Zombie Movie Review (14) Halloween Edition: Flesh Eater: Revenge of the Living Dead

Hello Again and welcome to my Zombie Movie Review Halloween Edition. I know I already did one today and it was Halloween themed but I wanted to do something special: Flesh Eater: Revenge of the Living Dead.

This is a Romero Universe tangent film. It is either a prequel to Night of the Living Dead or a sequel the retcons Dawn and Day. However, both of these theories fall short. First of all it is clearly the 80’s with the amount of sex and drinking the teens do not to mention all the girls are wearing jeans. And if it is a sequel, why doesn’t anyone remember the zombie attack that happened first? This movie could work as a prequel/sequel. If you take Night to take place in 1978. Re-watching the original trilogy yesterday, I have concluded that the series cannot take place before 1975 because there is technology in the mall (the video game arcade, the type of TV’s, record players, etc).

The movie was written, directed, and starred Bill Hinzman who played the first zombie in Night of the Living Dead. In this universe, the zombies are magical rather than infection or radiation. Hinzman seemed faster and stronger at the beginning of Night because they filmed that part last and Romero said, “Fuck it, you’re fast”. He is not that fast but faster and stronger than any of the others and is one of the few zombies in Night to use tools (i.e. a rock). Magic zombies are a different breed than your typical virus zombie. They can be slightly faster to much faster, supernatural strength; can have a level of intelligence, etc.

They movie uses a spooky “Pagan” quote and it seems that the Pagans were saving everyone and the quote is more of a warning than a curse. At first I was going with it’s a sequel but it makes more sense as a prequel. Pagans found Bill and locked him away. However, a farmer digs it up and thus the carnage begins.

The group of teens gets whittled down slowly until only two are left, the effects are pretty 80’s in that they aren’t entirely convincing but at the same time are very surprising and gruesome. This is also clearly a sexploitation film. Don’t know what that means? Well it is exploitation but focused on sex. As in lots of gratuitous breasts.

The acting in this movie is terrible all around except for Bill and he plays a zombie. However, the movie does kill a little girl (played by Bill’s daughter) so it does redeem itself. Speaking of this girl, a member of her family is never identified. Originally, it was supposed to be an older daughter but the original actor could not make it so they got an older one and changed her to the house maid. The only problem is they did not change the script around her. They only changed one line of dialogue to explain she was not related to the family. I do not know about you but I would not let the maid take a shower unless she lived in the house.

The movie does end with a very classic cliché Romero ironic ending. If you can ignore the bad acting( a few times you can’t like with the police receptionist), it is actually overall, a fantastic film. The only reason it sucks is that Hinzman had a smaller budget than Romero did for Night. The plot though is great. I guess I love it so much because the first time I saw it I was so excited because I found out it was Bill Hinzman, and for the first time in a very long time, I found a proper horror zombie movie, not a spoof, not a satire, but a true horror. Granted it is of B-movie quality but that is to be expected with the amount of money they had to make it. The movie is slightly camp but it was unintentional. Although it is not an official tangent of Night of the Living Dead, it is still done in the Romero style and so I have to give as much understanding as I did for Night of the Living Dead. Therefore, I give Flesh Eater: Revenge of the Living Dead a generous but deserved for keeping the genre alive, 3 out of 5 stars.

Zombie Movie Review (13) of the Day: Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave

Happy Halloween everybody. Please check out one of the new links on my main page called Creepy Puppet Project for some fun zombie action as well as some other types of fun.

Today I finish off reviewing the Return of the Living Dead series. I will also be editing some of my Romero reviews after watching them all in my Romero Zombie Movie Marathon yesterday and noticing a few things I missed and a few things I got wrong. That’s about a 10 hour marathon give or take.

Anyway, today I am doing Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave. In addition, yes, it is as stupid as it sounds. I am going to have so much fun doing this review. It might not be as objective as the rest and I might not get into the plot as much. I am also slightly uncomfortable right now as I am dress up for Halloween as, yep, you guessed it: a zombie (I will try to take some pictures and post them before I wash it all away).

Let’s get this review started. Like with Return 4, this movie was a straight to DVD/Sci-Fi channel Saturday Night suck fest movie. This movie is probably the worst empirically in the series. However, it sucks so bad that it is actually really enjoyable.

The returning characters are Julian, Cody, and Julian’s evil uncle. Julian seems to be doing fine despite the fact his parents, little brother, the girl he had a crush on, his good friend, and several other friends are dead, on top of the fact his uncle is responsible for all of it. He has a new girlfriend and so does Cody. The movie starts with a rave and a drug dealer. We get the impression Julian and his girlfriend are not into drugs at all so it doesn’t make much sense for them to be at this party. Well, the girlfriend’s brother is the DJ but other than that, really they should be out bowling or something.

The comic relief (in a movie that is full of comedy so it doesn’t need comic relief….which makes me think that the writers actually thought this movie was scary and meant to be taken seriously) are two bumbling but bad-ass Interpol agents from Russia. Their mission is to round up the remaining containers of Trioxin to destroy them. They plan to purchase them from the crazy uncle but he only brings one hoping to get more for it by telling them it is the last in existence. However, since they want every last one, this plan sucks. The uncle is killed (finally) and this seems to sadden Julian a bit. ALL YOUR PROBLEMS ARE A DIRECT RESULT OF THIS GUY. YOU HAVE WORSE SHIT IN YOUR LIFE TO CRY ABOUT. HE DOES NOT DESRVE TO BE MOURNED!

Ok. So the plot is that Julian finds the reaming two drums of Trioxin in a secret room in the attic. You have lived in this house your whole life and never noticed this? Also, even though the number is scratched off, they still save “in case of emergency” and “property of the army” on them. Could it be this stuff is dangerous? You are uncle was involved in some chemical process bringing the dead back to life. Isn’t it possible this stuff is the cause of that? Will you stop to ask these questions? Nope. They think it could be anything but zombie juice.

They take the barrel to the campus chemistry and later the genetics lab (boy, this campus must have great endowments and benefactor). When they first examine it, they discover it is similar in composition to the drug Ecstasy. REALLY!? Really movie? I know your series has made some leaps in logic before but this? Come on! Do I really need to say it? Really? Fine…PLOT DEVICE!!!

Guess what they do? Yep…exactly what you they will: make drugs. Julian wants them not to and to call the police but Cody wants some money. Behind Julian’s back, they make pills of Trioxin and distribute them all over campus. Most people save them to use during the Halloween Rave. Yep. Like Day of the Dead, this movie has an added Halloween theme.

The comic relief is still being badass and following Julian around when a few people start to become zombies. This time, since the Trioxin is weaker and only being taken in small doses, it kills people slower. The more you take, the quicker you die.

Again, this is a world in which at least five known zombie outbreaks have occurred, and at least three of them went public for sure! Why is no one making the fucking connection? Esp. Julian and Cody who actually were intimately involved with the last outbreak!

When the zombies first start maurading around campus still no one thinks they are zombies. One is killed and the police as well and comic relief 1 and 2 know it was a zombie. However the rest of the fucking world is still tripping on their 80’s drugs. I am not kidding. Seriously look at this world in this movie: it is still very 80’s and it is 2000-fucking-4. Almost no one on this college campus seems to have a laptop or a cell phone. Really? In 2004? I know the movie was made in 2006 but it takes place in 2004.

This is my favorite part. A few zombies began to chase (and no, not like Dawn of the Dead 2004 chase, more like a slow jog) a professor. He yells for help to a car of students driving by who think it is a hoax and laugh at the zombies. AGAIN: THIS IS A WORLD WHERE IT IS ESTABLISHED FACT THAT ZOMBIES EXIST AND THE PUBLIC KNOW ABOU IT. Oh, ok, I get it—it is Halloween, they think they are just dressed up for Halloween, ok. THAT IS LIKE IF I DRESSED UP LIKE FUCKING HITLER! Zombies have killed thousands of people in the last 20 years! You do not dress up like a zombie when there are actual zombies going around killing people!

The movie ends with a rave full of zombies, some main characters die, and the comic relief live of course, and it has a predictable end similar to the one in the first film. The end. That’s it.

So how many stars should I give this? Well as far as a film goes, 0 out of 5, as far as a zombie movie goes, 1.5, but as a fun camp B-movie that you can make fun of and enjoy? 4 out of 5 stars.

