Dawn of the Dead (2004)

In the transition between winter and spring, there are a lot of father-son bonding activities that are out of the question due to the weather, like skating, mini golf, and playing ball in the park. So when the best things to do are gone away, what do you do? You go see a movie. The movie me and my dad went to see during our last little adventure is titled Dawn of the Dead.

Now I don’t know if I’ve told you before, but I love zombie movies. I’ve enjoyed every zombie movie I’ve seen, even Resident Evil. You’ve read my review of 28 Days Later (If you haven’t… *shakes fist*). Sure I may not have seen a lot of zombie moves, but I still like ’em all. And the craziest part of this is that my dad generally doesn’t like zombie flicks. The fact that even he was swayed by the look of Dawn of the Dead really gives you an idea how awesome this movie is even in commercial form.

Now before I go summarizing the plot, I’d like to get one thing out of the way. I just can’t hold it in any longer. This movie is BAD ASS. And you know I mean it because it’s italicized, bolded, underlined and in caps. But I’m totally serious about this. The movie is full of everything I love; ass kicking, comedy, violence, and gore. And on top of all that there is a baby zombie. I wasn’t sure what to think of it at first, but then I realized that it was possibly the most evil-looking thing I’ve seen in a while.

So now we work on the story part. It all starts with this nurse chick Anna getting home late. She sees a little girl on the way in and they talk about roller skating and such. Then she gets home and in comes this mostly irrelevant shower scene. It’s her and her husband in the shower, and nothing is shown. The only thing this here does is make them miss the “News Bulletin” that interrupts some show they weren’t watching. And thus, we know something is very awry.

The next morning, her husband wakes up to someone gently rapping, rapping upon his chamber door. It’s little roller girl! Only she’s covered in blood. He goes over to see what’s wrong with her and says goodbye to his jugular vein. Blah blah blah, turns into zombie and Anna escapes in car after watching neighbor get hit with ambulance. She drives around and ends up in a bush with a gun pointed to her head.

On the other end is black cop man, Kenneth. They run around and meet up with Michael, Andre and his wife Luda. Luda is very pregnant, and Andre is very intent on having that baby, for reasons other than the obvious which are explained later. (Can you spell “foreshadowing of zombie baby”?) Together, the crew sets off for the only safe place left: the mall. I was sure that would be the first place zombies would go, but whatever.

After somehow getting into the locked mall (the only plot hole me and my dad were able to find), they blast a couple straggling zombies and are held up and captured by what’s left of the mall’s security guards; CJ, Bart, and Terry. CJ’s character is instantly built as a rather insane and very selfish guy. The good news is that he becomes a more likeable character later on. Not much more, but more nonetheless. The heroes turn the table on the guards, and capture them, minus Terry, who has defected to the side of the heroes. And now we learn that Luda has been bitten! (More zombie baby foreshadowing)

While painting SOS signs on the roof, they catch a glimpse of a man trapped on the roof of his gun shop, Alan. They quickly become long-distance friends, and they communicate with dry erase marker boards and binoculars. Later, a truck of 8 or so survivors appears. Two of them are killed off instantly, having been bitten. Our heroes only now figure out that being bitten by zombies turns you into a zombie. I guess they’d never seen any zombie movies before.

Blah blah blah, stuff happens, the find a dog, more people die, and I’m not going to give away any more of the plot. Not that there is really a plot, but I don’t want to spoil some of the cooler scenes or who dies with you. Let’s just put it this way, after the truck survivors appear is when the movie starts to get really good. It’s like when they got to this point while rewriting the script, they said “This movie is good, but we should still inject it with a large does of awesome”. And I bet they did.

Speaking of rewriting the script, I should have mentioned that this is a remake. Some will say the original was better, but I haven’t seen it, so I’m looking at this one from a fresh point of view. There’s only one tiny little problem with this remake. And that would be that Dawn of the Dead is the second movie in a trilogy! Damn you James Gunn! What were you thinking? Now we have no idea why people are turning into zombies! My dad thinks it’s because they wanted to get right to the action and gore. I think he’s right.

Other things I have to pick at? Well, for one, the “got into the mall that was locked all the way around” thing. That’s kind of an explanation-needer. Then there was the fact that some of the best characters died. To be completely honest, I didn’t like the small list of people who made it through. One of my favorite characters, the cynical asshole Steve, was so close to the… Oh crap. I’ve ruined it. Oh well.

Oh yes! My biggest beef with the new version here is that they made the zombies super-zombies. You just can’t do that. 28 Days Later had an excuse; they weren’t really zombies. But in this movie here, they are your stereotypical brain-munching ghouls. Only now they can run like hell and act more like rabid dogs than, you know, zombies. If this trend continues, I’m going to get very mad at Hollywood for screwing with a working formula.

