tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post747239793227729697..comments2023-03-31T06:55:42.398-07:00Comments on Dinner With Max Jenke: What's Black And White And Dead All Over?Jeff Allardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04265550466781988388noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-18406829267116502162011-01-23T17:04:01.702-08:002011-01-23T17:04:01.702-08:00Hey, thanks Jonny - I'm glad you liked the pos...Hey, thanks Jonny - I'm glad you liked the post. Thanks for sharing it on your blog! <br /><br />And I love that you have a screen grab from Crawlspace as your blog header - nice!Jeff Allardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04265550466781988388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-66374097790035519032011-01-23T09:49:02.046-08:002011-01-23T09:49:02.046-08:00Jeff,
Great post about a great pic! I chose it a...Jeff,<br /><br />Great post about a great pic! I chose it as one of the best of December 2010, and included it in the admittedly late third issue of Spatter Analysis.<br /><br /><a href="http://midnitemedia.blogspot.com/2011/01/spatter-analysis-3-december-2010.html" rel="nofollow">Check it out!</a><br /><br />--J/MetroAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-2753167476378901372010-12-20T06:16:53.193-08:002010-12-20T06:16:53.193-08:00Thanks Emily - I guess classics like NOTLD are so ...Thanks Emily - I guess classics like NOTLD are so rich that they always reveal a little something more each time you go back to them!Jeff Allardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04265550466781988388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-41632270512110858022010-12-20T04:39:22.423-08:002010-12-20T04:39:22.423-08:00Great post. NOTLD is a film most of us have seen ...Great post. NOTLD is a film most of us have seen more times than we can count, so it's really admirable for you to capture something new about it and see it from a different angle.deadlydollshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06061028044836745499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-20248985080945040072010-12-17T02:47:56.630-08:002010-12-17T02:47:56.630-08:00That's too bad, Bill - but I guess that's ...That's too bad, Bill - but I guess that's what happens when a movie is in the public domain.Jeff Allardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04265550466781988388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-61558014810761146292010-12-17T00:43:57.859-08:002010-12-17T00:43:57.859-08:00NOTLD is just one of those things, like the Wizard...NOTLD is just one of those things, like the Wizard of Oz, and It's a Wonderful Life. You watch at least most of it a couple of times during the year and it never loses it's flavor-it always gets a bit richer. It was on the other night, and I noticed something that's been in the back of mind for a while. Different versions have wild variations in sound mix. The one that was on This! was just awful. The once incidental music was insistent, nearly painful, and freaked me out enough to turn it down, but then the dialogue was nearly indecipherable.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13317171074477381520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-1288343349621983342010-12-15T07:07:40.625-08:002010-12-15T07:07:40.625-08:00Well, following the "zombies can't climb&...Well, following the "zombies can't climb" train of thought, in the NOTLD remake, Romero has Cooper survive the night by hiding in the attic. I imagine that in the years after NOTLD's release, Romero heard that possible solution offered many times by helpful fans. <br /><br />As for the posse/militia, they're definitely played for laughs in Dawn (and representing humanity at its lowest in the Night remake) but in Night, I feel like they're all business. They may or may not be deep thinkers (and they sure need to learn to double-check their targets before firing), but they're they're not there to play games or whoop it up. <br /><br />I much prefer this even-handed portrayal of these guys (the shooting of Ben is infuriating but it doesn't seem like the result of malice or undue carelessness - it's just a random fuck-up) than the increasingly derisive one that Romero went for in later films. It plays into the quality of fairness that Arbo cites above.Jeff Allardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04265550466781988388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-19231202279721472592010-12-13T22:24:55.598-08:002010-12-13T22:24:55.598-08:00Also, I've always thought that if I were in th...Also, I've always thought that if I were in that house... my plan would have been to take apart the staircase and hide upstairs (zombies can't climb)... but after the latest viewing... I'm not so sure even that would have been safe.Timmy Crabcakeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14737954661234574830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-59185327896552998942010-12-13T22:22:31.172-08:002010-12-13T22:22:31.172-08:00Great write-up!
