World War Z

[Eoraptor1]

Saw it Monday after going to the dentist. I admit I was nervous about this one. I freely admit that while I love movies, I have a deep-seated prejudice in favor of books. A friend recommended Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter to me, and after some initial skepticism, I read it and was very pleasantly surprised. This is coming from a deep Civil War person. The book, contains real ideas. The movie version however, couldn't hold my attention for more than 20 minutes. I did not see the end. Similarly, I read Max Brooks' novel,World War Z, andreally liked it, but was afraid of what Hollywood would do to it. IMO, taken strictlyas an enjoyable Summer popcorn movie, NOT going in expecting a zombie version of Citizen Kane,you do get what you pay for. The action begins early and rarely lets up. They do not, in this filmed version, try to recreate Max Brooks' novel, which is written as a series of recollections and affidavits by survivors of the war the people in the film are fighting. In the book great care is taken in describing the tactics, strategy, and logistics of fighting off a horde of living dead. It also tells the stories of various knots of people just trying to survive the onslaught. The film version centers on Brad Pitts' character and his immediate family. I found myself thinking mainly of the remake version of Dawn of the Dead, these are "fast" zombies, Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, and Richard Preston's The Hot Zone. I don't want to say too much more, because I really don't want to ruin it for anyone. I will say I've been of the opinion for some time now the narrative structure of genre "action" films like the Matrix, Bourne, and Taken franchises are becoming progressively more and more like single-person shooters. I definitely felt during parts of World War Z I was watching a veteran gamer playing on a really powerful gaming platform. I suppose whether or not that's a good thing depends mainly on who you are, and what you expect from a Summer movie.

Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft) actually lectures about his zombie books to standing-room only audiences. His two books, The Zombie Survival Guide, and World War Z, are deeply researched, which I can appreciate, having been a researcher myself back in my grad school days.

This first one is a lecture to the US Navy War College in 2009 about global crises. Yes, you read that right, the US Naval War College. He admits something here I already suspected reading World War Z - that he got his basic idea from Studs Turkel's book about World War Two, The Good War. If you haven't read The Good War, RUN to the library. Turkel simply stands out of the way and lets the people who were there tell their stories.

This lecture is more the Meat and Potatoes of Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse. What is the single most important item you must have? It may not be what you think. He also explains why characters in genre movies do such stupid things. I think we can all agree that most people who die in horror movies die from their own inability to work with others, if not outright stupidity. Brooks explains why that is. Enjoy.

JAMES<!-- google_ad_section_end --><!-- / message -->

 

[ian elliot]

I saw it myself last Sunday and i actually enjoyed it, but it did have its flaws, the first half hour is really tense and atmospheric, and i was expecting a full-on zombie movie but then the movie sort of calmed down into a more action adventure movie, some great set pieces and i even enjoyed the last scene, but it seem'd from a differant movie and all the parts seem to connect rather clumsey, i dont waht to be down on the movie, as i did enjoy it, its a lot better than the press was expecting ( or hoping ).
I dont like to be a nite-picker, but being into aviation, watching a An12 painted in USAF markings, taking of from carriers did make me chuckle.
cheers ian

 

[Odie]

I was on the fence about seeing this one....The Lone Ranger won out for next weekend. However, James made a good point about this being a Summer movie. Action-adventure, fast-paced, and something you can get lost in for
a couple of hours. Will put this one on the list after LR.

I used to read the books before I saw the movies, but found that it tended to deflate the movie since some things have to be changed for the film versions. Now, I do the reverse which (for me) tends to expand the characters/story
as I read the books. Plus, it allows me to mutter aloud, "Now why did they leave THIS out of the film!" Which may or may not be the case if they compile all the left-out footage into a DIRECTOR'S CUT version and it magically
will appear.

 

[Eoraptor1]

I dont like to be a nite-picker, but being into aviation, watching a An12 painted in USAF markings, taking of from carriers did make me chuckle.
cheers ian

I was wondering who would be first to catch that. I'm a true nerd, so nitpicking is actually part of my enjoyment. When I was a little boy, before the internet, Marvel Comics gave out "no-prizes" to readers who could catch them in continuity errors. You didn't get anything by way of a reward except being mentioned in the letters page, but you were then a minor celebrity among other comics people. Nowadays, every blogger is a critic.

JAMES

 

[Panther_99FS]

Seems to me like it would've been best served as a mini-series...

 

[Toastmaker]

I still don't understand America's youth and Hollywood's obsession with "zombies" and their never-ending attempts to take over the world. Where did this sillyness start ? How has it been successful at capturing so much energy and interest from books to movies ?

I guess if it's just some mindless diversion from the boredom of reality, ok, I get it - if that's all there is to it. If real people actually believe in this stuff - they got bigger problems, though.

 

[Eoraptor1]

I still don't understand America's youth and Hollywood's obsession with "zombies" and their never-ending attempts to take over the world. Where did this sillyness start ? How has it been successful at capturing so much energy and interest from books to movies ?

I guess if it's just some mindless diversion from the boredom of reality, ok, I get it - if that's all there is to it. If real people actually believe in this stuff - they got bigger problems, though.