Now that we’ve gotten the anger out of the way, here are some things I liked about the movie. There was plenty of awesome gore shots, and some of the best and messiest kills I’ve enjoyed for some time. And the action was top notch. Apparently, blowing up zombies work really well, and exploding a barrel of fuel right in the middle of a crowd works wonders. That and the shotgun blast to zombie melon were probably my favorite parts of the movie.

One really cool little thing I noticed was that when they showed a shot of a banquet table after our heroes had eaten, there was a red and white bucket that said “PFK” on the side. Do you know what “PFK” means? It’s KFC in French! So I think we can all agree that either some of the movie was shot in Canada, or they went to Canada, got a bucket of the colonel’s finest, and used it as a prop, cause I’ll be damned if they print the buckets with French alternatives down in them United States.

I also mentioned that there was a lot of funny in the movie. There wasn’t as much funny as ass-kicking, but it was perfectly balanced for a horror movie. For one, there was Steve. Pretty much everything that came out of his mouth was hilarious, because he was being such an asshole. Then there was the “Celebrity Zombie Snipe” game that Kenneth and Alan were playing after they got bored with long-distance chess. Some of the zombie kills were funny too, and even a couple zombies were a hoot themselves.

Even the soundtrack is great, if only for one song. Richard Cheese’s take on Down With the Sickness. It suits the part of the movie when it’s played perfectly. That and the song is just freaking hilarious. Some of the other music is cool too, and even sets up a joke or two. Aw, who am I trying to kid? I’d buy the soundtrack just for the Down With the Sickness cover. It’s that great. Or at least I think so.

What else do I need to say? The acting was pretty good I guess, but apparently I don’t know good acting anyway so there’s no reason to go into detail about that. Likewise, the story was all you can expect from a remake of a 1970’s zombie flick: Solid yet simple with few to no plot holes. The only thing that messed the story was the omission of the first freaking chapter.

And that’s what I think of Dawn of the Dead. While a couple things could have been fixed, it was a great movie that even I, a guy who doesn’t buy movies, would buy. I recommend you go see it as soon as you can. Unless, you know, you’re a pussy and a movie like this isn’t your cup of pussy tea. This is a movie that everyone should see! I can’t stress that enough. And now I really want to find the original, just so I can make sure it kicked as much ass. Definitely an A for this one. It loses the + because of that ‘lack of the first movie’ flub.

The Good Stuff:
  • Tons of gore and mayhem
  • Some hilarious scenes
  • Soundtrack features Richard Cheese
  • Zombie baby!
  • Titties!
    		•
    The Bad Stuff:
  • Throws you into the middle of a story with no explanation
  • The “active zombie” thing is a bit annoying
    		•

    Pride

    Some of my art has been posted. Search the fanart galleries here to see a couple pics. Of course they’re in the Gallery already, so you’ve probably already seen ’em. Nothing else yet, but soon. Very slowly am I extending my influence on the internet like some sort of harmless plague. The new article isn’t exactly an article, and you may feel a bit cheated this coming Sunday, but I think it’s good enough to pass as a proper submission. The comic is going to be up soon. I’ve got a few strips ready, and enough drafts to cover myself for a year and then some at a rate of one a week. So that’s what I’ve deemed worthy to be mentioned today. More to come tomorrow. Maybe.

    ~Ryan out.

    Sonne

    As you’ve most likely noticed, the index page has gotten yet another new look. I decided that for my site to evolve any further, it’s going to need some real web-looking stuff. It can’t just be table borders everywhere. I know it’s all Paint-looking, but that’s all I really know how to use, and I’m not going to learn any advanced stuff unless they teach it somewhere in university. I’ll make up a fancy title thing and fix up the rest of the index page in the near future, and then move onto the other pages one by one. My old articles will stay the same, except for the Pseudos, which may or may not get revamped as well. This will be a very slow change, so don’t expect to wake up tomorrow and see the whole thing redone. Of course, if I do get really bored…

    ~Ryan out.

    Ride the wind

    I’ve got a lot of new material for articles, and my comic may finally make it to the web sometime this week or next. It all depends on how motivated I am. I’ve drawn some really great strips today, and I’d love to put them up for everyone to see. On a competely unrelated topic, I’ve fired off fanart into the deepest reaches of the internet, and I’ll keep you up to date on when they make their appearances. Of course, most of it is already in the Gallery, so don’t expect much new stuff. I just like the idea of being able to show my work on other websites.

    ~Ryan out.

