Dawn of the Dead **** (1978)

For horror movie aficionados George Romero's Dawn of the Dead has a permanent slot in their handful of must sees ( the Citizen Kane of zombie cinema).  Released in 1978, the film set a new standard for onscreen gore with grisly affects courtesy of the splatter master, Tom Savani. Besides being a gross out fest, the film also serves as a time capsule of the 1970s with its not so subtle commentary on consumerism.  In fact the film helped launch the zombie genre of films, comics, and a precursor to The Walking Dead. Upon first viewing, I remember being really frightened by the sense of doom throughout the film.  If the 1968 version tapped into  anxiety over social change, the 1978 incarnation looks at the more long-term threats to civilization i.e. energy supply.

 At their best, scary movies are a window into collective cultural anxiety.  I'm sure Dawn of the Dead has inspired a few monographs on 1970s malaise.  Horror is the least respected film genre for few good reasons.  Sometimes for good reason due to their unrelenting misogyny and exploitative nature. For a time in the 1970s, auteur directors like Brian De Palma, Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg used the genre to great effect.  Modern incarnations of the genre inclines toward pure shock.

The grainy black and white of Night of the Living Dead had a realistic, documentary like feel. Dawn of the Dead is more cinematic, yet still claustrophobic  Set mostly in a shopping mall, the wide open spaces allow for more adventurous cinematography, while still making the viewer feel confined.  Also, the banal earth tones of indoor malls provide a disturbing counterpoint to the horror.

The film begins with survivors of an ongoing zombie apocalypse seal themselves off in a shopping center.  The first 20 minutes are extremely violent as a TV crew films a raid on a ghetto as troops are clearing out a minority neighborhood. It looks like a reenactment of the Vietnam War. From the first sequence, its clear the zombies are not the most dangerous villain.  One character cynically observes that the rednecks will probably survive with their endless supply of guns.  The zombies are creepy, but the humans are capable of far more monstrous acts.

Romero shot the movie in Pittsburgh and used a cast of unknowns to great effect.  The four major characters are all flawed in their own way.  But they also show courage and intelligence.  As they set up their consumer's paradise, the mall becomes a character unto itself.  My favorite sequence is when the survivors indulge themselves with food, clothes, guns - in a moment of pure consumerist utopia (its the film equivalent to Don Delillo's mall as paradise sequence in his 1985 novel White Noise).  Has anyone not fantasized about a unlimited shopping spree?  Then again, how do you feel after making that grand purchase?  It's fleeting.

And the film's entertainment factor is a bit fleeting by the end.  There's really no where to go with the story.  The final 20 minutes feature an outburst of zombie on biker violence.  Well, it just gross.  By today's standards a bit tame, but still potent.  The soundtrack by Dario Argento is creepy - an unsettling collage of synthesizers, elevator and carnival music.

Romero went on to direct four more zombie flicks, including three made in the last decade.  Dawn of the Dead still works because it's not really a zombie film at all.  It's about humanity.  We root for the rational side in all of us to survive when those ghouls are outside patiently waiting.

My Own Love Song ***1/2 (2010)

My Own Love Song is full of pleasant surprises.  Rene Zellweger delivers one of her best performances as a woman coming to terms with the past.  Her co-star, the always brilliant Forrest Whitaker, matches her at every step.  The soundtrack, written by no other than Bob Dylan, fits in perfectly with film's wistful, but hopeful mood.  My Own Love Song brings to mind Faulkner, Guthrie, and American mythology. 

Jane Wyatt's (Zellweger) once promising singing career came to a halt after injuries from a car accident confined her to a wheelchair.  Several years after the accident she lives alone and her only friend is a local named Joey (Forrest Whitaker) who is also scarred by a past trauma.  Both performances evoke melancholy and resilience   Their unlikely friendship also recalls 1970s movies with people from different ages, genders, and class came together.  Joey convinces her accompany him to New Orleans to meet a man who claims be in communication with angels. Along the way they meet Nora, who's husband has disappeared, and Caldwell (Nick Nolte) a former musician struggling with post-traumatic stress after Hurricane Katrina.

Music plays a central role in the film.  Like Robert Altman's Nashville, Dahan includes scenes where the characters perform songs.  In those moments they achieve a true transcendence adding so much to their characters and the story.  Bob Dylan's soundtrack, mostly from his his 2009 album Together Through Life, a collection of tunes evoking loss and rebirth, setting the right tone for the film.