Zombie Movie Review (12) of the Day: Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis

“Send more security guards…”

Once again, I am doing two movie reviews today. Originally, I planned to do one of Return up to Halloween and do some Halloween special reviews, but I am not doing a review tomorrow as me and my friends are having an all day Romero marathon in preparation for Halloween. Do not worry; I will be reviewing Return 5 on Halloween as well as at least one other film.

Necropolis leaves the feel of the third film and brings us back to camp….really…bad…camp. The acting is better than in other movies, I have seen but it still sucks. Both Necropolis and Rave to the Grave were straight to DVD films not released in theaters. However, before they were released on DVD, they were on the Sci-Fi channel (back when it was Sci-Fi instead of trying to be all clever calling itself Syfy). And by one Sci-Fi I do mean what you think I mean: Sci-Fi channel original movie Saturday Nights at 9pm. Yep. You know what that means…it means suck!

In truth, 4 and 5 are not that bad. They are fun, entertaining, and they look good seeing how they finally have a budget. Lionsgate ending up buying the rights to the Return series except for 1 and 2. Even though 3 was originally released by a different company. I know this because the trailer and my DVD contradict each other. We all know that Lionsgate is either responsible for really gory films, really bad films, really gory and really bad films, or fairly decent and even sometimes pretty good films. Point is most times Lionsgate films suck. If you want further proof, they also acquired several older companies that only produced suck. For a summed up history and some fun visit http://thecinemasnob.com/2009/10/01/the-big-box-jigsaw.aspx.

It has a made for TV feel regardless of being produced by a big company. It even stars Peter Coyote who is mostly known for TV movies and narrations. However, he was in E.T and an episode of the 80’s reboot of the Twilight Zone. He plays the evil scientist in this one.

Now I only recently purchased 4 and 5 not because they are good but because I owned 1, 2, and of course 3 and my OCD tendencies won’t allow me to not buy 4, and 5 also. Why is this important? Well, I get most of my knowledge from obsessive re-watching of movies, DVD special features, and sometimes imdb and Wikipedia. Necropolis and Rave to the Grave have no special features on them and I have only seen each movie twice. Of course, there are many zombie movies I do not own and have only seen once but if I do not own it, it is because no matter how entertaining it is, it is not worth wasting money on. However, I can still give you a fun review as always.

The movie follows a group of teens in high school just like in Return 1. These kids are not as 80’s as the movie was made in 2005 and takes place in 2003 (10 years after Return of the Living Dead 3) but you get the feeling that the beast known only as the 80’s is slowly devouring their souls. The main member of the group is Julian, who is the nephew of the evil scientist I mentioned. Julian’s little brother is a pyro which is actually relevant to the plot of the film. Julian’s best friend is a hacker named Cody and for all of you out there, let this be a reminder to you that it is always a good idea to have a hacker in your group of friends, you never know when it might come in handy. What I am basically saying is: Plot Device. Oh and by the way, this is a movie I have no problem spoiling; the other characters really do not matter because only Julian any Cody survives for the sequel. Yep. Even the little kid dies. Now, do not get me wrong, that’s messed up, but it does redeem the movie a bit because any time a horror (or trying to be horror) has the balls to kill a child deserves at least a modicum of respect.

This is a universe that now accepts zombies as existing, as can be clearly seen by the evil corporation Hybra Tech’s commercial explaining how thanks to Hybra Tech, there hasn’t been a zombie outbreak in 10 years. Keep that in mind. This is a universe that has had at least four zombie outbreaks in the last half century, one that was pretty much covered up but a movie was based on it, one that may have been covered up and two that definitely got the public’s attention.

Also, Chernobyl is somehow related to zombies. There, we find the last three barrels of 245 Trioxin. Oops, actually it is now called Trioxin 5. Continuity? Let me help you. The writers I guess decided that nigh omnipotent zombies are a bad plot point so they retcond that and brought back the Romero zombies. Oh, they still want brains and can sort of talk and the recently dead are basically evil versions of their living selves, but they can be killed with a bullet to the brain now. On their own, each of these two instances of continuity holes makes no sense but if you combined them, you can rationalize it. The government made a weaker version of Trioxin in a further attempt to make super soldiers that could still be controlled to a degree despite their history of failure. So, Trioxin 5 zombies are different from 245 Trioxin zombies.

I mentioned an evil Corporation, did I not? Hybra-Tech. Now this movie came out after both Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Hybra Tech is a blatant rip-off of the Umbrella Corporation. The commercial states that Hybra-Tech makes everything from bread to Napalm, which is pretty much, what Umbrella is. Take Wal-Mart, Disney, Coca-Cola, Neutrogena, Maybelline, Halliburton, and Pfizer Inc, put them together and you get the Umbrella Corporation and Hybra-Tech.

Julian’s parents died in an accident a year ago on a volunteer mission to Chernobyl helping with the radiation (his parents were doctors for Hybra-Tech). His uncle gets the last barrels and starts experimenting. Some of the gas leaks out and infects a couple of homeless people but the teens don’t get interested until one of the friends, after having a motorbike accident, it taken to the local hospital. When Julian arrives, he is told his friend Zeke, died after having a reaction to the painkillers. However, another of their group works for security at Hybra-Tech and saw on the camera that he was taken into the facility there. His uncle is an idiot. One o the people you kidnap for experiments is not only a friend of your nephews but another of their friends works for the company in security? Are you that stupid or just pompous?

The teens have a battle preparing montage (because they cannot escape the 80’s), and storm the facility. They find the homeless zombies and, even though this is a world that knows about zombies, they do not get it for a while. They rescue their friend who is later killed, and Julian finds out that his uncle has the bodies brought back there and were put into the bio-weapons project (again, stolen from Resident Evil). This guy really is evil. One of the parents is logically his brother or sister and he is experimenting on their corpse as well as their spouses and he has no problem putting his two nephews who are like 18 and 13 in dangerous situations that he could care less if they survive or not.

This movie actually has a redeeming theme: anti-corporations and anti-capitalism. However, this movie stole that theme from the Resident Evil movies. The movie is fun, but not as fun as the last one in the series (oh I am going to enjoy reviewing that one greatly). Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis is no worse than Return of the Living Dead Part II. Therefore, I give Necropolis 2 out of 5 stars.

Fun fact, one of the teen’s last names is Romero. This is a world in which George Romero exists (he just never wrote Dawn of the Dead or Day of the Dead) and therefore it is possible she is related to him in the context of the series.

Zombie Movie Review (11) of the Day: Return of the Living Dead III

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Church of Sense and Reason 3: Science Being Compatible With Christinaity

I’m not sure if this blog will be as long as the previous two but I hope it is found to be interesting. This blog is about, of course, science and religion. Can science and religion be compatible. Are they mutually exclusive? Let’s look at some of the main arguments.

Let’s start at the beginning: The creation of the earth Bible says seven days, science say millions of years. Well this is easily and quickly fixed if you are one of those people who interpret the Bible as metaphorical. Even if you take it as literal, still seven days is a bit tricky. It clearly can be allegorical for the days of the week and it makes sense to order things in such a way. But what is a day to God? I mean this is predating the earth and the other planets here. Therefore, there was no such thing as a day defined as a 24 hour period in which the earth revolves around the sun. There was no earth, no sun, and no concept of “hour”. I suppose one could argue that after the first day, there were such things as the earth and the sun. However, God is, as defined by Judeo-Christian-Islamic doctrine: omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent which means all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere simultaneously, respectively. God is also described as being the Alpha and the Omega, which means the beginning and the end. Basically predated existence and existing outside of the known universe while still being to a degree transcendental (knowable in the world).

Now, if God is all these things, then what is a day to God? I mean the average life span would be a blink of an eye to a perpetually existing force or being. There is even a joke about it:

Well a man says to God “What’s a million years to you?” God said “A minute.” And the man said to God “What’s a million dollars to you?” God said “A penny” So the man said to God “Well can you give me a penny?” And God said to him “Yes I will…in a minute.”

Point being we do not know the mind of God and it is pretentious and presumptuous to try to work it out or assume that we already do.

What is my point? My point, if we go by the scale of the joke, (which is silly but run with it), then the Earth would be even older than scientists say it is. Point is a day is an arbitrary term to God. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say, mostly any concept is arbitrary and in flux to God.