    The Cup

    We all have our favourite things in life, some a little more strange than others. Pretty much everyone has a favourite colour. It’s just a given. Most people have a favourite song or band, even if it’s not a real band, any group that doesn’t play their own instruments. Some people even have a favourite day. Those are the ones who are kind of off their rockers. I mean really. A favourite day? I can see a favourite season, and maybe even a favourite month, but favourite day? Favourite holiday would make more sense, because it’s a given that pretty much everyone is gonna choose a holiday as their favourite day.

    But enough of that. Talk of favourite days has very little to nothing to do with this article that you’re reading now. Maybe in one later on, but not this one. No, this one is about something even stranger. Well, maybe not very strange, but it’s a little bit on the odd side. I know people have a tendency to play favourites with many objects, like chairs and pants, and this article is all about my favourite cup. Why a cup? I’m not sure, but I needed to write about something.

    You may not realize it now, but there is actually quite a bit you can write about a cup if you choose the right one. I’m not sure exactly how much I’m going to be able to write about this cup, but I’ve taken a lot of pictures, so I’m probably going to be reaching quite a bit with this one. Heck, if you hadn’t noticed, I’m reaching pretty badly just for this intro, but since I do the same with most intros, it’s not such a bad sign as it could be. So enough of this, onto the cuppage!

    This is my favourite cup. It is a very cup-like cup, just like a cup should be. It has the ability to hold many types of liquids, and even some small non-liquid things. This cup is from Finland, where my grandpa used to live. He knows how to speak Finnish and has a sauna house. My grandpa immigrated to Canada when he was young, but I don’t know if this cup immigrated. Look at the happy little cottage on the cup. It looks like my grandparent’s cottage, only redder and on an island. It also has less windows and porches.

    On the other side of Heir Cuppen, there are some bird-looking squiggles and a Finnish flag. I like the Finnish flag because it’s so simple to draw. Not like that damned Canadian flag with its crazy leaves and crap. Why is there nothing on this little island? I would like to live on an island, but only if it had lots of island things on it. Like mountains and wild pigs and fairies. Then I could have my very own adventure on the high seas. An adventure with pirates! Or maybe I’d be a pirate. It’s really hard to say for sure.

    The cup says Aarikka on the side. I don’t’ know what Aarikka means, because I don’t speak Finnish. And neither does the Babel Fish. My grandpa is far away, so he can’t tell me, but an internet query surely can! Internet queries can tell you anything, like how to find Robot Pirate Island and how many web pages have the word “is” on them. Is. Now I’m a statistic!

    The Googleing came up with lots of answers, but I’m a lazy crapbag, so I only clicked on the first one. It make us whisk off to the magical site of Aarikka. If you don’t know how to read Finnish too, you can go to an equally magical (though slightly less whimsical) English Aarikka. They like to sell things. Things like finely molded cups from Finland. Now we all know what Aarikka is! Hooray for Google! Hooray for internet! Hooray for sammiches!

    But if it’s Finnish and white, why is the cup so great? You can’t notice from the other pictures, but the cup is very small! See the one above? The cup is being stood beside a normal-sized cup. Look how very small he is! What a cute little cup. Some people like to drink from big cups, but big cups aren’t so charming as such a tiny little cup. Those people have penis envy. But not me. I don’t envy penises. They’re always getting beaten up.

    The legend of the cup is a very old one. To this day, I have another favorite cup. It’s a cup with a lady on it. She’s a virgin. It says so right on the cup. On the other sides, it has my horoscope. but I won’t take a picture of that side because I’m a very lazy Virgo. I call it my girly cup because if you don’t know what the cup is, it sounds dirty. Nobody else ever drinks from it. They know that if they do they will die. The little cup is still an excellent cup, but there is no way it can compete with a girly cup. Unless…

    There are two little cups! For all my life up until yesterweek, I was under the false impression that there was only one little cup! But to my amazement, there was two! And they were both there all along! The cup now has a friend. Sadly, his friend has a chip. But not like my hamster. No, that’s a totally different Chip. How there could have been two cups all along is confusing, since someone like myself would definitely have noticed that there was two of my favorite cup!

    The little cups get used a lot. Everyone likes the little cups because they’re so cute. But don’t tell anybody that we know what Aarikka means, okay? I think that nobody else knows. I like to use the cups for drinking things. Sometimes I use it for taking pictures and writing an article with bad grammar and a strange writing style. But mostly for drinking things. Things like juice.

    Juice is good and all, but the cups are used mostly for the holding of milk. This milk is white, unlike the chocolate milk. It’s made by Parmalat. Parmalat might have a website like Aarikka, but I’m not going to check because there’s no way a milk website could be any fun. Milk isn’t very fun. It’s all white and tastes like dairy. Chocolate milk is a little bit more fun because it tastes like chocolate, but it’s brown-coloured, and brown is no fun at all. Brown makes me think of wood. And wood certainly isn’t very fun.

