Written By: Brad Roberts
Released: October 26, 1993
Album: God Shuffled His Feet
Single?: #6 on U.S. Billboard Top 40
Lyrics:
Once there was this kid who
Got into an accident and couldn't come to school
But when he finally came back
His hair had turned from black into bright white
He said that it was from when
The car had smashed so hard
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Once there was this girl who
Wouldn't go and change with the girls in the change room
But when they finally made her
They saw birthmarks all over her body
She couldn't quite explain it
They'd always just been there
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
But both girl and boy were glad
'Cause one kid had it worse than that
'Cause then there was this boy whose
Parents made him come directly home right after school
And when they went to their church
They shook and lurched all over the church floor
He couldn't quite explain it
They'd always just gone there
The Short Version? 27 Weeks Earlier... in an isolated building... zombies attack. What Is It? Survival Horror. Who Is In It? Spaniards Should I See It? No.
Like The Blair Witch Project, [*REC] was a single camera movie in which the lens served as a proxy for the viewer’s virtual involvement in the proceedings. [REC] traded on the sense of the film being recorded live and in a reality too near to our own for comfort. Like The Blair Witch Project 2: Book of Shadows, [*REC]2 is a glossy Hollywood sequel that chucks everything that worked about the first film out the window so that the filmmakers could prove they were capable of hacking out the usual bullshit. Instead of a low-res real time environment, [rec2] is a multi-player first person shooter with shifting vantage points, flashbacks, and techno-tomfoolery.
A big part of what made [REC] work was its simplicity. Common everyday people found themselves in an extraordinary, terrifying circumstance. Tension built slowly, until the levees broke, and then the situation became bad topped by worse along a progressive trip through the infernal. The characters didn’t need to be developed, because they were, like you, innocents caught in a harrowing ordeal folks could sympathize with. [REC2] begins fifteen minutes after the conclusion of the original, in which a SWAT team enters a building full of 28 Days Later… Rage rejects to investigate the cause of a viral outbreak. Instead of taking the audience with them, the viewer is a passive spectator in a video game movie derivative of Aliens and Dawn of the Dead. The perspective camera constantly changes, gets dropped on its side, loses sound, blinks out-- incessantly reminding the audience they're watching various recordings from a prior time. Only one of the SWAT team members exhibits any personality, and that one is of an obnoxiously over-reactive nature, so the rest are essentially the players’ various “lives” in progressing through the game. First time players, I should say, because everyone in this flick is a nimrod of the type audiences impatiently wait to see die for their stupidity. Could someone please explain to bad "comedy" and "scary" movie directors that the only response having your actors shouting all their lines invokes is a desire for them to shut. the fuck. up?
One of the most common faults of horror movie sequels is to build on an ongoing mythology. The more familiar you are with something, the less frightening it is, and the better equipped you are to deal with it. Even if crosses or garlic fail to kill your particular vampire, just keep going down the checklist until you find something foolproof. Once you demystify a threat, you remove much of the horror, and are left with a fantasy or science fiction story. In [REC,} one of the more effective reveals toward the end of the picture was the true nature of the contagion. [REC]2 picks up from that point, and then negates its impact with a litany of direct swipes from other pictures/familiar mythos. “Your mother sucks cocks in Hell” is easily repurposed, as are visual ticks from the last decade of Japanese horror exports. Even [Rec]’s own technique of still creatures suddenly rushing the camera is abused so often and reproduced so exactingly that it begins to feel more like a replay than anything to shriek at.
[REC] 2 is a predictable franchise killing knock off of a shitload of other movies, right up to its unsurprising “twist” ending. If you found yourself haunted by [REC], this sequel is the perfect antidote, as it effectively neutralize any residual impact of the original. Unless you've been anxiously anticipating a truly faithful screen adaptation of House of the Dead, leave this lie.
Remember that feeling of euphoria at discovering the first season/album/etc. of something toe-curlingly great? How about the second round, when you notice that the stuff you were introduced to is now just being tweaked into variations? It’s still good—probably much better than whatever else is around, but that thrill of the new is seeping out. Next comes volume three, by which time the vitality is seriously compromised. Either the wheels start spinning, or after a sophomore slump, they progress in an undesirable direction. What was once novel turns contemptuously familiar and whether it’s the fall from lofty heights or actual mediocrity, that thing you loved isn’t all that great anymore.
So it went with Empowered Volume Three, which I probably should have reviewed when I read it last year. Somewhat put out by the seriousness and longer form stories of the second volume, I thumbed through this one when I first got it in early 2008, maybe read a story or two, but couldn’t commit once the sprawling began. You see, I loved the first volume because it was fun, genuinely funny, and compelled you to keep reading one very short story after another. Even there, drama and excess length crept in toward the end, as writer/artist Adam Warren had burned through previously crafted material and opened up the narrative. It’s so much harder to write tight, entertaining bits than to delve into the mythology, or whatever they’re calling Stan Lee’s old con of stretching out stories to fill pages these days.
