Technically, he’s killing a virus that spreads itself through human hosts.
“But wait,” i hear you ask, “those zombies in 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, they went through the same thing. Why aren’t you picking on them?”
Well, they did, and I am, and those weren’t really zombies either.
Call me a traditionalist, but true zombies get infected and/or are dead already, reanimate, and SLOWLY make their way toward your still-beating heart (and brain).
That’s the difference. You might think it’s splitting hairs, but ask yourself: is there such a thing as bad jazz? Or could what you’re listening to be classified as uptempo contemporary adult?
Listen, anything or things moving that fast may as well be robots or sharks or bears or aliens or coordinated groups of mass murderers: it ain’t the same as the slow, plodding actualization of your worst fears about death and mortality, come to remind you that humans can have a REALLY hard time getting along even in the best of times.
But I’ve made a whole presentation about this, years ago, and I stand by George Romero’s viewpoint:
However, I give massive props to Mr. Pitt and his whole production team for getting a movie like “World War Z” made in the first place, and getting it released as a PG-13 feature.
There are some interesting themes raised in the film, and it’s visually stunning, and parts of it quite intelligent. And I generally like Brad anyway.
But he ain’t fighing real zombies, is all I’m saying.
I’m done with our culture’s continued and ongoing obsession with zombies in general. And that’s hard for me to admit, because I was identified as an expert on zombies in film, even to the point of leading a discussion about the raging slow- versus fast-zombie debate.
(In short, fast zombies are essentially the same as homicidal maniacs [looking at you, Danny Boyle and your 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later] so who cares? Slow zombies are cooler because they’re a metaphor for the end that’s heading our way regardless. And they’re the catalyst of our own stupidity, self-centeredness and fear of life. But that’s just me yakkin’… )
Back to the main point: Zombies are everywhere now, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. In fact, it’s alarming. Is this a symptom of an underlying dread we have as a society? Do we collectively imagine, or even worse, believe, some big slate-wiper event is heading towards us, one shuffling footstep at a time?
Don’t get me wrong: zombies can be great. I loved “Sean of the Dead,”“Zombieland,” and even the FAR earlier “Return of the Living Dead”. The first time I saw the original “Night of the Living Dead,” it was shown using an old 16mm projector in the back room of our town’s public library. The experience was like watching a found-footage documentary, and as I was walking to my car – the parking lot lights went out. Yes, I nearly browned myself. But I told everybody what a great movie it was. And I’ve even watched the remakes of George Romero’s works, to mixed results.
But damn, this death-cult worship is getting old. I know a lot of us are afraid: war, terrorism, mass shootings, disease, economic disaster, famine, rising sea levels, December 21, 2012 (and anyone want to make a bet with me on that, BTW?), Armageddon, the national elections… all the old classics.
So what? Get over it, and go DO something. do something to make your life, your family, your community a little safer. Maybe even a little happier.
I was in New York City during 9/11. It was terrible. But it wasn’t the end. Not by a long shot. why are we now worshiping The End?
And of course, we always like our monsters. It helps us project our real fears and anxieties onto something outward. Something fantastic, from the dream world. Fables brought to vivid focus. But this just feels like too much.
Is it possible to have a more life-affirming Other come to knock on the door in the middle of the night? Hey, The Joker was a relentless sociopath, but at least he smiled and liked practical jokes.
Heck, even vampires resurrect and mix it up with us. Too bad the “Twilight” series reduced them to teen-dating anxiety…
There are a lot of projects on my short list, but it’s the usual excuses of too long a list, and not enough money or time.
But excuses just don’t cut it anymore, so my plan to get this documentary project going is to just do it — and structure the plan in such a way that all the shooting can be done on incredibly flexible schedules, and the budget can remain miniscule (for now, at least).
So here’s “One True Thing”. The idea is that our team sits down with someone at their preferred location, and once everything’s set up, all we do is ask for your first name, and to tell us one true thing.
It can be anything, from trivial to profound. So long as it’s true to you.
We also have some ground rules for ourselves/the project:
— First name only
— We won’t edit your response once you start on your true thing. That means once you being, we’ll run until you stop. So, no edits to make you look better, worse, or more concise.
— You can have more than one thing to say. We’ll just treat them separately.
— Don’t pressure yourself. We don’t expect Dalai Lama-league answers, so no worries. Something about your cat is acceptable…
What do WE get out of all this? Good question.