    As I said, the cup does do a good job of holding the juice that I love to drink so much. This juice here is of the orange variety. By Minute Maid. Mmmm. They makes good juice. But I don’t like the pulp. So I’ll drink Kool-aid instead. It never has any pulp, and comes in many different flavours! I like the green the best. Green Kool-aid is the best! It tastes like green. There aren’t enough drinks that taste like green. Some cream soda is green, but it tastes like cream soda and not green. Green Nintendo gum tastes like hate.

    One thing that the cup is not good at holding is parmesan cheese. Yes, the parmesan cheese can go into the cup, but it’s not a very god thing to drink. Parmesan cheese is better off on top of spaghetti noodles. Or any types of noodles, in fact. Parmesan cheese is a very tasty condiment. Just like orange is a very tasty juice. But parmesan cheese is not a very good juice, and orange is not a very good condiment. There’s a GameCube in the background!

    Now the GameCube is in the foreground. It’s good at playing games. Not like that X-Box. It freezes all the time because it’s a piece of crap. There is no controller cord in the GameCube because I use a Wavebird! It has no cords. Only fools use controllers with cords. Fools and peoples whose Wavebirds’ batteries are dead. But I have many batteries, so I shall never be labeled the fool. GameCube also has a GameBoy Player on it. GameBoy Player makes GameCube taller, but I’m still taller than it. But now GameCube is taller than the Shredder.

    The GameCube isn’t very good at handling parmesan cheese either. Damn Kraft and it’s cheese that thinks it’s better than everyone else. I laugh in the face of your cheese! But I’d never laugh in the face of Bowser. That guy has got some lethal breath. But GameCube is stronger than parmesan cheese, it can fall down many a stair and be fine, while parmesan cheese would break open and it’s insides would end up all over the place. You should E-mail Kraft and tell them that their cheese is weak. I’m not gonna do it, I’m scared of giant corporations.

    So now you see why I love the cups. They’re funny little cups that can hold many delicious liquids and not-so-delicious liquids. I like the fact that GameCube made a special guest appearance. As you can see, I am quite happy with my little cups. They bring my taste buds much joy, and are very easy to clean because if their smallness. If I bring one cup with me when I move out, it’ll be my girly cup, but there will always be a small place in my heart for those little cups that I thought were so cool.

    To make one last warning, the cup cannot hold pizza pops. It can try, but they are far too big to go into the cup. Also, you should not eat pizza pops cold. Frozen pizza stuffs will hurt teeth muchly if teeth are not uber-teeth. But if you microwave them, they can be a very tasty treat! Except for those ones with green peppers in them. Green peppers are my sworn enemy. I’ll get them one day…

    This cup is not a cup in the thirsty sense. It’s the kind of cup that keeps the boys safe. This cup is my friend’s favorite kind of cup. I think it’s a good cup, but I would never want to drink from it, no matter how much Kool-aid there is. My friend wanted to find a picture of it so I could put it in this article, and while looking he found some bad websites. He said it was gross, but we know that he likes that kind of stuff. Man stuff. Ew.

    And that’s all we can say about the cup and anything you could possibly link to the cup. It’s true. You try to find anything else I could write about. I don’t know if I’ll ever find a more amazing up in my lifetime, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out. And if I do find one, you can bet I’ll let youse know. But for now, it will remain the second greatest cup in the cupboard. Sure, it’s cool and all, but how can it possibly beat a cup that has my freaking horoscope on it? I think the only possible way to make a better cup is to make a cup vaguely shaped like Yoshi. Yes. That would be an excellent cup.

    Another article done, another week passed by. I think I like this once a week thing, so I’ll stick to it as well as I can. Just expect that sometimes it may be once every two weeks. I guess most updates will be done on Sundays, as I generally do very little on Sundays. Mmmm… sundaes. I’m not exactly sure what will be on the agenda for next week, but another 6-pak article seems to be the only thing I can think of. But I’m done now, partly because my keyboard arm is starting to hurt, partly because it’s way past lunch and I haven’t eaten yet.

    Zero sky

    Added a new article today. Only since it isn’t Sunday, I didn’t write it. I also took the liberty of taking the index (home) page through another change, giving it a spot for my most recent news post. Now with the news on the home page and an updates thing, you’ll be sure to never miss a thing!

    ~Ryan out.

    Rock on the radio

    I was just informed that my links page was missing two very important entries. The problem was rectified and now I can go on knowing that the world is a better place. I just can’t imagine why OC Remix wasn’t in the original list of links. It’s one of my most favorite sites ever, and no wonder I thought you people don’t visit GorillaMask, I didn’t have a link to it! Well now they’re both up there now. Whew.

    ~Ryan out.