——Dawn of the Dead——

(A)

The new DVD of the Romero original is just amazing. The image is so crystal clear (it says that it was remastered in HD) that you’ll notice all sorts of little details that you’ve never seen before. Of course some of effects are made to look more cheesy because of that clarity, but then what do you expect when all you need to be a zombie is some blue makeup? Cheesy effects aside, this new transfer really draws attention to how well directed this film really is. Romero’s quick montage style editing gives the film a documentary-like feeling, enhancing the horror by constantly displacing us in the setting as well as by making the film seem more real. Also amazing are some of his compositions. Frequently the camera is placed in a corner at an odd angle, giving the feeling of an objective security camera watching the events unfold. Perhaps my favorite shot is the static shot of Flyboy and Pregnant Lady lying in bed together (presumably after sex) and yet completely alone, as the camera slowly zooms out. That’s where the real terror of this movie comes from, from that loneliness these people feel from having everything and yet having nothing to do or live for. And if to make things more tragic, these people are not defeated by the zombies but by other people, making not only the point that we are consumer zombies but also that our greed will be our downfall. Interestingly, it is the humor of this film that really drills that point home. The overly heroic musak that plays when Black Cop fights his way to the helicopter is so hilarious that it really makes us wonder, what exactly is it that he is fighting for? The ending is fittingly ambiguous: as they fly away from danger into the rising sun, in the back of our mind we know that they don’t have much gas left. How far will they really get?

——Blow-Up——

(B+)

While this film is certainly beautifully shot, I wasn’t quite sure where the whole thing was going. Unlike the films that we inspired by this one (The Conversation and Blow Out) there isn’t any resolution to this story. Did he really witness a murder? Does it even matter? That aspect of the film left me a little cold, and as I’m unsure of what it all really means, for me the jury is still out on this movie.

——Irreversible——

(B)

Interestingly, this movie is a lot like The Passion of the Christ: both films could have been really great if not for the director’s egotistical forays into the extreme and excess. Irreversible is one of the most disturbing films I’ve ever seen, if only for the sequence where Monica Belluci is brutally anal raped for fifteen minutes in one continuous take. Things like that are just really unnecessary. Also the filmmaker has adopted what I like to call “drunken midget cam”, in that the camera work half the time spins around for no real apparent reason without any cuts in between segments, which is quite hard to watch at times. It’s as if the filmmaker is trying to warn anyone who can’t sit through the rape sequence way ahead of time to get the fuck out while the going is still good. At times it feels like he is trying to shock us for the sake of shocking us, in that like Mel Gibson he is trying to “show it as it was”. It’s bullshit really, pretentious bullshit.

That said there is a very interesting film in here. The film unspools backwards like Memento, with each cut happening at the end of each long continuous take. You see the retribution for the above mentioned rape, and then get to see everything that led up to it. The technique is actually quite effective, as all of the happy scenes that happened before the rape are made extremely tragic because what happened before in the film is still lingering with the viewer. Certain actions or phrases jump out at the viewer, and the film’s title, “Irreversible”, is always in the back of your mind as you realize that like a Shakespearean play the actions of the plot are irreversible. The main tragedy of the film comes from the knowledge of knowing that the events of the film could have been preventable, but because of the character’s actions it isn’t. This is a flawed, but very interesting film.

——Swingers——

(B+)

Wow, do you all remember that brief period of time in the mid-90’s when swing dancing was actually in? When NHL 96 for the Genesis was THE game? Man, that seems like so long ago. Anyway, this movie is a nice piece of screenwriting about getting over past relationships and moving on, in Hollywood. I was never really wow-ed by the film, but I did find it extremely entertaining. Sometimes you wanted to smack Vince Vaughn if he said “money” one more time, or Jon Favreau for being such a shmuck-ass, but otherwise it was pretty fun and funny, so I was happy. Shame, shame for trying to copy the slow mo walking scene from Reservoir Dogs. In this movie it just looks like total shit. Pretty decent movie though.

——Tarzan——

(A-)

This is definitely one of my favorite Disney movies, if not the favorite. Watching this movie and then watching clips from Home on the Range during ABC’s Disney whoring during the commercial breaks makes you realize how far Disney has really fallen and why computer animation is all the rage now. I mean, Home on the Range looks like total shit. The animation is extremely unspectacular and the store is weak, not to mention the fact that the jokes are extremely lame, even by little kid standards. It won’t surprise me in the least to see this movie do shitty at the box office. Tarzan on the other hand has some spectacular animation (combining computer animation with hand drawn animation in the tree surfing segments to phenomenal effect), original ideas (like the tree surfing: something that sounds really lame but looks spectacular in execution), and a style all to its own (Tarzan’s physique looks exactly like how you would expect, and his gorilla father just looks amazing). And hey, the story is pretty fun too! Sometimes the movie does get a little too Disney cute (I’m looking at you, Rosie) but otherwise this is a really fun movie and an amazing piece of animation. I love it.