My Own Love Song never saw a general release in America. It is now available on Tubi.  After Hurricane Katrina, America never got a Grapes of Wrath or even a film to put the tragedy into a historical context (Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke is an exception) and its own small way My Own Love Song is a reckoning with American tragedy - and hope.

Liberal Arts ***

Any young person who decides to major in the humanities, especially in this economy, does so at their own peril.  Or that's what society says.  Dedicating one's time these days to a "life of the mind" or towards creative endeavors faces the prospect of being told "to live in the real world" or "just be a teacher" (not knocking teaching in anyway here).  Meanwhile, book culture has underwent its share of knocks in recent years.  Book store chains are closing and placing all their hopes in electronic reading gadgets.  Alternative reading cultures have merged online with sites like goodreads and Amazon.  Readers are out there.  We're not in Fahrenheit 451 territory yet.

Starring Josh Radner (who also wrote and directed) as a hyper bookworm living in New York City where he works as a college admissions counselor.  The film opens with him giving lame pitch lines to prospective students. After breaking up with his girlfriend, he is invited back to attend an old professor's retirement party in Ohio (filmed at Kenyon College).  Jesse is the type of person who wishes college never ended with the all night chats on Delillo and Roth (although we never learn about his ambitions in college). While visiting his former professor Jesse meets a kindred spirit in Zibby (Elizabeth Olson) a drama student wise beyond her years.

Liberal Arts is not necessarily a romantic comedy, but a film about maturity.  So, it asks some mature questions:  What does it mean to be an adult?  Why is there so much anxiety about the passing of time?  All the characters in the film are very mature - maybe the most mature film I've seen in some time.  Thankfully, the film avoids an onslaught of quirky characters, but actual adults who are engaging with the world and doing the best they can.

Jesse is a bit flaky at times, but never annoying.  When an old professor accuses him of acting like an "effete, man-boy" he decides to make a change.  He grows up.

Of course, the title "Liberal Arts" screams independent film.  The editing is sharp and all the performances ring true.  And as a liberal arts guy myself, the film has an encouraging message.  One can still build a life and stay true to their passions and still live as a functional person in the real world.  Someday, anyway.

Mud ***

Mud combines elements of Robinson Crusoe, Tom Sawyer, family melodrama, and Southern epic.  There's quite a bit going on in this one.  Matthew McConaughey stars as Mud who lives in self-exposed exile on an island on the Mississippi River.  Two boys, the central figures in the film, befriend him in the midst of their own family struggles.

Setting is a strong character in an environment divided between townies and the fisherman. It's a rough country in an economically stagnant region.  Water is a used as a metaphor throughout as a life giving force, but one also showing the unpredictability of life - something both beautiful and terrifying.

Mud is also a study of masculinity in the South.  Mud, whom the boys (Ellis and Kyle) come to idolize, is like a folk- hero in an old ballad, the non-conformist.  He claims he's staying on the island for the woman he loves (Reese Witherspoon), but as they learn Mud has complex motives behind all his decisions.  Ellis's father (Ray McKinoon) is simple and hardworking, and a believer in tough love who carries himself with quiet dignity. Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), a mysterious neighbor, is yet another loner with a mysterious past ( hard not not think of Chuck Yeagar).  Ellis's friend Kyle is being raised by an uncle in arrested development.

My description may sound like Mud is a character study, and on some level it is, yet it's also heavy on plot and melodrama.

The female roles in Mud are less defined.  Juniper is never quite defined and Witherspoon is underused.  Mud stays committed to her, despite the turbulent nature of their relationship.  Ellis's mother leaves his father and he resents her for it.  His crush, a local townie, leaves him in the cold.  As I mentioned above, Mud is about men and how they react to crisis.

Matthew McConaughey performance is pitch perfect as the outsider with his own sense of honor.  Jeff Nichols, the director, has set his two previous films in the South as well, Shotgun Stories (2007) and Take Shelter (2011) which also place family and loyalty front and center.  There's a mix of melancholy hope running throughout the film, although the ending feels inevitable and forced.  Overall, Mud is a crowd pleaser  amidst the usual run of summer blockbusters.

Cowboys & Aliens *1/2

Cowboys and Aliens is boring mess of a summer blockbuster.  It attempt to blend science fiction and western genres falls flatter than a pancake.  Its complete lack of creativity is made up for with shoddy special effects and wooden acting.

