Zombies, Mummies and Other Monsters
25/06/2013 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaWhat better way to spend the darkest days than indulging in a monsterfest? But there’s so little time and so many to choose.
The museum mummies were already scheduled for 6pm on Friday at the State Library.
Thursday was a gorgeous sunny day so it seemed a shame to spend the precious hours of daylight indoors just to get the cheapskate before 5pm rates. Had the inspired idea of using the free movie club members ticket to go after dark.
So it was a choice between Monsters University and World War Z. The zombies lost that round. This was not helped by looking at the trailer and thinking that it looked suspiciously like yet another silly action adventure saga. And why where they hiding the zombies when they are supposed to be the stars of the show?
Monsters University was one of those happy ending tales where the underdog wins through sheer perseverance and hard work rather than an abundance of talent. But it was fun to feast the Izzie eyes on all the adorable creatures - especially slinky and sneaky Randall. He so deserves his own series.
Friday was time to visit the museum. Did not go to see the real mummies in the presently running “Secrets of the Afterlife” exhibition. Once again the weather was simply too gorgeous to be wasted indoors.
The creature feature at 6pm was on the topic of mummies as portrayed in the movies, cartoons, television and assorted media.
The speaker introduced the topic and took the opportunity to promote her other work concerning the Marquis de Sade in the movies, 9/11 and the rise of torture porn and similar squeamish stuff
It was such a pity that she had to mutilate such fascinating material with endless rabbiting on about Marxist and feminist theory, Freudian analysis, dialectical materialism and the post modern cultural studies mob favourite buzzword of all ‘interrogating the text’
Amongst the post modernist mumbo jumbo were some interesting observations about monsters haunting the ‘in between’ places and indulging in disgusting habits.
Of course she explained all of this with psychoanalytical and cultural studies jargon but that was the gist of it.
But at least she did not keep us waiting too long before showing snippets from her collection of mummy movies.
There were lots of romances with ancient princesses and snooping British archaeologists afflicted by assorted curses. And then the obligatory freak in the fez who appeared in just about every film and looking like he could have come straight from the pages of “Der Sturmer”
A lot of these mummies needed little more than an incantation from a piece of papyrus or some spooky “Book of the Dead”
We knew things were getting bad when Abbot and Costello got into the mummy business. But there was one mummy movie with the ridiculous title of “Bubba hotep” that was so bad that it was good.
The basic plot was a festival of tin foil hat freakery. Elvis Presley did not die but was living out a miserable existence in Shady Glades retirement village along with his best buddy who claimed to be John F Kennedy. He had survived the assassination but the CIA kept him in hiding for their own nefarious reasons. They probably also ran the nursing home. So it seems a mummy is lurking around sucking out the souls of the inmates. But since they are all half dead anyway the poor creature does not get sufficient nourishment.
When he waddles down the corridor he is always in shadows wearing a cowboy hat and accompanied by spooky Spaghetti western music.
The evening ended with some snippets from some very strange Mexican wrestling movies with Aztec mummies. They looked so bad that they were good.
Then it was time for questions from the audience. It did not take long for the zombie invasion. One interesting observation was that there’s only ever one mummy but always hordes of zombies. Aside from being royalty, the mummy usually comes to life as the result of a curse. The zombies however are apparently supposed to represent mass consumerism and the mindless behaviour of crowds so there’s just no point in having only one of them.
In spite of not being impressed by the trailer, did finally indulge the serpent curiosity about the latest zombie flick. Being cheapskate Tuesday and a grey rainy day, there were not too many other temptations
No spoilers here but to sum the movie up in two words - brain dead.
It was not supposed to be that way but the zombies were by far the best characters and the stars of the show. Brad Pitt and his family were pathetic and uninteresting cardboard cut out characters and were an unwelcome distraction from the rabid flesh eating monsters. The zombies were kind of like watered down versions of the Incredible Hulk. Now if they had all turned some greyish shade of green after getting bitten it might have added a bit of colour and humour.
Even Dan Brown would have baulked at the ridiculous number of rescues from impossible situations. A conspiracy theory or two would have added a bit of a twist to an otherwise tedious tale.
Just loved the zombie hordes at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and the feral ‘lab rats’. The Zombies on the plane were also fun. Now if only we had Samuel Jackson on board things might have turned out very different and certainly more entertaining
They all took themselves far too seriously.
Looking forward to seeing the zombie hordes again on youtube. The rest of the movie is best forgotten. At least with most of the animation films (particularly Pixar) they still actually have a proper story with characters you can care about rather than just relying on thrills, spills, car chases and big budget bangs
After an overdose of superhero trailers in the last week, it seems “Man of Steel” might be the only one with an actual story in it. But they seem to have laid it on extra thick with the whole Christianity thing. Could be tempted to take a peek but will likely wait to read some reviews first
Was very pleased to see a poster for the movie "Catching Fire"
Started reading the book again last Friday and cannot help but think that the scariest monsters of all lurk within its pages.
