I just ran up the street to one of those front lawn libraries to pick up three books: Meet Molly, Molly’s Surprise and Meet Kirstin. On our way home, my son and I were walking ahead and my daughter stopped and peek inside and called out to me, and I called back, without listening, “No!” […]
Yesterday was the first day of football season, and I had my dad over to watch the Eagles/Lions game, as we do every year. This year, my daughter, S. has become more invested in the games since her teacher has vowed not to assign homework in cases where the Eagles win. Way to get the […]
My first thought within the opening fifteen minutes of Dorota Kobiela’s and Hugh Welchman’s Loving Vincent was that a film this visually sumptuous deserves a better script. Or maybe that was my second thought. The film opens with a title card informing us of just how many artists it took to hand-paint the cells of […]
You’re dying and you know it. You don’t need tests to confirm it, but you’ve made this appointment, and now you’re sitting in the waiting room, flipping through a book you can’t keep your focus on. I should have brought something simpler, you think. But then, you’ve never had much interest in magazines. The table […]
This is one of those stories where you think you know the plot. One of those stories where the characters are dead and don’t know it. Only there’s no grand revelation here, no tacked-on cinematic twist to add melodrama. For they’re also living. They’re both alive and dead. But they aren’t ghosts and this isn’t […]
I have the day off from work today. My kids are in daycare. My wife is at work. And one of the things I was looking forward to doing on my day off was focusing on my writing. About a week ago, I finished writing a memoir. The memoir is 300 pages double spaced, nearly […]
1. Night of the Living Dead (1968; dir. George Romero) – Predictable choice maybe, but this isn’t just the granddaddy of ’em all; it’s the best, and I love it every time I watch it. Peter Bogdanovich tells a story of Orson Welles talking about The Third Man and daring him to name one great […]
2. Zombi 2 (1979; dir. Lucio Fulci) – At this point on the list, entries two and three are pretty much inter-changeable and their placement was more to break up the Romero entries than anything. Both Zombi 2 and Dawn of the Dead, thought wildly different, hold such a cherished place in my esteem it’s […]
3. Dawn Of The Dead (1978; dir. George Romero) – I know a lot of people might put Romero’s original Dawn of the Dead as number 1 on their list with good reasons, most of which I’d likely agree with. Romero took the magic formula he’d discovered with Night and upped the ante, broadened the […]
4. Zombieland (2009; dir. Ruben Fleischer) – With Diary of the Dead, Romero tried to provide a metafictive commentary on the zombie movie in addition to his usual commentary on the state of society, but it off more like metafictive complaining. George didn’t like the fast-moving zombies in the Dawn of the Dead remake and […]