Zombie movies have seriously run their course on the "big screen" nowadays.
There's proof in this because, George A. Romero; the father of zombie films has been making nothing that comes anywhere near his 1978 American Classic, The Dawn of the Dead and that was well...in 1978. Since then he made the "decent" Land of the Dead in 2005 and the just barely okay Diary of the Dead in 2007, I basically drew the final straw when I saw running zombies in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, which wasn't a bad movie but running zombies? The only time running zombies are okay is in 28 Days Later.
However! I do love the zombie genre, it's something about the vicarious imaginations I have when I picture myself living in a post zombie apocalyptic world, what would I do? What will I be doing for survival? Will I be alone? If I weren't alone who would be with me? How many would be with me? I am going to drive backwards on the freeway.
To me plot is not really important for the zombie genre, just structure. If you can create a successful parallel universe to make events that occur easy to relate to, then the audience will be enraptured, because that could be them in a not so distant future...The problem is Hollywood thinks one cannot make a zombie genre film without a story because the audience needs an ending otherwise you're going to have a lot of people who want their money back, and believe me nowadays you have to really think about going to a newly released movie (where I go tickets cost 12$). So, how do you satisfy the fans of the zombie horror genre? You make a television series out of the brilliant graphic novel The Walking Dead! And milk the franchise slow and steadily cause it's a television series!
The story is simple, it's a record of the trials and tribulations of a small band of people as they just try to survive on a day to day basis; testing the sheer limits of human mortality and humanity.
I always loved reading The Walking Dead, but due to financial issues I had to stop after Book 4 (major sadface).
But now AMC is coming in strong with this little gem:
-DK
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Annoying Tenacity
Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan aka M. Night Shyamalan; is quite possibly one of the most gifted filmmakers alive today. So, why has he been failing miserably?
I am only thinking about him because I recently watched The Last Airbender, and was deeply mortified at how such a brilliant director ended up with this piece of shit film, and I've been seeing ads for that new movie Devil everywhere.
Back when I was really into "marketing" I read up on a lot of innovative marketing campaigns and methods that are being utilized to make us, the consumer want specific things. Of course throughout time people's way of thinking tend to evolve with the ever fast paced improvement in technology forcing marketers to also evolve with the times making certain methods look very archaic. But one thing sticks to my mind whenever I go out and stare at advertisements and that my friends is a simple concept known as "branding."
In short "branding" is what makes you buy Duracell batteries over Kirkland batteries or a piece of shit Sanrio toaster versus an actual toaster made by let's say like Black & Decker, get it? It's the association of a name and its value on an object. How much value you see in the name depends heavily on how it's marketed to you, which in turn adversely affects how much your willing to pay for the object; whether it's with time, money or even both.
So, why is M. Night Shyamalan's name being associated with the new film Devil even though he's just the producer of the film? Because M. Night also made The Sixth Sense and movie studios want you to remember that fact when you pay the inflated ticket price to go watch Devil. I think this is retarded because at this rate how will M. Night ever learn that he's not God and he needs to be slightly more open to criticism of his films rather than rejecting them, and labeling criticism as people misinterpreting his films. I only say this because I did enjoy The Sixth Sense and I thought Signs was amazing, and I would like to see M. Night get back to the top of his form. This will never happen if Hollywood keeps sucking up to him and allowing him to hog all the creative credits for his movies. Honestly, how many bad movies does it take for people to realize this man cannot handle all that workload on his own? When will numbers cease to measure the quality of a film? It's like if all of Scorsese's films made after Goodfellas was total crap but they were all advertised as "from the director of Goodfellas," yes this situation does aggravate me to no end.
I feel like the beginning of his downfall came when Time magazine called him, "the next Spielberg," even then I felt it was too preemptive to be calling such a new and young director a legend. Fuck you media.
I know this is an age old argument in Hollywood where studio heads are just looked at as money grubbing business men who have no appreciation in film, but come on!
-DK
I am only thinking about him because I recently watched The Last Airbender, and was deeply mortified at how such a brilliant director ended up with this piece of shit film, and I've been seeing ads for that new movie Devil everywhere.
Back when I was really into "marketing" I read up on a lot of innovative marketing campaigns and methods that are being utilized to make us, the consumer want specific things. Of course throughout time people's way of thinking tend to evolve with the ever fast paced improvement in technology forcing marketers to also evolve with the times making certain methods look very archaic. But one thing sticks to my mind whenever I go out and stare at advertisements and that my friends is a simple concept known as "branding."