Big issue: Creationism Vs. Evolution. I believe and accept both concepts as being accurate. How can I do this? Am I not contradicting myself? Well no. Let’s look at Genesis 1 (the one where man and woman are created equal). The account of creation is very similar to the progression of evolution. Evolution roughly states that basically, we were single celled nothings, then creatures of the sea, then lizard things, then mammals, then human beings we are now. What is the order in  Gen 1? Let’s see: First the ocean is filled with life, then the sky with birds, then the lizards, bugs, then mammals, and finally? Humans! So what exactly is the problem here? I mean honestly. I accept the foundations of biology, psychology, chemistry, physics, etc, and I also believe in God, an after-life, Jesus, etc. Is that so wrong? I don’t find it hypocritical at all.

Philosophy Blurb of the Week 1/Music and Philosophy 3.1

(if you are only here to look at the Music section, scroll done or "ctrl f"' and search 'music'

Hello. I know I'm starting to get really involved in this blog but as previously stated somewhere on here, it is really cathartic and Zen for me and really helps me to deal with my stresses, anxieties, paranoia, and depression, so why not go crazy with it? Plus I figure the more interesting stuff I have on here, the more likely people will find it and start to read my entries.

This is a blog dedicated to explaining philosophical ideologies in my own way. I mean that my ideas of the idea. I’m not sure if I am making sense here. I mean like…ok, I got it! See, I’m a philosopher, and what do philosophers do? Come up with their own ideas. However, as mentioned in the Tanakh, which was written roughly around the same time Socrates was giving lectures, “there is nothing new under the sun”. Meaning? Philosopher’s read and here ideas and then use them, debunk them, or change/adapt them to suite their own means. I don’t mean they take the ideas out of context, merely that they are inspired by one another. This is what this blog will be about. My own ideas/versions of famous philosophic concepts.

This week I am focusing on John Stuart Mill’s Hierarchy of Pleasures (Mill is also one of the primary fathers of the philosophy of Utilitarianism, which I also support).

The Hierarchy of Pleasures was formulated to explain how one should live their life to a degree in order for Mill’s Utilitarianism to make more sense to people. Mill’s Utilitarianism is the idea ethical theory that to figure out what the right thing to do is one should contemplate on how it affects people. Mill believed in the highest quality pleasure for the highest quantity of people.

I agree with Mill 100% when it comes to his Hierarchy of Pleasures. He defined what was more important in life than base pleasures. The way one figures this out is thru contemplation of the deed in question. Does it further one’s existence? Does it involve socially/politically/philosophically redeeming value? Are you seeking this out for basic physical pleasure or is there an underlying cause? Does follow more of a “contemplation lifestyle or a “pleasure”/”honorable” lifestyle (as stipulated by Aristotle which I will also go over in a blog entry. I wanted to do this first because of things that have been bugging me.)

So, we have all these questions, but does that really clear it up? How about some examples. Well base animal pleasure, such as eating; drinking for simple nourishment is low on the hierarchy as well as sex for pleasure/reproduction. Things high on the list would include true art and true beauty, contemplation, etc.

Still not clear? Well let me give you better examples:

The difference between “fucking” and making-love”:

If you are having sex /masturbating for purely physical reactions that induce pleasure, than it is a base pleasure low on the list. There is no contemplative or spiritually redeeming value and you are doing it out of instinct, lust, etc. However, if you and your partner are making-love: there is a spiritually redeeming quality. You are engaging in this activity for the greater pleasure of bodies becoming one, souls becoming one, to be intimate with ones lover, for contemplation about life, to feel something greater than and outside of yourself. A true and full experience as Aristotle would say.

Getting completely wasted on beer vs. a fine glass of wine with friends or at a party:

If you drink for simple reason to get physically drunk and to poison your body, you are certainly focusing on animalistic pleasures. You have no respect for the people or environment around—getting drunk to the point of disregarding your surroundings, possibly being very annoying, disruptive, rude, and end up physically sick in the morning. Mill would say this is pointless. In the end it not only has no value, but the base pleasure turns into discomfort with hangovers, blackouts, vomiting, etc so it in the end cancel’s out the little base pleasure being drunk gives. If you enjoy a glass of wine, cider, something handcrafted, made locally or organically, something with character as it were, and not to the point of getting drunk, disruptive, and sick, at the very least you become tipsy or buzzed. And this drinking is not done alone, it is at a nice party with rewarding and redeeming topics of conversation, in a social environment where one can freely interact with other people, perhaps accompanied by art, a film, some music, perhaps some cheese to experience a heightened sense of taste pleasure not found in McDonald’s cheeseburgers, expanding your pallet, trying new things, and if you drink for the whole experience, not just the physical, and your reasoning behind the physical is that it relaxes you slightly, and you can enjoy the food and the mood, then it is redeeming.

Potheads vs. Hippies:

If you smoke pot, (or do any drug for that matter) for the sole purpose of the physical result of pleasure that it induces, to do so much you get completely stoned out of your mind and are now a nuisance to those around you, just as with being drunk, rude, loud, annoying, etc. it is for the wrong reasons and has no redeeming value, the only reason you are getting high is in it as itself. Meaning you get high to get high. However, as Hippies (and others, not just hippies) will attest, there is great spiritually, mystically, and contemplative redeeming values. They are always willing to give some of their drugs away for free because it is not about being addicted or needing a fix or anything like that. It is about sitting around, enjoying each other’s company, trying to connect to something spiritual, trying to “expand the mind” and work out the mysteries of the universe, being polite and respectful of other people.

Listening to music:

I guess now this will go under my other blog as well. So Mill on Music:

This is a touchy subject because if I were to quantify types of music in relation to each other or quantify the artists in relation to each other, I could easily offend hundreds of thousands of people. There are also several factors to consider so I will try to be careful and use a great deal of tact:

First, it would depend on the reasoning behind listening to music. If you listen to it as a distraction from reality (not a cathartic escape but as a “distraction”) or as background to simply drown out another unwanted sound or for some other reason, this would probably be seen by Mill as the wrong approach to music. If you are listening to it to understand the message of the piece, the state of the artist, to feel the emotions connected with it, then you are probably going about it the right way. Therefore, Mill would disagree with absolute music as defined as one listening to music devoid of distractions including lyrics, messages in the piece, images it brings to mind and feelings it conjures. However, Mill would agree that Muzak is evil, and if it is not evil, then it is on the bottom rung of the Hierarchy of Pleasures. Mill, contextually (meaning his time and place) would most likely have a problem with most types of modern pop, rap, etc. Mill would accept pop only as far as in it brings a great deal of pleasure to a great number of people. However, that is missing the point. Mill would say they are mistaken in their opinion of the pleasure interpreting it as a higher quality than it is and if they do not understand the pleasures inherent in the classics or the songs with great messages of social strife, he would say they just have not listened to it properly. Mill would be of the belief that higher quality music requires skill, creativity, and talent, meaning that music that is written by the person who really thought on the lyrics and did not write simply what the people wanted to hear, played instruments, and actually sang, he would accept this as high quality music. However music that is auto-toned such as Kesha, or devoid on actual instruments (and if they are present, then they are in the form of prerecorded stock sound) such as in the rap of today and some forms of pop today.

If the music brings about pleasure of the mind and spirit on top of physical pleasure (such as making love), is creative and talented, has some sort of significance and redeeming value, Mill would be okay with it.

Kitsch vs. Art:

To fully understand this, I suggest reading Beauty, Kitsch, and Glamour by Kathleen Higgins; the link is posted on my blog but I'll link it here as well: http://www.thereitis.org/gmc/philosophic-reflections/higgins_beauty-kitsch-glamour.pdf

Kitsch is stock art. And when I say art I mean I have no other way to describe it. Kitsch can be knick knacks, motivational posters, mass produces stock footage things that take no effort, skill, creativity, and do not spark contemplation as in they don’t make one think of something new or different rather than an idea they are already comfortable with, like posters of girls from movies hugging cars, or random scenes of nature with messages that sound like something out of 1984. The messages are mindless encouragement. Another good example is tattoos. Is your tattoo a cliché skull or snake that hundreds of people have that you picked out of a book? Alternatively, is it an artistic conception that you may or may not have designed yourself that has true significant meaning to you in some way that others who see it may not understand at first glance and therefore encourages conversation? Kitsch in essence is fake art just as Glamour is defined as fake beauty.

