It's the same old "mondo" mockumentary that we've seen numerous times before, and indeed these things seem as though they're churned out like sausage and packaged with new labels, but the difference with MONDO BALORDO, aka "A Fool's World" (Severin Films, 1964), is that it's narrated by none other than venerable Boris Karloff in his unmistakably dulcet tones.
This is sorta the flipside of Bela Lugosi's dour commentary on the human race in Ed Wood's GLEN OR GLENDA? "People! All going somewhere!" Bela grumbled with a scowl in that oddball classic, while Boris, in contrast, is at his most jovial here while narrating his way through the incredibly verbose script he's been handed--possibly more words than the actor ever uttered in a single movie--and seems to be rather amused by its non-stop, unabashed ridiculousness.
As always, naughty sex tales, trivia, legends, and anecdotes abound, whether joking vignettes staged for the film or actual documentary footage of strange social and sexual customs from around the world.
A Miss America contest which appears to have been held on an Italian soundstage gives way to Bedouin prostitutes selling their wares in desert tents or tribal natives engaging in unusual courting and marriage rituals.
The editing and continuity are also characteristically random. Just when we've settled into watching an attractive woman stripping for some Asian businessmen, a jarring edit places us in the wilds of Africa where a lion is savagely killing and feasting upon a zebra. Later we witness an actual exorcism in India which involves a chicken (you don't want to know how).
Homosexuality is again one of the film's major taboos to explore, as we're once again invited to marvel at how feminine the transvestites look as they dance with regularly-garbed gay men or enjoy the sight of lebians cavorting together in the sanctity of underground nightclubs.
Those who enjoy watching dwarves go about their daily lives are also indulged as we observe a diminutive hooker servicing her customer in the backseat of an abandoned car parked in an alley.
Elsewhere a man barely a meter tall in a crazy zoot suit shows off some incredible acrobatic dance moves in front of a hot rock and roll band. This guy is probably my favorite part of the whole film, partly because he's just so entertaining and partly because he helped rouse me out of the drowsy stupor that much of the rest of MONDO BALORDO was lulling me into.
Let's face it--despite its cornucopia of utter strangeness and some truly bizarre sights, much of this is a rather boring and even confusing experience. It's as though dozens of film clips of various unrelated sex jokes, titillating (for 60s standards) footage both real and staged, and standard travelogue stuff from several exotic locations around the world were swept up off the cutting room floor, thrown into a blender, pasted together, and made more palatable by having our beloved Boris bless it all with his warmly inviting vocal inflections.
The Blu-ray from Severin Films is scanned in 4K from the original negative which is in decent shape for an old and obscure film rarity of this type. (Any inherent imperfections in picture quality only add to its nostalgic appeal for me.) Anamorphic widescreen 1.66:1. Audio is English mono, with English subtitles.
Extras consist of a trailer and an added feature, THE ORIENTALS (1960), a genuine travelogue of various far Eastern locations that's told through the eyes of six women and which was scanned from a 35mm print in the Something Weird archives.
As per my usual disclaimer, many viewers will have absolutely no desire to subject themselves to such a strange mash-up of the banal and the bizarre as MONDO BALORDO--while on the other hand, there are those who will hungrily inhale this weirdly intoxicating sleazefest just like the hopeless drug addicts we see awaiting their daily fix of brain-rotting bliss.
Writer-director Alan Byron (BILLY FURY: THE SOUND OF FURY, PUNK '76) opens his 2018 documentary THE BEATLES: MADE ON MERSEYSIDE (Film Classics) with the familiar strains of "Twist and Shout." But it's the Isley Brothers version we hear, not the Beatles' celebrated cover.
This is typical of the entire film, which features not one note of actual Beatles' music (much as the documentary JIMI HENDRIX: THE GUITAR HERO had no actual Hendrix songs save for a public domain version of "Hey, Joe") and not that many images or film clips. It's a bit like making a documentary about the Apollo space program and not including any footage of the first moon landing.
What compensation there is consists of ample interview footage of people either directly or indirectly involved with the Beatles during their five-year rise from obscurity to stardom, including their tour manager, a business associate of Brian Epstein, Epstein's secretary, and Pete Best's brother.
Best of all (pun intended), the Beatles' initial drummer Pete Best is on hand to offer his quiet, thoughtful reminiscences from a very first-hand point of view, and it's his segments that are the most welcome ray of sunshine in the whole presentation.
What makes it most worth watching, in fact, is finding out at the end that he's enjoying a happy life, both personally and professionally, including ample compensation for "The Beatles Anthology" and a new band which makes terrific music (I've heard them--they're really good).
There are also a couple of original members of the Quarrymen giving us their equally first-hand accounts of what went down on and offstage when John, Paul, and the rest were whooping it up at the Kaiserkeller and Star Club in Hamburg or electrifying local Liverpool kids at the Cavern and Casbah clubs.
Mona Best herself turns up in old footage with son Pete, which is of interest. And last but certainly not least, Cynthia Lennon appears briefly a few times to share her own intimately personal perspective.
Most of the other interviewees relate familiar stories while the few film clips of the Beatles are augmented by lots of B-roll footage of Liverpool and Hamburg and various locations where the Beatles lived or performed.
When we're told the old story of how young Paul and John acquired American rock and roll records from sailors down at the docks, we're shown a lengthy montage of freighters unloading their cargo at those docks.
Say they liked Elvis and we see a minute or two of Elvis performing; say they covered "Long Tall Sally" and we hear Little Richard singing it. Snatches of other songs later covered by the Beatles turn up in their original form as well.
The Beatles, it turns out, are in the periphery of their own documentary. There are some nice clips of Ringo near the end, talking about joining the band, being in the hospital, etc. But again, no actual Beatle music. The effect is ultimately a bit dull and, needless to say, disappointing.
The DVD from Film Movement is in 1.78:1 widescreen with 2.0 stereo sound. No subtitles or extras.
If THE BEATLES: MADE ON MERSEYSIDE were chosen to be enclosed in a time capsule, future archeologists would learn the usual pre-fame history of the group, and get brief samples of their images and speaking voices, but would have no idea what their legendary music sounded like.
Does Batman take steroids? You might wonder about that after seeing Chris Bell's 2008 documentary BIGGER STRONGER FASTER, which reveals that a great number of our real-life heroes get where they are with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs. Particularly apt is the use of a clip from the old "Captain America" cartoon which shows the origin of the famous hero, in which he is transformed from skinny army reject into hulking superhero through chemical means.
With an engaging narration and a snappy documentary style which includes lots of stock shots, news footage, movie and TV clips, home movies, etc., Bell takes us through the various steroid-related sports scandals of recent years, from the heavy hitters of baseball to the track-and-field dynamos of the Olympics to the musclebound monsters of professional wrestling. We also find out about steroid use in unexpected areas such as academia and the military, and we see how others use them in the obsessively vain pursuit of physical perfection.