In short "branding" is what makes you buy Duracell batteries over Kirkland batteries or a piece of shit Sanrio toaster versus an actual toaster made by let's say like Black & Decker, get it? It's the association of a name and its value on an object. How much value you see in the name depends heavily on how it's marketed to you, which in turn adversely affects how much your willing to pay for the object; whether it's with time, money or even both.
So, why is M. Night Shyamalan's name being associated with the new film Devil even though he's just the producer of the film? Because M. Night also made The Sixth Sense and movie studios want you to remember that fact when you pay the inflated ticket price to go watch Devil. I think this is retarded because at this rate how will M. Night ever learn that he's not God and he needs to be slightly more open to criticism of his films rather than rejecting them, and labeling criticism as people misinterpreting his films. I only say this because I did enjoy The Sixth Sense and I thought Signs was amazing, and I would like to see M. Night get back to the top of his form. This will never happen if Hollywood keeps sucking up to him and allowing him to hog all the creative credits for his movies. Honestly, how many bad movies does it take for people to realize this man cannot handle all that workload on his own? When will numbers cease to measure the quality of a film? It's like if all of Scorsese's films made after Goodfellas was total crap but they were all advertised as "from the director of Goodfellas," yes this situation does aggravate me to no end.
I feel like the beginning of his downfall came when Time magazine called him, "the next Spielberg," even then I felt it was too preemptive to be calling such a new and young director a legend. Fuck you media.
I know this is an age old argument in Hollywood where studio heads are just looked at as money grubbing business men who have no appreciation in film, but come on!
-DK
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Melodramatic Hilarity
This film is quite possibly one of the better Judd Apatow comedies I have seen, and I give all that credit to 3 people; Russell Brand, Jonah Hill and Nick Stoller.
Get Him to the Greek, is a film with all your typical story elements, the passionate and down to earth protagonist, the very particular know it all boss with nerves of steel and the out of control rock star.
So, what's great about the film? Everything. The writer/director does a good job taking all those typical elements and putting very strong performances to back them; Jonah Hill and Russell Brand's on screen chemistry is ridiculously harmonized throughout the film, there's never a dull moment when they are both on screen.
The plot is simple, a recording label needs something to re-ignite their revenue stream so a young aspiring intern by the name of Aaron (Jonah Hill) comes up with a brilliant idea to resurrect Aldous Snow's career by moving off the momentum of Aldous Snow's anniversary of his famous live performance before his major flop "African Child."
Yes, Russell Brand's character is the same one from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the director does a good job at poking fun at that fact, in respect to the universe in which the two comedies thrive in.
That one portrait of the "Sad Clown" comes to mind whenever I watch comedies involving fame, money, passion, and realism. Especially, when it's coming from the new age writing that Judd Apatow seems to favor so much, the painful realization of watching people who make people laugh for a living end up getting kicked in the ass by reality is almost like a voyeuristic guilty pleasure for me; the audience.
4/4
-DK
Get Him to the Greek, is a film with all your typical story elements, the passionate and down to earth protagonist, the very particular know it all boss with nerves of steel and the out of control rock star.
So, what's great about the film? Everything. The writer/director does a good job taking all those typical elements and putting very strong performances to back them; Jonah Hill and Russell Brand's on screen chemistry is ridiculously harmonized throughout the film, there's never a dull moment when they are both on screen.
The plot is simple, a recording label needs something to re-ignite their revenue stream so a young aspiring intern by the name of Aaron (Jonah Hill) comes up with a brilliant idea to resurrect Aldous Snow's career by moving off the momentum of Aldous Snow's anniversary of his famous live performance before his major flop "African Child."
Yes, Russell Brand's character is the same one from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the director does a good job at poking fun at that fact, in respect to the universe in which the two comedies thrive in.
That one portrait of the "Sad Clown" comes to mind whenever I watch comedies involving fame, money, passion, and realism. Especially, when it's coming from the new age writing that Judd Apatow seems to favor so much, the painful realization of watching people who make people laugh for a living end up getting kicked in the ass by reality is almost like a voyeuristic guilty pleasure for me; the audience.
4/4
-DK
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Back To Basics
I've been studying 2D art for the last two weeks and the basic principles of geometric shape placements. So, when I saw these renditions of the classic Star Wars trilogy I garnered a new found ounce of respect for the franchise.
This awesome graphic design work is brought to you by Andy Helms.
But just look how effectively the "triangle" is used to show the very essence of the classic trilogy, which are episodes 4,5 and 6.
-DK
This awesome graphic design work is brought to you by Andy Helms.
But just look how effectively the "triangle" is used to show the very essence of the classic trilogy, which are episodes 4,5 and 6.
-DK
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
