CERVEAUUUU
It’s hilarious at how terrible my productivity is. It’s one thing that I’m struggling to work on redesigning the site, but I can barely even work on anything else, and now I can barely even write a blog entry without stumbling over myself. I’ve been trying to compose my thoughts on Zebraman for nearly two weeks now and I still haven’t made my mind up! Surely I can’t botch up mere summaries of movies I’ve watched, right?
… right?
La Horde: A French zombie movie. French zombies – is there a more despicable combination known to man? (let’s see how long it takes for me to regret that remark! I’ve never even understood French bashing, personally, but I’m not the kind of person who lets a cheap joke pass by on the internet)
Crooked cops and multi-racial gangsters get into a scuffle at the top of an apartment building, only to realise, whoops, the city’s kind of falling apart and is stuffed full of zombies, and everyone that’s dead is coming back with a hunger for flesh! The three remaining cops and three remaining crooks reluctantly come to the conclusion that if they want to get out of there alive, they’ll need to join forces. The two groups are frequently in a bit of a tiff, to put it lightly, especially when a pervy ol’ fat guy joins up with them. Hijinks ensue.
Well, it’s a zombie flick, what are you going to expect? There’s violence. There’s profanity. The characters get uppity at each other a lot. Everyone totally beats the shit of zombies in hand-to-hand combat, and this is the only movie I’ve seen where headbutting a zombie never fails. It’s actually almost disappointing when the characters get their hands on a firearm because they actually make hand-to-hand combat with the living dead fun. Also, it doesn’t help that the characters actually know right from the start that you shoot them in the head to kill them (when they don’t even know these things are zombies!), and then afterwards totally forget that and instead just pump barrel-loads of ammo into their torsos, to minimal effect. Aim up, you dunces! You did it so well forty minutes ago!
It’s brainless fluff (har dee har), but as a zombie movie it’s reasonably decent fluff. There’s an engaging dynamic between the characters (cowboy cop hates the gangsters, two of the gangsters are brothers and have had a troubled childhood in Nigeria, the lady cop was impregnated by one of the gangsters and she’s a bit miffed about that), some great brutal action sequences, and it’s just a fun watch. Nothing outstanding, mind you – I basically forgot everything that happened mere minutes after it finished, but still, if you’re a horror fan it can’t be a bad way of spending ninety minutes (certainly better than Walking The Dead, hoppity christ). I watched it with English dubbing, and I admit it almost defeats the purpose to dub a foreign film into English, but have half the characters speak in thick French accents anyway.
The Borrowers: The 1997 one. Yes, it’s a kids flick, but I thought it was a rather fun romp. Little dudes living in the walls, stealin’ all your food and up to no good! There is some faint resemblance of a plot regarding how a corrupt lawyer (played fabulously by John Goodman) is trying to demolish a nice ol’ family’s house (you can tell they’re nice because everyone else in the film calls them nice people) by hiding the will that declares the house as their property, and the borrowers aim to get it back. It’s basically an excuse for madcap antics of them being chased by the lawyer and a rather humbled exterminator across the city; there’s just enough plot to stop you from going “okay, why is all this happening?” but not so much plot that you’re wondering “okay, why is all this happening?”
If I were to describe the movie solely through hackneyed comparisons (the best kind of comparison!), it’s a bit like if Mousehunt were about tiny humans instead, and focused more on them and their conflict with one crazy guy, rather than the person(s) hunting them and all their conflict over catching it. I mean, both movies have a mixture of American and British actors (John Goodman and Hugh Laurie versus Nathan Lane and Lee Evans!), they both have a brief fixation on chief, and, uh, micro technology. I’m sure if I’d actually seen Mousehunt within the past five years I could actually make a valid comparison, but at the moment I’m just tooting out of my bum. Doesn’t Mousehunt have a not-quite-modern-but-not-quite-old-timey setting as well? I really need to watch it again. It’s very refreshing watching a brainless children’s film after what feels like non-stop zombie movies.
I one read about Reesident Evil comics where Claire REdfield flips out and punches Tyrants.
Hey Ragey! I remember you saying that you read Ratha’s Creature, though I can’t find if you talked about it here. But I just wanted to inform you that there is an animated version that I found on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TS9hE1QcMM
Looks like there might be parts missing though.
I haven’t yet watched it, but I found it linked to a bunch of other animated movies based on books that have a reputation for being surprisingly, if not shockingly violent: Watership Down, Felidae, Animal Farm, Plague Dogs etc. So that might be a bit telling.
I remember reading Animal Farm, I loved it.
Oh, yikes, sorry about leaving your comment in moderation for so long, Greybob! I haven’t really had the groove to visit the forums or check the blog or do much of anything at all these days.
I don’t think I discussed Ratha’s Creature on the blog (there’s a couple of books and movies I’ve seen but haven’t commented on, though I probably should if just to keep a record of them), mainly because I didn’t really think much of it. It wasn’t a bad read, but it didn’t leave much of an impression, especially since its main sense of intrigue that kept me going got lost somewhere after the first half of the book. Though someone gave me the sequel, Clan Ground, and with nothing better to do I might end up reading it.
I’ve always come across that animated version when reading up about the series and been meaning to sit down and watch it, but I admit the very lighthearted art style is a bit of a turn-off. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen either of them, but Animal Farm and Watership Down are something special to me; I think it’s strange seeing this oddly-animated hammily-acted CBS cartoon being compared to their moody, cinematic styles. I’ll give it a chance sometime!
I’m also probably very biased. I mean, I suppose there’s no reason not to compare Ratha’s Creature to those two, it’s not like it’s any more lighthearted. It may not have left much of an impression on me, but I can’t deny that the book had lots of death, a fair few of them the result of being burning to death (in copious detail!) and there’s a sequence where the main character abandons her children because they’re retarded, more or less. Well, not quite, it’s hard to get into without just making a whole blog entry about it, but I was tempted to at one point.
I hadn’t actually watched any of the animated version when I made that post, so I didn’t realize how bright, cartoony, and quite frankly cheap the animation was.
I still haven’t watched ALL of it so I don’t know if comparing it to Animal Farm and Watership Down was at all accurate. It was clips of those movies that linked me to it on YouTube, so I thought it might be something similar to those. Doesn’t really look like it, though.
Did you know that there was a long-running Watership Down animated television series?
I heard about that Watership Down series from TV Tropes but that’s about it
I think “cheap” was just the word I was looking for, but I didn’t want to be a negative nellie.
I have a strange feeling I might’ve caught like a minute or two of the TV series years ago, but if I did I certainly don’t remember anything about it. I might just be confusing it with The Animals Of Farthing Wood, which I definitely watched plenty of back in the day.