Of course, all I see are the flaws, but it got a few chuckles last night. Now it’s in the hands of the critics, i.e., you. Go ahead, be brutal:
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December 13
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moe99 said on November 12, 2008 at 1:38 am
The Hillsdale College tshirt was a very nice touch, Nancy!
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Dexter said on November 12, 2008 at 2:41 am
Jeezuss H. Kreist! I won’t sleep a wink tonight! Loved the “young Carl Bernstein” dude with two phones going at once.
Oh…she’s home…wife just pulled in…been 2 weeks in the Dominican Republic S.C.U.B.A. diving…just back from Detroit airport….gotta play bellhop now…..OH…YES! NICE touch with the Hillsdale College shirt!
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caliban said on November 12, 2008 at 3:17 am
Author, author. The Hillsdale shirt is perfect. College Republican Central. The lLving Dead have been making W’s lips move for eight years.
Was Joe Lieberman in that car? And was it driven by a Mossad agent? That’s Ed Rollins, right? Kommissar Karl? Shouldn’t it be Lee Atwater rising from the grave?
These guys were the National Security Guarantor Party. They prosecuted the pizza delivery to Fort Dix guys and that truck driver that was going to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with an acetylene torch in broad daylight, and the guys in Miami that wanted combat boots and way cool camo. If they can’t deal with real terriss, no match for zombies.
Meantime, John Hinderaker thinks W should be a role model for Obama as far as public speaking is concerned. To avoid putting his foot in his mouth. Or somebody else’s. Aiiyee, Hadji, another zombie. Let’s get this copter movin’ Race. You shoot these ghouls in the head. Field dressing? Call the Gov in Alaska. Say it’s Berlussconi and he wants a dry hump, towels optional. You’ll get right through.
As in the the greatest, transformative and inventive instant of the genre, the level-headed, sensible, highly-principled, reasonably handsome black guy will save our asses. We hope. Unless some local yokel member of the NRA kept a bazooka in his living room and blew his brains out with a lead harpoon.
(That disturbing image is Lou Reed’s, not mine, though I’d probably give in to zombiehood to get such a perfect image by eating a brain. In context, he meant it as bittersweet and tragic comment about the inevitability of human bigotry and stupidity rather than mindless violence. Which was probably George Romero’s point in the first place. But he had to make a whole zombie movie to get to it, and Lou just wrote another gorgeous song.)
Anyway, the movie’s quite entertaining, which I imagine was most of the point. I mean, aside from how much fun it was to make. The various splats and organs were quite effective. It was somewhat gratuitous to talk about planting Ron Raygun. You can call Nancy When she gets off the phone from the President-Elect. But, you know, the seances could figure in a sequel. Bruce Campbell is interested based on the rushes.
Oh, and my brother and I used to kick Michael Stipe out of a bar in Athens for no ID, so I’d be remiss in not pointing out the truly great I Walked With a Zombie by Roky Erikson, who was imprisoned in Texas and had his brains sort of eaten by electric shock therapy (Zombie MDs). REM made a very good cover version of this song on an album called When the Pyramid Meets the Eye. Roky also sang about ghosts, vampires, etc. He said if you have ghosts, you have everything, which seems kind of insightful for somebody that’s had his brain devoured. So if there’s a market for high concepts for future film endeavors…
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caliban said on November 12, 2008 at 3:59 am
Is Hillsdale a real school, or did Republicans just invent it, like a Sears poncho? Oh shit, they invented Pepperdine, and Liberty Law, it’s…it’s… like a virus from outer space invading rotting brains of corpses. Before we know it, a black guy will have to save a bunch of namby-pamby white asses from zombies.
And I was going to say get shot for the trouble. But it’s not social commentary by George Romero anymore, and that’s not remotely funny. It’s ironic, but all those unConstitutional Bushco eavesdropping methods better be on red alert. Hillary was an asshole for bringing this up? It’s like Tonio K says: “They but Jesus on a cross, they put a hole in JFK, they put Hitler in the driver’s seat and looked the other way.” Funky Western Civilization. When Kerry was slandered by a fucking hypocrite draft-dodger that just had better things, like lines and shots to do, it reminded me of The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead. The best people seem to be defenseless against the most crass, deceitful and evil. God save Barack. It’s exceptionally important.
