Passing Notes

10/2/11

Mort-Vivant Walks Alone!

With my fall break over and done with, I've been hard at work listening, watching, reading, and lining up interviews for Passing Notes. Rather than jinx any developing pieces, I'll let them appear as they will week-by-week, although you're free to sign up for the Passing Notes weekly newsletter to get a hint of things to come. There's links of all sorts to the right and below if you want to follow the Notes regularly.

Today, I'm officially spinning off the zombie blog, Mort-Vivant, with a review of George Romero's 1985 movie Day of the Dead, to be followed tomorrow by a piece on Return of the Living Dead. After that, I'll be reviewing in quick succession each episode of Season One of AMC's series The Walking Dead, all in preparation for the Season Two premiere on October 16.

I'll continue to write about books and music several times a week here at Passing Notes, and the Friday radio feature will continue as always. Be well!

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Monty Alexander - Harlem-Kingston Express Live!

Monty Alexander – Harlem-Kingston Express Live! (Motema 2011)

Monty Alexander is one of the elder statesmen of jazz who, coming to the forefront of pianists in the 1970s, seems to have been around forever and, at times, may be taken for granted. Ever since leaving his native Jamaica while still in his teens to pursue a jazz career in the United States, Alexander has steadily turned out album after album, most of them excellent, all the while balancing his bop chops with the influences of his Caribbean roots.

It seems though that Alexander has never forgot his apprenticeship back in Kingston, playing on endless recording sessions in Studio One. While Alexander has in the past has touched on a broader, island sensibility in his “ivory and steel” projects, it’s clear that over the years he’s been increasingly drawn to a blend of jazz and reggae – if the two styles can be said to go together. Alexander, at least, makes it work on albums like Yard Movement (1996), Stir It Up (1999), Monty Meets Sly and Robbie (2000), and Rocksteady (2004) – often in collaboration with the legendary guitarist Ernest Ranglin, his buddy from the old island days.

Alexander’s latest album, Harlem-Kingston Express Live!, continues to find common ground between jazz and reggae, with Alexander personifying the bridge. His role as a link is made clear in a featured photo in the CD booklet, which shows Alexander and his two rhythm sections set up at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola. To his left is the jazz group: Obed Calvaire on drums, Hassan Shakur on bass, and Yotam Silberstein on guitar. To his right, the reggae ensemble: Karl Wright on drums, Hoova Simpson on electric bass, Andy Bassford on electric skank guitar and Robert "Bobby T" Thomas on hand drums.

As the set progresses, Alexander’s arrangements take a couple of basic approaches to the mixing of jazz and reggae – the switch and the mix. The first two songs set up the switch, beginning with a lovely, dreaming reggae version of “Strawberry Hill,” with Alexander laying out some very rich chords; the second track is an upbeat, boogie-woogie rendition of “Hi Heel Sneakers” which features some excellent swinging from the jazz group. The mood is light, playful, and open to possibilities, with Alexander fully presiding.

The next tune, “King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown,” switches as well between the mellow, stripped down dub style – King Tubby’s domain – and a brief but energetic latin jazz passage, but is memorable for Alexander’s work on the melodica. Following this, a floating Alexander original, “Eleuthera” mixes the two rhythm sections most effectively, and it’s one of the tunes where the two bands play more as a single unit than two separate ones.

The standard “Sweet Georgia Brown” gives the jazz guys a chance to really open up, and they attack the tune with a real ferocity, spurred on in part by the percussionist Bobby T from the reggae side. A most interesting blend happens on “Freddie Freeloader Riddim,” taken at a faster tempo than the Kind of Blue original, but it is so brief that there’s almost no room to explore the possibilities of the arrangement.

Bob Marley’s “The Heathen” moves through its mostly reggae paces but offers a few brief but wide open “free jazz breaks. The ballad “Compassion” finds the reggae unit out front on a tune that features Alexander at his virtuoso best on both the piano and melodica. Marley’s “Running Away” makes for one of the most dramatic and, at times, effective settings for the two groups to work together, but it highlights the difficulty that Alexander’s entire ensemble must face in trying to find space for two drummers, two bassists, and two guitarists – too many great musicians have to lay back too often. The old mentotune “Day-O,” made famous by Harry Belafonte, is a fun closer, loose and an informal occasion for Alexander to call to the audience to sing along.

All the minor unevenness is forgotten on the album’s spectacular closer, an almost perfect version of Marley’s “No Woman No Cry,” which, although it clocks in at over seven minutes, has not a dull moment. Alexander’s playing at the start is sparse and almost formal, but both groups build the dynamics as the song goes from stately, to bluesy, to driving, and finally to its spiritual resolution. It is an epic take on a simple song that is devastatingly effective.

