Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead
2008
Dir. Steve Miner




Netflix gave it one and a half stars and I’d heard how bad it actually is, but I figured I’d try it out. This proved to be a poor decision.

“Day of the Dead” was bad, to say the least. This, however, wasn’t that sometimes excusable swing and a miss bad (X-Men 3 anyone?), it was lazy bad. It’s the kind of finished product that comes about when everyone involved seems to lose faith early on.

The script is an exhausted series of horror cliches; the heroine, Sarah (Mena Suvari), has been dispatched to her home town after years of living elsewhere. We are informed, without a hint of irony, that Sarah “swore she’d never come back” years before, when she enlisted in the army. Unfortunately for her, she has been sent home to help quarantine the town, as it has been exposed to a deadly virus.

Along the way, we also meet Nick Cannon, who’s character may be the most obnoxious, least disciplined soldier in film. The only other performance of note is Ian McNeice’s as a hippy DJ who only operates and speaks in stereotype. McNeice is one of those “I know that guy” actors who can generally be relied on to give a performance somewhere between “sufficient and “kinda good”. Here, however, he has been so miscast that I cringed nearly every time he spoke.

The cast is filled out by Michael Welch, AnnaLynne McCord and Ving Rhames, none of whom do anything of note, good, bad or otherwise.

Moving on with the theme of “lazy”, we come to Director Steve Miner. His only projects of note are a few bad horror sequels (Friday the 13th parts 2 and 3, Halloween H20). To discuss the more technical aspects of this movie would imply that they warrant real discussion. The fact is, anyone can shoot a scene, the question is can you make it memorable. As you may have figured out, Steve Miner does not make his movies very memorable.

The only other things worth mentioning are the zombies and the story. First, the zombies sucked. They are stuck between the “slow changers” of Romero lore and the instant changers of “28 Days Later”. Needless to say, its a combination that doesn’t work. In terms of the story, it only worth noting to say that this is really only a remake “in name”. There are a few references to the original “Day of the Dead”, but other than that, the story has been completely changed.
1 out of 5

Apologies if I rambled,
Sam

Moon (2009)- A Review

About a year ago, Moon was screened quietly among quite a few film festivals around the world. It was received extremely well, and said to be one of the better science fiction movies to be released in quite a while. When it began it's limited release, I brushed it off and decided to watch it when it came out on DVD. Now I'm regretting that decision immensely.
Moon wasn't one of the better science fiction movies to be released in quite a while- it was one of the best ever. Sam Bell is an astronaut who is working a three year contract for Lunar Industries, a company who extracts Helium 3 from the far side of the moon for energy on earth. Towards the end of his contract, Sam begins notice things that weren’t there, eventually crashing his vehicle because of it.. From that point on, his world is flipped upside down.
While that may sound cliché, it is as true as it could possibly get. Sam Rockwell carries this entire film on his back as Sam Bell, essentially being the only actor in the movie besides Kevin Spacey who voices GERTY, the mainframe computer on the lunar base. Yes, we may have all seen Tom Hanks do it in Cast Away, but Sam Rockwell does it even better for reasons I can not explain without spoiling the movie. His performance is both astoundingly believable and heart wrenching.
Besides the acting, what made this film so great is it's hybrid of originality and borrowed items from various other sci fi films and games. GERTY, is eerily similar to HAL of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the updated use of emoticons to display his emotions. One can not help but think of John Carpenter's The Thing when they see the lunar base which Sam Bell resides, as well as his similar grizzly beard which Kurt Russell also sported.
None of these things detract from the film at all. In fact, they all blend in seamlessly to create a sort of homage to many great science fiction movies, while at the same time working towards creating something entirely new. It is a movie about finding yourself in one of the most lonely places in the universe.
Moon managed to upset me more than many other movies, and that is part the story and part Sam Rockwell's acting. If Sam Bell existed in real life, I would have more pity on him than most anyone on the planet simply because of the truths he has to face and the horrific emotional pain he has to endure.
It should be considered a sin that this movie did not get nominated for one Oscar, let alone a few. It easily deserved Best Picture over The Hurt Locker, as it was clearly the superior film. The cinematography was spectacular, and Clint Mansell (the man behind the soundtracks for Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain) created quite possibly the perfect soundtrack for this isolated space adventure.
I honestly didn't plan for my first review to be a five out of five, but it is just the way it worked out. While the pace may not be for everyone, it is not a long film by any means. Duncan Jones directorial debut of a full length feature is an essential film that should be in every science fiction lover's collection.
5 out of 5.