Peter Jackson's Humble Beginnings
Yet again my movie post is late, school, church and getting ready for Ash Wednesday make Charlie a busy boy. But boy is this week's installment a fun one. I just saw one movie this past week, another "horror" movie reccomended by Wil: Dead Alive. This is one of Peter Jackson's first films as director (3rd to be exact). What's truly amazing is that there are only three films betwen Dead Alive and Fellowship of the Ring on Jackson's resume. I mean granted, we all know that he's an amazing director now, but if I was the one making the decision about Fellowship and I had just seen Dead Alive, I'd have looked elsewhere.Now, that's not to say that Dead Alive is a bad movie. In the realm of comedy/horror the likes of Shaun of the Dead and The Evil Dead, Dead Alive is a masterpiece on or above their level. But let's be clear, this is a comedy. Who ever saw past the turning zombies into salsa via a lawnmover to Jackson's wider range... bravo.
Okay, I'll actually talk a bit about this movie and give Jackson a break. Dead Alive starts off in familiar territory for Lord of the Rings fans, a rocky gorge that Aragorn & co. travel through to enter the mountain in Return of the King. This time, however, it looks more like a "demo tape" for admittance to film school than stellar filmmaking. But you already get the idea that this zombie movie will be funnier than most. Once the zombie virus is out and our New Zelander hero must do battle to keep his zombie mother at bay the laughs never stop. One of my favorite scences is when a Priest gets his kung-fu out on four zombies in a graveyard, pausing only to let slip this line, "I kick ass... FOR THE LORD!" From there on out the movie is a bloodbath. What water is to Waterworld, blood is to Dead Alive, it is the constant backdrop and compainion of every scene. But while its "gore" far exceedes such movies as Texas Chainsaw Massacare and the like, Dead Alive is able to do it in a comic way that never comes across as sadistic or evil... on the contrary the lawnmower turned zombie blender vanquishes evil...
FOR THE LORD!
Labels: Film
posted by Charlie at 9:16 PM
3 Comments:
The dinner scene, where the one zombie sticks the spoon the the back of its head and the other zombie starts eating off it...nothing short of comic genius.
I still need to see "Goodnight and Good Luck." Working two jobs leaves far too little time for film, which kinda drives me mad.
Oh my word, the dinner scene was HILARIOUS! So next on my "Horror Movies Wil Reccomended" list is Hour of the Wolf which has a typo on the sleve, it says that it's 495 minutes long! I'm thinking to myself, even a dual-layer DVD doesn't hold that much video, alas it's really only 90 minutes long which makes sense. Afterall it's not called Week of the Wolf.
I still need to see Munich, have you seen it yet?
The more I think about it... maybe there's something about funny zombie movies (or the people drawn to direct them) that just makes a good director. Afterall Evil Dead director Sam Raimi is now making really really good Spider-Man movies. Who was that Shawn of the Dead director again? Edgar Wright... look out for him!
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