A major figure in this saga is bodybuilding legend Arnold Schwarzenegger, who embodies America's conflicting attitudes toward steroids. Arnold admits that they helped him become Mr. Olympia, yet he speaks out against them now while telling kids they can make it without them. We also see those Senate hearings in which baseball players like Mark McGwire were raked over the coals while Arnold, once appointed chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, still hosts the Mr. Olympia competition which is rife with steroid use.
All of this serves as a backdrop to Chris Bell's personal story, which is the most compelling part of BIGGER STRONGER FASTER. He and his two brothers were overweight kids who dreamed of being big and strong like their wrestling and bodybuilding heroes, and eventually started using the drugs themselves. Older brother Mike ("Mad Dog") continues to use them even as his dream of becoming a pro wrestler has clearly passed him by, while younger brother Mark ("Smelly") keeps pumping himself up with them in his quest to set weightlifting records.
While their mother agonizes over her sons' decision to use drugs to better themselves, their dad philosophizes that none of our heroes are perfect. Some of the best moments come from Chris Bell's talks with his parents, because instead of an interviewer-subject situation in which he's obviously pushing a point, we get heart-to-heart talks that clearly effect him emotionally and force him to acknowledge the other side of the issue.
Meanwhile, we get to know some of the longterm gym rats who seem hopelessly addicted to the act of bulking up itself. One guy lives in a van in the parking lot of Gold's Gym. Another has increased the size of his biceps to shockingly grotesque proportions, fully aware that it makes him look like a freak, because he craves the attention. And on the other end of the spectrum, there's an HIV sufferer who has used anabolic steroids to ward off the effects of his disease for the last twenty-five years. Bell seems equally sympathetic to all of these guys.
Ultimately, BIGGER STRONGER FASTER is an indictment not of steroid use, but of its general condemnation by a public that demands not just heroes, but superheroes. Bell seems to be saying that steroids are no more harmful than Flintstone multi-vitamins, and that everyone should be allowed to take them in order to compete fairly in their chosen field of competition. As he tells us at one point: "I tried steroids, and it felt so good that I knew I had to stop. And now I can't even compete in the sport I grew up loving."
First of all--just as most pre-recorded VHS tapes begin with an "FBI Warning", I feel as though I should start my review of ADJUST YOUR TRACKING: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE VHS COLLECTOR (2013) with an "FYI Warning." In short...if you're a "normal" person who doesn't understand the obsessive nature of fandom and/or collecting, chances are this documentary about rabid VHS tape collectors will not only be uninteresting to you, but puzzling and even off-putting as well.
If, however, you share even a fraction of these guys' nostalgia for the glory days of VCRs and video stores, and can empathize with their enthusiasm due to some collecting obsession of your own, then you'll probably find this gushing fanboy love letter to VHS of more than passing interest.
As for me, I bought my first clunky top-loading Magnavox VCR in 1981, as soon as my first real job afforded me the means to do so (about $600), because for me it was the realization of a lifelong dream--the ability to actually record my favorite movies and TV shows, and to put whatever I wanted to on my TV whenever I wanted to watch it.
There were no video stores in town yet, but the appliance store where I bought my VCR had a tiny bookshelf of rental tapes. I got two free ones with my purchase and chose THE GRADUATE and WHERE'S POPPA? After setting up my new VCR at home, my excitement over pushing that big "play" button and seeing the "Magnetic Video" logo pop onto my TV screen at my own bidding was something I'll never forget. That night, I used one of my two free RCA blank tapes to record ALIEN from HBO, marveling at the fact that I could then rewind the tape and watch it again and again.
My tape collection grew quicky as those $25 RCA blank tapes (which were so solidly made that they still play well to this day) gave way to ten-dollar bundles of cheap blank tapes from Wal-Mart, and pre-recorded movies came down in price from $70-100 apiece (priced to sell mostly to video rental stores) to around $20 when a mass market for them was discovered. And the spread of the mom 'n' pop "hole in the wall" video store gave me plenty of tapes to make copies of as soon as I was able to buy a second VCR in '84.
As Troma's Lloyd Kaufman states (other commentators include Fangoria's Tony Timpone, Keith "The Bloody Ape" Crocker, Wild Eye's Rob Hauschild, and our own 42nd St. Pete, along with various authors and video store owners), video stores in those days were "like bookstores." Each one had its own individual ambience and unique selection of movies. But when big, impersonal Blockbuster came along and started driving the little guys out of business, they started selling off their stock at reduced prices. Like many others, I began buying up a lot of these tapes while they lasted.
Because of all this, I can relate to the stories told by the tape collectors in ADJUST YOUR TRACKING and easily share in their nostalgia for the medium of VHS. These guys, however, take it to a whole different, overtly obsessive level that will amuse and amaze.
Many of them, in fact, have recreated the video store experience in their own homes with massive collections displayed on shelves that take up several rooms. One guy has even created his own video store dubbed "Bradco Video" in his basement, including actual store shelves and a checkout counter. Others chatter at length about their methods of categorizing, alphabetizing, and obtaining rare titles, sometimes for hundreds of dollars (a rare piece-of-crap horror flick called TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE went for almost $700 on eBay).
The collectors bask in the physical attributes of VHS, especially the mostly cheapo-looking covers which they often value more than their contents. They talk excitedly about the different distribution companies such as Vestron, Magnetic, and the popular favorite, Wizard (I still have a few of those myself). They trade stories about rare finds at flea markets, conventions, and going-out-of-business sales, and the physical sensation derived from such "lowbrow archeology" ("It feels like getting your first boner").
While the drive to collect and preserve the medium of VHS may seem merely obsessive to many, the fact remains that many films are still available solely on tape and not on DVD and are in danger of becoming lost.
Only time will tell if these torch-carriers' efforts are in vain, or if VHS will resume its place in pop culture the way the vinyl record album has (but in which the 8-track tape has not).
As for me, I resisted the encroachment of the DVD in the late 90s until I was finally won over by the medium and allowed my once-avid interest in videotape to wane. But for the hardcore enthusiasts of ADJUST YOUR TRACKING: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE VHS COLLECTOR, there is only the delirious pleasure of taking a slab of plastic out of a crudely-decorated box and inserting it into a clunky machine, and watching something which, like life itself, is full of crackles, drop-outs, and other imperfections, and for which adjusting the tracking periodically is simply part of the fun.
