Flipside Movie Emporium

[Michael Scrutchin]

Finally:

Only on Yahoo!

"Zombies, man... creep me out."
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Michael Scrutchin
Flipside Movie Emporium
www.flipsidearchive.com

[the night watchman]

I have high hopes for this, and yet there's a pit in my stomach. Will the studio muss up Romero's vision? Or will the studio let Romero have free reign, and his vision turn out closer to Day than to Night or Dawn? I keep hoping Land of the Dead will herald a return to the glory days. Then I remember Romero's last movie was Bruiser.

The trailers are pretty badass, though. So there's that.
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[the night watchman]

Romero's back in the saddle again. While Land of the Dead doesn't quite live up to the first two installments, it's a wonderful piece of splatter satire, and a vast improvement over the shrill and redundant Day of the Dead. John Leguizamo is going to be listed with Mickey Rourke (Sin City) and Ian McDiarmid (Episode III) as actors worthy of the Oscar nomination they would have received if only their performances hadn't appeared in a genre movie.
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[Michael Scrutchin]

So you liked it? Me too. The river sequence gave me chills -- just beautiful.
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Michael Scrutchin
Flipside Movie Emporium
www.flipsidearchive.com

[the night watchman]

The river scene was great, and I liked all the "old school" animatronics and make-up work. It was like I was back in 1985 again.
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[beltmann]

Overall I thought it was just okay--I too would place it just ahead of Day, NW--but I'll second the motions on the river sequence and Leguizamo's performance. I've always found him to be an electrifying actor; his work in Summer of Sam is actually one of my favorite performances of the Nineties. (The river sequence has its own brand of beauty, but I found the corpse-ridden stream in War of the Worlds far more startling--now there's a scary River Styx.)

This time around I found the movie listless and curiously devoid of tension, and looking an awful lot like a bad John Carpenter movie rather than a kicky Romero shocker. The gore effects are great, of course (I loved the "headless" zombie bit), but at this point Romero's social criticisms feel both obvious and clunky. In short, I had a decent time but was still disappointed.

Best part: I was seated next to a middle-aged woman who, before the feature started, warned her companions that she was "gonna scream, just so you know." She wasn't kidding. At every intended jolt, she let out a true blue, blood-curdling shriek.

Eric
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment