Now in our sixth calendar year
Yes, everyone and everything that resides within these walls left our hallowed grounds for a brief period Saturday Night to see the master of ZOMBIE horror at work. Yeah, I'm talking about George Romero and his latest offering; Part four of his Zombie trilogy. (I couldn't figure out the numbers either.) We went to see "The Land Of The Dead." Did I like it? Of course I did, though there were a few things that could have been different.
"Land of the Dead" In the center of it all is a huge, luxurious tower run by a ruthless business man (played by axctor Dennis Hopper). Only the elite live in the tower (Hmmm! Tower of Babel), everyone else lives in the cordoned off section of the city to fend for themselves against their fellow man.
Everything moves along, status quo, until something happens on the outside. Somewhere along the line one of the zombies develops some "smarts." I'll tell you one thing honey, ah...that ain't good. This Zombie (a gas station attendant) leads a zombie army to the land of the living. Their goal, to become the ultimate party crashers.
Anyway, all hell breaks loose and...ah hell, just get out there and see the movie. It's a fun gore flick for the entire family (that is if your family consists of Ghouls, Vampires, Werewolves. and Zombies). Taking in 10.2 million dollars on its first weekend, "LAND OF THE DEAD" neither set the box office on fire or fall flat on its face. The story is pretty solid though I saw a couple things that could have been different. First off I got the feeling I was watching a Mad Max/road Warrior movie. The vehicles were similar though not exact. The next thing was that there didn't seem to be as much suspense (fear build-up) as in some of George's earlier efforts. I also never got the sense that any of the principal characters were ever in any real danger. Don't let these observations frighten you away from the movie (like anybody cares what I think anyway, HA! HA! HA!). This is really a good movie that has good pacing, good story, and lots of action. I give "LAND OF THE DEAD" a full Three Screams on the Creature Scale.
"Batman Begins" rating Comics Talk There are others but the point is that more and more newer books are climbing in value very quickly. What a great time to either get in on the newly found comic craze (which I'm sure has been fueled by the increase in the amount of comic related properties becoming major motion pictures) or to rekindle old friendships with the characters we all grew up with. I'm there, count me in (actually I never left). See you at the rack.
Well, that's all for this week. Have a Great Weekend and watch out for those meteors. You never know where they're from (Mars perhaps, there's always one in every crowd). WAR OF THE WORLDS is coming and I'll bet ole H. G. will be diggin' his way out to see this one and Me, Borblie, The Prof, and all the rest of the inmates (I mean guests) around here wanna be there to help him get to the theater. See you in 7.
The "Creature" P.S. Where can I get one of those "Dead Reckoning" vehicles from LOTD? That was cool. C-Ya!
The movie starts out with a mercenary army ransacking various towns for supplies, medicines, and canned foods. By this time they seem fully at ease even with a "Plague of Zombies" threatening to destroy the few pockets of humanity still remaining. These guys are pros and know how to deal with the "Walking Dead." (which, by the way, is still an excellent comic that every zombie fan should be reading). When they call off their search they return to a veritable "Utopia," a piece of a city surrounded on three sides by water and heavily fortified with soldiers in towers and yards of electrified razor-wire on the fourth. It is a secure haven to what appears to be thousands of surviving humans. here they are safe and can lead somewhat normal lives.
Oh...and by the way... lest I forget; last week I failed to rate "BATMAN BEGINS." Taking in a little over 200 million around the globe in its first couple weeks, I give The Dark Knight's latest outing a hearty Three Screams on the Creature Scale.
On other fronts, I've noticed a very interesting trend building up in the world of comics over the last year to year-and-a-half. It seems that there is quite a bit of attention being paid over newer books than there used to be. Key issues of newer titles are jumping up in value quite a bit faster than in the nineties and the early part of this century. New books are selling out from the publishers within days forcing them to go back to print. Some titles are going back to print 2-3 times before the demand for the book is met driving the prices of first printings skyrocketing. Here is a listing of some of the hot, newer books over the last eighteen months; "The Walking Dead", the first issue is up to 35 dollars already with #2 following closely behind at 32 dollars. "The Omac Project #1" is only three months old and has gone back to print at least three times, Number 1 is going for 15 dollars already. "Space Ghost #1" from last year is going for 15-18 dollars. "Nyx #3" is going for 45 dollars... etc.
"Creature's Corner" is ©2005 by John Lewis. Webpage design and all graphics herein are creations of Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2005 by Nolan B. Canova.