Me Right Now - Romero Weekend

I wanted to put this up right when I got back, but, unfortunately, I got sick, and then got caught up in a lot of other work that needed to be done. In February, I went to Charlotte to visit my good friends Wes and Kathryn, and attend "American Zombie - George A. Romero's Film Revolution", a Romero retrospective. Now, while I had to miss some of the lesser known stuff (I could only go to certain things because I was on a budget), I did get to attend the Night of the Living Dead screening, as well as the One on One with Romero, and the Dawn of the Dead screening, which had a Q&A with George, as well. He's a great guy. Really funny, really down to earth, and full of so much amazing information. 

If I can take one second to gripe about something, though, it would be this - The Light Factory and Reel Soul Cinema did an amazing job at putting this whole event together except for one thing - They showed DVD's of the movie! When your having a retrospective of someone's work, you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, NEVER EVER EVER EVER show something on a DVD unless that is the way the artist intended it to be seen, or a print is impossible to come by. To add insult to injury, during the Dawn of the Dead screening, the person working the DVD player in the projection booth of a VERY fancy theater, couldn't even turn the commentary off! It took almost half an hour for them to figure out how, while the audience was yelling instructions from the theater... Point being - always show a print, unless you absolutely can't.

Anyways, here's the footage that I shot with my little Canon SD1000 pocket camera - 

Me Right Now - Romero Weekend from Stewart Schuster on Vimeo.

David Gordon Greene - Asserting his independence from independents

David Gordon Greene has made quite a name for himself over the past eight years, or so, since the 2000 release of his debut feature George Washington. Greene had heaps of praise laid on him for the lyrical poeticism of the film, many even going so far as to refer to him as the successor to Terrence Mallick. With his follow up, All The Real Girls, Greene explored some of the same lyrical poetics, and a similar visual style, though he used the backdrop of young love as his story, instead of the ennui of small town youngsters, trapped in a world they will never emerge from.

Both films were amazing feats, done on incredibly small budgets, with amazing acting, and the gorgeous cinematography of Greene's NCSA classmate Tim Orr. His next film, however, would try to incorporate some of his style into a more mainstream thriller. Undertow is the story of two brothers, on the run from their psychotic uncle after he kills their father. Undertow is definitely a departure from the glacial, yet beautiful, worlds of his previous two films. It is raw, and it is dirty to the point where it almost feels like artifice. I remember when Undertow came out, a lot of critics and fans were crying "Sellout".

His follow up to Undertow, a film called Snow Angels, I have not seen,unfortunately, so I can't comment on it. I do know, however, that it has gotten fair to bad reviews, and seems like the sort of film that will probably end up being buried by the studio on DVD.

His next film, coming out in a few weeks, is the Seth Rogen (Knocked Up/Superbad) penned comedy-thriller Pineapple Express. I say thriller loosely, as their is action involved in the film, but it definitely comes off more as a comedy than anything. It is the story of two pot smokers, one of which witnesses an execution style murder, while trying to get high. The two friends go on the lamb, when the killer finds out who they are, and sends some goons to hunt them down and kill them. 

And most of you that have seen Greene's work are saying, "Really?". Really. I love the trailer for Pineapple Express, and I have to say that if Seth Rogen co-wrote Superbad, and co-wrote Pineapple with his same writing partner, I think we are in for one hilarious ride. But why David Gordon Greene? He does seem like an awkward fit for a stoner comedy.

If you're looking for the back story, I don't have it. I have no idea why Greene took the directors position, but I can only assume that it was because after George Washington and All The Real Girls, which were incredibly similiar in style, that Greene has been looking for some way to break away from the expectations that film critics and audience members are putting on him. And why shouldn't he? A director is not unlike an actor, in that he (or she) wants to try out as many different avenues of their craft as is humanly possible. No one wants to get stuck doing the same kind of films every time (well, John Carpenter doesn't seem to have a problem with sticking to a single genre, but...). Even George Romero, the man who essentially invented the modern day zombie film, refused to cash in on his success with Night of the Living Dead for years, because he was afraid of being typecast as "The Zombie Guy". Of course, that's probably not the best example, seeing as how he did eventually get typecast that way (I mean, c'mon... who has even seen There's Always Vanilla, or heard of Knightriders or The Crazies?).

Personally, I'm looking forward to Pineapple Express. I'm looking forward to Greene spreading his wings, and seeing what he can do outside of his first three films. I have loved all of the films he's made, and look forward to seeing him try new things and (hopefully) succeed. I think he is an incredibly talented director who has a real gift at, not only working with actors, but creating a visual experience with his crew to put up on the screen.

Diary of the Dead

George Romero has made a career off of zombies, whether he wanted to or not. Starting with his first zombie film, and debut feature, Night of the Living Dead, Romero invented the entire genre, laying down rules that would be closely followed by almost every zombie filmmaker afterwards. Romero, throughout the years, has heartily attempted to break free from the world that defined him, but to little or not avail. His biggest outside success was probably the Stephen King authored Creepshow, though many of his other films were hardly a blip on the radar.

Previous to Diary, Romero had made four zombie films - Night of the Living Dead (a cinema classic in every sense of the word), Dawn of the Dead (an AMAZING 70's film that is as good, or possibly better, than its predecessor), the debatable Day of the Dead (a film whose script was supposedly pillaged before they were able to start shooting), and the respectable Land of the Dead. Each film got bigger and more expensive, though, not particularly better. With Diary of the Dead, Romero is trying to kick-start the series that he felt had gotten away from him. He's trying to bring it back to it's origins of a small, homemade film. Well, he succeeds at that, if only at that.

The story follows a group of art school students who witness the birth of the zombie invasion first hand, with filmmaker Jason recording the events, to show a "true", "unbiased" view of the events. We follow them as they pack into an RV (which I find incredibly odd, and way to convenient that they have access to such a vehicle), to drive from Pittsburgh to, eventually, one of their fellow students houses in the country. Along the way, they run into zombies, crazed military officers, lots of people with guns, and more zombies.

My major problem with this film is its first person point of view. The concept of someone being so obsessed with shooting footage of everything around them, to the point where they don't even step in when someone is in danger of being killed, is ridiculous. If Jason is that lost in what he's doing, I find it hard to believe that he would be able to hold down friends, much less a girlfriend. Romero has always made his characters as smart as the average "real-life" person, instead of dumbing them down like so many horror film director's do, but, in Diary, these kids come off as cliche idiots, more at home in a Friday the 13th, than in a Romero zombie film.

I understand Romero's point, about how we are so media obsessed that we can't even break ourselves away from it, but the story is so ridiculous that one has to wonder what he was thinking when he wrote it (or was it a situation of - "Hey George Romero, here's a bag of cash. Go out and make us a zombie film!").

I didn't enjoy this film at all. Thee acting was bad, the story was ridiculous, and the zombies were not interesting in any way. Apparently, the days of Dawn of the Dead's "personality" zombie's are long gone. It's a shame, too. I see Diary as the worst, by far, of a line of films that started out on an incredibly strong note. I hope that if Romero makes another zombie film, he'll find a way to look past the painfully obvious, and make something that reflects the skills and ability that he should have gained in a forty year career.