Braaaaaains...

A short one tonight, because I'm tired and madly overextended (I keep adding things to my schedules and duties without taking other things away... at work as well as at home) and I have already been intolerably rude to my partner, which, y'know, kinda shows that I'm unfit for human company this evening. Like a zombie, about all I can do is paw at the glass, wondering why I can't go over there when I can see over there perfectly well, and bungle the basics of human social behavior. Braaaains.

Zombies.

Love 'em.

On Easter Sunday night, we went to see Grindhouse. I recommend it for the following people:

• people who play roleplaying games
• people who like pulp horror movies & 70s horror
• people whom zombies amuse
• people who are captivated by farce
• you, probably

The first film, Planet Terror, in the generous double dose of cheese Grindhouse presents, is easy to love. It's brilliant both as a send-up and an action film, with flowing gore, larger-than-life heroes, woundedly sexy heroines (you know... exploitation movie style), and zombies. Personally, I think Bruce Willis as a bad guy is enough to get me into a theater.

Do go. Zombies a-popping and they are hilarious: farce abounds, the zombies are self-aware, and ... well, if you remember the 70s with unrealistic nostalgia, this is for you. It will remind you why you play roleplaying games (if indeed you do): the overcoming of improbable wounds, the wisecracking and prevalent enemy, the fun of being a character so hypertrophied as to distort its own humanity. Even if you're not a griefer who delights in the latter, you will understand the lure, I think, so long as you can get past the exploitation and cheese... and the movie embraces the cheese so thoroughly (through missing reels, improbable caricatures, and ...well, look, it's a zombie movie, and cheese is kind of a prerequisite) you must reject your dignity early and completely.

The second half, Death Proof, is quite possibly the grimmest thriller I have ever seen, and very good in its own way: probably it is stronger than Planet Terror in terms of plot, but it's a slow starter and exceedingly dark, cruel, and gory... it has a strongly Hitchcockian cast, if Hitchcock knew he could play to an audience who would not flinch at the most ghastly human violence, no matter how starkly it was portrayed. It's not as much fun as Planet Terror, but it is rather provocative: by this I mean it makes you examine yourself. We're back to the Aristotelian notion of catharsis, here... and it is disquietingly closer to our violence-numbed tastes than a classical Greek tragedy would be.

Er... more zombies: "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton. :)