Taken as a whole, Harlem-Kingston Express Live! finds Monty Alexander at home in two genres, surrounded by the best of musicians, working hard to find common ground – both in the careful arrangement of material and in the spontaneous moment of playing. Rarely failing and most often succeeding (like the best jazz), Alexander is at the peak of his powers on this recording, ready to delight and surprise from moment to moment. Regardless of how one might try to classify the music, it is jazz in the purest sense – a music that is open to possibility and all the more exciting because of it.

9/30/11

PN 168 - Preston Allen - 'Jesus Boy'

Novelist Preston Allen finds his satirical edge on the line between sacred and secular in his novel Jesus Boy.

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9/3/11

PN 164 - A Year's Passing

Vacation Notes

The Labor Day weekend is upon us, and Passing Notes marks its (fuzzy) one year (reboot) anniversary. A year's worth of writing this blog and producing my radio show and podcast has shown me the ups and downs of those 52 weeks -- what times are busy, what times are leisurely. Passing Notes is a labor of love -- I earn a very small income from it -- and most of the reward comes from the people I get to talk to and the books and music that arrive at the home office. An aspiring culture maven's work is never done.

My civilian job is teacher, and I've been at it now for 20 years -- good grief! -- so I'm used to the marathon of Labor Day to Memorial Day. And, if you do it right, being a teacher is very hard work; don't let anyone tell you otherwise. What I've come to understand in a full year of balancing family, job, and my Passing Notes pasttime is that there are periods when they all simply can't be balanced. That being clear to me now, I'll be taking fairly predictable breaks from the Notes -- at least online. The radio show should continue year-round.

I just completed my start of the school year break. There'll be another one coming in the days between Thanksgiving and the end of the first semester. Likewise, I'll be off for some time in May and June when the second semester ends. With a break to look forward to every few months, I think Passing Notes will be better than ever.

The Miami Book Fair always brings the big names to town, so this fall looks to be strong in terms of guests and music and books. Next month I'll be spinning off my new zombie blog, Mort-Vivant, just in time for the start of Season 2 of The Walking Dead. So, we're back in business, with more posts coming very very soon. Thanks for reading.

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8/8/11

Listener's Notes - From the CD Stack

The title for The Dead Kenny G's Operation Long Leash, comes from the clandestine CIA operation in the late ‘40s to fund Abstract Expressionism as a means for Western culture to undermine the ideals of the Soviet Union during the early years of the Cold War. Politics grabs the attention with the DKG's, but you'll stick around for the music. Skerik (saxes and keyboards), Mike Dillon (vibraphone, tabla, percussion), and Brad Houser (bass, baritone sax) provide a humorous, heady mix of jazz, funk, and (let's say it) heavy metal. The group's second album continues the development of tight playing from these multi-instrumentalists, best evidenced in a song like "Black Truman (Harry the Hottentot"), which starts at the circus, brings on the funk, turns to a spy movie soundtrack, takes a run through the jungle, and comes back to the groove in the end. This album is filled with challenging, invigorating writing and playing that draws on the very widest range of influences -- with a big sound and a bigger sense of musical imagination.

In its follow up to 2009's outstanding El Viaje, the Pedro Giraudo Jazz Orchestra has released Cordoba. Featuring compositions and arrangements from the Argentine bassist, both the songs and the charts are intricately put together, made all the more listenable by the exemplary musicianship. These twelve musicians manage again and again to sound like a full jazz band, with the added bonus of their soloing, which is aggressive and adventuresome. A song like "Duende del Mate" moves wonderfully through all strengths of the group -- lush harmonies, interlocking rhythms, and fine individual musicianship within the whole.

Almost every track on Mace Hibbard's latest, Time Gone By is a standout. Based in Atlanta, Hibbard is joined in his quintet by Louis Heriveaux (piano), Marc Miller (bass), Justin Varnes (drums), Melvin Jones (trumpet), and it's evident in every bar that these guys have been playing together for some time. Of the dozen songs on the CD, all but two are Hibbard compositions, each one interesting and memorable in both musical ideas and performance. "Hollowed Ground," which seems at times to take its cue from the work of John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner, has a wonderful melody and break, with some gorgeous open-voicings and an exciting build in both Hibbard and Melvin Jones' solos. The more you listen, the more you keep finding things to like. Time Gone By is an album you should not let slip by unnoticed this year.

The title track from Itai Kriss' The Shark tells you about you need to know about this flutist and composer: the Israeli-born musician draws very much on wide range of musical influences -- jazz and classical, as well as Latin and even Middle Eastern sounds, all within the flexible framework of a top-notch band. With Aaron Goldberg on piano, Omer Avital on bass, and Eric McPherson on drums, Kriss has a tight, confident context to present his writing and improvising. Better still, both John Ellis (tenor) and Avishai Cohen (trumpet) make appearances on The Shark, and Kriss' virtuoso chops are in fine shape as he more than holds his own -- he commands attention with the woodwind, bringing it to the front of things, which, with apologies to Ian Anderson and Herbie Mann, has not usually been the place for the flute. But Kriss does it right.