I also re-watched NOTLD recently (...Great write-up!<br />I also re-watched NOTLD recently (it turned up on TCM Underground) and was taken by some of the same realizations. <br />For all the times I've watched it I'd never noticed how downright malevolent the zombies in NOTLD are... they're not just mindless shamblers, not mere ghouls driven by cannibal hunger. They are angry... they have it in mind to do violence to the living. <br />While watching it I found myself musing that if they'd offered up the premise that the dead were possessed by some alien mind-invasion from space... it almost would have fit. <br /><br />The thing with the redneck militia has always struck me as (black) comic relief... those guys seem to enjoying themselves.Timmy Crabcakeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14737954661234574830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-28694356726912008582010-12-13T18:50:48.112-08:002010-12-13T18:50:48.112-08:00Yes, and even Day - which in many surface ways is ...Yes, and even Day - which in many surface ways is more oppressive than Night - still invites fantasties of heroism and macho gunplay and, ultimately, escape. There's none of that in Night.Jeff Allardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04265550466781988388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-50641143751673116332010-12-13T17:35:34.277-08:002010-12-13T17:35:34.277-08:00The great thing about Night of the Living Dead is ...The great thing about <b>Night of the Living Dead</b> is that there isn't a dot of wish fulfillment or vicarious thrill in it - you wouldn't want to be in that house under any circumstances, although many of us have had <b>Dawn of the Dead</b> fantasies. <b>Night</b> doesn't empower or invite envy, it presents a very uncomfortable situation and follows it through to its logical conclusion in a very unsentimental and even logical fashion, which is what gives it its eternal power to disturb and unnerve.Arbogasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-4432894099826712552010-12-13T14:13:10.888-08:002010-12-13T14:13:10.888-08:00I do wish that Romero had been able to stay away f...I do wish that Romero had been able to stay away from zombies and leave his legacy in that area unsullied. I bet on some level he wishes the same thing and that he could get other projects off the ground in his later years instead of more and more Dead films. <br /><br />I do love Dawn of the Dead - for years I considered it to be my favorite film - but looking at Night now it's clear that it's cut from a different cloth. Both are great but there's a pleasing finality to Night - a quality echoed in the films that came in its wake, like The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue - whereas Dawn's opening ending led to almost every piece of zombie fiction after to be about the ongoing adventures of surviving in a post-zombie world.Jeff Allardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04265550466781988388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-35503470943171466592010-12-13T10:27:28.444-08:002010-12-13T10:27:28.444-08:00Jeff, you've pointed out things I've alway...Jeff, you've pointed out things I've always appreciated about <b>Night of the Living Dead</b> and how it differs from all other dead and living dead movies that came after it. Even <b>Dawn of the Dead</b> feels like a betrayal of those original concerns and themes now in retrospect. The movie is so tough, so unrelenting in its <i>fairness</i>... it really gives everyone a chance to be as best as they can. Tom and Judy lose their lives but not their faith in their fellow men, while both Harry and Ben fail and they fail big. In surrending to their fear and anger (respectively), they become no better than the ghouls, getting by on raw instinct.<br /><br />It kills me that so many people who consider <b>Night of the Living Dead</b> to be, as you say, the Bible, don't study its teachings. Zombie movies have become all about the creative kills and there is no more guilty practitioner than George Romero himself. I hate how he has in his autumn/winter years become surrounded by enablers who tout <b>Diary of the Dead</b> and <b>Survival of the Dead</b> as significant works when they are the cinematic equivalent of rotting, degraded corpses, shuffling forward on momentum and animal instinct.Arbogasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-38647932411225785232010-12-13T09:31:25.992-08:002010-12-13T09:31:25.992-08:00Thanks Dom, your kind words are much appreciated! ...Thanks Dom, your kind words are much appreciated! It's always encouraging to know that people enjoy coming here.Jeff Allardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04265550466781988388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964885632131848660.post-72671074665733555932010-12-13T08:45:04.980-08:002010-12-13T08:45:04.980-08:00Another incredible piece. Can I just say that thi...Another incredible piece. Can I just say that this is my favorite blog? I've read so many reviews of NOTLD, but this one is different. It points out things that I never considered. A job well done.Dom Coccarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15843380116571749866noreply@blogger.com