(NOTE: I reviewed a screener without the extras. The 2-disc set should include a co-directors' commentary, a producers' commentary, extended interviews, a behind-the-scenes documentary, three short films by the directors, deleted scenes, festival Q & A footage, trailers, and Easter eggs. )
Well, here we go again--another season of the AMC series "The Walking Dead", which means another nonstop binge-watching session that drags on into the wee hours of the morning. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
This is quite simply, in my opinion, one of my most watchable TV shows ever. My annual viewing marathon is almost on the same anticipation level as a yearly holiday such as Labor Day, or at least Arbor Day. And THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON, a 5-disc Blu-ray set from Anchor Bay, is a worthy continuation of that show's tradition of insane watchability.
Most people are familiar with the premise by now--a ragtag group of survivors make their way through the zombie apocalypse with ex-Georgia sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) as their dauntless leader, trying to hold on to their humanity even as circumstances make them more hard-edged and ruthless with each struggle to stay alive.
The longer they do survive, however, the more callous they become, and season five finds Rick and his people dealing with their enemies with a blood-and-thunder attitude that would've shocked them all just a year or two ago. If they'd run into their present selves back then, they'd have fled the other way.
But by now they've pretty much had enough of all the other living humans who've screwed them over, such as their nemesis from the last couple of seasons, The Governor (David Morrissey). This new set begins with the resolution to last season's tantalizing cliffhanger in which our heroes were taken prisoner by the inhabitants of a community called Terminus which is supposed to be a haven for survivors but turns out to be anything but.
Led by a smirking young sociopath named Gareth (Andrew J. West), the Terminus gang turn out to be a bunch of cannibals who gleefully harvest their human captives like cattle. The first episode casts us right into the middle of a harrowing slaughter sequence which leads to a thrilling free-for-all of humans vs. zombies vs. cannibals involving several group chow-downs of screaming victims by ravenous walkers and loads of special makeup effects, rivalling season four's spectacular opening.
Further segments will take us on a journey with our protagonists through many gripping battles for survival and encounters with other groups of people whose motives are ever under suspicion. While the walking, flesh-devouring dead remain a constant threat, it's the living who consistently pose the greatest danger.
By this point in the series, many other factions exist with their own laws and principals, centered around a leader who is either good, bad, or insane (or a combination of the three). Just like Ben and Harry in George Romero's original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (from whence all other current zombie apocalypse sagas seem to have been spawned), this can lead to serious conflicts in which it's hard to tell who's right and who's wrong.
This is especially true when Rick's group discover an idyllic walled-in community known as Alexandria, near what's left of Washington, D.C. They're invited to become citizens of the seemingly genteel and peaceful collective, yet even here there's danger of many different kinds lurking at every turn. And by now, Rick's people have themselves become too feral to coexist with civilized society! Tovuh Feldshuh guest stars as Alexandria's leader, Deanna, whose initially warm welcome toward them will soon turn to fear and mistrust.
The show features more fascinating continuing characters than ever and most get their time in the spotlight, including the ever-popular crossbow-wielding wild man Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus), samurai swordswoman Michonne (Danai Gurira), lovebirds Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan), and Rick's son Carl (Chandler Riggs), whose adolescence has been unconventional to say the least.
Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) and his sister Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) each get some highly-dramatic storylines that bring home the emotional devastation that comes from living so close to death on such intimate terms every day. Maggie's missing-in-action sister Beth (Emily Kinney) turns up again in a hospital setting known as "Slabtown" in the middle of ruined Atlanta, dealing with a mentally-unbalanced policewoman (Christine Woods) and her squad of fascist cops.
And there's the continuing saga of Eugene (Josh McDermitt), a scientist who ostensibly holds the solution to the zombie problem if only he can get to Washington, D.C. with the help of his hulking ex-military bodyguard with the anger-management problem, Abraham (Michael Cudlitz).
Best of all, we get to see the continuing saga of Carol (Melissa McBride), the once-timid domestic abuse victim turned hardened survivalist who is the most calmly and ruthlessly pragmatic of them all. After being exiled from the group last season, Carol is the one who rescues her former friends from the cannibals at Terminus while drenched in blood and guts in order to throw surrounding zombies off her scent. Later, she gets back together with her friend and fellow one-time outcast Daryl in a storyline that will tie in with Beth's adventures in Slabtown.
While most of the drama and action involve the living, there's always the ever-present threat of the walkers, who seem to pop out of nowhere every time someone turns around (sneaky little buggers). These shambling corpses are all getting more decomposed than ever--sometimes we see something that's so horrible we think "Oh, that's not right."
Greg Nicotero's SPFX team keep coming up with endlessly imaginative ways of grossing us out, such as zombies that are little more than blobs of napalmed flesh stuck to the pavement--still horribly "alive", of course--and waterlogged zombies who've been slogging around in a flooded basement for months.
The combination of practical effects with impeccably-rendered CGI is excellent, often downright spectacular. Thanks to the creativity and imagination of everyone involved, the show still has the power to flabbergast us after all these years. Just when we should be starting to get numbed by all the gory violence and horror, something will happen to make us say "whoa."
The 5-disc, 16-episode Blu-ray set from Anchor Bay (which includes instructions for a complete digital download of its contents) is in 1.78:1 widescreen with English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 and French Dolby 2.0 surround sound. Subtitles are in English and Spanish. Several of the episodes have cast and crew audio commentaries. (A couple of episodes have post-credits "sting" scenes, so be sure not to miss them.)
Disc five contains a wealth of extras including: •Deleted Scenes •Inside “The Walking Dead” (covers each individual episode) •The Making of “The Walking Dead” (covers each individual episode) •The Making of Alexandria •Beth’s Journey •Bob’s Journey •Noah’s Journey •Tyreese’s Journey •A Day in the Life of Michael Cudlitz •A Day in the Life of Josh McDermitt •Rotters in the Flesh
These days "The Walking Dead" has so many good characters that we get several alternating plotlines to keep things interesting. Rick and his followers are changing, growing, evolving (in some cases devolving) all over the place this season, and it makes THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON an endlessly entertaining treat for fans of both this show and gory zombie apocalypse epics in general to gorge themselves on.
When we last left AMC's "The Walking Dead" at the end of season three, there was one exasperating hanging thread--the fate of the Governor (David Morrissey), the charismatic but psychotic leader of a community of people who had come together to survive and help protect each other from the constant threat of the reanimated, flesh-eating corpses wandering the land like something right out of a George Romero movie.
But with Anchor Bay's latest 5-disc DVD set, THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON, that maddening bit of unfinished business is dealt with in such spectacular fashion that I didn't mind having to wait for it. In fact, the character of the Governor, who now calls himself "Brian Heriot", is fleshed out in such fascinating ways that we almost begin to root for him until, ultimately, he fully reverts back into the ruthless, power-mad whacko that we all know so well and forms yet another collective of blind followers.
