Burly Writer

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I'm a Writer, if by Writer you mean a misanthrope.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Burly Living (Burly Dead): Audie Murphy



Arlington National Cemetery, yesterday. I know everybody and their mother has seen Audie Murphy's grave, but I hadn't. It was a blast, considering Audie Murphy might jump out of the ground and kick my a** at any moment! Or at least that's how it felt.



Just that little grave marker, just like any other soldier. Pretty cool, I must say.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Burly Movies: ZOMBIELAND


ZOMBIELAND is kind of false advertising. When I think of a zombie, I think of a slow, shambling Romero zombie. Of course the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD a few years ago moronically suggested zombies can run, jump, do all kinds of neat frenetic sh*t. Boring and stupid barely covers it. Anyway, even movies involving mindless flesh-craving maniacs, like the excellent 28 WEEKS LATER, who live only to spread their virus, has been classified as a "zombie flick."

Complaining gets us nowhere in the current culture. I won't call viral outbreak movies "zombie" movies, since a zombie is technically dead and "infected" people aren't dead. If someone was really clever, they'd make a movie about what happens when infected maniacs fight Romero zombies. That'd be kind of cool.

See, the running zombie will never frighten me. It's like making a movie about vampire teddy bears. It's ridiculous unless you're afraid of such things already. Since logically there should never be a running zombie, I guess I find them hard to take seriously.

Romero's zombies, of course, creep. They are easily escaped from by another who can run fast and far. Except there are a lot of Romero zombies, and they never stop creeping. Eventually they always catch up, because you have to rest, you have to sleep, you have to forage for food. And they'll creep up, and sooner or later they'll drag you down. Not only that, but one of them will probably be your dead old dad or your toddler. You'll know their name, which you get to scream while they feast on your intestines.

That's what scares the crimson butter out of me about Romero zombies. It's all contextual and social and, well, horrific.

Which brings us to ZOMBIELAND, which is a comedy. I didn't see this until recently despite being drawn to zombies of all types, Italian and Japanese and you name it. I fear the "zombie comedy" in the wake of SHAUN OF THE DEAD, which respected the sub-genre while still telling a smart, funny story. ZOMBIELAND doesn't fall into that category, since it isn't about zombies. It's about people infected by a virus, who develop into maniacal cannibals.

Which is keen. I can deal with cannibals, even cannibals who are called zombies even though a zombie can't be a "cannibal" any more than a shark can be a fisherman. They may both eat the same thing, but they aren't remotely the same species. Not when one of them are dead. Cannibalism is a conscious desire to eat human flesh. Zombies are driven by a mysterious primitive urge buried in their dim recesses.

The cannibals in ZOMBIELAND, like many in these "running zombie" times, lack "personality." With the creeping zombie you have a chance to identify the zombie by his clothing, his skin color, or the way he was killed. This is how you get "characters" like Clown Zombie and Butcher Zombie and whatever Social Caste Zombie you want to put forth. You can individualize the zombie within the mass of flesh-eaters, providing some kind of sad identification between the audience and that monster. The realization: the monster is us.

There's nothing like that in ZOMBIELAND, but you do get a comedy which plays off the new cultural recognition of the "zombie" tropes and pratfalls. You get a story that plays like a deft, self-conscious discussion about how great it would be if human beings turned into monsters. Because in that world, any man is king of his own fate. The choices are your own. There is an ideal of freedom in taking what you want, taking what you can carry, and taking what has always been denied you. That might be self-respect, or a new car, or a particularly hot girl who'd never have anything to do with you otherwise. But it would be good to be king, even in an imposed cannibal hell.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Burly Movies: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

Like with anything where you know all the beats and all the outcomes, you still hope that the sum total of something is better than the parts which are rote.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY does pull off something that hadn't been done to me in a long time. It kept me from sleeping. My skin crawled. About the only movies that still pull off that feat are THE EXORCIST and Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD. In the case of those two movies, you're in awe of the balls it took to make them in the first place. In PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, there isn't the kind of innovation of a really iconic horror movie, and yet afterward, in the dark trying to sleep, I understood how well the moviemaker's had managed to make me uneasy.

It's funny, too, that this movie is probably another example of "no athiests in foxholes." I'm not particularly pious, nor on the other hand incredulous of the existence of supernatural phenomenon. I'm a firm believer that something is out to get you, but it usually walks on two legs and bleeds. Still, when I was a kid, my mother found religion and used to scare me with devils and gods. The howling wind I envisioned as black wraiths, and striking lightning was delivered by the Lord's fiery hands. A man I knew described seeing THE EXORCIST when he was in his teens, high and drunk. The next day, he was fresh-combed and singing in church. THE EXORCIST had reached down into him and touched among his childhood terrors with a damp hand.

Despite the hype, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is very much a movie in the vein of Tourneur's NIGHT OF THE DEMON, since most of that movie concentrates on what is barely seen. And like that 1950s flick, PARANORMAL minorly undercuts the suspense and terror with some obvious choices. Which wasn't the fault in the case of NIGHT OF THE DEMON, as the releasing studio wanted to splice some demon puppet action in. This was done to make sure the audience was properly horrified by an actual monster, and not just shadows and sounds. Forget imagination. PARANORMAL isn't forced to stoop that far, but has its share of the too-obvious. And yet, for the most part, it's almost impossible for anyone not to be tense watching this thing.

I think too you have to consider the economics of this movie. Not of the movie itself, but of the characters in it. Young protagonists, with a house, cars, a pool, a fairly average living. The house looks exactly like most houses, functionally a house but devoid of age. This is reflective of what most of America's Middle Class goes home to every night. The sinister haunting is an invasion of personal space and personal freedoms. The next generation is feeling the rancid breath of an invisible threat to their homes, their lives, but they cannot define it. I think this movie will continue to terrify people who live in such homes, who are helpless to stop encroaching darkness.

For those in poverty, the idea of their loved one entering their dark bedroom in the night and becoming a demon is not unheard of. The violence doesn't surprise the children of poverty. Their fear is more ingrained, more real, and they don't distinguish between monsters from hell and monsters from the bottle. I don't imagine poor people will be frightened by PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, but they might be comforted by it. The idea that abuse is demon-borne must be a solace.

For myself, the movie played out the way it should, complete with an ending straight out of BURNT OFFERINGS. Not a bad thing at all, mind you. There's something about being watchful in the dark that is hardwired into human beings I think. At least, I'm wired that way. We're all so happy we have our electricity and our gadgets, closed doors and locks. But we have to turn them off sometime. And then nothing holds back the dark.

It occurs to me, the Cro-Magnon in his animal skin tending his fire in his cave, awake while his family sleeps, he was cursed to stare into that darkness. He wondered what was there. He feared the creeping sensation of something watching him, waiting for the fire to go out. I think he was lucky to have the fire, to have to think about the fire and maintain the fire. No electric switch would turn out his shield against the night and the groaning things in it. No, the fire was logic, and courage.

If demons walk the Earth, it makes one wonder who put out the fire to let them in?