Music and Philosophy Blog Entry 3

I know my blogs tend to have nothing to do with the readings and if they do, it is something obscure, but my Q/A’s focus more on the readings and I do not want to be repeating myself. I already repeat myself saying class what is also in my Q/A. I would hate to repeat myself three times.

This week, after watching Dance of the Dead with some friends, I started thinking about the phrase “music soothes the savage beast” In the movie, zombies cease attacking when a band plays their music. I went looking online for the origins of the phrase and here is what I came up with: The phrase is from a 1697 poem, The Mourning Bride by William Congreve. Here is the poem:

Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Beast (in some translations it is ‘breast’),
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd,
And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd,
By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.
What then am I? Am I more senseless grown
Than Trees, or Flint? O force of constant Woe!
'Tis not in Harmony to calm my Griefs.
Anselmo sleeps, and is at Peace; last Night
The silent Tomb receiv'd the good Old King;
He and his Sorrows now are safely lodg'd
Within its cold, but hospitable Bosom.
Why am not I at Peace?

It is a very deep and well-written poem. In the original context, the phrase has an entirely different meaning but this poem still has a lot to say about music. Clearly, the Congreve is speaking of music as a mystical thing that is hard to define (and seeing how we have this class, we are still defining). He feels music is metaphysical and full of power. The power to heal, to change the world, and he feels he has no music in his soul. (This just gave me an idea for another blog).

Clearly Congreve is depressed and heartbroken and music the power to fix these problems.

But why do we still say the music can soothe any monster, animal, or damaged person?

Is there any truth to this?

I think there is. And here is where the blog ties in with my Q/A:

If we take the definition of absolute music as discussed in class as interpreted from Hamilton, music loses most of the powers and capabilities roughly sketched out in this poem. I fully reject this theory of music. I could on about it here but I will elaborate in my Q/A. Essentially though, I believe the point of music is to feel something human, to connect to something else, to have images created in one’s head due to the nature of the piece, and to send messages of soci-political, philosophical, or otherwise significant messages to people. And in doing so, listening to music in this way, one will contemplate on the nature of the piece, what it wants to express. Breaking it down to tones and notes entirely misses the point.

We have this idea, of music soothing the hurt and the cruel because we feel so strongly about music and the effects it can have on anyone or anything. Music can unite a nation, start or stop a war, heal a broken heart, paint wonderful pictures in our minds, and do so much more. And a message of the poem: without music we are nothing, we are broken, and unable to cope, basically, music makes us human.

Zombie Movie Reivew (10) of the Day: Return of the Living Dead Part II

“Your brains smell so good…so rich—and spicy”

Well we are still literally in the 80’s now, with the sequel taking place in 1988. The characters don’t dress like they ran thru a clothing department and their names are normal names unlike what we saw in Return 1 (Scuz, Spider, Trash, and Suicide) but it still has that 80’s feel to it.

Russo had nothing to do with this, or any of the other sequels. It also has nothing to do with Dan O’Bannon who had a major role in the production of the first.

So, here we are three years since the first catastrophe that never made it to Romero levels thanks to a precision tactical nuclear missile taking out the whole town and killing everyone still lucky enough to be alive and obliterate everything already dead, despite the “or is it?” ending we are given.

The movie starts out with a very stoned soldier (because everyone was stoned in the 80’s including soldiers with very important duties) driving a truck part of a military convoy transporting the last remaining 245 Trioxin barrels to safety. Apparently, the military are not in the habit of double checking safety precautions as the strap holding the barrels in the truck is a bit lose. The truck goes over a bump on a bridge and of course a barrel—just one barrel falls out of the truck, rolls down a hill, lands in the river, and floats downstream into a storm drain pipe that, wouldn’t you know it, is conveniently right next to another cemetery. Although this cemetery is not as ridiculously never ending as the last one was. I know you are probably thinking “if the strap was that loose, wouldn’t more than one barrel fall out?” Well fear not, this move makes as much logical sense as the last one did in its effort to follow the governing laws of physics. Oh yeah, I forget: the cemetery right next to where the barrel lands: PLOT FUCKING DEVICE!

This movie has an R rating like the first one and like the following three sequels. However, this movie is so camp and so lacking in realistic effects and continuous gore that it only deserves a PG-13. Even the trailer is confused: go ahead, watch it, at one point I think it refers to the movie as total terror and horrifying. It really isn’t. In fact, it is more camp than the last one. I guess they (and by “they” I mean the totally different production company that did this one but not first one, third one, or the 4^th and 5^th ones) was going for a younger audience. I do not know how younger an audience you would want since the first, despite being R, is clearly intended for 80’s teens and the parents that love Romero. This movie is more fun, more action and less “Aahhh!”

After the truck, we cut to Jesse, a nice kid in a neighborhood currently still under construction. Two bullies want him to join their club. Admission is a comic. Jesse, it turns out is the voice of reason and protagonist of the film even though he cannot be older than 11. /The bullies’ take him to their clubhouse, which turns out, is a crypt in the graveyard….go figure. Jesse runs away and hides in the sewer pipe where the barrel is. The bullies discover it and rather than calling the military (by the way, different number on the barrel. It is not a 555 number and no longer a real number. Continuity? What is that?), the bullies try to open it thinking there could be ammo or supplies in it. Yes…because ammo is stored in metal drums…..these kids are idiots, even for kids….even for kids who are bullies they are fucking stupid! Next, we meet two characters who turn out to be—grave robbers. Why not? But wait…um…these guys are….from the last movie and….are dead. Yep, it’s the guys who played Frank and Freddy (James Karen and Thom Matthews) except now, they are called Ed and Joey. Where the fuck is all the continuity!? Well, actually, they explain this. Later Joey asks Ed if this all feels like déjà vu, that they have been in the same situation with each other before and there were zombies. Hmm…well….given it is only three years later and although their personalities and relationship is the same as last time…..it cannot be reincarnation. So…..alternate universe? Nope. It’s the same one. I guess it is the movies attempt at humor. Movie: You failed. Your comic relief was enough humor (the drunken doctor). Esp. since this is not a fucking horror movie. Shaun of the Dead is scarier!

In the end they lure all the zombies to the power plant to electrocute them all to death with brains from the meat packing plant….Your small town has its own power plant and meat packing plant? Wow, you know...that is really fucking convenient. Not only is this another great example of blatant plot device, but also an example of the writer’s and the director’s (same person) lack of concept of continuity: in the first movie, we were told only the brains of living will help combat the pain of death and now they are eating the dead brains of animals……oo….kay……

In truth, there are several continuity boosts. One of which is that Jesse and his sister’s last name is Wilson which is Burt’s last name (the owner of the medical supply warehouse in Return 1), suggesting they are related to Burt in some way. I do not think he was their father, but he very well could be. We never see their parents…which is odd…but we do end up going to their grandparents house because their grandfather has guns. However, they are also gone. Therefore, either Burt is their dad or died in the first movie, the parents are out of town, the parents are killed by zombies, or some other explanation. Also, I wouldn’t put it past this series for the fact their name is Wilson to be completely irrelevant to anything. Furthermore, I would not be surprised if the writer of Part II did not even know Burt’s last name was Wilson.

So is this a good movie? Well it is certainly, fun, goofy, and entertaining. Is it better than the first one? Eh…that is really hard to say. Um….the first one is better because it started something new and it was so ridiculous you didn’t care and had fun watching it. Return of the Living Dead, gets, as with all the Return films a generous rating: 2.25 out of 5 stars.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for my review of the best out of the series: Return of the Living Dead III.

Church of Sense and Reason 2: Socratic Argument of Christianity Advocating Gay Rights.

Disclaimer: This blog is not intened to insult or offend anyone. It's purpose is not to say anyone is right or wrong. I am not here to start a new branch of Christianity. The focus of the Church of Sense and Reason is to put the Christ back into Christianity. An exegesis approach to determining the meanings of Christianinty; going back to the beginning.

This argument is based on the belief of Jesus (and thus God) as being peacful, loving, forgiving, understanding and against being judgmental. This is what I have learned from going to church for so many years when I was younger and from how I interpret the teachings of Jesus. If you personally don't believe these things about Jesus and God to be true, the arguement pretty much falls apart. However, personally that is the God i want to worship and if God is not any of hte things listed above and mentioned in the argument I don't want to worship God anyway if God damns people for simply being different.