The film begins in the 1870s where we meet drifter Daniel Craig, who is wearing a strange futuristic bracelet around his wrist? Guess what, its from the aliens!  Then the film begins to use every cliche we associate with the western.  A stranger comes into town who is wanted by the sherif and trouble begins to ensue.  And then the town is attacked by flying saucers.  Enter Harrison Ford as grouchy old rancher who gathers a posse to get the aliens.  And then there's an absurd subplot featuring an alliance between Native American tribe and the whites in a clumsy attempt at political correctness (preceded by a scene with every Native American stereotype associated with the Western). Yes folks, that's the movie.

It is sad to see such a talented cast go to waste.  Sam Rockwell adds little as a timid bartender.  Paul Dano is Ford's winy son, a mere shadow of his excellent part in There Will Be Blood.  Olivia Wilde adds a spark, but her character is underdeveloped and given an inexplicable ending.  As for Harrrison Ford, it is too bad he's not getting better scripts at this stage in his career.  His performance is all corny dialogue and grimacing.

Steven Spielberg produced this and it seems like his disciples are just lifting material from his old films.  The ships are out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the aliens are out of some other movie. J.J. Abrams homage to early Spielberg worked in Super 8 because it had real characters and a great premise.  The film's director, Jon Faverau of Iron Man fame, has proven himself a competent director, but its time to stop squandering his talent in thrown together scripts aimed at the lowest common denominator.  While watching the film, I thought of great westerns like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid that had great writing and acting (that's how bored I was during this one) Skip this one, we deserve better.

Movie Review: Midnight in Paris ***1/2

Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris, opens with a montage of scenes in modern day Paris - a perfect antidote to the deluge of superhero films released this summer.  Gil (Owen Wilson) is visiting Paris with his fiance Inez (Rachel McAdams) family and becomes enchanted with the city of light, much to the the annoyance of his future in-laws.  As they visit various tourist haunts around the city with a pretentious professor Paul (Michael Sheen), Gil decides to investigate Paris on his own at night.  One night he finds himself back in Paris at some point in the early 1920s and meets his literary heroes - Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and many others at the forefront of 20th century modernism.  Nostalgia for the past is the film's main theme, but also the need to embrace one's own time period.

There is a lighthearted nature to the film that is often lacking in Woody's films.  Perhaps it is the performance of Owen Wilson, who's likability Allen used to full effect.  The fantasy element also is also something new for Allen.  At times, the film is a who's who of 1920s Paris, but that is the part of the great fun in this film.  Gil observes the Fitzgerald's marriage at first hand, gets writing advice from Hemingway, and a critique from Gertrude Stein.  The writing life is another big theme, since Gil who is tired of writing scripts for Hollywood wants to stay in Paris and work on his novel - a common dilemma in Allen's films.  His bourgeois in-laws will have none of it. Yes, the film is predictable and sentimental, but also full of lighthearted humor and smart writing.

This is beautiful looking film to look it - Allen's Paris is quite appealing.  For anyone that feels lost in their current time period, they will take comfort and find some hope in this film as well. 

Movie Review: Super 8 ***1/2

Like many around my age I grew up on the early films of Steven Spielberg.  One of the first films I remember seeing in a theater was E.T. and recall being totally mesmerized.  You could say I'm a child of Spielberg and Lucas - I spent my childhood wearing out VHS tapes of Star Wars and Jaws.  J.J. Abrams did manage to get some of the magic from early Spielberg.  This film recalls E.T., Close Encounters, Goonies, and many other from that era. 

It is 1979 and a group of kids in rural Ohio are trying to make a zombie film.  Both Spielberg and Abrams made films as children - and it is so great to watch a film that captures the romance of filmmaking.  Early on we quickly learn about the different personalities in the group.  There is the leader, the nerd, the eccentric, and the quiet kid.  They recruit Elle Fanning (Alice) who amazes the boys with her acting ability.  All the scenes with the kids play out perfectly without going over the top.

Without revealing too much, the town begins to experience strange events after a train wreck.  The governement gets involved and all hell begins to break loose.  It seems only children are able to figure everything out, a very Spielberg touch.  Midway through, the human drama of the early scenes gets lost in some extended action sequences.  But the film never loses its sense of humor. Abrams does manage to hold it together, but the climax does not quite have the magical ending that Spielberg always delivered. 

 Super 8 is a fun summer movie.  It is destined to be a classic and hopefully will inspire studios make more films in this mode that emphasize the human drama rather than CGI effects.  Superhero films are unlikely to go away, but whatever happen to the idea of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances?  Abrams rejuvenated network television with LOST and if Super 8 is any indication, I look forward to anything he does in the future.