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This is the theatrical release of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead.
There's lots of variations on Dawn-of-the-Deads in cinema, just thought I'd be clear.
Good one. I noticed this wasn't an enhanced version in the podcast feed, which is fine. We were going old school here 
Couple comments. The X rating was a thing, but the MPAA never trademarked it so unlike the other ratings anyone could use it. That's why they abandoned it for NC-17, but just like the X only a couple "real" films actually took advantage of it.
Dorkman's joke that in the uncut version of the remake all the nude scenes are important to the plot is forcing me to quote an early issue of Dave Sims' Cerebus comic (the last chapter in the first graphic novel collection). An artist is describing his style and subject matter:
"You can't beat breasts when it comes to universal symbols. I did bowls of fruit for years... you ever try using ripe breadfruit to illustrate man's inability to reach harmony with his environment? It doesn't work. But BREASTS! Breasts work! The first thing people ask is 'What is this? Breasts?' You see? Breasts open up a DIALOGE! There is a need to communicate about breasts... their first question is 'What IS this'. Fortunately for my bank account, their second question is generally 'Can you do one of those for ME?' Breasts are even more popular then monsters! Beyond a shadow of a doubt any artist who is not putting breasts in his paintings is cutting himself off from eighty percent of the art-consuming public..."
I noticed this wasn't an enhanced version in the podcast feed, which is fine. We were going old school here
Yeah, this was a release-on-same-day-as-recording episode. Long story short, there was no way I could have gotten both the episode and my schoolwork done in that case. Fear not, enhancements will return next week. 
Good commentary. I like the '78 DOTD but that may be down to being the first zombie film I remember seeing back in the 80s. Night of the Living Dead is the better film though, I feel.
Can I just add though, Romero has actually made 6 zombie films, not 5-
Night, Dawn, Day, Land, Diary and Survival. The last one is shite and is sort of a sequel to Diary and features zombies on an island. It came and went though, it's easy to leave it out
Romero's DVD commentary on DOTD was recorded as he was trying to get funding for Land. He somehow managed to do 3 new movies in 5 years, which may account somewhat for the last one suffering a bit. Some creations are better if only done once a decade (Stephen King's Dark Tower books were great when he did them whenever his muse [or drugs] told him to, but rushing to do the last three all at once after the accident hurt the final result)
He somehow managed to do 3 new movies in 5 years, which may account somewhat for the last one suffering a bit.
He didn't have to though, did he? I don't really see that as an excuse for Survival being dreadful.
Given how long it took to get funding for Land, I can't blame for at this point doing a film whenever someone's stupid enough to throw money at him. I can always ignore the final product
Fair enough. A shite film is a shite film, is all I'm saying. Low budget films can still be good if they are written and directed well. Survival just isn't.
Listened to it again, which reminded me of some things. There's actually two links back to the original Night of the Living Dead in the film. The first, as mentioned, is the fact you're seeing the behind the scenes of the TV station they're watching in Night. The second is easy to miss. As our heros fly their helicopter as daylight hits they fly over an isolated farm house surrounded by good old boys killing zombies- this is suppose to be the house from the first film. It's made more clear in the 1990 remake of Night with Romero produced, which ends with a character looking up at a police helicopter flying over the scene then away.
Teague's story idea of what if once we were the zombies, killing off the smarter life form and taking over, naturally brings to mind one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes Full Circle (4th Doctor, the one where Adric joins the cast). We have a crashed space ship who's inhabitants every few hundred years have to fight off these primitive zombie like creatures who rise up from the swamp. We later find out that the original crew died long ago, and the full cycle is for these quickly evolving monsters to take over the ship, develop the intelligence and culture to treat the tech as part of their religion and history, then get killed by another wave of the swamp creatures.
I'll have to check out NotLD. It'll be interesting to see now that i know stuff in this movie is happening at the same time. When Trey talked about screaming, i believe it. I didn't see this in the theatre, but saw Friday The 13th a little later. When the arm comes out of the water at the end, we screamed our asses off. Then walked through a cemetery and over a long bridge to get home. Back in the day us un-jaded mofos sang like canaries.
The Trek movies are coming? Good news! Just listening to ST: TMP (which i like a lot) will be a riot knowing that the guys don't like it much, but'll still have to somehow do a good commentary.
To this day i still wonder what set of circumstances led Bones to get into the pimp business until Starfleet re-drafted him. And all of them have some good bits. Like the play-like scene with Bones' dad in ST: TFF. [s]And Nemesis had... a jeep.[/s] Almost all of them.
I'll have to check out NotLD. It'll be interesting to see now that i know stuff in this movie is happening at the same time.
Watch the original, and the 1990 remake. In that they assume you've seen the original, and play with that quite a bit (the first half is redone almost shot for shot, then there's character based twists)
The Trek movies are coming? Good news! Just listening to ST: TMP (which i like a lot) will be a riot knowing that the guys don't like it much, but'll still have to somehow do a good commentary.
Wonder if they'll do the original or the "directors" cut. The theatrical cut out character bits to focus on the FX, given that's where all the money went With luck our Trek experts have lots of background info on how the Phase II tv series morphed into this film.
(speaking of which, for those who aren't total geeks and thus are out of the loop a fan group that has been doing Trek episodes is in the process of adapting the un-produced Phase II scripts. David Gerrold's "gay" episode has already come out, and the next is due around Thanksgiving. <http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/>)
They should probably do the director's cut. Is the theatrical even available on dvd or bluray? I'd choose the theatrical because it has a bit more of the weird 70s vibe, which is one of the things i like about it, but that's me.
To be honest i'm glad Phase II never got made. It would've been awful. Would it have had Kirk/Spock/McCoy? Ilia was already cast for it. I love her (i wish) but not every week, especially it she was meant to replace Spock. Although, a chick from the sex planet offers lots of story ideas. But the FX would've been bad; no better, or worse than TOS. There was no ILM to call in the mid-70s. Or maybe it would've been the best Trek ever, we'll never know.
To be honest i'm glad Phase II never got made. It would've been awful. Would it have had Kirk/Spock/McCoy? Ilia was already cast for it. I love her (i wish) but not every week, especially it she was meant to replace Spock. Although, a chick from the sex planet offers lots of story ideas. But the FX would've been bad; no better, or worse than TOS. There was no ILM to call in the mid-70s. Or maybe it would've been the best Trek ever, we'll never know.
It had the entire cast from the original show except Spock. His role was divided in two, with a full Vulcan for a science officer (who was interested in emotions) and Decker as the first officer who'd do most of the action stuff. Basically, Next Gen a decade early. As for quality, the early scripts weren't amazing. but you are right about the FX. It would have been about the level of the original show, maybe a bit better. Most of the cost over run for the first movie was the TV effect guys got first crack at the visuals, and they were so bad compared to Star Wars that ILM had millions tossed at them to quickly save the day.
Actually, low budget special effects could have been the saving grace of Phase II. Battlestar Galactica showed high ratings don't mean much if your budget is too high.
ended up listening to this tonight on a flight from Melbourne to Perth, really interesting stuff.
Trey's story about his friends hung over zombie experience was hilarious.
That was great. I almost want to go through and create mini-episodes, or one long episode that's all just Trey stories.
Hmm, /makes note.
Last edited by Matt Vayda (2010-11-12 12:57:35)
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