Stuff We Like This Week: October 2 Edition

Stuff We Like This Week: October 2 Edition

Oct 01

In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.

WARNING: THIS WEEK’S POST CONTAINS SPOILERZ FOR THE MOVIE ZOMBIELAND. READ NO FURTHER IF YOU WISH TO REMAIN IN THE DARK!

[I’ve added a white-out to the spoiler text – you can highlight it if you want, or leave it alone and remain completely in the dark. Sorry, Sarah. I wasn’t using my braaaaaaaaaains. -c]

Chris: Zombies. I can’t get enough zombies right now and…hey, am I first this week?

Holy crap, I am. HOORAY, ME!

Anyhow, I’m stuck on zombies, mostly because I’m living and breathing them right now as I finish a game with zombies. That image above? That’s for a lead miniature zombie killin’ game, Red Ops 5, that my pal Toren did the box art for – I’m the zombie on the bottom right; I insisted I be the zombie that takes it between the eyes. Add to that the fact that Zombieland opens this weekend, and the buzz is good. Then add that Zombieland has a Bill Murray, Ghostbusters-reference filled cameo. Then subtract the fact that I’m finishing a game, so I can’t go see the movie. Then add all the usual zombie goodness close at hand – the Walking Dead comic, the new series of Marvel Zombies, which is weekly, but I’m not liking it as much as the others. The Finnish zombie film Dead Snow (two thumbs up from me). The fifth anniversary of Shaun of the Dead. Aim for the Head. You’ve got red….on you. Damn, that rhyme didn’t pan out.

And it just goes on and on – Max Brooks is doing a new book, which expands on the personal zombie attack stories from his Zombie Survival Guide, which themselves spawned his World War Z novel.

I’m just an undead pig in shit, as my grandfather never used to say.

Which is why I’m a little saddened by the news that George Romero is writing a book, not because I don’t want to hear what he’s got in mind, but rather it seems, because he’s trying to nail down the horror geek fetish he single-handedly invented (with some early points to The Zombies of Mora Tau, which was very 50s, but the zombies were very modern – unlike, say, King of the Zombies… but I digress.), but has long shambled along without him.

The book will explain what zombies can and cannot do, and will finally give us Romero’s take on the origin of zombies and how the world at large reacts

It’s sad because there are no zombies without George, but in the late 80s and 90s, he didn’t do a lot to nail down what zombies can or can’t do, and he was coy about how they began, and didn’t get to telling more stories about how the world reacts until Land of the Dead in 2005.

He kicked the whole rotting thing off, put out three killer zombie films, and then that’s it. And in that void, the fans took over. Young filmmakers that grew up on his movies started making their own. And Max Brooks pretty much nailed the What Happens To The World fictional history. George got lapped at his own creation, which happens, and while I want to see him get his due, there is a small hint of sour grapes, which nobody wants to see from the creator of something they love.

In the opening five minutes of Romero’s Diary of the Dead – which got pounded by the critics, but honestly was a nice addition to the Romero library – a young director chews out an actor, dressed as a mummy;

“Stop chasing her – you can’t run at her, you’re dead. Your ankles would snap.”

I thought it was a joking jab at the modern genre at the time, but now I think it might be bitterness, and for that, I’m sad. Nobody that is revered by millions should ever feel bitter, even if things have been out of their control for awhile.

Shit, this is things we like, isn’t it? Well… I like zombies. And George Romero. So there.

Jeff: I was all ready to be, “I like zombies” this week too.  And I think I’m still going to be.  Zombieland is the real deal.  It’s a movie that wasn’t on my radar. I saw the trailer, and was all “Oh, Woody Harrelson and that Michael Cera wannabe from The Squid and the Whale fight zombies, huh?”  But the positive buzz coming out of the advance screenings hooked me.  And let me tell you that Zombieland is going to be the new Shaun of the Dead.  More aptly, it’s a mashup of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, with lots of laughs and a strong action vibe.  The midnight screening I hit last night was simply awesome.  I tend to judge a certain type of movie by the crowd reactions, and everybody was so fully into Zombieland that the crowd broke out into applause at least five times during the film and there were tons of spontaneously shouted “Nice!” and “Fuck yeah!”s.  If you’re one of those fans that thinks that zombies have been milked dry, you should check this out.  I think the best way to describe it is “imagine a Dead Rising movie.”

Matt: I have no zombie-related content from this week to share.

Been on a bit of a Spider-Man kick this week; first, it was volume one of Peter David’s short run on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man from a few years ago, not the issues that were tangled up in that Other mess but the ones following where David got down to the business of just telling good Spidey stories. And I think they are pretty good Spidey stories; I always feel like such an outcast for just coming out and declaring my love for David’s writing, but I think the guy’s always been fantastic, and he delivers here too. He sets up some nice bigger-picture stuff early in the volume that pays off well in the final arc, which is this weird twisty time travel thing involving several parallel timelines.

As it happened, I had a couple of unread recent issues of Amazing Spider-Man in my pile as well, so I devoured those, and I have to say, I am loving ASM right now too. I had only a passing disdain for the whole “One More Day” fiasco, but the stories that followed totally won me over with the perfect Spidey mix of superhero action, soapy drama, and character-based comedy. Would I have liked to see them do a better job of ending the Spider-marriage, or even taking the higher road and trying to write a good Spidey comic like these with a married Peter Parker? Sure I would. But I enjoy what they’ve done since OMD all the same, even if that story didn’t float my boat.

Sarah: I’m heading to the all-new Long Beach Comic-Con this weekend – my first con since the NYCC blow-out earlier this year. I’m pleased that there’s a potentially interesting new con in my immediate vicinity and I’m looking forward to pawing through back issue bins and trying to catch a glimpse of Anthony Michael Hall and all that. But more than anything, I’m way excited to meet up with my very special internet friends. You can bet I Like this Stuff very much.