When Zombies Attack

So while everyone else was watching the marathon of self-congratulation that is the Oscars, I watched Land of the Dead, the final installment of Romero's zombie-fest. I felt it was an appropriate homage to Hollywood, plus I like zombie movies.

Or I DID, until this one. See, I was hoping against hope that all those quotes from Romero about "social commentary in the form of rotting corpses" wouldn't really pan out. Not because I don't think you can't read social commentary into Night of the Living Dead, because you totally can, and I actually enjoy reading articles about what our love of zombie movies tells us about society's hidden fears, but because if what Romero was spouting about his intentions with this movie were true, then it definitely ran the risk of being a bunch of heavy-handed stupidity.

And lo, about 20 minutes into the film, heavy-handed stupidity arrived, sat down on my sofa, popped open a beer, and proceeded to belch and scratch its way through the rest of the movie.

The premise was okay--bands of humans fortifying themselves against the dead, who, having been around for a while, are actually starting to learn again. Life goes on. Yadda yadda, insert tired, 60's era trope about "who are the real zombies, dude?" here.

But here's the thing--Romero tries too hard to force the viewer to identify with the populist everyman, whose entire motivation is to get the hell as far away from everyone else as possible. Dennis Hopper's character--the overlord in this little morality play--is completely one-dimensional, as though just putting a rich white guy on screen is enough to make the audience take one look at him and scream "THERE'S THE REAL EVIL, MAAAAANNN!"

And the ending? Where populist everyman DOESN'T destroy the zombies because "They're just looking for somewhere to go?" Um. What. The. Hell.

Note to everyone: Zombies will EAT you. They aren't sympathetic. Ever. They are the BAD GUYS. Populist everyman just watched a herd of them chow down on the "friends" that he had just finished passionately rousing everyone to save, and now he won't finish them off to prevent them from doing it again? So the living dead cheerleader figured out how to pull the trigger on an AK. Isn't that MORE of a reason to blow her head off? What, it's not enough that we're expected to understand the repressed rage of the undead at being considered second-class citizens, we have to leave them to create a zombie utopia in the ruins of a luxury high-rise?

What kind of dumb, half-assed moral relativism is this, anyway?

Plus the internal logic doesn't work--populist everyman seems to think that the zombies just want a home, dude. But that's wrong, because zombies have to eat, they only eat people, and if the people have fled, the zombies will have to follow them. I know, logic in a zombie movie. But I can only suspend disbelief so far--zombies existing and munching on human entrails? Fine. Humans suddenly deciding that the zombies are just, like, misunderstood ciphers for the underclass? Dear God, no.

Bottom line: If I have to choose between the soulless capitalist Dennis Hopper and an undead revolutionary, I'm going with Hopper EVERY TIME.

Void

Truly this week I got nuthin'. I can't seem to muster even a whiff of outrage at any of the "controversial" stuff I'm reading, aldaily isn't interesting, nor are Inside Higher Ed or the Chronicle. Pretty much it is the bleak midwinter, except for the part where it's 70 degrees outside today.

Perhaps it's burnout. I've read so many breathless accounts of The Horrors of Global Warming and It's All Our Fault that my only response now is something along the lines of "Call me when I need a boat and some SPF 100, 'cause I've got elsewhere to be." Note to everyone - telling people over and over again to freak out has the curious effect of numbing people to the thing they're supposed to be freaking out over. But maybe I just need some B12 to bring my Constant Panic Levels up to the normal range.

The Nifong situation has now devolved so far into self-parody that I can't contribute anything to the conversation except "read this blog regularly." As a corollary to that, the inability of the faculty involved in the "rush to judgement" to do anything beyond call KC Johnson a "right-winger" when he's a registered Democrat who supports Obama is just more of the same old, same old.

And to top it all off, Supernatural is a rerun.

I'd drown my sorrows in a Grande Skim Mocha, except I can't have chocolate.

Hopefully I'll be less morose tomorrow.

Post-Mortem

Well, the play was fabulous. We had Promenade seating, which, if you read Hublet's posts, means that we were onstage with the actors during the performance. The setting for the first Act was a 1950's nightclub on New Year's Eve, so as we entered the stage we got champagne to drink, and we milled around--the actors made small talk and asked audience members to dance--until the performance started with a rousing chorus of Auld Lang Syne. I got to hold hands and sing with Antigonus, who later was eaten by a bear.

Actually being onstage made everything much more visceral--there was still a fourth wall, but it was like eavesdropping on someone's conversation instead of watching a performance. So Hublet and I stood up for 3 1/2 hours, paid $50 per person for the privilege, and enjoyed every minute of it!

And if you ever get the opportunity to do something like that, do it, but don't lock your knees--one chick passed out halfway through Act I.