Socrates: Do you agree that God is forgiving, loving, compassionate, and understanding as described in the New Testament?

Glaucon: Yes, this is true.

Socrates: And do you also agree that as human being we are imperfect and are all sinners but also all children of and created by God.

Glaucon: The Bible does say this frequently so yes.

Socrates: And Jesus, did he advocate for the nonjudgmental, indiscriminant, and tolerant was of life? Saying that all of us sin and therefore none of us are fit to judge and thus punish another?

Glaucon: It is true there is an entire passage in which Jesus does stop a mob from stoning an adulterous woman and says "ye without sin throw the first stone" and Jesus also says "do not judge lest ye be judged"

Socrates: Not only did Jesus not want us to judge but did he not also want us to forgive those who have trespassed against us and love our neighbor as well as our enemies and persecutors? To love all our neighbors?

Glaucon: Yes.

Socrates: And so if Jesus wanted us to love the ones who actively and intentionally hurt us and "love the sinner, hate the sin" as it were, wouldn't that mean he would certainly want us to love those sinners who have not even done anything to hurt us?

Glaucon: Again Socrates, this makes sense.

Socrates: So you accept this as an accurate description of your God and your savior?

Glaucon: It does indeed.

Socrates: Very well then? Does it not also say in the Bible that a man shall not lay with a man the way a man lays with a woman?

Glaucon: You know as well as I do, Socrates, that the Bible does indeed say that about three times but it is in the Tanakh.

Socrates: Are you saying we should not follow the Tanakh?

Glaucon: Not as such, no.

Socrates: should you hate, fear, judge, attack, and lynch someone simply for being different from you?

Glaucon: Of course not Socrates. That contradicts everything we have said about God.

Socrates: How can God be loving, forgiving, and understanding and create all of us in God's image if some of us are to be damned for simply being born differently?

Glaucon: That is indeed a paradox...perhaps it is a person's choice to be gay?

Socrates: If that were true, why would they knowingly put themselves thru the persecution, the hatred, the indifference, possibly be denied a job, if you are a teenager, then possibly beaten and/or kicked out fo your house onto the street by your very own parents, and suffer all forms of evils upon them if it were a choice?

Glaucon: Well no, of course not Socrates. That would not make sense. Perhaps it is a mental disorder?

Socrates: You know the APA declared that nonsense decades ago and removed the diagnosis form the DSM for lack of conclusive evidence and not finding and real mental causes. Furthermore, do you choose to be heterosexual?

Glaucon: No. I just know I am heterosexual.

Socrates: Then surely, the same could very well be said of anyone who is gay?

Glaucon: It does seem to reason...

Socrates: Exactly. Now supposing it actually was a sin to be gay for the sake of argument: would it then be any worse a sin than adultery, murder, theft, a disregard for ones parents, etc?

Glaucon: Well, as you said, we are all sinners and shouldn’t just another anyway, however, it certainly is less of a sin than murder.

Socrates: Well to God a sin is a sin. However, yes, logic dictates that killing someone is worse than falling in love with someone of the same sex. And isn't society riddled with adulterers for example?

Glaucon: Yes.

Socrates: We do not openly hate them at all, do we Glaucon? We don't rally against them, lynch them, or think them subhuman do we?

Glaucon: Certainly not Socrates. In fact, it is as you say a very common occurrence in our society.

Socrates: So then, if it is a sin to be gay, are gay people any less equal to anyone else? Esp. since they have not actually hurt anyone?

Glaucon: No.

Socrates: Agreed. We have established at the very least that if it is a sin to be gay, it is no worse than cursing, masturbating, cheating on one's wife, desiring useless and unimportant material goods that others have and we wished we want, etc. So is it a sin to be gay Glaucon?

Glaucon: Well it does say it in the Bible, and the Bible after all is God's word.

Socrates: Yes but if that is true, God told people what to write, isn't that so? The Bible is told thru prophets, disciples, etc.?

Glaucon: This is true. The Bible itself in full did not come right from the heavens.

Socrates: Right. Moreover, isn't man fallible?

Glaucon: Of course, we just established that everyone sins. Even Plato, with his own interpretation of God and Heaven would agree that as physical human beings we are imperfect. However, I am not sure what you are getting at Socrates...

Socrates: Well, logically, if God "spoke" divine words to all the writers of the Bible is not it possible they got it wrong, or decided to write it differently because they thought God was wrong?

Glaucon: Who would say that God is wrong!?

Socrates: Well, the only real people who would say God is wrong are Atheists and that is because they believe God does not exist. In every other situation, for every religion and belief out there, no one ever says God is wrong, they say that a person's idea or interpretation of God is wrong and that their own idea of God is right. In addition, since God is infallible it is hard to debate this and thus very bloody violent wars, massacres, and attacks are waged in God's name: the God of peace. This is beside the point, isn't there a chance that Man would do such a thing?

Glaucon: I suppose it is possible but it is a stretch. Some say that many, many different people of several groups of thought wrote the Bible.

Socrates: This is also true. In addition, there is a group of thinking that the Bible is to be taken metaphorically rather than literally. That is just a different school of thought.

Glaucon: I can accept that theory.

Socrates: Yes but we are arguing the point from the perspective of those who take it literally. If you want to take it metaphorically, one could take it back into context rather than out of context as so many people are so often apt to do, and suggest that those passages are not about being gay per se but more about the common practice held not only in Rome but also in our home empire of Greece.

Glaucon: Which is?

Socrates: The practice of older Greek and Roman soldiers having sex with young Greek and Roman boys in bath houses as a rite of passage that Judaism frowned upon. So you see? Those passages are more about pedophilia than about being gay.

Glaucon: I see. However, we are digressing.

Socrates: I suppose we are. As I was saying, the few times it is actually mentioned in the Tanakh that being gay is a 'sin' are all actually written by Mosses.

Glaucon:  Well I thought the belief was that Mosses wrote all of the Tanakh, from his experiences and from what God told him.

Socrates: This is true: the community of the school of thought that follows the Bible as being literal say that Moses did record everything for God. However, I am referring to the fact that when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and he returned with them to the people, the people said they needed/wanted more guidelines and so Mosses went back up the mountain to talk to God and told God of this situation. To roughly explain the events that followed, basically, God said to Mosses ‘ok. I trust you. You and your people come up with more laws/rules and I will accept them’. Now although God accepts the laws written by actual fallible human beings, God never actually wrote, said, dictated, or anything else, on the subject of being gay.

Glaucon: Really? So then why did they decide it was a sin to be gay?

Socrates: Other than the bathhouse example? Well the people decided to use their logic and look at the natural world to see what was natural and unnatural. In the world and they saw that the way of nature is that man and woman are together in order to have children which appears to be the natural order of things. Therefore, logically, man with man and woman with woman is unnatural. That was their thinking on the matter. It had little to do with morality but more to do with biology.

Glaucon: I see. This is quite enlightening.

Socrates: So do you believe that God damns everyone who is gay?

Glaucon: Logically I must say no.

Socrates: Do homosexuals as a group hurt and attack the rest of us?

Glaucon: Well I have certainly never heard of an instance of such an occurrence.

Socrates: As a Christian, should one judge and harass someone for being gay? Or go to the extremes of attacking them?

Glaucon: As a non-judging, sinning Christian who forgives and loves, of course not. Moreover, if one is going to do such things to someone who is gay, they should do the exact same things to one who has cheated on their spouse, taken God's name in vain, disrespected their parents, etc.

Socrates: Do gay people even need forgiveness?

Glaucon: Only in the context of it being a sin.

Socrates: So we can conclude from our argument that gay people are human beings and thus deserve the same rights as everyone deserves?

Glaucon: Yes, I agree, Socrates.

Zombie Movie Review (9) of the Day: Return of the Living Dead

“Send more paramedics…”

Well, I have reviewed all of George Romero’s zombie movies. But that does not mean I’m done with George Romeo and zombies. His series sparked tangents, parallel universe, alternate possibilities galore. The first tangent series I will review is John Russo’s Return series.

