Sunday, October 07, 2007

Fall is here in spirit, if not in weather

Hey, Leaguers!

The mighty Texas Longhorns fell at the hands of the loathsome OU Sooners. It was a somewhat sorry showing. Sorry, JimD, if I didn't text you back. I was too busy mourning.

We'd headed over to CBG's place and watched the game with CBG, David, Xander and CBG's mom, Bettye. I hadn't seen Bettye in what seems to be years, so it was great to catch up a bit. Also Max was in attendance, Bettye's corgi. He was super friendly, as long as I didn't stand up. Which I can appreciate. I like me sitting, too.

Poor Xander was alarmed by what little cheering we mustered during the game. Fortunately for Xander, we will have very little to cheer about for the remainder of the '07 season.

Xander is almost in motion. He's working on walking, and he's figured out how to say "good", mostly in relation to cheddar crackers.

I'm not sure what happened with the game itself. UT seemed to get outplayed from the first quarter. The secondary appeared baffled by the OU pass offense, and the offensive line didn't seem able to contain the OU blitz. Add in Colt's inability to keep his head on a swivel and/ or run away when the line is breached, and it was a formula for a long drive home from Dallas for the UT fans.

At half-time we watched a DVR'd episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", a show I once gave an opportunity of about five minutes, and then wandered off. CBG had suggested I give it a shot, so I watched some new episodes this week, and it's ending up in the DVR rotation. To try to explain the show is not to do it justice, so I shall not bother.

After the game, Jason popped over and we wound up watching the new version of "Dawn of the Dead" as we got into the Halloween spirit. I think I like zombie movies more now than I used to, and this one was okay. I did feel the ending was a bit lame, but there you have it. I am coming to terms with the super-bleak ending to zombie movies as part and parcel of the formula, but I've never gotten over bits of the walking-dead formula as the laws of thermo dynamics are thrown out the window. For example, somehow in Dawn of the Dead, the zombies are still wandering around without any food after what seems to be more than a week. Still fairly peppy, too. I understand they're dead, but if they're driven by an insatiable hunger... Anyway, I still think 28 Days Later handled this the best of any zombie movie I've seen.

I also watched "Rocky Horror Picture Show" for the annual October viewing. Perhaps I shall do a Halloween DITMTLOD in appreciation of Columbia.

Today Jamie and I got the spider web up, plus our ghost, Jim Dead-Man. I also planted a spooooooky light post I picked up at Target, and added some spider lights to the giant spider web. All in all, very festive, but our house is TERRIFYING (We really need to vacuum). ***Update: You can see a pic of the house here. Thanks, Jason.***

I have reason to believe one of our neighbors is going to way out-Halloween us. He's been working on a whole cemetery worth of stuff that I think is intended for his house, but I'm crossing my fingers that he intends it for a haunted house elsewhere and our house will remain the rulingist Halloween house on in the block. Because, honestly, his stuff looked really cool, which means our stuff will look quite lame in comparison.

I guess I'll enjoy it while I can.

Oh, "Friday Night Lights" is back on NBC. Get your DVR's set.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Technically, says its director, 28DL is not a zombie movie, though it certainly follows its conventions.

The League said...

It also features loads of zombies.

Hmmmm....

J.S. said...

They're not zombies, because they're not dead yet. They're "the infected". Technically.

BTW, 28 Weeks Later is not really as good as the original.

JAL said...

I always found the real horror of the zombie picture not be the fear of beaing eaten alive, but the fact that sooner or later, it is going to happen.

It doesn't really matter if they're fast or slow, you're never going to get away from them.

Look, over there, there's one now. They're coming for you League. They're coming to get you Barb..uh..Leage.

The League said...

I think I'm okay with that. What I am not okay with is when, in order to get to that point, the script/ director has a character suddenly do something bizarre/ stupid/ out-of-character in order increase the body count.

The ending of the new Dawn of the Dead (HERE BE SPOILERS) has them land on an island, all get off the boat and then get wiped out by Zombies.

If you had just spent a week in a mall surrounded by Zombies, fairly certain it was the end of days, would you not at least take a lap around the island, and be a bit more cautious before coming to ground?

I found the conclusion a bit preposterous, in light of the events we'd just seen.

Further, Lake Michigan is fairly large. The survivors could have stuck to the shore line and kept moving in their search for an un-zombie'd island.

If they're going to go down, at least let it make some sense after I've spent two hours watching your movie.

JAL said...

Poor filmmaking seems to be the real terror behind the vast majority of horror movies. Too many writers and directors sacrifice story for genre.

The League said...

And then there are weird anomalies like Aliens Vs. Predator which abandon genre, all gained knowledge from previous films, and are simply incomprehensibly bad.

J.S. said...

Concerning the end of Dawn of the Dead- they did show the engine of the boat catching fire (as well as, I believe, some other mishaps with the boat, but I could be wrong). Maybe they COULDN'T sail around any longer. And they kind of indicated that their plan wasn't very good before they even tried to carry it out, but decided to do it anyway because they didn't want to just hang out in the mall waiting to die. And as I pointed out at the end of the movie, they may have made it back to the boat or gotten away- we just don't know what happened because they dropped the camera when the zombies attacked. (personally, I think the director was trying to purposely leave it a little ambiguous in case he ever got the chance to do a sequel) Anyway, I think it's in keeping with the black humor of the zombie movie to not worry too much about what happened. I think the director is kind of teasing the audience a bit, saying, "Did you really think this thing was going to have a happy ending where I literally let the characters sail off into the sunset? Fat chance. This is a movie about the mother effin' end of the world." Maybe the characters died and maybe they didn't, but I think it's too much to hope for in this movie to expect for them to live happily ever after.

The League said...

It's not about happily ever after. But you're right, now that you mention it... I do think the engine caught fire.

I just don't feel like my investment in a movie is worth very much if the final survivors die in a dumb way. I don't even really care if they die, or if tertiary characters make poor choices (that, to me, is part and parcel of the genre). I just think the ending of the movie sort of ignored the geography of Milwaukee, Lake Michigan, and common sense in order to give us that hopeless ending.

Despite not really liking the new 28 Weeks Later, I kinda/sorta bought the ending. Especially if it spawned Zombies in Paris as a sequel.

Steven said...

Man it's trult the best time of year when Jim dead-man resurfaces from his hidden retreat in the attic.

A trip to the south austin complex will be soon after my return stateside!

The League said...

Bring the vegamite. We will enjoy a scoop.