have to be so obvious (most clues are usually right next to the girl). The same goes with Blues Clues and those Teletubby shows. They think that their audience are growing up to be idiots. What happened to challanging the children of today? David the Gnome, a show on Nickelodeon, taught kids about the forests, animals, how to take care of pets, etc. Muppet Babies taught about science, computers, toys, movies, etc.

And what happened to our cartoons? I like Nick-Toons, yes, but there are now a lack of action cartoons that littered the television. ThunderCats, Tom and Jerry, GI Joe, Tale Spin, Darkwing Duck, Duck Tails, etc, He-Man, etc. The cartoon violence factor is way down since over-protective parents began thinking that their children would imitate these shows. The only thing on TV these days are soap operas, News, and Talk Shows. Saterday mornings are a joke now, and Sundays have absolutly nothing for children until 4-6 o'clock.

As Poe said in my favorite poem, the Raven, "And darkness sat, and nothing more."

That is what is entertainment now. Darkness and nothing more...

Current Mood: disappointed

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Second Entry
"I may not like what you say, Sir."
"But I will fight to the death to protect your right to say it" - Unknown.


Life is that of an interesting dream. Today at my school we had a man, a Christan, waving a large sign that told who shall goto to Hell and that it is time to repent our sins. Over 50 students gathered around to listen to this man's views. He was a passionate speaker but he, like all of us, was flawed. He spoke how Muslims will burn for eternity, how the Jews are wrong, and so-on and so-forth. As long as you reconized Jesus as your prophet and Savior. Numerous people of various religions were offended. He became raciest towards two Muslim students, telling them that they were in America and it was time to speak english (though they spoke better english than I)... Well, though a peaceful demonstration, tempers rose and many people, including I, joined in the shoutings. Being proud of your religion or creed is one thing, but to damn others for their beliefs is ridiculas.

I respect all religions, creeds, and belief systems from Buddah (which I follow to some extent), to Jesus (whom I also beleive was a good teacher and person), to Muslim, to Judaism. I respect occult religions, me myself a firm believer in animal spirits and having studied voodoo and wicca when i was younger. I don't believe that people should be damned just because they don't believe in one religion over the next. Tis a rediculous ideal. To say if one is not Christan(when a huge population of the world isn't) they will be damned, is arrogant as it is ridicules...

But I respect the man's passion, but do not respect how he went about it...but what can one do with people who won't listen. I really don't know.

Current Mood: Intrigued

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First Entry
"Once upon a midnight dreary...
"As I pondered, weak and weary..." - Edgar Allen Poe.

The darkness consumes us all at one point or another. In death, the darkness becomes immortal, unable for our eyes to open to the light. However, for those like me, those who embrace the darker side of life; we see the dark side all around us. We are the goths and we enjoy the darker side of life.

Does this mean, my friends, that we dress in the trenchcoats, white make-up; that we ponder suicide, death, and sadness? No. The media, the posers, they are the ones that everyone focuses on. We true Goths enjoy dark humor, political incorrectness, and we actually embrace life. We try to have fun with the short time we have upon this earth. We do enjoy skulls, graveyards, skeletons, black clothing, and all other forms of "death" but it is because they look neat. Not because we wish to truely perish. That is an misconception...


That is now out of the way. A simple statment as my first journal entry before I get to more personal issues...

Enjoy my friends and minions...enjoy...

Current Mood: Myself

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