All of this, of course, occurs even as former Georgia state trooper Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), the series' hero and main character, is still trying to keep his own hardy band of survivors together within the walls of an abandoned prison that serves as their sanctuary. Last we saw, they'd just weathered a fierce assault by the Governor and his previous acolytes, many of whom have since seen the light and are now a part of Rick's group.
Picking up the pieces and getting on with the business of life is hard enough even if you don't have hungry hordes of zombies forever massing around your fenced-in perimeter in ever-growing numbers. Rick's still dealing with the death of his wife Lori last season while trying to raise their son Carl (Chandler Riggs) to be both a good man and a capable zombie killer. As always, the ever-present plague of the walking dead casts its shadow over every story element, giving even the most soap opera-tinged moments an undercurrent of twisted existential dread.
Scott Wilson (IN COLD BLOOD) returns as the group's current sage, Hershel Greene, whose calm wisdom is essential in enduring each new crisis. This is especially important during one of the season's most pressing concerns, a deadly flu epidemic which creates killer zombies who attack from within the prison itself when those infected start to die off. A rigidly-enforced quarantine seperates Hershel's daughter Maggie (Lauren Cohan) from her beloved husband Glenn (Steven Yeun), who is in an advanced stage of the disease.
This storyline keeps things tense for much of the early part of the season, with many risking their lives in perilous supply runs in search of medicine which, needless to say, they must fight their way through armies of the living dead in order to procure. This gives us a chance to become reacquainted with such fan-fave characters as redneck outlaw-turned-hero Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus, BLADE II, MESKADA) and samurai sword-wielding Michonne (Danai Gurira), both loners who learn to thrive as valuable members of the group.
There's a lot of dramatic turmoil in that group as well. Carol (Melissa McBride), formerly a timid abused wife, now displays such a fierce, unflinching resolve that her actions force a shocked Rick to send her into exile. Rick himself comes to blows with Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) after two of his friends are found murdered and their bodies burned, which the burly newcomer suspects Rick to have done.
We even see the strange effect the continuing zombie threat has on two small children, sisters Lizzie (Brighton Sharbino) and Mika (Kyla Kenedy), one of whom must watch as the other becomes more dangerously unbalanced with each passing day. Sharbino ("True Detective", CHEAP THRILLS) is especially good in her demanding role, with the sisters' storyline supplying some of the season's most stunning moments.
All of which leads to a mid-season finale which, action-wise, blows the doors off of everything that's gone before. When the Governor and his brand new army--now fortified with an honest-to-goodness tank in addition to plenty of other lethal weapons--show up at the front gates of the prison demanding that Rick and his people evacuate immediately, the situation erupts into a carnage-drenched clash between two living armies both of which quickly become engulfed by the resulting zombie feeding frenzy that we knew was inevitable since the season's first episode.
At this point, we understand why the whole business of defending the prison against the Governor took a whole season and a half to work out--it's because this is a tale that was worth taking the extra time to tell. The climactic battle is cathartic, exhausting, and, by the end, exhilarating because the catastrophic outcome takes the series back to its hardscrabble roots, with our beloved characters scrambling through the wilderness scrounging for food and eking out an existence amidst constant threat from both the dead and the increasingly desperate living.
Even worse, this time they've been broken up into small groups unaware of each other's location or even which of the others are still alive. Once again our peace-loving heroes come into contact with the most ruthless of roving survivors, including a band of bad boys led by Jeff Kober ("Sons of Anarchy", THE BABY DOLL MURDERS) whom Daryl immediately regrets falling in with.
Like characters out of Stephen King's "The Stand", they're drawn to a distant place that promises sanctuary, in hopes that their loved ones will also be there, but is this place known as "Terminus" really the end of their struggle--or just the beginning of a whole new fight for life?
The 5-disc DVD set from Anchor Bay Entertainment (also available in Blu-ray) is in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) with English Dolby Digital 5.1 and French Dolby Surround 2.0 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish. Disc 5's many bonus features include:
Featurettes: •Inside THE WALKING DEAD (covers each individual episode)
•The Making of THE WALKING DEAD (covers each individual episode)
•Drawing Inspiration
•Hershel
•The Governor Is Back
•Society, Science & Survival
•Inside KNB EFX
•A Journey Back to Brutality
•Deleted Scenes
Cast and crew commentaries for episodes 1, 5, 12, and 14 (also for episode 9 on Blu-ray). Episodes 9 ("After"), and 14 ("The Grove") are extended on the Blu-ray™ only.
As usual, I devoured THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON in just two or three marathon viewing sessions and was left ravenous for more at the cliffhanger conclusion. This is, without a doubt, one of the most compulsively watchable and addictive series in television history, and one which, according to some people I've talked to, you don't even have to be a monster fan to appreciate.
But it helps, especially if you're a gorehound, because--also as usual--this show is a non-stop, total indulgence in state-of-the-art zombie and gore effects. The SPFX artists that make the show's title come alive (so to speak) just keep outdoing themselves, and even when we think we've become numbed to such sights, they think of new ways to flabbergast us. Still, it's always the fascinating characters, and the riveting storylines, that keep bringing us back for more.
Sometimes it seems as though the TV people make a show just for me, and AMC's "The Walking Dead" is one of those shows. So the release of the 5-disc DVD set THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON means one thing--another marathon viewing session that doesn't end until my bloodshot eyes have watched every last episode.
This is the good stuff as far as I'm concerned--a continuing zombie apocalypse series that follows a particular group of disparate characters as they struggle to survive in a world increasingly overrun by reanimated corpses hungry for human flesh. Writer-director George Romero created this world in 1968 with his notorious classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and, with wildly varying degrees of success, filmmakers have been riffing on the same premise ever since.
But it was filmmaker Frank Darabont (THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE GREEN MILE) who gave us the first zombie serial and made it one of the most riveting and addictive shows on television. Even with his unfortunate departure (due mainly to budget disputes with AMC, he told TV Guide) the show continues to keep me helplessly hooked. It's as though that first group of people in Romero's seminal film managed to survive and attempt to carve out a life for themselves in the world of the dead.
Here, it's former Georgia state trooper Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) reluctantly leading a ragtag assortment of weary survivors including his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies), pregnant with a child whose father might be either Rick or his late partner Shane (Jon Bernthal ), and his son Carl (Chandler Riggs), a mixed-up kid for whom blowing away zombies on a daily basis might not be conducive to a healthy mental attitude.
Last season found our heroes seeking shelter in a pastoral setting that seemed deceptively zombie-free--the isolated farm of aged veterinarian Hershel (Scott Wilson, IN COLD BLOOD) and his daughters Maggie and Beth (Lauren Cohan, Emily Kinney). When a herd of zombies showed up to end their idyll in a flesh-eating free-for-all, they were forced to flee once again.