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coozledad said on November 12, 2008 at 7:45 am
Good work. I especially liked the home liposuction of the kid.
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alex said on November 12, 2008 at 7:57 am
Nance getting duct-taped with an Obama sticker was a nice touch, too!
Hillsdale these days might be a hotbed of right-wing youth, but from what I’ve read of history, Hillsdale in its heyday was a progressive institution like Oberlin.
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Lex said on November 12, 2008 at 8:40 am
Why’s the video down?? This censorship will not stand, I say!
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mark said on November 12, 2008 at 9:21 am
That’s really great. Very impressive and you should be proud. I enjoyed the dialogue, and I’m told that is difficult to write, even for otherwise accomplished writers.
I thought the Hillsdale College kid was a pretty good actor in an obviously challenging role.
Should the Obama troops be immune, or at least more resistant, to the forces of evil?
I’m sure my partisan leanings are interfering with my review, but the only time I couldn’t keep the “suspension of disbelief” thing going was when Republicans were canvassing the cemetary. Too much artistic license. (Republicans would just use old countryclub membership lists).
Congratulations!
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Jakethesnake said on November 12, 2008 at 9:22 am
Not bad! I wrote a story years ago about local amateur horror film makers (of which Cleveland has many) and so saw dozens of productions. Your script and production values are way above average, but the guy in the Hillsdale College tee couldn’t emote at all. Look forward to the sequel.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 12, 2008 at 9:22 am
Were the zombies all saying “It burns, it burns” when the Obama stickers were stuck on ’em?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 12, 2008 at 9:57 am
Can’t write material this funny — just posted to The Corner, National Review’s group blog:
Reviving Conservatism [Ramesh Ponnuru]
The National Review Institute and Hillsdale College are throwing a conference devoted to that very topic in Washington a week from today. Confirmed speakers include Rich Lowry, Heather MacDonald, David Brooks, Andrew McCarthy, Frederick Kagan, and Yuval Levin.
11/12 09:43 AM
(“It burns, it burns!”)
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Emma said on November 12, 2008 at 10:12 am
I love it!
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Dave K. said on November 12, 2008 at 10:28 am
As a Hillsdale College alum and a “recovering Republican”, let me add my compliments for your new movie to the growing list. Hillsdale does have a liberal (early) history and I’m not sure when they went ’round the bend. They sent me a speech by Sarah Palin in their “Imprimis” publication recently. I have to admit I did not read it, but I was very disappointed to see that Hillsdale thought Sarah deserved to be published therein.
Favorite movie scene: The “BLEDSOE” campaign poster. (Very “Usual Suspects” I’d say).
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nancy said on November 12, 2008 at 10:42 am
I’m so pleased you all “got” the Hillsdale t-shirt. I’d been so happy to have discovered a piece of wardrobe that was both cheap, believable and said “young Republican in Michigan” at a glance. But hardly anyone in the crew said a word about it, and last night at the screening — mostly younger people — I heard just a couple of isolated titters when Maysin jogged around the car and revealed it. I think you really have to be a dedicated political watcher to understand the school’s influence in conservative politics. I’m always meeting people who’ve never even heard of it.
(The Obama t-shirts, on the other hand, were just the thing. Everyone in Detroit seemed to have one, and they were being sold all over town.)
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Bill said on November 12, 2008 at 10:50 am
I laughed and laughed. The sound design was great, the blood and gore were very well done. Kate did a super job; takes after Mom. Even a Chicagoan got the Hillsdale College i.d. I know a project like this is a ton of work, but it’s lots of fun, too. Great job!
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 12, 2008 at 10:57 am
The beauty of this website is that the reg’lrs get jokes both about “Antioch rules” and Hillsdale’s “Imprimis.”
Were you groping for his liver, Nancy, or just pulling it out to get to the still throbbing heart? There’s more vitamin-y goodness in the liver, but the greenish-grey skin may indicated zombies don’t care about MDRs for vitamins C & D.