Expectations:
Sure, the first clip is three guys of various ages working in various levels of seriousness.
The real payoff should be when we reach a certain critical mass and broader themes emerge. Personally, I fully expect this to start focusing on religion, relationships and philosophy — but I could be completely wrong.
Maybe folks hone in on sports and cosmology, who knows?
If I were to point to an existing model for how I expect this to turn out, I’m going to reference one of my all-time favorite books and life guides: Directing the Film: Film Directors on Their Art, edited by Eric Sherman.
Yes, you’ll find a lot of practical advice on nearly every aspect of filmmaking by some of the greatest in the field — but that’s essentially a bonus.
What I find great is that within Sherman’s 352 pages of collected wisdom, you can read one absolutely sterling, profound and compelling piece of advice put forth by an absolute master of their craft — and on the next page, there’s another absolutely sterling, profound, and compelling piece of advice from yet ANOTHER master, completely and absolutely contradicting the first.
Example: Think about rehearsing your actors. There are a number of directors that weigh in on how their actors must be absolutely well rehearsed and prepared, so there’s no doubt about the lines, nuances or inflections before the cameras roll.
And there are a number of directors that talk about why anything beyond nominal rehearsal kills the energy and dampens the creative sparks from fresh discovery.
Who’s right? They all are. And that’s the point — the truths within this book are the truths that work for each person.
So that’s where I personally see “One True Thing”‘s potential. But we’ll see.
Technical Points:
As we add in clips, we’ll update the master video, and keep individual clips for easy reference.
We’re also COMPLETELY OPEN AND ENCOURAGING of outside submissions. So feel free to crank up your webcam or video recorder, work up a segment, and send it on.
Yes, it somehow all comes together. This is a July 13, 2010 radio interview I did with Molly Matlock, Executive Director of ChathamArts and host of “Inside the Artist’s Studio” on WCOM-FM in Carrboro, NC.
Molly put it best in her program description: “Now to the Zombies. Today on “Inside the Artist’s Studio,” ChathamArts interviews James Bryson Hyatt about the NC film industry, making music videos, and how zombie movies hold the key to a better world.”
Sadly, I know way more about zombie movies and what they say about us as individuals and as a society than any normal person should. Wait, “normal”… 😉
Hard to believe this film came out in 2006, but “Fido” is definitely worth checking out: an alleged zombie flick, this is far more a black social comedy than it is a horror spoof. I caught the first 8 minutes of it at a certain famous film festival that takes place in mid-Jan in Utah, but had to head to another film that was getting more buzz. I told myself I’d circle back and watch the whole thing…. and it took me until last night to get that done.
What the film’s creator’s got right:
I was pleasantly surprised. It was funny, bizarre, unique, smart, well-acted, well-shot and entertaining, so 3 stars out of 4. Billy Connolly is unrecognizable as the title character (that’s fine; he’s playing a zombie, for christ’s sake, so it’s not like he’s up there in Elephant Man territory…), and Carrie-Anne Moss was stunning as the mom — gorgeous, smart, flirtatious, multi-dimensional — and for the first time, I really wanted to take her home, take off that apron, and get into a long-term, intelllectually significant and socially committed relationship with her, if you know what I mean.
But good acting all around. It would be easy to go way over the top with this kind of material, but there’s a lot of control here, which works for the overall effect.
The tone is generally upbeat, even tongue-in-cheek, and they carefully balance the fact the protagonist is a young (and vulnerable) little boy against the needs of the larger narrative, without doing extremely horrible things to said kid.
Also, it’s a great-looking film, from the too-perfect 50s suburban neighborhood, the cars, the clothes and other details, to the framing and composition.
What the distributors got wrong:
Nearly everything? I mean, do YOU remember this film opening in your town? I don’t, and I was looking for it.
Also, this is the worst poster imaginable for this film. The Fido character turns out to be a decent guy, but the public is going to look at the art and say “Another zombie film. Meh.” And they’d be right — nothing says this is a comedy, nothing says this has a happy ending, nothing says C-A Moss is in this, smoking it up with hotness. All it says is you’ll have your face eaten off by an overly made-up actor from the UK — and that you can see in “28 Days Later” or “Shaun of the Dead”.
But this screw-up shouldn’t stop you, the savvy DVD renter or video-file downloader, right?
Heck, I’d even recommend this as a date movie. Not a first-date movie unless you know the other person REALLY, REALLY well, but trust your uncle Jimi on this one.
James Hyatt 