Season three finds them setting up housekeeping within the walls of an abandoned prison, giving us a situation not unlike DAWN OF THE DEAD with its fortified shopping mall. But there are still zombies roaming the vast network of corridors, along with a hidden gang of live convicts who will themselves pose a danger to the main group.
This lends the show a constant air of sustained tension that frequently erupts into the usual gore-drenched action setpieces. It also causes Rick to display an increasingly coldblooded and ruthless attitude in dealing with any threats to his family and friends, with sometimes shocking results.
The ever-present irony of the series, of course, is that the biggest threat against them often comes not from the walking dead, but from the living. In season three, this is demonstrated in no uncertain terms when we discover a nearby community of survivors led by a charismatic Pied Piper known as "The Governor" (David Morrissey).
Their small but well-fortified town seems a haven of peace and security, but beneath that fascade is an endless wealth of corruption and madness that I found wonderfully entertaining as each layer of The Governor's outward sanity gets peeled away for our viewing pleasure.
Needless to say, he'll eventually declare war on our heroes who are holed up behind the walls of the prison and, with his superior firepower and military-trained soldiers, it won't be pretty--especially with the living dead waiting to close in on every side. Complicating things is the reappearance of last season's gun-toting alpha babe, Andrea (Laurie Holden), currently under The Governor's seductive spell, and her warrior-woman friend Michonne (Danai Gurira), who wields a samurai sword and leads two defanged zombie pets on chain-leashes.
The dramatic possibilities inherent in all of this are nicely fleshed out, so to speak, especially when we find out what kind of scientific experiments The Governor's mild-mannered toady Milton (Dallas Roberts, THE SHADOW PEOPLE, THE RIVER WHY) is conducting on the living dead and why (with shades of Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD). The romance between Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Hershel's headstrong daughter Maggie continues and is surely one of television's most blood-drenched courtships. Other soap-opera-type aspects of the group's intimate interactions pick up where they left off last season and keep things percolating between "walker" attacks.
Perhaps best of all, however, is the return of one of season one's most vivid and frightening characters--none other than the great Michael Rooker (HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER) as the ever-popular uber-redneck, Merle. What he gets up to in dealing with both sides of the upcoming war and how his return affects his little brother Darryl (Norman Reedus, BLADE II, MESKADA)--who has been acting more and more human while removed from Merle's evil influence--will give this season some of its most scintillating moments.
But with it all, there's always the threat of being attacked and overrun by those ever-present ambulatory corpses who are determined to eat anything with a heartbeat. THE WALKING DEAD doesn't shy away from the buckets of gore that we've come to expect, whether done with good old-fashioned practical effects or, more and more lately, passable but not always convincing CGI. Thankfully, the writing and SPFX teams keep coming up with new ways to gross us out, which gives those scenes in which familiar characters meet a gruesome demise even greater impact.
The DVD set from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with English Dolby Digital 5.1 and French Dolby Surround 2.0 sound. Subtitles are in English and Spanish. Extras include eight featurettes, audio commentaries for five episodes, and deleted scenes.
While there isn't a single killer moment to match last season's "Sophia reveal", season three of "The Walking Dead" nevertheless gives us a mind-numbing succession of powerful, disturbing, and often emotionally devastating situations and images that can only be possible when a premise this outlandish is convincingly realized. Although it doesn't come to a relatively satisfying conclusion the way the previous season did, THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON hits the highway running and never allows the drama and suspense to let up until the last skull is splattered.
The world's first serialized zombie saga for television (that I know of, anyway) continues with Anchor Bay's 4-disc DVD set THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON. And if you enjoyed yourself the first time around you won't want to miss what happens next.
This time, our ragtag group of still-warm survivors led by former Alabama state trooper Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his partner Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal) are on the road again after last season's visit to a military laboratory for help ended on a decidedly hopeless note. Now, with the zombie apocalypse raging fiercer than ever and flesh-eating reanimated corpses popping up at every turn, their tiny caravan hits a traffic jam on the interstate and comes to a screeching halt.
While ransacking the stalled vehicles for supplies and fuel, the group must hide from an entire herd of zombies as they go shambling by. This zombie herd is one of season two's most noteworthy features--we'll not only see them again during a key climactic sequence, but we'll even get a flashback which answers the question, "Why the heck would hundreds of 'walkers' get together and become a herd in the first place?"
Anyway, their passing leads to two of the key events of the season. One is that little Sophia, daughter of Carol (Melissa McBride), goes missing and forces the others to undertake an exhaustive search of the surrounding woods which will keep them there for days. The other is that when Rick's son Carl (Chandler Riggs) is accidentally shot by a hunter, he is taken to the secluded farm of aging veterinarian Hershel Greene (IN COLD BLOOD's Scott Wilson) for treatment. Rick and the others see Hershel's farm as an almost walker-free haven where they could live in relative peace and safety--but Hershel wants no part of them and insists they leave after Carl has recovered.
With this idyllic farm setting as a backdrop, season two is less episodic than before and allows our characters time to engage in plenty of interpersonal dramatics punctuated here and there by sudden walker attacks to keep viewers jumpy. The love triange between Rick, his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies), and an increasingly resentful Shane becomes more bitter and curdled than ever, especially with Lori's discovery that she may be pregnant. Andrea (Laurie Holden) eschews "women's work" and wants to go zombie-hunting with the guys; she also clashes with the group's sage old RV driver Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) over whether she should be allowed to carry a gun or even, if she chooses to, commit suicide.
Hershel's insistence that the group leave his farm turns explosive when they make a shocking discovery about what he's keeping out in the barn, leading to what is probably the most emotionally devastating scene of the series thus far. Heated disputes between Rick and Shane over how things should be handled escalate until the former friends are at each other's throats, with the entire group split down the middle as well. As Rick struggles to retain his humanity and Shane becomes increasingly ruthless, it becomes harder to decide whose way is more beneficial to the group and who will lead them to ruin.
But even with all this dramatic stuff going on, the main emphasis of "The Walking Dead" is still on zombies, zombies, and more zombies. Despite the safety of Hershel's farm, there are frequent opportunities for our main characters to put themselves in danger during supply runs and other necessary excusions, which usually result in their being set upon by scores of ravenous walkers.
Makeup effects are better than ever, with several of the "hero" zombies looking exquisitely horrible and some of the attack scenes generating nail-biting suspense. As usual, a hapless human will occasionally find himself (or herself) feasted upon by a group of ghouls like a living, screaming buffet (I call this the "Full Meal Deal"), surely the most awful fate that can befall anyone in any zombie flick since George Romero's seminal work, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
A hefty percentage of the gory violence in "The Walking Dead", however, comes from humans dealing that fatal brain-extinguishing death blow to their undead foes in all manner of extremely messy ways including machetes, screwdrivers, hatchets, shovels, and, of course, guns. An impromptu autopsy by Rick and group outsider Daryl (Norman Reedus, BLADE II) on an expired walker is especially gruesome (and perversely amusing), as is the aftermath that occurs when a bloated ghoul is found splashing around at the bottom of a well and is hauled up by rope only to be pulled in half at the waist.