I’m still chucking over “reviving Republicanism” after watching the movie . . . not chuckling as Paulson keeps stopping to take a slug from a disposable bottle of water. I’m already mentally writing the copy for Jon Stewart on that one . . .
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Rana said on November 12, 2008 at 11:10 am
*laughing*
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Jen said on November 12, 2008 at 11:27 am
Wonderful! I laughed as I surreptitiously watched it at work. Very fun, both on the zombie movie level and the politics level. Good work!
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Jeff Borden said on November 12, 2008 at 11:30 am
Bravo!
Very funny. Very gory. Great dialogue. . .especially the line about a zombie being as competent a veep choice as Caribou Barbie.
Love the disembowelment. It’s right outta George Romero’s play book. Mmmmm. Now I have a craving for Spaghetti O’s. Mmmmmm.
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Jolene said on November 12, 2008 at 11:35 am
Alex, there’s a WaPo web chat re the Frontline show going on right now at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/11/07/DI2008110702365.html
For everybody else, Alex and I exchanged comments two threads back about a great film re Lee Atwater that was on Frontline last night. Available now at the PBS web site (or maybe it hasn’t been shown yet in your area or may be rebroadcast later in the week). Very much worth seeing. Explains a lot about how we got Bush 41 and, since Rove was an Atwater protege, Bush 43 too.
Sorry to toss politics into a discussion of art!
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nancy said on November 12, 2008 at 11:37 am
It wasn’t until last night, Jeff, that I realized how much all zombie flicks owe to the Oracle of Pittsburgh. Almost all the tropes of the genre — the shambling walk, the idea that zombism can be transmitted by a virus, how they can and can’t be stopped — came from George Romero. Of course the daylight-cemetery attack was stolen directly from him (which, in the usual style, we called an homage), but if I had a dollar for every farmhouse I saw last night, I’d have…about 12 dollars.
It wasn’t until “28 Days Later” that anyone really updated the catalog in a new way. That’s saying something.
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caliban said on November 12, 2008 at 11:56 am
People call George Romero the Oracle of Pittsburgh? Damn, that’s almost like being the Bard of Baltimore. <ight be overthinking, but it seems that the reason Nancy’s gang’s (natural born ringleader, Guignol Guru of Grosse Pointe) effort is so astute and entertaining is political text, sub and uber. Every great zombie movie is brimming with subversion.
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whitebeard said on November 12, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Loved the Zombies, the gore, the election theme on cemetery voters, the excellent script, the scenes (although I did not get the Hillsdale reference at first), When the cemetery voters issue arose (pun intended) in Connecticut there was an editorial page cartoon of a hearse with a placard in the rear window that said (absentee voter on board) or something like that
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brian stouder said on November 12, 2008 at 12:09 pm
It wasn’t until “28 Days Later” that anyone really updated the catalog in a new way.
I clicked a link at Laura Lippman’s updated site (last update ’til 09, btw) for Lily von Shtupp, and read (more or less!) a funny essay about Blazing Saddles, which looks at all the classic Western-movie conventions that movie utilized, and turned inside out.
Anyway – I’m saving clicking on the Zombie movie until I’m home, where the computer has sound. (and btw, I got that Hillsdale Imprimus featuring Sarah Palin, and I read it. Her remarks were from that Ship of Fools cruise (or Voyage of the Damned?) that so many threads go back to (including Kristol’s all-consuming keeness for her)…a sort of political Love Boat adventure (which turned into a capsized Palin-Poseiden Adventure)
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Catherine said on November 12, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Hilarious, creepy and politically subversive, all in one entertaining package! Four Stars! (and yes, you can put that on the one-sheet)
One of the very good things about making films is getting to cast your kids. The best take-your-daughter-to-work day ever. Kate was great. So does she want a career in movies now?
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Jeff Borden said on November 12, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Nancita,
The zombies of the Val Lewton era were largely mute and robotic, more like hypnotized slaves who would do the bidding of their masters. They owed their existence to the legends of Haiti and the Caribbean. Romero made them independent creatures, ravenous and uncontrollable. As his films evolved, so did the creatures, who by the time he made “Land of the Dead” were able to work together toward a common goal of getting more human flesh.