Did you watch any of the videos I posted? I realize everyone's time is precious, but I posted the lectures because I knew someone would eventually ask this question, which Brooks answers at length in the videos. All zombie books and movies are not created equal; some are clearly made because they're cheap to produce and can generate quick money, and are often intentionally "Silly". In something like World War Z, however, which was deeply researched, there's much more going on than silliness. I DO NOT argue this with people who haven't read the book. BUT, in answer to your question, White Zombie, starring Bela Lugosi, was filmed in 1932, which was a bastardization (the first of many by Hollywood) of Haitian voodoo. If you really want to know about the traditional zombie of voodoo, and the pharmacology behind the legend, I recommend The Serpent and the Rainbow by ethnobotanist Wade Davis. BUT, the seminal zombie movie of the type currently dominating public imagination, with it's flesh eating walking corpses, was spawned in 1968 by George Romero's black & white feature Night of the Living Dead, which IMO covers three or four different types of social satire. Remember, when this movie premiered, we were hip-deep in Vietnam, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King had just been assassinated, and America was experiencing the Long Hot Summers with all the rioting.

I had the first lecture in my OP playing in the background while I was cooking and washing my dishes yesterday and I'm now certain that besides The Good War, Brooks was deeply influences by James Burke's series Connections, which is available on YouTube. If I ever have the opportunity (and the inclination) to attend one of Max Brooks' lectures, I intend to ask him face-to-face.

JAMES

 

[Dain Arns]

I still don't understand America's youth and Hollywood's obsession with "zombies" and their never-ending attempts to take over the world. Where did this sillyness start ? How has it been successful at capturing so much energy and interest from books to movies ?

I guess if it's just some mindless diversion from the boredom of reality, ok, I get it - if that's all there is to it. If real people actually believe in this stuff - they got bigger problems, though.

No kidding, Toastmaker.
Add sensitive, effeminate vampires, and tanned & toned, shirtless werewolves to that silliness. :isadizzy:
No, I have not, nor will I ever watch, read, peruse anything related to "Twilight".

Sorry folks.
I just can't accept "zombie' movies either, I never have or will.
Everyone raves how great 'The Walking Dead' on AMC is, well that's great for you that enjoy it.
I really can't get beyond the premise.
You only get infected if they bite you, but not from all of the gore covering you by shooting them at close range with the Remington 870 in the head???
Riiiight. That's not how bloodborne pathogens work.

However, I must admit I have watched one "zombie flick" recently.
I did watch was 'Zombieland', simply because it was so absurd and funny.
EDIT: Okay, maybe two. I think 'I Am Legend' technically had zombies, sort of...

 

[Moses03]

Saw it last week and liked it. Decent action flick.

 

[Eoraptor1]

No kidding, Toastmaker.
Add sensitive, effeminate vampires, and tanned & toned, shirtless werewolves to that silliness. :isadizzy:
No, I have not, nor will I ever watch, read, peruse anything related to "Twilight".

Sorry folks.
I just can't accept "zombie' movies either, I never have or will.
Everyone raves how great 'The Walking Dead' on AMC is, well that's great for you that enjoy it.
I really can't get beyond the premise.
You only get infected if they bite you, but not from all of the gore covering you by shooting them at close range with the Remington 870 in the head???
Riiiight. That's not how bloodborne pathogens work.

However, I must admit I have watched one "zombie flick" recently.
I did watch was 'Zombieland', simply because it was so absurd and funny.
EDIT: Okay, maybe two. I think 'I Am Legend' technically had zombies, sort of...

Well, people like what they like. I don't get bent out of shape over that. I read the first Twilight book just to be able to discuss it intelligently with the women in my life. Now, I must admit that I came to it prejudiced and with a 'tude' because I'd been "leveraged" into seeing the movie version instead of Gran Torino. As everyone here knows by now, I'm a Clint fan. I think he has a very interesting body of work. Twilight, I don't even consider a vampire story per se, IMO it's simply a variation on the Harlequin Romance novel formula, in which a character the target demographic in meant to identify with is placed at the center of the action. In this instance we have a vaguely described teenaged girl (this is clever, because it means the reader can pour herself into the character) whom we are constantly told is Average in every respect, but somehow these preternaturally beautiful beings see something in her that her high school classmates do not, and the center of their galaxy becomes her. I doubt I'll ever consider Stephanie Meyer the next William Shakespeare, but if I were (or perhaps had been) a 13-year-old girl, this would have been my favorite book. Alas, I am not. Again, the reason I read it in the first place, was to be able to refute certain females in my circle, one of whom told me two days ago she hadn't known The Great Gatsby had been a book before it was a movie. I cannot make myself argue with someone over material they have not read. I invite anyone here to write twenty-five pages of anything, a cookbook, a pop-up book, an instructional manual, a comic, anything, review its themes before an audience, have someone who hasn't read it explain at great length why it's trash, and believe me, that guy is always in the audience, and not feel the way I do. I was just trying to show my ladyfriends and cousines I wasn't a hypocrite.

IMO the reason we see so much social satire cloaked as horror and/or science fiction, is that presented as straight drama, a huge section of the public simply shuts off their eyes and ears. The minute they think they're being preached at, they simply shut down. Therefore, when Gene Roddenberry started out trying to sell social-conscious scripts, he was a failure. His next idea, which would deal with many of the same themes, was this thing called Star Trek, which became a billion dollar enterprise. (Pun fully intended.) Here's a video from the "Pioneers of Television" series I think the membership might enjoy.

JAMES