John Russo with George Romero came up with the original story for Night of the Living Dead together and Russo had a novelization of the movie published. After Night, they went their separate ways. Russo envisioned the series differently than Romero and in 1985, the same year Day of the Dead came out, Russo released his version of what happened, called Return of the Living Dead. The reason it is called Return is that it goes back to the origins of Night of the Living Dead. As you will have probably noticed, after Night, all of Romero’s movies dropped the Living from the title and went to “of the dead” rather than “of the living dead”. Reasoning? In my opinion, it has something to do with Russo publishing his book with the Living Dead in the title and since Romero and Russo were friends in the business, Romero did not want to step on Russo’s toes.

Return of the Living Dead ss in fact a sequel to the 1968 version of Night of the Living Dead. However, in Return, it happened in ’69. In Return, the movie Night of the Living Dead exists but it was based of true events caused by the chemical 245 Trioxin bringing bodies back to life when it leaked into a morgue.

The whole series is very, very 80s. You thought the 80s were 80s? You thought the 80s were bad. The Return series is like 80s crack, LSD, and pot all at once. I’m serious. Even the sequels that take place and were written twenty years later are still 80s. Return takes place in a universe where the 80s is an unstoppable beast that cannot die and eats the other decades following it. In the later films, you will think the 80s went into a coma but it just took on characteristics of the 90s as well—the bad characterizes—the ones similar to the 80’s.

As a side note, speaking of the 80s…listen to the Return of the Living Dead theme song: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Q0cVQBlA4) and then listen to the original version of a very world famous song that was also very 80’s Tears for Fears: Mad World: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gFl2OXySs8). Compare the horns in the background of each…notice any similarity? Mad World predates Return by about three years. It would be an appropriate song for a zombie apocalypse movie. For those of you who like chaos theory and the butterfly effect you probably love little tidbits like this: In a trailer for the remake of The Crazies, a more common version of Mad World (Gary Jules) is played (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mepo50RuhdM). The significance? Well, the original The Crazies is a George Romero movie (he only produced the remake. See? Everything relates back to good old George!

But, what about the movie itself? I have not gotten into that yet. Well the movie follows a group of super 80s teens whose friend just got a job in a medical supplies warehouse. It would seem that the writers knew nothing about the 80’s, went to a high school, looked at all the kids hanging around outside before school started and said “I want our characters to look like this one, that one, that one, this one” because it doesn’t make sense why these kids are friends with each other. They are all from different clicks. Now I am not an advocate of clicks but the 80’s certainly were. Just look at the Breakfast Club! Anyway, these kids want to meet up with their friend after he gets out of work. The problem is he is running late. Reason? Well it turns up a “typical military fuck-up” occurred years ago in which barrels of Trioxin rich bodies were accidentally shipped to the warehouse. The manager and the kid get a face full of gas after looking at the canister and it gets into the vents bringing to life the cadaver in storage as well as anything else in there that was once alive.

The teens do not have to be worry about being bored because conveniently enough there is a cemetery right by the warehouse, which is also right by a funeral home/morgue. (Can you say plot devices?) I really do not want to give this away but since this series was never meant to be taken seriously (expect for R.o.t.L.D 3 arguably the best out of the five) it is okay to have spoilers. Apparently, Night of the Living Dead lied about how to dispose of zombies: destroying the brain, decapitation, etc. will not stop these zombies. Regardless of the fact that in our own universe physics is having a fit about this movie being inaccurate, there are ways you can explain this: So if you chop up these zombies, the individual parts still move, are alive, and seem to have independent thought from the rest of the body. One could argue that 245 Trioxin not only reanimates dead cells similar to what the T-Virus does, but that it also gives sentience to each and every cell, meaning in order to kill these things you can either: A) burn every last part, B) electrocute until crispy, C) blow up, or D) freeze them to put them in a paralytic state.

Guess what these guys do to the corpse? Burn it across the street at the crematorium (again…plot device). When they do this, the chemical, seemingly indestructible, turns back into a gas and escapes as part of the smoke from the body. Now this causes atmospheric disturbance, which causes rain. The rain now containing 245 Trioxin, rains down on our 80’s clichés and the graveyard (COULD YOUR PLOT DEVICES BE ANY MORE OBVIOUS!?). The rain then drips down into the graves and somehow reanimates every corpse regardless of the amount of brain rot and also gives these atrophies fellows the ability to dig thru 6 feet of dirt. Don’t ask…even I can’t figure out this one. Our friends are split up and most end up in the Funeral Home and the rest in the med supply warehouse. Oh, and I forgot to mention, once again regardless of how much rot, decay or damage to the brain, all these zombies can talk, reason, and plan. Yep. Does this make sense to anyone out there? If so, please explain it to me. All I can come up with is my theory of sentient cells. Maybe it causes brains to regenerate? I don’t know.

The Return of the Living Dead series is famous for something however. You probably didn’t even know this but this is where the stereotype of zombies wanting brains comes from, and is the only real time in cinema history that zombies do this rather than having no preference over type of flesh consumed. Yep. These are the zombies that moan for brains. Want to know the reason? SPOILER ALERT!  This I can actually half accept (the first half): If ones nervous system was still functional along with one’s brain after one had died, it would be extremely painful, organs shutting down, rigor mortis setting in, blood pooling and coagulating, etc. In order to stave off the pain there is only one painkiller in the world strong enough…no, not morphine: Brains! Yep. Brains alleviate the pain of death. So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.

I just want to note, in the same way the 80’s took too many drugs, got hungry, mutated, and ate everything else (as the 80’s are depicted in this series), The cemetery is the same way. It has no recognizable order and appears to be alive meaning it can grow and has a mind of its own. This cemetery—never—ends!

Also, just so you know, the number to contact on the barrel? It’s a real number—no 555 here, And if you are a film buff, cinema snob, or flick freak, you know the unwritten rule that if a real phone number appears in a movie, you have to call it! I’ll do the work for you. Here is the number: 1-800-454-8000. An internet search consensus reports it is a sex hotline and was once a factory’s number. Well it’s an 800 and as far as I know, one typically has to pay for sex hotlines and so I had my people call the number and here is what it is. The phone number is for those that don’t want to to go out and meet people so you call this number it gives you another and says how you can meet single people and stuff. So it’s a singles hotline, not a sex hotline and it isn’t even the actual number…it redirects you to another number!

Speaking of talking zombies, the one that they catch and explains this all to the living people, is so rotted, she has no lips. However, she talks perfectly fine as if she did have lips.

Ok, so what do I think of this movie? Well it is certainly not the worst in the series. In fact, they are not really bad films at all. Again, as I said in my Land of the Dead review, I have seen and know of plenty of truly terrible zombie movies. I could use a different scale to rate the Return movies, meaning a 3 out of 5 for a Return is less that a 3 out of 5 for a Romero. These movies were clearly never meant to be taken seriously and in all honesty are not that bad. The only things wrong with Return of the Living Dead are, the effects are somewhat silly, the acting is sometimes bad, and the plot barely makes any sense. However, the Return movies are not going for serious, disturbing, scary or politically significant; they are going for fun, camp, and gore. My point is you cannot really compare a Romero to a Return. (However, I judge all zombie movies based on Romero movies). Therefore, in the end, I give Return of the Living Dead a fun, entertaining, silly way to kill an hour and ½,   3 out of 5 stars.

Zombie Movie Review (8): Land of the Dead

“In a world where the dead return to life, trouble loses much of its meaning”

Well here, we are the final chapter (for the moment anyway) in the George Romero Zombie Saga. Now I know what you are all thinking: This was not the last film, the latest film was Survival of the Dead. Yes, yes, I know. I know I skipped this one and went to Diary of the Dead. But in reality, I only skipped it if I was going for chronology rather than continuity. Land of the Dead is a funny movie (and I don’t mean funny as in it is a comedy [although it does have its moments] but funny as in interesting).

So originally, Land of the Dead was going to be the fourth installment of the original Romero trilogy: Night, Dawn, and Day. In fact, one of the alternate titles for Land was Twilight of the Dead (to bad Romero didn’t use it so Stephanie Meyers couldn’t but “Kay-Sara-Sara”). The original title was going to be Dead Reckoning after the armored super tank in the film. However, fans like the “of the dead” titles and there was already a Humphrey Bogart film with that name anyway.