The museum mummies were already scheduled for 6pm on Friday at the State Library.
Thursday was a gorgeous sunny day so it seemed a shame to spend the precious hours of daylight indoors just to get the cheapskate before 5pm rates. Had the inspired idea of using the free movie club members ticket to go after dark.
So it was a choice between Monsters University and World War Z. The zombies lost that round. This was not helped by looking at the trailer and thinking that it looked suspiciously like yet another silly action adventure saga. And why where they hiding the zombies when they are supposed to be the stars of the show?
Monsters University was one of those happy ending tales where the underdog wins through sheer perseverance and hard work rather than an abundance of talent. But it was fun to feast the Izzie eyes on all the adorable creatures - especially slinky and sneaky Randall. He so deserves his own series.
Friday was time to visit the museum. Did not go to see the real mummies in the presently running “Secrets of the Afterlife” exhibition. Once again the weather was simply too gorgeous to be wasted indoors.
The creature feature at 6pm was on the topic of mummies as portrayed in the movies, cartoons, television and assorted media.
The speaker introduced the topic and took the opportunity to promote her other work concerning the Marquis de Sade in the movies, 9/11 and the rise of torture porn and similar squeamish stuff
It was such a pity that she had to mutilate such fascinating material with endless rabbiting on about Marxist and feminist theory, Freudian analysis, dialectical materialism and the post modern cultural studies mob favourite buzzword of all ‘interrogating the text’
Amongst the post modernist mumbo jumbo were some interesting observations about monsters haunting the ‘in between’ places and indulging in disgusting habits.
Of course she explained all of this with psychoanalytical and cultural studies jargon but that was the gist of it.
But at least she did not keep us waiting too long before showing snippets from her collection of mummy movies.
There were lots of romances with ancient princesses and snooping British archaeologists afflicted by assorted curses. And then the obligatory freak in the fez who appeared in just about every film and looking like he could have come straight from the pages of “Der Sturmer”
A lot of these mummies needed little more than an incantation from a piece of papyrus or some spooky “Book of the Dead”
We knew things were getting bad when Abbot and Costello got into the mummy business. But there was one mummy movie with the ridiculous title of “Bubba hotep” that was so bad that it was good.
The basic plot was a festival of tin foil hat freakery. Elvis Presley did not die but was living out a miserable existence in Shady Glades retirement village along with his best buddy who claimed to be John F Kennedy. He had survived the assassination but the CIA kept him in hiding for their own nefarious reasons. They probably also ran the nursing home. So it seems a mummy is lurking around sucking out the souls of the inmates. But since they are all half dead anyway the poor creature does not get sufficient nourishment.
When he waddles down the corridor he is always in shadows wearing a cowboy hat and accompanied by spooky Spaghetti western music.
The evening ended with some snippets from some very strange Mexican wrestling movies with Aztec mummies. They looked so bad that they were good.
Then it was time for questions from the audience. It did not take long for the zombie invasion. One interesting observation was that there’s only ever one mummy but always hordes of zombies. Aside from being royalty, the mummy usually comes to life as the result of a curse. The zombies however are apparently supposed to represent mass consumerism and the mindless behaviour of crowds so there’s just no point in having only one of them.
In spite of not being impressed by the trailer, did finally indulge the serpent curiosity about the latest zombie flick. Being cheapskate Tuesday and a grey rainy day, there were not too many other temptations
No spoilers here but to sum the movie up in two words - brain dead.
It was not supposed to be that way but the zombies were by far the best characters and the stars of the show. Brad Pitt and his family were pathetic and uninteresting cardboard cut out characters and were an unwelcome distraction from the rabid flesh eating monsters. The zombies were kind of like watered down versions of the Incredible Hulk. Now if they had all turned some greyish shade of green after getting bitten it might have added a bit of colour and humour.
Even Dan Brown would have baulked at the ridiculous number of rescues from impossible situations. A conspiracy theory or two would have added a bit of a twist to an otherwise tedious tale.
Just loved the zombie hordes at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and the feral ‘lab rats’. The Zombies on the plane were also fun. Now if only we had Samuel Jackson on board things might have turned out very different and certainly more entertaining
They all took themselves far too seriously.
Looking forward to seeing the zombie hordes again on youtube. The rest of the movie is best forgotten. At least with most of the animation films (particularly Pixar) they still actually have a proper story with characters you can care about rather than just relying on thrills, spills, car chases and big budget bangs
After an overdose of superhero trailers in the last week, it seems “Man of Steel” might be the only one with an actual story in it. But they seem to have laid it on extra thick with the whole Christianity thing. Could be tempted to take a peek but will likely wait to read some reviews first
Was very pleased to see a poster for the movie "Catching Fire"
Started reading the book again last Friday and cannot help but think that the scariest monsters of all lurk within its pages.