The 4-disc DVD set from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with English Dolby Digital 5.1 and French Dolby Surround 2.0. Subtitles are in English and Spanish. Bonuses include several behind-the-scenes featurettes, five cast and crew commentaries, deleted scenes, and a stunning 6-webisode tale that gives us the backstory for one of the most memorable minor characters in season one.
Filled with all the gruesome zombie action and intense personal drama we've come to expect from this unique series, THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON ends with the inevitable as Hershel's farm turns out to be not so walker-free after all. As carnivorous chaos reigns over the once-peaceful countryside in a free-for-all of flesh-eating and brain-bashing, the season not only goes out with a bang but leaves us with a teasing glimpse of what's in store for our heroes next time.
(Originally posted 3/27/17. Information about public showings no longer applies.)
DONNIE DARKO (2001) is kind of like an ultra "Twilight Zone" episode by way of "The X-Files" as filtered through the mind of David Lynch and decorated by Tim Burton. With some Robert A. Heinlein, Clive Barker, and John Irving thrown into the mix as well. (The director has called it “The Catcher in the Rye as told by Philip K. Dick.")
And yet it's also its own unique, one-of-a-kind sort of funhouse mirror with all the giddy fear and dark exhilaration of a malfunctioning spook house ride.
Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, ZODIAC) gains our sympathy right away because he's a nice teenaged kid with a nice family, and he'd like to be a normal guy, but he isn't--I mean, really, really isn't--and he can't help it.
His befuddled psychiatrist (Katherine Ross) tells his parents he's schizophrenic. Sometimes he skips his meds. He knows he's "crazy", and that his attempts not to be are probably doomed.
So, occasionally, he just goes with the flow and sets the fires and vandalizes the things that the tall guy in the scary-looking bunny costume and mask tells him to do.
Why? Because the scary bunny, who goes by the name of Frank, is a time traveler, helping Donnie to fulfill his destiny and maintain the space-time continuum by influencing the lives of everyone around him in very fundamental ways before the world ends, which will occur at the end of the month on Halloween night.
The incredible event that sets all of this into motion occurs early in the film, after we've met Donnie and the other Darkos and things have settled down for the night, and suddenly, there's a tremendous crash that shakes the house like an earthquake.
That's the detached jet airplane engine demolishing Donnie's bedroom from above, mere minutes after he's been awakened and summoned safely out of the house by Frank.
For me, this weird and wonderful event is the sort of thing that just makes me fall in love with a movie right off the bat and stay with it every step of the way if it continues to be that wonderful, which DONNIE DARKO does the way a mindbending page-turner of a novel or comic book does.
Mary McDonnell (DANCES WITH WOLVES, INDEPENDENCE DAY, SCREAM 4, "Battlestar Galactica") and Holmes Osborne (THAT THING THAT YOU DO!, BRING IT ON, AFFLICTION) are ideal as Donnie's long-suffering but loving parents Rose and Eddie, and Gyllenhaal's real-life sister Maggie (THE DARK KNIGHT) is his sister Elizabeth. Their younger sister Samantha is played cutely by Daveigh Chase (AMERICAN ROMANCE, SPIRITED AWAY).
Executive producer Drew Barrymore makes a strong impression as Donnie's progressive, perceptive English teacher, Miss Pomeroy, whose methods will be called into question by stiff-assed fellow teacher Miss Farmer (Beth Grant, OPERATION: ENDGAME, SPEED), an emotionally backward harpy whose classes seem to consist solely of videotapes by New Age self-help guru Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze, ROADHOUSE, DIRTY DANCING, GHOST).
Other supporting players in this very interesting cast include Noah Wyle, Seth Rogan, James Duval (AMERICAN ROMANCE, THE BLACK WATERS OF ECHO'S POND, INDEPENDENCE DAY), and Patience Cleveland (PSYCHO III) as Roberta Sparrow, aka "Grandma Death", a crazy old recluse who, it turns out, may know a thing or two about time travel herself.
High school life is a daily parade of the usual nerdy friends and scary bullies, as well as a pretty but troubled new student (Jena Malone as "Gretchen") who catches the eye of lonely but attractively enigmatic Donnie.
I tried the lonely but attractively enigmatic thing in high school but it never worked for me. It does, however, work for Donnie as he and Gretchen form a sympatico relationship that will become crucial in the scheme of things as time counts irrevocably down to Frank's mysterious end-of-world deadline.
As Donnie, Jake Gyllenhaal maintains just the right attitude throughout--bemused, puzzled, sad, resentful, fearful, and yet deeply intrigued by what's happening to him, because who knows? It just might be real.
Visually, DONNIE DARKO is an eye-pleasing, idealized evocation of everyday life, sort of an updated Kodachrome version of Capra's small town in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE or the deceptive veneer of normalcy in Lynch's BLUE VELVET, all shot through with a warm nostalgia for the 80s. (Donnie takes Gretchen to see THE EVIL DEAD at the neighborhood bijou, while familiar 80s songs enhance the soundtrack.)
Richard Kelly directs the whole thing with the skill of a craftsman and the sensibility of an artist who likes to turn everyday things inside out and explore the beauty and mystery within, occasionally uncovering the ugly side of things as well.
He also imbues the film with a sense of dark, magical fun that makes the serious aspects and underlying humanity of the story resonate even more.
This is exemplified by the loving but impishly humorous interactions between Donnie's parents, who sometimes act like a couple of kids, and between Donnie and his sisters. It's nice to see a functioning family unit in a movie these days, even though this family does have one huge dysfunction, which is Donnie.
It's been a while since I was this totally caught up in a film and entranced by it until the very last frame. DONNIE DARKO is like a big, juicy Tootsie Pop made of mystery and imagination, and you savor the act of seeing how many licks it takes to get to the chewy cult movie center.
Donnie Darko: English / USA / 113 min (theatrical) / 134 min (Director's Cut) Here's our original coverage of the upcoming re-release:
Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko Returns to Theaters Arrow Films Debuts 4K Restoration of Theatrical & Director's Cuts
Weeklong Runs in Los Angeles, New York and More
"Excitingly original indie vision" - Entertainment Weekly "A mini-masterpiece" - Empire
Los Angeles, CA - Arrow Films has announced the March 31st domestic theatrical debut of the 4K restoration of Richard Kelly's cult hit Donnie Darko. Following a wildly successful re-release in the UK for its fifteenth anniversary, the film will return to theaters in cities across the United States. Fifteen years before "Stranger Things" combined science-fiction, Spielberg-ian touches and 80s nostalgia to much acclaim, Kelly set the template and the benchmark with his debut feature, Donnie Darko. Initially beset with distribution problems, it would slowly find its audience and emerge as arguably the first cult classic of the new millennium. The 4K restoration of Donnie Darko will premiere at the Vista in Los Angeles on March 30th, and officially open in Los Angeles at the Cinefamily and in New York at Metrograph on March 31st.
