Monday, July 01, 2013

Overheard in the Kitchen...

Zombie Tam comes shuffling into the kitchen, repeating the morning TV weatherdude's predictions for the day:
Me: "Shotty spowers and chunderstorms!"
Speaking of zombies, I was quite pleasantly surprised with World War Z yesterday. It was a more substantial movie than I had been expecting.

I mean, it's still a great big summer action movie, not Terms of Endearment, but there's some actual acting going on. Brad Pitt seems to have tendered an application for Harrison Ford's old roles as the Everyman Hero who saves his family and finishes the movie with a bloody lip.

I am actually not at all a fan of zombie movies, but I might go back and catch this one as a matinee, just because a lot of the big scenes are so busy that I kinda want to see all the stuff that was going on in the background.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Terms of Endearment"

I read that first as "Terms of Enlistment" and thought, "Shit, they're making a movie of Marko's book already?".

That's probably because I've made the mental endearment connection from the first time I saw his title...not sure if that was his intent?

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Chunderstorms?

Eww.

Scott J said...

Fuzzy, those are what happens when you eat a Taco Bell chalupa.

Jennifer said...

Well that sounds like all the endorsement needed. I'll have to add it to the list of things to see.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Scott, even without ever having visited the Land Down Under, I know quite well what chunder is. :)

mikee said...

I saw WWZ as a Hobson's choice while killing time last week.

I thought that if they took out all the closeups of Brad Pitt looking moody, confused, concerned, scared, angry, confident, surprised and so on (all the same look, sort of a looser-lipped Blue Steel), the movie would have been much more interesting because the viewer could actually see what was going on, rather than just a screen-sized Brad Pitt.

I am a male. Your mileage may vary.

Frank W. James said...

Aw, Not so much...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

Anonymous said...

According to some people on the Intertubes, if you enjoy this movie, you support killing Palestinian babies and all the other isms Lefties invent so they can have someone to hate. So apparently we should all see this as many times as we can.

Another person I know enjoyed the movie, but has not killed any Palestinian babies lately, He did say he could have done with the Brad Pitt Pepsi ad that was inserted at some point in the movie.

Kishnevi

SCM said...

I cannot accept a PG-13 Zombie movie. Zombie Movies practically invented gratuitous gore. Making it PG-13...that's like...vegan Bacon, or porn with the clothes on.

Old NFO said...

+1 on Fuzzy and Scott... Yech... :-)

Commander_Zero said...

Dunno if you read the book or not but I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is far, far more rich in depth and scope than the movie was. It really is like the difference between Starship Troopers the book vs. Starship Troopers the movie.

Tam said...

Commander_Zero,

"Dunno if you read the book or not but I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is far, far more rich in depth and scope than the movie was."

Yes, I have! Ironically, I first got around to reading it because I listened to the audiobook riding around with the Nerds last fall. Given the author's connections, it really is an all-star cast for the voice acting, and so I wound up reading the print book, too.

"It really is like the difference between Starship Troopers the book vs. Starship Troopers the movie."

There I'll have to disagree, in that the movie is clearly trying to take place in the same world as the book, but the collection of narratives that made up the book would have made for an awkwardly-constructed, sixteen-hour movie with no one main character to frame the story around. The Starship Troopers movie, OTOH, actively subverted and ridiculed the memes and themes of the book to which it was only tangentially related.

Eric said...

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/wwz

And speaking of Starship Troopers, the RiffTrax boys are doing it up in August: http://www.rifftrax.com/

Robert said...

WWZ is yet another movie I won't be watching, because they changed it to please the chicoms.

Anonymous said...

A movie where the UN is the heroic organization that saves the world?
Talk about a loose grip on reality, they would have been supporting the zombies
Sorry Tam, couldn't disagree more. saw it Saturday and it was terrible. My comment to Revolver Girl upon leaving was "how is it possible to spend over 200 million dollars and screw up a zombie movie. It was like the director was BHO."

Will said...

Robert,

I'd read that they had scrapped 1/3 of the movie, and re-shot it, but what was changed wasn't noted in the review.
The reviewer also noted that a PG zombie movie made no sense, and basically advised to stay away from it.
I've found her movie reviews to be accurate, and insightful, and she appreciates good action movies. She also points out the huge plot hole due to the infection time factor, and the transmission vector (airlines).

Disappointing, really.

Already tossed the local rag, and can't recall her name.


wv: 644 nigprin. Can I say that?

Tam said...

Eric,

re: The Oatmeal. Haters gonna hate. ;)


Robert,

Can't make a monster-budget movie anymore and ignore the Chinese market. Sucks to be living in a declining empire, doesn't it, gweilo? :(


Anon 5:34,

Some people hear the word "UN" and within twelve seconds their muscles go into tetanic spasms, their backs arch spasmodically, and then they run around trying to bite things. ;)

Dude, it's an action movie. You know who can't watch any form of entertainment without running it through a political filter? Letfties. ;)

NotClauswitz said...

You can't get any more multicultural than a Zombie - and for Identity Politics they have it all, including death. And having paid those taxes and not even asking for Medicare, just brains, they are a lock for the Obama electorate - they even have ID in case they need to vote, again...

Scott J said...

Fuzzy, thanks to you and Tam my vocabulary has expanded. I didn't know the urban dictionary definition of chunder until looking it up after your reply to my attempt at being witty.

greg said...

While I am not a 'huge' Brad Pitt fan, my wife is, and she agrees 100% with your assessment of him taking over the Harrison Ford/Robert Redford roles. He has the ability to play up or down, and he is much easier to like than say...Tom Cruise.

The Great and Powerful Oz said...

If you like zombie movies, I can recommend "High School of the Dead". It's a somewhat interesting Anime series.

perlhaqr said...

Worst AC/DC parody ever.

"You've been... CHUNDERSTRUCK!"

Cybrludite said...

My primary gripe was having an AN-12 stand in for the C-130 and the Dauphin standing in for pretty much every helicopter in the world, but that's just me. And while they have done tests with landing & launching a C-130 from a carrier using JATO rockets for the take-off, I'm pretty sure that was from a proper full-sized flat-top, and not a Gator Navy pocket carrier.

Anonymous said...

I disagree on a movie and I'm a lefty? Someone is in need of an echo chamber or a nap.

Tam said...

"I disagree on a movie and I'm a lefty? Someone is in need of an echo chamber or a nap."

That's not what I said. Someone's in need of a reading comprehension class or treatment for their oppositional-defiant disorder.

Tam said...

(...although not today. Today is the day we celebrate oppositional-defiant disorder.)