The way it was going to work was Land was going to be like five, 10, years after Day. Implying that society somehow reestablished itself and money still had value (I’ll get to this silly idea later) The only real sense of continuity between Land and the original 3 is: 1) it is set at the post-apocalypse ass end of a zombie out break which would follow the apocalyptic tone of Day, 2) One of the main zombies is played by Tom Savini, dressed in his biker outfit from Dawn, and 3) I’m not entirely sure this even counts because it would be breaking the fourth wall (for those non film buffs out there, this is a term used to describe when characters, scene, or events suggest they/the film are/is aware that it is indeed a movie they are in like looking at the camera, saying don’t have sex, the killer will get you if you do, or making remarks about how the set looks fake, etc.) by having a zombie band sort of play the Gonk music that was played at the end of Dawn of the Dead and had a 5 second cameo in Day of the Dead.

Once Romero came up with Diary and certainly while doing Survival, he retcond this continuity and established it as part of the new trilogy. (Retcon is a comic book term used to describe events that took place in older issues that are no longer part of the accepted universe of the characters in the comic and thus removed from the original continuity. Also as a fun fact, this is what the characters of the Doctor Who spin-off show Torchwood call their amnesia drug: Retcon).

However, Romero ran into a bit of a snafu with the Copyrights and the production company used in making Land of the Dead which is the only one of his films that is not done independently. The soldier character played by Alan Van Sprang in Land is called Brubaker. Romero wanted to use this character in Survival (who is also in Diary but his name was never mentioned) as a main character. The production company said that he could not use his own character in another of his own movies because he does not own the rights to his own creation. I know right? This character only appears for like two minutes in Land, his name is only mentioned twice, and I would imagine the production company would actually make more money from people seeing Diary and Survival who now want to see Land but whatever. George Romero did fix this small problem however, quite easily and ingeniously: give him the most ridiculous and cliché sounding action-hero name possible so that people will think: “well, obviously it is a pseudonym”). Thus Sarge Nicotine Crocket was born! Using his ultra-super powers, he dedicated his life to fighting zombies! (Sorry I couldn’t resist) Unfortunately, for him though, despite making it thru the first two movies, he dies in Land.

Another thing that proves continuity with Diary and Survival is that the “white guy” I mentioned in the Diary of the Dead review, is a crucial lead zombie in land as a butcher. Now, he did not seem like a butcher in Diary, he could have had any reason for putting on that smock and picking up that clever before he died (think of that episode in Walking Dead Season 1 where they chop up a zombie. See? There is a reason for everything).

Well that’s enough introduction, don’t you think? Now onto the review: Overall, it is objectively Romero’s worst zombie film. Do not just take my word for it: fans all over the world agree. Even Romero said it was his worst zombie film but he blamed it on it being produced rather than independently done.

Somehow as I said earlier, society reestablished itself and the almighty dollar still has value somehow after a couple of years of a zombie apocalypse…..yeah….I don’t get it either. Anyway, the movie surrounds some people who want to get out of the safe zone and go north to live and be alone…they feel society is warped. And, it certainly is: people get their rocks off by betting on fights between two hungry zombies and whoever eats the girl who did not volunteer first, wins. This girl by the way, who becomes a main character, is played by Asia Argento, Dario Argento’s (producer and soundtrack provider of Dawn of the Dead 1978) daughter. Kind of like how Bill Cardille’s (reporter in Night of the Living Dead) daughter plays the lead role in Day of the Dead.

Also as another fun fact, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) cameo as zombies in Land of the Dead. They are the zombies chained up for people to get their pictures taken with. You may notice that Pegg is wearing the same prosthetic mold of Bub from Day of the Dead who is in fact Pegg’s favorite zombie. If you notice in Shaun of the Dead, when they pretend to be zombies, Shaun’s character does a zombie impression very much like that of Bub.

So? Redeeming values? Well, the main antagonist dies in a very Romero ironic way. Also as a zombie movie it’s not so great but you can find an underlying message. The movie is about class struggle. The survivors that built Fiddler’s Green, where all the rich survivors live, don’t get to live in it and live on the streets in a pretty much dictatorship dystopian future society world seen in movies like Soylent Green for instance. And if you want to get even more allegorical, you can go as far to say the rich are the super rich, the impoverished are the lower middle class, and the zombies are the poverty working class revolting and fighting back against the system of oppression. However, all that does is anthropomorphize the zombie’s way beyond necessary and the zombies end up for the most part being as smart, if not smarter than Bub was. And Bub is the exception not the rule. Romero is all about feasible monsters. For example: “dead things don’t run” rot would cause the tendons to snap. And smart zombies don’t make sense in this type of world. The brains have certainly atrophied and even without the rotting, they are dead. A person, who is dead for more than 10 minutes, if revived, will suffer severe brain damage and have a loss of memory, body functions, even be a vegetable. If you have been dead for months and rotting, you are not going to be able to learn as time goes on as living human beings do.

So my rating? It’s clear I don’t like the film, and most people don’t. However, I have seen so many zombie movies that suck much more than this, ones that suck so bad, I cannot even watch past 5 minutes. Furthermore, I know there are even more of the uber-suck zombie flicks out there that I refuse to accept as existing let alone watch. Because of this, I cannot give Land too low of a rating, and therefore. Land of the Dead gets a generous, but deserved for not being total crap: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Music and Philosophy 2.75 (Halloween Edition)

Hello everyone! I thought it would be fun to post some classic Halloween music that has no lyrics and so there will be one less thing to distracte you will you search for the absolute value of the music. I am also posting links for a fun and scarey music themed horror video. It's about 45 minutes in length and is from Stephen King's anthology series Nightmares and Dreamscapes

(also the reason i'm numbering some of these blogs as inbetween numbers is because they are small little blips that don't have much content while the full numbered ones are more detailed.

Links for show:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/ZombieGeniusss/videos/8/

http://www.fanpop.com/spots/stephen-king/videos/118902/title/know-hell-band

You'll need to donwload the divx plugin to watch the show with this link but i can assure you it is safe and has never given me any problems: http://stagevu.com/video/infnwxswlqbk

And here is the music as promised:

Night on Bald Mountain--Mussorgsky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCEDfZgDPS8
The Grat Pumpkin Waltz--Vince Gauraldi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IymAMEzEoDo

Happy Halloween Everyone

The Church of Sense and Reason: Introduction (10/26/11)

Hello all, and welcome to the Church of Sense and Reason. Now before I explain what this is and what it is all about let me make the disclaimer statement of: I'm not preposing a new religion, branch, church, etc. , in fact, it is quite the oposite.
What this is is a return to what true Christianlity is all about. Now I know there are a lot of extremists out there who say they know what true Christianity is too, and most people who "know" what and religion is truly about will say that all the others are wrong. I'm not here to say that either. I'm here to go back to the beginning and take an exegesis look at Christianity. I will be doing this with the help of some philosopher friends. This is a blog about Christianity but also about philosophy: no one would argue that the teaching of Jesus aren't in themselves a philosophy all their own. I want to bring in the reasoning logic, and ideas of several philosophers, some Christian, some Christian turned Atheist, some predating Christianity. I will using the traching of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, John Stewart Mill, Emerson, and others, to try and bring back the original point of Christianity.
You may be asking: what are my credentials? What's my background? Where am I coming from?
Here's your answers:
I was born, baptized, and raised Catholic and in a Catholic houshold. My mother was Catholic since birth, and my father, being the only one out of his siblings baptized, took First Communion and Confirmation, after my own First Communion. It is also a Liberal household.
I was in the Cub Scouts, dropped out in the Boy Scouts because I was doing to much and my grades were slipping. Why is Cub Scouts relevent? Well I got two of the medal's awarded for religous exercises (in this case Catholic). I was also an alter server from 5th grade to the August before I went away to collge. Not only that I was choosen to be one of the select Master's of Ceremony (for those who are unfamilair with the Catholic Church, this is like a promotion in the ranks of alter serving). Further more, during CCD, I was one of the few who paid attention, cared about the classes, and spoke in class, while the rest thought it a waste of time. I am a philosophy major and have taken courses in World Religions, Philosophy of Religion, Investingating the Bible and several others. I consider myself a Christian but I do not consider myself a Catholic as defined by most Catholics.
I'm really not here to insult anyone or rag on anyone's beliefs. I only want to help to remove the negative stigma surrounding Christianinty, teach others, and bring back what Christianity is all about. Some of you otu there may call me blasphemous, a heretic, or even a left-wing propagandist and that's fine, you are free to think what you like just as I am free to think as I do.
I'm an Empiricist but also a bit of a Rationalists. What does this mean? There are two main ways of gathering information about life, the universe, and everything. One is Empiricism: using ones experiences in the world to make sense of it and come up with what is moral, ethical, right and wrong, etc. Rationalists focuse more on reason than the senese, believing that true knowledge comes from contemplation. I agree in an amalgamation of the two: using ones experiences then conemplating on them as a whole,m seeing what adds up, what doesn't what seems logical and right and illogical and wrong.
That's all you need to know about me The main goal of this blog is to put Christ back into Christianity. So that's the introtroduction done. Shall I give an example of what is expected to be in following blogs? Very well then:

