Jul. 6th, 2005 05:19 pm
Land of the Dead
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heatray5dLand of the Dead:
George Romero is a clumsy satirist, but boy he sure knows how to frame a zombie apocalypse, and shoot a scene in which the undead feast on the eyeballs of mercenaries. I mean private contractors. And honestly, I can't think of a more appropriate casting decision than Dennis Hopper to play George W. Bush in the movies. Land of the Dead is the Apocalypse Now of the war in Iraq, even going so far as to visually quote Coppola a coppola times (I am funniE!!1!).
So let me see if I've got this straight, Dennis Hopper is W., living in the penthouse suite of the hardened skyscraper inhabited by a chosen elite of soft, Caucasian zombie food, and protected by a private army of Storm Troopers and red shirts. Down on the streets around the tower live the rest of the humans, among them the real soldiers (who cruise around in an armored RV kitted out with missile pods and mini-guns), revolutionaries in the person of a loud, Irish drunk and his tubercular son, midget gangsters, and a million peasants entertained into complacency by zombie gladiator fights and gothic Italian prostitutes (I suspect it's part of the satire that the one Italian in the film is a hooker). The soldiers occasionally venture out of this protected zone to slaughter helpless zombies and gather supplies. The door to get back in is painted green.
The zombies, by the way, represent the Iraqi people. Or at least the insurgency, since the difference between your mainstream zombie and your zombie insurgent is organization, but either type will happily devour your flesh. Most Iraqis won't devour your flesh, unless their section of the city has been under 24-hour curfew for too long.
Hopper's soldiers push the zombie population too far, resulting in the zombie version of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi taking up arms. At the same time, John Leguizamo - who plays Halliburton - tells Hopper that if he doesn't make with some hush money for cleaning out all his skeleton-filled (not, unfortunately, the kind that wield scimitars) closets, he'll rain holy fire down on the city or something. Leguizamo is stopped by the Italian hooker this one guy who - together with his sharp-shooting, retard assistant - saved her from a midget gangster and his zombie gladiators.
After a quick trip back to the city to verify that it has been totally overrun by zombies, our heroes pause long enough to exchange a respectful glance with the zombie leader before abandoning their fellow humans and flee to Canada in the super-RV. Cue fireworks. The end.
This movie is a lot like The Day After Tomorrow, except that it makes more sense, is about a hundred times better, and has zombies instead of snow. But still, it's basically a movie about how the current administration teams up with a slightly less evil scapegoat to kill everyone. What's not really funny about this movie is that it is a more true-to-life depiction of the police-action in Iraq than what you'll see on the news.
What I learned from this movie, or re-learned in this case, is that Italian actresses are hot.
The low down:
zombies: 400
ninjas: 0
hot lava (in liters): 0
nazis: 0
breasts: 2
decapitations: 3
Miss Cleo: 0
monkeys: 0
George Romero is a clumsy satirist, but boy he sure knows how to frame a zombie apocalypse, and shoot a scene in which the undead feast on the eyeballs of mercenaries. I mean private contractors. And honestly, I can't think of a more appropriate casting decision than Dennis Hopper to play George W. Bush in the movies. Land of the Dead is the Apocalypse Now of the war in Iraq, even going so far as to visually quote Coppola a coppola times (I am funniE!!1!).
So let me see if I've got this straight, Dennis Hopper is W., living in the penthouse suite of the hardened skyscraper inhabited by a chosen elite of soft, Caucasian zombie food, and protected by a private army of Storm Troopers and red shirts. Down on the streets around the tower live the rest of the humans, among them the real soldiers (who cruise around in an armored RV kitted out with missile pods and mini-guns), revolutionaries in the person of a loud, Irish drunk and his tubercular son, midget gangsters, and a million peasants entertained into complacency by zombie gladiator fights and gothic Italian prostitutes (I suspect it's part of the satire that the one Italian in the film is a hooker). The soldiers occasionally venture out of this protected zone to slaughter helpless zombies and gather supplies. The door to get back in is painted green.
The zombies, by the way, represent the Iraqi people. Or at least the insurgency, since the difference between your mainstream zombie and your zombie insurgent is organization, but either type will happily devour your flesh. Most Iraqis won't devour your flesh, unless their section of the city has been under 24-hour curfew for too long.
Hopper's soldiers push the zombie population too far, resulting in the zombie version of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi taking up arms. At the same time, John Leguizamo - who plays Halliburton - tells Hopper that if he doesn't make with some hush money for cleaning out all his skeleton-filled (not, unfortunately, the kind that wield scimitars) closets, he'll rain holy fire down on the city or something. Leguizamo is stopped by the Italian hooker this one guy who - together with his sharp-shooting, retard assistant - saved her from a midget gangster and his zombie gladiators.
After a quick trip back to the city to verify that it has been totally overrun by zombies, our heroes pause long enough to exchange a respectful glance with the zombie leader before abandoning their fellow humans and flee to Canada in the super-RV. Cue fireworks. The end.
This movie is a lot like The Day After Tomorrow, except that it makes more sense, is about a hundred times better, and has zombies instead of snow. But still, it's basically a movie about how the current administration teams up with a slightly less evil scapegoat to kill everyone. What's not really funny about this movie is that it is a more true-to-life depiction of the police-action in Iraq than what you'll see on the news.
What I learned from this movie, or re-learned in this case, is that Italian actresses are hot.
The low down:
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no subject
Sweet! Although I hope I _never_ see W in a porno, that was really funny.
no subject
UNCLEAN!!
well...
(and then, see above.)
no subject
I don't think that's what was intended, though. I think it was supposed to reference the human habitation as the "Green Zone" in Baghdad.
I feel all icky now.
Hot Italian
Re: Hot Italian
no subject
Ornella Muti...damn that sounds familiar...
no subject
THIS MING IS A PSYCHO
Re: THIS MING IS A PSYCHO
no subject
no subject
no subject
The people in the tower being the upper class and the zombies being the poor/homeless. The middle class, the people living outside the tower but not in zombie land, either move up to upper class (through underhanded mean like John Leguizamo's character tried to do) or fall into poverty (eaten by zombies).
-PT
no subject
Land of the Dead is hardly a Marxis parable though. Communism, after all, is just a red herring.
no subject
http://www.fullmoondirect.com/trailers/Gingerdead_Man_Trailer/gdead_trailer.mov