A Very Special "The Marxer Report": The Walking Dead: Pilot Review

Okay, lets get something out of the way before I review this show. I am a huge zombie-anything fan, be it a video game, a film, a comic, standing at a mall on Black Friday. Anything that used to be released involving flesh eating, shambling corpses, I had a grade-school hard-on for. In recent years though, the "zombie" genre is getting stale and I recognize that, so please, see where I'm coming from.

Recently, due to some very slick connections, and the anticipation to see this show, I was able to view the pilot episode for The Walking Dead, a television adaptation of a successful comic series written by Robert Kirkman and inked by Tony Moore. I have read up to 3 volumes of this series (going onto 13 now), so I was not only elated to see and adaptation in the works, I was anticipating this like a Star Wars geek for the Phantom Menace release. In short all I can say is, WOW, AMC has titanium balls.

Rant:The Memorial Cop-out

Just like in our lives, celebrities die also. It sounds mean, it sounds stoic, but it is true, but being a little too addicted to blow can apparently kill a celebrity also, I mean, with their bodies apparently harvested out of pain killers to look so young all the time, eventually they gotta go also right? Well, I really do not want to continue sounding this mean, but lets face it, we all seem to drop what we are doing when someone like Heath Ledger goes.

Straight from the Park Trailer Analysis: True Grit

I am not the type of person to say I am never wrong, so I am going to go on the record to be the first to say I was wrong when I discussed with a friend of mine that the new Coen Bros. film, True Grit is not a remake of the 1969 film with John Wayne, because as research has proven, it is. So there. In reality, the 1969 film itself is an adaptation of a novel by author Charles Portis.

Creme de la Creme Action-Scene

1 cup Hard Boiled cop (2 for extra serving)
5 cup Thug/Yakuza/Terrorist (Preferably German)/Mafia/Nigerian Pirate/Guerilla
2 tbl spoon firearm
6 tbl spoon ammunition
6 oz explosive

Okay people, this dish is easy to make, first you get one or two cups of Hard Boiled Cop, and give them some motivation (usually killing their partner/best friend since child-hood is acceptable), stir in 5 cup antagonist and bring to boil. Add 2 tablespoon of firearm and 5 tablespoon of ammunition, and reduce to simmer. Wait 75-80 minute, add 6 oz explosive (in the form of vehicle, barrels, boxes, etc, etc...), and serve (either in warehouse, hospital, construction site, or ship yard). Garnish with doves for display.

From The Vault: Zatoichi (2003)

In 2003, Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman was released to surprisingly good reviews, and since then I have always wanted to see it but never had the chance. The film is a remake acted and directed by famed Japanese film & TV Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, who is known for breaking genre conventions. For the uninitiated, Zatoichi is a fictional Japanese character created by novelist Kan Shimozawa who is portrayed usually as a blind masseur who has bad ass sword fighting skills. Along with the Lone Wold & Cub films, this series is partially responsible for the ultra-violent samurai film genre, complete with spraying blood, and all the shit that makes any action film fan squirt. Kitano handles the film well by staying true to the character conventions of the series, but adds a bit of light hearted humor that is not forced. The violent sequences play out well in contrast to the dramatic sequences, and every bit of blood spilled in the film by Zatoichi is done so with good reason. Every aspect of the film bleeds with a unique nature, from the color design that emulates a washed out Eastman color filming systems prevalent in the 1950's to late 60's cinema, to the Jeunet-esque method of incorporating background ambient noise into the soundtrack, to a tap-dance number at the end. Walking away from it, 7 years was a long time to wait to watch a great film. So...

Final Verdict:Worth Owning

Side note: As you may have noticed, this review is much shorter than my analytical reviews of current films being released. I have decided to keep them short and sweet since I have gone out of my way to watch them for pure entertainment, and not to see how it stands up to current standards.

Rant:Review-Score Systems

Before I get into my rant, I will let it be known that I use Metacritic, primarily because it is a good way to save yourself from blowing some hard-earned cash. On with the show.



You know what I never understood? Review-score systems in film critiquing that necessitate utilizing a number to wrap up the film's review? It may sound rediculous, but think about it. "Saving Private Ryan" opens to rave reviews, Roger Ebert praises it by summarizing "This film embodies ideas. After the immediate experience begins to fade, the implications remain and grow." and proceeds to give the film 4 out of 4 stars. Lets break it down, 4/4 stars means 100% of quality in the film, then that must mean 0.5/4 stars must mean 12.5% of the film means quality. If this is the case and the film is horrible, it puts emphasis on what the film lacks in quality.

The Marxer Report: Let Me In

When I first heard that Cloverfield director Matt Reeves was going to be re-making, no, re-imagining, no, re-doing, or re-whateverthehelling one of my favorite films, specifically horror films from 2008, Låt den rätte komma in a.k.a. Let The Right One In, I pretty much gave up on the Hollywood system. As interesting as the press for this film was, I told myself "Justin, you need to word-of-mouth this before you see it.", so I did what any hard working lazy critic would do, go to Metacritic and get an aggregate score of the film for myself, even though I am personally opposed to numerical scoring systems (which I'll go into at a later time). After giving the website skim and a week of mulling it over, I decided to take a trip to the theaters and witness what I thought wasn't possible, Reeves didn't make a good remake, he made a great one.

The Marxer Report: Monsters

After reading some press on the film Monsters a few months back, I was slightly compelled to see it, I mean, who doesn't like a good monster movie. Then I rent it on iTunes for video on demand, and instead what I get is a great monster movie, that really does not have anything to do with exploiting monsters at all. As the concept goes, a satellite crashes from orbit over central Mexico, carrying an alien lifeform(s), which over the course of six years, causes the US to essentially wall off themselves from central to northern Mexico to protect themselves from the creatures. The true plot for the film follows an American photographer (played by a very capable Scoot McNairy) who must escort his boss' daughter (Whitney Able) from the heart of what is labeled an "infected zone", back to US soil. After missing a ferry that will take them back safely to American shores leaves without them, it is up to the two to trek through the most dangerous parts of the country (post-invasion) to return.