The longest thread of the book revolves around Ninjette’s former clan finally catching up with her (sorta.) Warren eventually makes a point of mentioning all the nihilistic books he’s written where scads of major characters got iced in nasty business like that found here. My issue is that it mostly served to point out how similar a book like Empowered, which at one time would have been quite daring, is to current bloodthirsty DC Comics fare. Either you’re going to do the deed, which means snuffing a likable character that hasn’t reached their full potential, or you won’t, wasting as much time as an over-hyped crossover book. Empowered is best in its more intimate moments dealing with human frailties, not wasting page after page on silent action.
Much of this edition feels like noodling. There's too many stories about mundane events, puttering subplots, and revisited subjects. I also get the feeling some of these stories were commissioned, as there's a ridiculous amount of bondage fetish bullshit this round. The Superhomeys are generally background players this time. The Caged Demonwolf has officially jumped the shark here, going from a draw to an irritant. Warren also succumbs to the dreaded stylistic experimentation, doing a terrible riff on the Frank Miller Sin City chiaroscuro style entirely too many people shat out in the early '90s. Damn near three-quarters of the book reads like total filler. The best story revolves around an origin sequence for Thugboy, continuing a strong if pitch black strand from the previous edition. Otherwise, this edition was a misstep and a disappointment.
Written By: Milton Ager and Jack Yellen
Released: 1927
Album: Ain't She Sweet
Single?: Yes, and is now a much covered hit standard.
Anecdote: Just one from my pappy's vault o' music. Ager wrote the song for his daughter, who grew up to become the 60 Minutes "Point-Counterpoint" liberal commentator Shana Alexander.
Lyrics:
Oh ain't she sweet,
Well see her walking down that street.
Yes I ask you very confidentially:
Ain't she sweet?
Oh ain't she nice,
Well look her over once or twice.
Yes I ask you very confidentially:
Ain't she nice?
Just cast an eye
In her direction.
Oh me oh my,
Ain't that perfection?
Oh I repeat
Well don't you think that's kind of neat?
Yes I ask you very confidentially:
Ain't she sweet?
Oh ain't she sweet,
Well see her walking down that street.
Well I ask you very confidentially:
Ain't she sweet?
Oh ain't that nice,
Well look it over once or twice.
Yes I ask you very confidentially:
Ain't she nice?
Just cast an eye
In her direction.
Oh me oh my,
Ain't that perfection?
Oh I repeat
Well don't you think that's kind of neat?
Yes I ask you very confidentially:
Ain't she sweet?
Oh ain't she sweet,
Well see her walking down that street.
Well I ask you very confidentially:
Ain't she sweet?
Well I ask you very confidentially:
Ain't she sweet?
The Short Version? 27 Days Earlier... in an isolated building... zombies attack. What Is It? Survival Horror. Who Is In It? Spaniards Should I See It? Yes.
The better modern zombie movies have two things in common: fast monsters and exhilarating first quarters. Dawn of the Dead offered its opening ten minutes online, making it one of the most badass trailers of all time, because who didn’t crave more after that? Of course, the movie couldn’t sustain that momentum, and most of the characters, once properly introduced, proved rather unlikable. Regardless, it was still good stuff, and sustained the heat zombies had picked a few years prior.
[rec], on the other hand, is like extending that prologue to full length (though not quite feature length, coming in at just over one-and-a-quarter hours.) It’s about a television crew working on a puff piece finding themselves trapped in an apartment building with a deeply unhealthy element. After a deliberate build, mayhem erupts that runs through the end of the picture. The cast is made up of unknowns who speak in brief bursts of dialogue, and you really don’t get to know anyone. There’s a cute, toothy reporter that’s a bit more polished than the rest, and though clearly ambitious and somewhat opportunistic, she never beats the audience over the head with her character flaws. The true point of view character is the cameraman Pablo, through whose lens the viewer sees the proceedings, essentially turning the film into a virtual first person experience. That makes for a harrowing trip, as finding oneself in the path of mindless humans moving with the speed and ferocity of the rage carriers in 28 Days Later will twist your panties up tight.
It’s typically a backhanded compliment to refer to a film in “thrill ride” terms, but in the most glowing sense, [REC] is just that. When The Blair Witch Project was being ridiculously over-hyped, this was the movie everyone was expecting to see. [REC] is easily one of the finest straight horror movies of the past few decades, and will likely earn a place on a great many "all time greatest" lists. See it in the dark with someone you trust...
Extras?
REC: Making ofA fast paced documentary running a bit under 19 minutes gives you all the information you need about the production, from the actors not knowing what they were in store for due to having scripts withheld until the start of each chronological shot day, to real time takes lasting twenty minutes and from the ground to the roof. All killer, no filler.
Previews Not as bad as you might think for something like a dozen b-grade horror trailers, including the U.S. remake of this flick
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