Dead Men Walking

I really don't watch a lot of television.

No, really. Between my erratic work schedule and years of being disappointed by superior shows being brought down by declining talent (both acting and writing) or diminishing viewership, I just don't go out of my way to sit in front of the tube. Some of the best shows of the past decade (Battlestar Galactica, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Arrested Development) ended not by their own terms, but by cancellation, due to lack of enough people tuning in. One of my all-time favorite TV shows, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr, lasted only a single year. Very often this means that I'm catching up to a series on DVD that I didn't tune in to the first time around, but I rarely automatically jump on bandwagons of any sort. So it takes something special for me to plunk myself down on the couch at a specified time for the sole reason of watching the premiere of any television show for an hour or even thirty minutes.

What a time to lose your contact!

AMC has hit gold of late. With the critical commercial success of original programming like the amazing Mad Men (which I'm currently catching up on) and Breaking Bad, which proved that the dad from Malcolm in the Middle COULD win awards with his talent, AMC has become the new big player on the TV network battlefield. The cable networks, which had been long dominated (and rightfully so) by HBO and Showtime's plethora of original programming, was ripe for a new kid on the block, and with new shows Rubicon and next year's The Killing, AMC's looking to move a few steps up to reaching that vaunted role. And when it was announced that they were bringing a popular movie genre to the small screen with The Walking Dead, I was intrigued and immediately hooked. Though it would certainly be a challenge to adjust the extremely violent genre to TV, even on cable, success would be unprecedented by any standards and keep me in my seat every week. When the premiere was due to air on Halloween night, I was curled up on the couch, anxiously waiting to see what the series would bring. It didn't disappoint.

Some scenes may make you regret uncovering your eyes

Based on the Image comic book series written by scribe Robert Kirkman (whose Marvel Zombies series is one of Marvel Comics' biggest hits of the past decade) and produced by suspense czar Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd (who has produced some of my all-time favs, including Aliens, Terminator, and T2), The Walking Dead begins with a high-speed car chase that introduces us to Georgia-based sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes. Played by English actor Andrew Lincoln, Rick is an overall good guy, with his everyday problems. As we meet him, he's talking to his partner Shane (Jon Bernthal) about his problems at home and with his wife, Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies). Confused, unsure what he's doing wrong or how to fix it, I was deeply brought into his world, and could sympathize with the plight he put forth. Not long after this scene, Rick and Shane are involved in a high speed chase that tragically has Rick shot by the fleeing assailants. He's brought to a hospital where weeks later he finds the world has... changed. The hospital is abandoned, with little sign of the staff or patients who once had filled it's halls. When he leaves the hospital, he immediately finds himself surrounded by dead bodies left behind by the hundreds. And some of these dead bodies are still moving.

Horses against tanks? Where are we, Poland?

The first sixty minutes of the ninety-minute premiere focus on Rick getting oriented with the new world around him. After meeting some fellow survivors Morgan (Lennie James) and his son Duane (Adrian Kali-Turner), Rick (and by extension, all of us) learn everything we need to know about surviving this zombie holocaust, from the well-known (avoid getting bit, shoot 'em in the head) to specific situations concerning the series. Rick's family is gone, having apparently left when the madness started, and Rick goes on a quest to find them, deciding to start with the city of Atlanta, where the CDC and humanitarian aid is supposedly located to fix whatever this problem is. Despite these things seeming like simple bits, necessary to any zombie flick, what really makes this film unique are the characters. Lincoln is immediately likable as the resurrected hero Rick, and in his guest-starring role, James is a father grieving over the fate of his dead wife. James, who I loved during his stint in the first season of FOX's Human Target, does an excellent job in the role, getting to really delve into his emotional well to properly play the part. Lincoln I believe will be a consistent talent throughout the show's run, and his ability to truly convey the shock we would all feel if presented with this new realm of existence is a pleasant surprise for such an unknown actor (at least here in the States).

Awww, she just wants kisses!

The effects are also top-notch, with blood and gore used effectively to gross-out and frighten the weaker of heart, while the real scare veterans can be spooked by the seeming quiet, the wide open spaces that practically invite sudden, unexpected violence. Great camera work also abounds, as some of the best moments appear when the camera tilts ever so slightly so the audience catches a glimpse of what the characters on screen cannot. The zombie effects are excellent, with make-up and prosthetics as realistic as I've seen in any zombie flick, and seeing the zombies feed really hearkens back to the violence of the original Romero films of yesteryear. When you get right down to it, The Walking Dead looks like a modern horror film made for TV, and better than most.

Ain't no surviving the mean streets of Georgia

The pilot was not without it's problems, mostly with the story. When Rick wakes up in the hospital, it's not hard to think it cliched with so many zombie movies having hospital origins or destinations. This can be tracked back to 2003, when the comic was started and I'm sure 28 Days Later was still fresh in Kirkman's mind. Also, it's obvious that the last thirty minutes were written as a separate episode from the first ninety, and while I don't really have a problem with that, I do have issues with the show possibly only being a thirty-minute show in the future. The premise screams to me that it should be an hour-long show, but since I don't even know what the case is with that yet, I'm just picking at nits at this stage. So, yeah. As you can guess, there was very little not to like about this show.

Ma'am, stop biting that man!

