The Zombieslayer

Based off the children’s book Northern Lights, the Golden Compass was a film about an orphan girl named Lyra and her fantastic adventures. The Catholic League called this film offensive and called for a boycott. Although the book is supposedly anti-religion (I never read it), the movie itself isn’t that offensive, as the “bad guys” are a monolithic power hungry government body called the Magisterium.

In this parallel universe, humans stand side by side with their souls, which take animal form. Children’s souls, called daemons in the film, change shape for children still haven’t figured out who they really are yet. With adults however, their daemons remain one animal. A death to either is a death to both, and causing pain to one affects both.

Lyra is given a golden compass, which always tells the truth. The Magisterium was supposed to confiscate them all, but apparently she got a hold of one and only a select few people in the world, including her, can actually read the thing.

The Magisterium wants to dominate all thought, and suppress people’s concepts of magical “dust,” which I guess we’ll learn in the second film the relevance of. The movie ended prematurely without solving much. Usually with an obvious sequel, you at least have some resolution, but this one left it wide open. And yes, it’s a bad thing and dead zombies will be docked.

The other criticism I have of it is the flow. It flowed okay, but in some parts was rather choppy. There were too many main characters and only a few of them got developed, but of course, even those were one dimensional.

The special effects were quite good, but effects don’t impress me. Only dialog and good storytelling do. Both were mediocre at best.

I really wanted to like this film, for it’s a fantasy, but as usually happens in a fantasy film, too much is spent on awing the audience with neat-o special effects. That doesn’t fly to a pretentious critic. You must also have dialog, a storyline, and character development. Lyra, the evil Marisa Coulter, and everyone else were one dimensional and predictable. A few years from now, I’ll completely forget seeing this movie, as I have almost forgotten about the fantasy movie Eragon.

4 dead zombies

OK.  This post is for movie buffs.

These are my top ten memorable scenes.  These scenes went deep into my psyche for some reason or another and stayed there.

01. Dr. Strangelove - Major Kong rides the nuclear bomb like a rodeo cowboy.  One of the more surreal moments in film history.

02. The City of Lost Children - “The Octopus,” two evil Siamese twins, are smoking.  One inhales the smoke and the other exhales it.  If you saw it, very bizarre and almost spooky, as was the entire movie.  Terry Gilliam loved this flick, and yours truly’s a big fan of Gilliam, as you probably already know.

03. Mulholland Drive - David Lynch has a way of getting deep inside my psyche.  I don’t know if it’s just me, but of all the scary movies I’ve seen, besides Ju-on 2, I find Lynch movies the scariest.  I watched this one in the theatre and the dumpster scene made my heart skip a beat.

04. Lost Highway - David Lynch again.  Fred Madison is in bed with his wife explaining a recurring nightmare.  He says in the nightmare, he’s in bed with his wife and it’s her, but it’s not her.  Suddenly, he looks over at her and it’s not her.  If you saw the movie, you’ll remember what I’m referring to.

05. Pulp Fiction - Tarantino’s best moment by far.  I don’t care what wannabe pretentious film buffs say.  This movie’s head and shoulders above Resevoir Dogs.  The fact that that dumb movie Forrest Gump won best picture above Pulp Fiction made me lose all respect for the morons who decide who gets Academy Awards.  Anyways, I digress.  Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace made one of the cutest screen couples ever, and I’ll never forget “Don’t be a Square.”

06. The Producers - “Your hats.  Your jackets.  Your swastikas.”  I saw both versions and enjoyed the musical even more than the original.  And I absolutely loathe musicals, so that’s really saying something.  I laughed harder at that scene than any other in that movie.

07. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - The three-way shoot out.  The best scene of perhaps the greatest American Western ever (even though it was an Italian movie shot in Spain).

08. Clerks - I don’t ever think I’ve laughed so hard in a movie when Dante and Randall are arguing about the morality of blowing up the Death Star, for there were every day workers on it.  Imagine, you have to feed your family so you get offered a job on the Death Star to work on the plumbing.  Do you deserve to die? The way they answer that question is classic.

09. Once Were Warriors - Grace’s suicide.  Yeah, movie suicides are often melodramatic and almost stupid, but this one hit me.

10. Blue Velvet - David Lynch is not my favorite director.  He’s just the guy who gets inside my psyche.  I love Isabella Rosselini, but the scene I remember the most from this movie was without her.  It was when Ben sings Roy Orbison and Frank listens, going from melancholy to rage halfway through the song.

Any film scene buried deep inside your psyche that pops out every now and then but you’ll remember it until the day you die? These are ten of mine.

They did it. Not me. When Sean Taylor got murdered, I only gave my respects to his loved ones. But some anti-gun freak had to get political on it.

Sean Taylor, the safety for the Washington Redskins, was 24 when he was murdered by four thugs who broke into his house. They broke in, and surprised to see someone was there, they panicked and shot him in the leg. Unfortunately, the bullet his Taylor’s artery and he bled to death.

Taylor heard someone breaking in, so he grabbed the only weapon he could find - a machete. Seeing a man with a machete, the thugs killed him.

Now personally, it hits me 2 ways. I was 24 when Junior was born. I was just a kid. Completely immature, but all of a sudden, becoming a father, I had to clean up my act and get my shit together. Same situation. Taylor supposedly grew up really fast as soon as his baby was born. His friends said he became a completely different person.

The other thing about being a father was I knew I’d be the one to protect and possibly die so my family would survive. I bought a good shotgun and kept it loaded, but not chambered. Yes, I already had guns, but you don’t grab hunting rifles for home defense.

Having a shotgun is no guarantee you will survive a home robbery. But it completely changes the odds. That’s something anti-gunners will never admit. EVERYONE knows the sound of a pump shotgun. It means, “get the **** out if you want to live.” Had Mr. Taylor had a shotgun instead of a machete, it’s no guarantee he’d be alive to see his soon-to-be wife and his young child the next day, but it would have greatly increased his chances.

And almost as importantly for the rest of us who deal with these a**holes, he could have taken a few of them out. I hate people like this. They already had records and unfortunately, since it wasn’t premeditated murder, they’ll serve their sentences and be back on the streets within ten years.

Don’t give me some woe-is-me b.s. about these thugs. We’ve lived in a ghetto. We’ve been broke. We’ve been homeless and near bankrupt. But we didn’t break into anyone’s home. We fought, we struggled, we worked extremely hard, and years later, we’re doing just fine. People have choices, and these people are garbage to society. It’s too bad they didn’t break into the home of an angry gun owner instead, because I want them out of the gene pool.

Thanks to Neal for this image. Click the thumbnail…