Described by director Richard Kelly as "The Catcher in the Rye as told by Philip K. Dick", Donnie Darko combines an eye-catching, eclectic cast: pre-stardom Jake (Nightcrawler, Brokeback Mountain, Nocturnal Animals) and Maggie Gyllenhaal ("The Honourable Woman", The Dark Knight), Jena Malone (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Neon Demon), the late heartthrob Patrick Swayze (Dirty Dancing, Ghost), Drew Barrymore (E.T., "Grey Gardens", "Santa Clarita Diet") Oscar nominees Mary McDonnell (Dances With Wolves, Passion Fish, "Battlestar Galactica") and Katharine Ross (The Graduate, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Stepford Wives), and television favorite Noah Wyle ("ER", "Falling Skies") and an evocative soundtrack of 80s classics by Echo and the Bunnymen, Tears for Fears and Duran Duran.
The brand-new 4K restoration was produced by Arrow Films from the original camera negatives and supervised and approved by Kelly and cinematographer Steven Poster. The 4K restoration premiered to a packed audience at the National Film Theatre in London on December 17th, 2016, with an introduction by Richard Kelly. A screening of the Director's Cut followed the next day. The re-release opened nationwide in the UK on December 23rd, eventually grossing £70,000.
Both the theatrical cut and the director's cut are being made available to venues via a partnership with Cartilage Films, and locations will vary.
Donnie Darko will also return for weeklong runs in Denver, Columbus, Cleveland, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Tempe, Tulsa and San Francisco on March 31st, and in El Paso, Portland and Detroit on April 7.
Special screenings include Jacksonville, Austin, Dallas, Honolulu, Lubbock, Baton Rouge, Sioux Falls, Oklahoma City, Tucson, Durham and Stamford throughout March and April. A full list of screenings is available at Cartilage Films.
http://www.cartilagefilms.com/donnie-darko.html?utm_source=Copy+of+Donnie+Darko+Theaters&utm_campaign=Outfest&utm_medium=email
March 31st Theatrical Release:
The Cinefamily
611 N Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St
New York, NY 10002
Donnie is a troubled high school student: in therapy, prone to sleepwalking and in possession of an imaginary friend, a six-foot rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world is going to end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. During that time he will navigate teenage life, narrowly avoid death in the form of a falling jet engine, follow Frank's maladjusted instructions and try to maintain the space-time continuum.
It isn't often that your run-of-the-mill teen slasher pic actually defies and/or exceeds expectations, but WTF! (2017) lives up to its title by doing just that.
Not that it reinvents the wheel or anything. It's just that debut director and co-writer Peter Herro has managed to toss in all the familiar ingredients and whip up something that doesn't taste like the same old microwaved mess.
Perez Hilton's cameo is, thankfully, brief, as he yells "F***ing spring break, pussies!" at a pool party (perfectly setting the film's early tone) and tries to be Steve-O for five minutes before disappearing. (Yay!)
Then, it's off to a secluded cabin in the woods for our cast of bratty young party-hearty-ers and a fun-filled weekend of alcohol, weed, sex, skinny-dipping, and death.
(Oh, and just to get a couple of things out of the way to begin with -- there's no Wi-Fi and no cell phone service.)
All the stereotypes are here and then some, along with many of the familiar tropes (including the gas-station hick who warns the kids to "stay away from that place") which, by now, are so comforting that we sort of welcome them.
In fact, this movie wants to be predictable so that it can play around with, and sometimes bend, all our expectations. Not to mention the fact that letting go and indulging in all the foolishness this genre has to offer, if done right and with tongue firmly in cheek, can be fun.
WTF! does just that by being a nicely-filmed self-parody pretending to be a serious horror flick. The kids inhabit their roles to the hilt--the spoiled rich girls, the horny frat boys, the various loners (final girl, sensitive boy, etc.)--and actually play them with conviction.
This is especially true once it finally dawns on them that party time is over and the gore has hit the fan. It's rare, but in this case the ensemble acting actually improves once the cast are expected to emote their heads off. They're terrific, in fact, as is Herro's direction.
Not only that, but after some pretty brutal kills, there's a nifty twist that I didn't see coming. Or rather, I sorta saw it coming but not quite from that direction. "WTF!", indeed.
Doing a continuing series about a group of characters struggling to survive a zombie apocalypse is such a cool idea it's a wonder nobody's ever done it before. Frank Darabont (THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE GREEN MILE) must've thought so too, so he and producer Gale Anne Hurd (THE TERMINATOR, ALIENS) have adapted the graphic novel "The Walking Dead" into an AMC television series that should have horror fans lurching through the streets in undead ecstasy.
Anchor Bay's two-disc set THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON contains the initial six episodes, which use George Romero's 1968 classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (along with a large dash of Stephen King's "The Stand") as a launching point for a whole new saga. Darabont's intent was to stick close to the Romero vibe, with shambling, non-athletic zombies and an emphasis on the (living) human conflicts occurring amidst the carnage. No punches are pulled on either front, as the visuals are exceedingly graphic and the stories are filled with dramatic tension and surprises.
Andrew Lincoln stars as Rick Grimes, a lanky Atlanta, Georgia sheriff's deputy who awakens from a coma to find the world ravaged by an undead armageddon. The first episode, "Days Gone Bye", is probably the all-out creepiest of the bunch--it's like the ultimate "Twilight Zone" episode, with a dazed Rick wandering through the ruins of his hometown which is littered with rotting, partially-devoured corpses. The fact that a good number of them are walking around and trying to eat him adds to the nervous tension this episode bristles with.
Luckily, Rick hooks up with a guy named Morgan (London-born Lennie James, OUTLAW) and his young son, living in a barricaded house. Morgan's dead wife is one of the zombies (known here as either "walkers" or "geeks") that surround the house, but he doesn't have the heart to put her down. The scene in which she staggers up to the front door and stands there, seemingly aware that he's inside, reminded me of a similar eerie moment in the Richard Matheson adaptation THE LAST MAN ON EARTH. It finally dawned on me later that Vincent Price's character in that movie was also named Morgan.