I’m interested in what your readers think. Are the shambling zombies of the Romero movies more terrifying than the athletic and fast-moving zombies of “28 Days Later” or the Zach Snyder remake of “Dawn of the Dead?”
There’s something kind of creepily inevitable about the shambling zombies. They’re like the tide. You can keep moving away, but eventually, it will reach you. The sprinting zombies make these movies more like an action flick than a horror film, IMHO.
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derwood said on November 12, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Awesome. You can’t go wrong with zombies and politics!!
d
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Catherine said on November 12, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Zombie movie cognoscenti, what’s the verdict on Otto; Or, Up With Dead People? I see it was a Sundance selection, but I usually hate the movie-within-a-movie thing.
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Gasman said on November 12, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Nancy,
“There’s no laughing in zombie movies!”
The hell there isn’t! You owe me for the cost of dry cleaning my liberal elitist silk underwear. I laughed so hard I wet myself.
Brava! Ancora!
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caliban said on November 12, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Speaking of the living dead, this was one long strange trip to political oblivion. This poor fellow should have gone with the brown acid. Maybe he can claim it was a real-time demonstration of Raygunite economic theory.
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brian stouder said on November 12, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Leaving aside Joe the Plumber, I hope when President Obama gives his first State of the Union Address, he invites Sam the Retiree to sit in the gallery
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27678142/
A $40 medical bill might seem small but a West Virginia man says his five-year battle over paying it was a matter of principle. Sam Juniper says his health benefits weren’t supposed to change after he retired in 2000 from M&G Polymers. But he received a $40 bill in 2002 after the company’s new provider, Aetna Insurance, refused to cover the cost of some blood work. He challenged that in Mason County court in 2003 and won every decision all the way to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. The appeals court ruled in his favor on Oct. 10.
Lawyer Mark Underwood handled Juniper’s case for free and says small bills like this add up over time. Juniper says he is still waiting for his $40 refund check, which he plans to frame and hang on his wall.
Bravo!
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caliban said on November 12, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Brian, that is why the knotheaded, no-nothing charge of socialism was virulent and slandrous. (The spell-check is telling me knotheaded needs a hyphen and slandrous needs an e. What sort of idiot fascism is that?) If you claim to follow Jesus, or any worthwhile religious leader and philosopher, you pretty much have to believe in the Commonweal. The least of my brethren are my responsibility. Actually, if you believe in nothing more than the American Constitution, you wind up in the same place. John Prine meant Jesus was a socialist when he said He was a carpenter, when it came down to human dignity and the value of life.
Now. on another subject. Any y’all ever read The Snow Leopard? How about Far Tortuga and At Play in the Fields of the Lord? And the crowd thins.
Peter Matthiessen wrote those books, and I believe he’s brilliant, on a par with Thomas Pynchon and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (and in some instances, Tom McGuane and TC Boyle, and Umberto Eco and Mark Helprin, and most assuredly Margaret Atwoodand William Gibson, and a host of others book critics that can’t write a lick like to turn their noses up at, and how’s that for ending a sentence with two prepositions?)
So then Peter Matthiessen wrote an amazing trilogy that started with Killing Mr. Watson, segueing into Lost Man’s River and Bone by Bone. I think these books form a definitive statement about America as a unique outlaw nation without Wonderbread in its formative years.
So now, the old guy has reduced, he says ‘distilled’ the three to one. And it’s nominated for a National Book Award.
People are shocked, just shocked. It’s not a real book at all. The questions this tempest raises in this teapot are fascinating to me. One thing, first off, is, wouldn’t these bastards go gaga if John Updike did this with rabbit? Is it a new book? (Me? I might read this. Well, yeah I’ll read it because I trust the writer.) Who cares so much about the National Book Award? (We’re not nitwit Brits whining about the Booker shortlist, after all..)