I had a blast with The Walking Dead. Zombies have become popular again in all formats, from films and comics to video games like Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising, and now it's finally made it's way to television. I'm definitely going to keep watching the show and I'm also looking forward to checking out the graphic novels of the comic series, which I've always been aware of but never given it a thorough reading before now. If the show can keep up introducing us to fascinating characters while simultaneously bringing the love to the fans who made the zombie horror genre the success it has been and currently maintaining it in something of a new renaissance, then we as fans have little to worry about going forward. It's engaging, suspenseful, gory and thrilling, and I just know I'm going to have a hell of a time getting to sleep Sunday nights in the near future. Watch it and you'll see what I mean.

Seabiscuit's most important race to date

Zombies in the Mist

End of the world zombie comedy? No thanks, I already saw Shaun of the Dead.

That's what I thought last summer, anyway, when Zombieland took number one at the box office and went on to become the most successful zombie movie ever. Despite the success, and despite the stellar reviews it received, I was not very enthusiastic about seeing the movie in the theaters. When Shaun of the Dead came out back in 2004, it was the critic's darling. All the reviewers loved it, and it seemed like everyone I knew, whether fans of zombie movies or just movie fans in general, would shout from the rooftops about how great this movie was. So finally I relented, but instead of this fantastic film that would be worthy of such praise, my response? "Meh."

It wasn't that I thought the movie was bad. On the contrary, I thought it was very clever, with some outrageously funny moments. It seemed to carry a good balance between respecting the source material while at the same time parodying it's cultural commentaries. I simply thought that the film didn't live up to the hype put upon me by people who seemed to think it was the best movie that came out that year. It's the reason I still haven't seen Hot Fuzz despite actually wanting to see it at some point. And it's why I waited almost a year to see Zombieland, despite much interest I had in the Woody Harrelson-fronted film about surviving after the worst has come to be.

The narrative for Zombieland is told by Jesse Eisenberg's character, called Columbus. Columbus is a college student who has managed to survive the zombie apocalypse by following his thirty-three rules of life, many of which somehow translate perfectly into surviving zombie attacks or surviving in Zombieland altogether. Some, like Cardio (1), Wear Seatbelts (4), and the Buddy System (29) make sense in real life as well as the endtimes. Eisenberg is headed cross-country to his hometown of Columbus where he hopes to find his family and see if his home survived what has happened to the rest of the world, despite not having been very close to his family to begin with. On the way, he encounters Talahassee (Harrelson), a somewhat crazy survivor who has made a business out of killing the undead, and to hear him put it, "Business is good!" Not only is Talahassee two cans short of a six pack, but he's on a peculiar quest to find Twinkies: "not just any box of Twinkies, the last box of Twinkies that anyone will enjoy in the whole universe. Believe it or not, Twinkies have an expiration date. Some day very soon, Life's little Twinkie gauge is gonna go... empty." Despite each of their eccentricities, the two decide to team up, if at least for the short term, and their chemistry and scenes together often make for the most enjoyable parts of the movie, as each mocks the other with mutual respect as fellow survivors would.

Before too long, the duo meet up with the sister con-girls Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who manage to rob and abandon them multiple times over the course of the film. The sisters are on their way to Pacific Playland, a California amusement park, where it's rumored that there are no zombies. Wichita merely wants Little Rock to be able to have fun at least once in a world where zombies are pretty much the dominant species. And so the sisters team up with our heroes, if only so long as to reach the park.

That's the plot in a nutshell, and though it's weak and nothing to write home about, it's fine because the movie is buoyed by it's characters and acting. Eisenberg (Who had a breakout year with this and his summer comedy Adventureland) is perfect as the neurotic Columbus, not only in his deadpan narration and comedy timing, but also in his body language, which manages to properly convey his fear and his incredulity to the situations in which he finds himself. But he's got nothing on Harrelson, who had some unique conditions for signing onto the project (including ecologically-friendly sets and director Ruben Fleischer not consuming dairy for a week) and proved he was worth it, putting together a kick-ass performance in which he owns every scene and makes this Twinkie-hunting, zombie-killing maniac believable and sympathetic. Who can say 2009 wasn't his year, as in addition to this film, he had a notable role in the action film 2012 and an Oscar-nominated one for The Messenger. Emma Stone may be known to most as Jonah Hill's romantic interest in the 2007 film Superbad, and while she is fine as older sister and con-woman Wichita, she's up at the same level as the other people in the cast. Abigail Breslin may be forever identified as Little Miss Sunshine, but she still does an amazing job here as the smart but still incredibly and impressionably young Little Rock. She outperforms everyone in her scenes, with the notable exception of Harrelson.

Although the movies does have problems, they are mostly trivial and don't overly affect the enjoyment of the film. Mostly, they are continuity errors, far too many to account for in print. Fortunately, IMDB maintains an extensive list of them, if you wanted to check them. Most of these could have been avoided, and can likely be attributed to the inexperience of director Ruben Fleischer and his crew, whether by haste or just plain error. . Obviously, if this movie had been made with a more experienced crew, perhaps these errors could have been avoided. Oh, well, woulda, coulda, shoulda.

I went into this film with no expectations and little idea as to the plot of the film, but even if I had, I'm not sure it would have altered the level of enjoyment I had during it's viewing. For a horror comedy, Zombieland doesn't skimp on the blood, gore and special effects, and manages that perfect balance of respecting the original source material while parodying it perfectly to fit the story. It's easily the best zombie film I've seen since Zack Snyder's 2004 Dawn of the Dead, and I'd heavily recommend to anyone interested in the genre as a humorous aside to the more serious Romero flicks. Toss in a hilarious cameo from one of the funniest actors alive, gut-wrenching laughs and more zombies than you can unload a shotgun at, and you've got one of the few movies from last year that I'd watch again and again without hesitation.