"Guts" finds Rick in Atlanta, where his hopes that the "authorities" will have things under control are dashed when he's overrun by hundreds of walkers and barely escapes with his life in a thrillingly suspenseful sequence. Here, he meets a group of survivors who take him to their encampment outside of town. To his joyous surprise, his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and son Carl are there, along with his former partner Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal), who is the group's leader. Thinking Rick dead, the headstrong Shane has staked a claim on Lori and Carl which he's reluctant to relinquish, a situation that will lead to growing complications as the season progresses.
"Tell It to the Frogs" and "Vatos" find Rick leading a group back to Atlanta to rescue Merle (genre fave Michael Rooker), a violent racist whom they'd been forced to leave handcuffed on a rooftop during their escape. Merle's little brother Daryl (Norman Reedus, who played "Scud" in BLADE II) is another hothead with an anger management problem, which makes him an asset in their frequent bouts with the walkers but a big liability as a team player. At one point, Rick and young pizza-delivery guy Glenn (Steven Yeun) must hack a corpse to pieces and cover themselves with gore in order to pass unmolested among the undead. This is the one scene in the series that's so over-the-top it almost invites laughs as the two sneak around in their blood-encrusted overcoats with severed limbs hanging from around their necks.
"Wildfire" deals with the aftermath of a terrifying zombie attack on the encampment and brings up an issue from the Romero films--what to do with friends and loved ones who have been bitten and, once dead, are doomed to return. Rick comes up with a plan to pack up and travel to a military base for protection, hoping that their scientists are close to a cure. In "TS-19", the final episode of the season, the survivors' hopes are raised when they reach the installation but are soon dashed by new revelations. Shane's obsession with Lori takes a dark turn, while suicidal despair infects various members of the group. An explosive finale leaves their final fate as doubtful as ever.
Once I started watching THE WALKING DEAD it was like eating potato chips--I couldn't stop until I'd scarfed the whole thing. True-blue George Romero stuff all the way, it explores all the fascinating avenues of the premise set forth in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and its sequels with up-to-date effects, sharp writing, and the combined talent of some great filmmakers. The estimable Darabont's enthusiasm for the project is one of its main assets, as is the incredible make-up artistry of Greg Nicotero and his team.
While always in service to the story, the gore effects match or surpass just about anything we've seen on the big screen and are often jaw-dropping. Delightfully hideous zombies chow down on their victims amidst gouts of blood and guts while the good guys blast, dismember, and behead them. In one scene, an abused wife (Melissa McBride) makes sure her "walker" husband is good and dead by braining him repeatedly with a pickaxe until his head looks like a taco salad. One of Rick's first "geek" encounters is with a female torso so desiccated that he, and we, are shocked to find it still horribly ambulatory. Time after time, this cable-TV series serves up gore effects that might easily get a feature film stamped "X."
Production values are first rate, and scenes of zombies by the hundreds swarming through ravaged city streets have an epic quality that's impressive. As for the cast, they're all on their best game. In addition to those already mentioned, multitalented IronE Singleton is T-Dog, who clashes with brothers Daryl and Merle. Laurie Holden (THE MIST, "The X-Files") and Emma Bell (FROZEN) play close-knit sisters Andrea and Amy, trying to protect each other as circumstances conspire to separate them. Old-school character actor Jeffrey DeMunn has one of his best roles ever as the group's wise old sage, Dale. As Rick, British actor Andrew Lincoln is a believable, non-glamorous lead who, with the right beard, might even make a convincing Abraham Lincoln. After getting used to him in character, it's somewhat of a shock hearing him speak in his native accent in the bonus features.
The 2-disc DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Subtitles are in English and Spanish. Extras include the half-hour documentary "The Making of 'The Walking Dead'", six behind-the-scenes webisodes, a visit with graphic novel author Robert Kirkman, a look at the makeup effects, a Comic Con panel with cast and producers, a trailer, and other assorted featurettes.
With more time to develop its characters and situations and some first-rate filmmakers at the helm, THE WALKING DEAD: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON makes a lot of the recent living-dead films seem anemic in comparison. For fans of both hardcore zombie horror and riveting serial drama, this is the good stuff.
I usually try to avoid describing movies as "blank meets blank" (I limit those to once or twice a month at most) but A FEAST OF MAN (2017) sorta cries out to be described as "The Big Chill meets Eating Raoul" or something equally lazy. I mean, apt.
Anyway, it's about old friends getting back together in a house, and it's about cannibalism. That is, the prospect of cannibalism, since they discover after gathering in the house of their deceased friend Gallagher (Laurence Bond) for the reading of his will that they will each inherit one million dollars if, and only if, they consume his corpse.
They're given two days to decide, and needless to say it's a difficult choice. At first they think it's a final practical joke on their dead friend's part, but as the deadline approaches, each seriously considers if the deed is so vile that they can afford to pass up a million dollars to avoid actually committing it.
Of course, this bunch is beyond much deep thought. There's Gallagher's best guy pals, Dickie (Jesse Rudoy) and Wolf, Jr. (Chris Shields), a couple of goofy horndogs who go ga-ga at the sight of Gallagher's erstwhile live-in girlfriend, the oversexed French vixen Arletty (Marleigh Dunlap).
And then there's Judy (Katey Parker), returning home to her old stomping grounds with a fiance', Ted (Frank Mosley), who's sort of the fifth wheel of the group, especially since he considers himself and Judy to be better than everyone else there. Which they quite possibly are, but not by much.
While they're stewing over the impending feast of their dead friend--whom we assume is himself being stewed in preparation for it by his faithful butler James (Zach Fleming)--there's plenty of time in this leisurely-paced comedy for our characters to engage in amusingly dumb conversation and often crude interactions amongst themselves and certain locals.
The latter includes a charming young lass named Sue (Jennifer Golum), a Ranger intern with whom Dickie becomes smitten. He invites her over for dinner (not THAT dinner) and the sweet, innocent Sue is such a stark contrast to the boorish main characters that she is compelled to flee as they hurl invectives in her wake.
The thing is, though, that these people are likably unlikable, and I enjoyed spending a weekend with them and feeling good about how much better they made me feel about myself in comparison to them.
The entire film has a built-in suspense factor in addition to the comedy as we get closer and closer to their decision whether or not to engage in the titular feast. In the meantime, Phillip Chernyak's quirky piano-bar score adds a whimsical quality to everything no matter how socially repellent.
The DVD from Indiepix is in 16:9 widescreen with 2.0 stereo sound. English w/closed captions. Extras consist of a trailer and a short comedy film.
A FEAST OF MAN builds to a filling final course, and I found the entire cinematic repast quite savory indeed. (Bear with me here, I'm on a metaphor roll.) The directing and co-writing (with Dylan Pasture) debut for Caroline Golum, it strikes me as a recipe she's had simmering in her head for some time and couldn't wait to actually start cooking up in remarkably self-assured fashion.
