Day One: Re-read volume one (issues 1 - 6) of Walking Dead. I've been reading Walking Dead for years. Robert Kirkman establishes strong characters early on, which helps distinguish this tale of a world overrun by the flesh eating ghouls. Tony Moore's moody, detailed black and white art is the perfect accompaniment to the story, creating a stark, gritty world of dead cities and hungry ghouls.
Day Two: Cruising through Netflix, I came across Episode 50. It sounded interesting - a reality show crew of skeptical ghost hunters and a team of Christian believers who think ghosts are evil spirits or demons or something - who go into an old asylum and encounter something nasty. Okay, could be cool. Unfortunately, the acting is terrible, the conceit that all of the footage was found after the two teams were wiped out makes no sense, since there are numerous scenes where there are no cameras that could've picked up the action and the "rules" of the ghosts/demons/whatever seem to change as the movie goes on. For me, a horror movie needs to have internal rules that are coherent and consistent. They don't have to resemble anything in the real world, of course. But, they should make sense in the context of the movie and not just change due to poor writing. Would I recommend it? If you have Netflix - or Amazon Prime, etc - sure. But, unless you want to own every "found footage" or ghost story, I can't tell you to buy it.
Day Three: I love some of George Romero's work. One of his films I have mixed feelings about is Land of the Dead. It has a lot going for it: pretty good acting; good zombies effects; appropriate levels of gore (at least in the unrated version that I have); and the expected social commentary (rich vs poor, the rise of the national security/paranoia state in the aftermath of 9/11) is there and as blunt as ever. However, there are problems. The main one is the story. There are things - like the obsession with money, in a world where most civilization is gone and scavenging and barter are the only economic activity - that makes no sense. Character motivation - like Simon Baker's protagonist wanting to leave the city, when there is nothing outside the walls but zombies or John Leguizamo's obsession with extorting money in a world where it has no worth - often doesn't make sense. And most of the characters aren't even one-dimensional, introduced to serve as zombie fodder. This can be okay; expendable characters who are there to demonstrate whatever the danger is, are a horror film standard. In this case, however, the time spent with them detract from the character stories that are both interesting and need development. Land of the Dead is worth seeing; however, it is a definite step down from Romero's original zombie trilogy.
Day Four: Watched the Raymond Burr version of the original Godzilla. After watching the trailer for Gareth Edwards upcoming Godzilla movie, I felt the need to check out a movie with the Big G. This was the first one I came across in my movie collection, so, in the PS3 it went. And, as usual, I loved it. Shot in moody black and white, it has a documentary feel to it. The scenes of destruction are brutal and the various human sub-plots are well done (if a tad melodramatic). Of course, the dubbing is pretty bad and the Raymond Burr inserts seem tacked on (which, of course, they are). I have the Japanese version as well and prefer it...but, I also have thousands of movies and had little patience for looking through them today. And, to be fair, the Burr inserts aren't horrible; he just doesn't put any effort into the roll and they are transparently info dumps, to make up for what was cut out. With that said, both versions are worth seeing. Godzilla is a classic for a reason and a movie that everyone should see.
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