For those Christians out there, you may be familiar with a hymn/psalm called "They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love" This is the Christianity this blog is meant to discuss: Love, peace, forgiviness, compassion, etc. However, I ask all of you out there reading this who are not Christians, and never were Christians: do you agree with this song? Can you recognize Christians by their love? I'd like to think so but i know that is rarely the case. I have a hard time finding Christians by their love. When I ask my non-christian friends they say no. and then i ask them would it be more accurate to say you will know Christians by their hate? Typically the repsonse is yes. What do you think?
Well we can go back throughout history for great examples of this even though it shouldn;t be releveant to Christianity today I think it is. In fact, I'd say it is more relevnet, because the people of the past were not as far in the future from when Jesus was around than we are today, so one would think tehy would have more accurate translations and descriptions of how to be a Christian. Well the Bible still said the same thing but I think most people didn't get the messages. Either that or they are really stupid or they understood the Bible, they were just hypocrites. I'm talking about events like the Crusades, The Israli and Palestinane War, The Spanish Inquisition, The Salem Witch trails, groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and the Nazi party. In fact things like this are still going on today. You can see why that hymn might confuse some people. For example, Christian Fundamentalists who blow up abortion clinics with staff and patients still inside to or shoot doctrs know for conducting abortions point blank in their cars who have families in order to "stop the killing" Or Fred Phelps, leading the hate against the gay community telling them they are hated by God, damned, and will be sent to Hell. So you can see why many people are confused by Christianity.

Well that's a taste of what  to expect from this blog. I hope you enjoy it!

Music and Philosophy 2.5

Ok so I mentioned in class and in my QA a few things that I can link people to for thsoe interested. There is also one that I didn't mention but thought humorous

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: Not My Job: Lil' Ed Williams: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=105369000&m=105368986

I know anyone that googles Muzak could find this but the tag line in the google link just made me want to post it: http://www.muzak.com/

Society for the Rehumanization of American Music:
This is the organization that makes the bumper sticker I have: Once there were Songs. He also has one about real drums vs sythesized ones. I couldn't find a real webstie for him but I found this article:
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-09-06/entertainment/ca-42642_1_john-wood

Also, for any Doctor Who fans, I never had heard about the music of the spheres in philosophy before, but I had heard a reference in a special in the show. It's kind of fun for anyone interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvHcE0dgHy4

AND, that annoying Jeep commercial I mentioned in class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi0SbrrGaiw

That's it for now. I'll see if I can find anything else for the blog of the week.

Zombie Movie Review (7) of the Day: Survival of the Dead

There is not actually much to say about this one. It's certainly not Romero's best. Nowhere near Diary or Dawn. It does have a place in his zombie saga however.

Mostly this movie is camp. It is technically horror, but it will not scare many people. Most of the scares are from surprises rather than violent death scenes. Once again, like with shooting Diary as a found-footage, Romero wanted to do something different, so instead of going for horror and gore, he went for fun and camp. This movie takes a page out of Russo's Return series. The film is certainly entertaining but it feels like it is out of left field, esp. since it is a direct sequel to Diary of the Dead. What I mean is, with every Romero zombie movie thus far, the sequel always deals with a completely new set of characters in an entirely new setting regardless of whether anyone from the previous movie survived or now. However, this time, the movies main character is a direct character from Diary that we saw for about less than 5 minutes. Yep, it's the national guard member that stole the supplies from the kids given to them by another earlier national guard member. I guess that is kind of a spoiler if you have not watched Diary yet but I'm assuming you watch each movie before reading the next review unless the movies are non related like Day of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Anyway, this is somewhat new. Surprising, and unexpected from Romero. I mean I guess that is why some fans do not like it along the same lines of why they do not like Diary: It is not classic Romero. I beg to differ of course, Diary is very Romero just done in a different way, and anyway I already reviewed Diary. Back to my original point, Survival is more of a comedy—I'm not just saying this....Romero even admits it in the movie's introduction on the DVD.

Like I said the movie focuses around the prick from the previous movie who once we get to know him isn't as big as a prick as we thought. He is joined by a few other National Guard members who followed him when he went AWOL. This characters name is great by the way, it is obviously a pseudonym for one reason or another he picked up but it can't be his real name and I actually know why Romero gave him a weird very obviously fake and cliché action hero macho man name: Sergeant Nicotine Crockett.....yeah I know. Read my next review: Land of the Dead, to get the full story behind this.

Anyway, with him are Tomboy, the first gay/lesbian character featured in a Romero movie Francisco, Lt Vaughn, who soon find and rescue a boy from some rednecks (again with the rednecks) who joins up with them. Later this group will meet Patrick O'Flynn former 'leader' of the O'Flynns on an island owned and shared my two Irish families: The O'Flynns and the Muldoons.

Patrick was kicked off the island by Shamus Muldoon for two reasons. 1: the Muldoons had the upper hand at the time in regards to firearms and man power and 2, The two families have been constantly having disputes over every little thing and every facet of life (and, as it were, death) since anyone can remember (since the founding of the island who know how long ago). Their latest dispute? How to deal with the recently risen. Patrick is a Liberal and level headed. He sees that the dead are dead and even if a cure comes along it will only save those still alive. There is no cure for death and thus the only logical and safest thing to do is to put a bullet in the brain of every zombie on the island (including risen Muldoons) which is a great idea and would in theory keep the island zombie free and a safe haven for survivors like our National Guard friends. However, Shamus, being more conservative sees this as an act of god and believes there will one day be a cure to bring the risen fully back to life and that we should keep them alive and try to teach them and train them, specifically to eat other things than people such as pigs and horses. The idea rather makes sense but you have to figure that eventually you would run out of animals to feed them and yourselves esp. since they outnumber the living. Shamus is kind of like Logan from Day except more crazy, more misguided, less willing to listen to reason.

That is the premise and plot of Survival: the two feuding families, the ethical question of what to do with the undead, (which this film as well as any and every other zombie film gives a clear answer to), and how stubborn old men can be stuck in their ways.

This brings me to a theme I haven't mentioned until now because after watching all of the movies I’ve reviewed so far you can now look back and notice it: Slight religious overtones. In every movie, there is reference to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. However, that does not really matter.

So themes of this movie? It is a bit harder to find unless you use the one that the plot hits you in the face. It also has the classic ironic Romero ending. That is one of the greatest parts of the film: the ending. Not only is it classic Ironic Romero, but this time it is also slightly comical. The message is simple: some people are so stubborn and so set in their ways and so determined to prove themselves right that they will fight and argue to the point of dangerous levels if the situation allows for it (i.e. availability of guns and constantly being surrounded by walking corpses). They can also be so stuck in their ways that the feuds continue even after death. Just like the zombies being drawn to the mall in Dawn because somewhere in all that minimal neuron firing, a memory of consumerism holds on because it was so engrained on their psyches, so too does Survival go back to this allegorical theory.

Another smaller theme is gay equal rights: I know I do not do spoilers like this but I feel this time is different. Since this movie is not intended to be taken as seriously as the previous ones and since this involves a possible message of the film I feel it is acceptable. You know that cliché about the black character dying first because the movie/writers/directors/producers are racist? Well...if the opposite events are true does that mean that the opposite can be said about the writer/director/producer? Romero's films make it clear he is for equality in regards to race but what of sexual orientation? Well...SPOILER ALERT! One of the few survivors of Survival is the lesbian character of Tomboy. Is it significant? Does it mean anything? Maybe, possibly...who knows?

Simply put this movie is more for fun and camp entertainment than scares and gore factors: but overall, it is still a decent film and since the next and final film in Romero's series is objectively his worst, I give Survival of the Dead a generous but fun 2.95 out of 5 stars.