What’s more interesting is struggling with characters and prolixity, and the role of editors. When I was a kid, I thought Kurt Vonnegut was a driven nail, short, sweet and incisive. At the same time, I would have said that Look Homeward Angel meant the great American novel had been achieved. (The wisdom of advanced age makes it quite clear that Huckleberry Finn put that one to bed.) . Was Maxwell Perkins a co-author? I mean, it’s long, but it was going to be twice as long as War and Peace. Did the editor save the book from being the most overrated doorstop in the history of novels?
Then, there’s The Stand, which is one hellacious novel, published originally at about 700 pp., restored to superlative effect at plus a thou. Yeah, yeah, Steven King. Lots of great writers have done post-Apocalypse: Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, Russell Hoban better than anybody (If you haven’t read Riddley Walker don’t wait). Steven King got the actual Apocalypse down, with a locomotive plot and electric characters.
I doubt Peter Mathiessen gives a shit about the award, but he’s scrwing with my life if he claims the ‘distillation’ is an improvement. I love the originals.
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JGW said on November 12, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I like the writing, and the production but the actors delivery seems forced, and not like natural spoken words. They project too much. And they don’t seem to react to the other actors lines. They could still have a good run on Days of Our Lives. And you officially scare me, you were a great Zombie.
I have to agree with Caliban (sign of the end times) The GOP older guy could be Ed Rollins.
And as a former NJ GOP organizer, I had to fend off old timers with similar voter registration and AB ballot scams. One minor critique – it would not have been 11-3-08, more like 8-29-08. The dead vote early and often. Especially in Hudson County, NJ.
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del said on November 12, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Loved the line at the end about change we can believe in — and the Hillsdale shirt too.
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LA Mary said on November 12, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Caliban, I’ve read those books and I think he’s brilliant too. And Cormac McCarthy. Blood Meridian is a favorite. My son just finished The Road and he’s going to lend it to me.
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caliban said on November 12, 2008 at 8:07 pm
JGW, it was just walking around money.
I was actually interested in all y’alls opinions about writers and authors, writers and editors, writers and translators. You seem like a literate bunch. There are so many questions here, that are so interesting to consider. Who’s a great writer in the Modern twentieth century. Something I forfot about, what about translators. Is Gabriel Gatcia Matquez so brilliant without Gregory Rabassa? Fiction is one thing, but poetry, I’d say the translator is an artist at worst, in many cases the actual poet. I suppose it depends upon whether you think the poetry is the emotional intent or the language.
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caliban said on November 12, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Time for buying guns in America. A spokesman for Cheaper Than Dirt, a large gun store in Ft. Worth, says
People are terrified of losing their right to protect themselves. The volume is 10 times what we ever expected. It started with assault rifles, but at this point people are buying ammunition, high-capacity magazines, Glocks—it’s all flying off the shelf. With the economy the way it is, people are worried about instability. They are scared of civil unrest.
Bob Seger saw this coming time back way back. That’s Riddley Walker.
.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 12, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Wasn’t it Umberto Eco who said that a translator is a betrayer, “Traduttore, traditore”?
Eco is usually given to hyperbole, tho’.
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brian stouder said on November 12, 2008 at 10:19 pm
What an excellent movie!! I watched it twice – ’cause the first time I was so engrossed (so to speak) I missed Kate altogether.
And then – the Zombified Proprietress was marvelous! (It might have been a slightly sexist little joke that they had the Proprietress rip the guts out of the young fellow, rather than having the scarey male zombies do him in; ‘Course attractive wome ALWAYS do this!)
It was great, as were the outtakes at the end (and I liked the credit to Barack Obama!)
And now, in addition to referring to the barkeep around here as the Proprietress, we also can call her the Prop Mistress (and a fine one at that!) The life-sized, zombie-like cutout of Senator McCain was a tremendous sight gag – and the bloody-faced payoff was exquisite! And on top of everything, it looks like the weather cooperated quite nicely.
Y’all make it look easy, although it clearly could not have been
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John c said on November 13, 2008 at 7:10 am
OUTSTANDING! I think my “notes” really helped, Nancy. (I believe I said something along the lines of, that script is “really great.”
I will say this, having the Republican drive a Cadillac pissed me off. (this is where I would type one of those smiley face things.)
Great job. Congratulations!
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