Just when you find yourself disappointed at George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead trailer, another trailer for a new zombie film comes out to make your heart sing with syrupy tunes.
There’s some pretty excellent zombie movies coming out this year. I guess last year’s Dawn of the Dead made executives realize that zombies, unlike westerns, are back in style. People like the idea of a contagion that wipes out humanity. It’s our way of ridding the earth of, well, let’s face it, a lot of bad people, without having to use MOAB and feeling guilty about having dropped a huge freaking bomb on a faceless enemy. With zombies, you don’t feel guilty–heck, if anything, you get a visceral thrill out of braining some screaming monkey man who looks vaguely like Dan Rather. If zombie movies don’t tap into that primordial desire to get the better of your next door neighbour, then I’m not sure what good they are.
But they do, so I can rest easy. But maybe you can’t.
Moving plans continue apace. Los Angeles is about preparation. It’s about funding. It’s about realizing that it’s almost July and you still haven’t a place to live out there. That either means that something will fall into our laps or we’ll have to continue to dig through the wasteland of Craigslist (the occasional oasis makes the searching worthwhile). I won’t ever let apartment/house quests bother me because honestly, there’s only so much you can do in a saturated market.
That being said, if anyone has any leads, I’d be happy to field them…
I wanted to write a post about how nearly every mistake humankind now knows and suffers for could be traced back to the 1970′s, but it seemed a bit heavyhanded. After all, there’s the whole “eating the forbidden fruit” thing that’s been quite a hassle, and the French Revolution was just one gigantic pile of poo posing as human achievement. But on the whole, you really need to say two words, which sums up the 70′s and its lasting and shameful mark: polyester suits.
How did we go from debonair and classy getups from the 1950′s to the sodden and predictable ogre-appeal fashion of the 70′s? Honestly, I can only think of a couple of plausible reasons that don’t involve large quantities of mind-altering substances, untested nuclear power, or Billy Joel, and they’re just not convincing enough to make me believe that fashion designers actually thought they were doing the world a favour when they introduced Nehru shirts. And I haven’t even gotten into hippie-wear.
And what exactly can you say with a 3-4″ wide tie that you can’t say with a thin 1-1.5″ tie? Nothing. Which explains the ethos of the 70′s–excessive, overbearing, harsh and aggressive without a hint of humanity. Not to mention the bizarre haircuts and “manscaping” (if you can call it that–I’ve seen hedges with better sense of proportion). I suppose we should thank the Beatles, who not only set trends in fashion and social sensibilities, but broke the bank on corrupting the seemingly incorruptible. Who would have thought that ultra-wide collars and perv mustaches would have mass appeal? Turns out they don’t; people in the 70′s were just too coked up to realize.
Today’s business-casual attire has inherited the excess of the 70′s, and added to it the mistakes of the early 80′s as well. The 90′s were forgettable, which in this day and age, is actually a point in its favour. In a world of unlimited memory, data files stretching back eons, it’s nice to forget occasionally.
Especially when it comes to polyester suits.
UPDATE: I just realized that the trailer link above *seems* to point to a legitimate, big-budget zombie movie, and therefore might not seem worth viewing…but it is, in fact, merely my own humble addition to the zombie film universe. Enjoy!