An interesting release comes to the CD stack from Germany, a group led by violinist Natalia Brunke called The High Fiddelity and their release Tell Me! With all the compositions on the album by Brunke, there is still a sufficient variety of tempos and textures to keep the listener engaged from beginning to end. Brunke seems to go out of her way to use the violin in a number of different ways -- as a lead instrument, as accompaniment, as percussion -- in each song, the most effective of which is "Desperation." At times, one wonders why the Brunke-led group felt that it needed to lean so much on vocals -- which are perfectly fine, by Marina Trost -- as the arrangements and playing in instrumental sections is more compelling than the lyrical content. Brunke would do well in her next release to simply play a little more, compose a little less, and let the strings and skins do the work. Listenable, certainly, but falling a little short here and there.

And finally, from among the scores of albums from one singer or another that arrive at the home office, a noteworthy release comes from Aimee Allen. Based in New York, Allen is a private attorney by day, and is a jazz singer by night. Winters and Mays, while Allen's third album, is likely to appeal to a wide audience -- mixing a handful of well-chosen familiars ("Peel Me A Grape" and Sting's "Fragile" being the strongest) with Allen's own strong compositions. Cool and swinging throughout, Allen's voice works well with her backing ensemble of piano, guitar, bass, and drums. A song like "Eden Autumn and Noah, Too" displays both Allen's strength as a writer and her skill in swinging across tempo. With a great voice, great intonation and control, and great musical intelligence, Winters and Mays is a great album for any season.

8/5/11

Undead Notes - Zombie (1979)

"Do I have something in my eye?"

Italian director Lucio Fulci's "sequel" to Dawn of the Dead is sometimes found under the title Zombi 2, but the hoards of zombie flicks -- ripoffs and otherwise -- in the 1980s would only confuse any numbering system. We'll call it Zombie and leave it at that -- not the first word or the last word in ghoulish cinema, but a film of note to be sure.

The poster at right pretty much sums up what there is to know about Zombie: It's quite deliberately over-the-top in terms of undead gore -- as well as violence and nudity. How about that tagline: "We are going to eat you!" No zombie actually says that, but you get the idea. Taking the more gruesome realism of the modern zombie film and wedding it to the traditional mythology of the Caribbean island zombie, Fulci takes the best of both worlds and creates a uniquely deranged picture of a zombie epidemic.

Until recently, most if not all copies of Zombie on VHS and DVD were lousy, but I had the pleasant surprise of watching the 2004 transfer and remaster by Blue Underground. This version really showed off the (sometimes) excellent cinematography and makeup, although not much could be done to help the soundtrack -- with its dubbed voices and synthesizer music -- a particular source or irritation for me. If you're planning to watch, make sure you have a digital transfer from after 2004. If you want a taste of the potentially poor screening experience, watch this trailer for the film.

Another note about the film is its violence and gore -- which, even today, are likely to make most viewers squirm. I'll assume that if you're reading this far, you don't mind a little gore --but as I mentioned, Zombie goes out of its way to provoke. It earned a special degree of scorn in 1979 from the British Parliament, in fact, helping to give rise to the term video nasty and the now defunct 1984 Video Recordings Act. Shades of the PMRC anyone? Here's my suggestion: Look at the lobby poster for the film (above) and judge for yourself.

The plot is simple: Anne (Tisa Farrow) learns that her father's boat has drifted into New York Habor, its only passenger a shambling hulk who attempts to eat a member of the Harbor Patrol who's investigating the abandoned vessel. Meeting resourceful reporter Peter (Ian McCullouch), Anne agreed to go to the Caribbean island of Matool to find out what might have happened. Arriving in the tropics, they join up with boat-owners Brian (Pier Luigi Conti) and Susan (Auretta Gay) to find the island. On Matool, Dr. Menard (Richard Johnson), who works at the the island's mission clinic, is trying to find a scientific explanation for the "curse" of zombies that is beginning to overrun the place. His wife Paola (Olga Karlatos) wants badly to leave, but Dr. Menard must find the source of the "curse." In the end, of course, only a few of the main characters survive, and as they sail away, news reaches the ship's radio that increasing numbers of undead are appearing in New York.

While the plot is simple, the narrative lurches along -- slow and clumsy in parts, then surprisingly precise and effective in others. Fucli is at his best in the scenes were he's trying to horrify you; he's at his worst in the interim, filling it with clumsy expository dialogue and, perhaps more compellingly for some, a great deal of nudity. I feel compelled to point out that both Auretta Gay and Olga Karlatos had a generous amount of nude or nearly nude screen time in a manner that was nothing but exploitative -- there was no subtlety or cleverness to it at all. Getting a little bored? Here's a few minutes of naked!

"Do you have something in your eye?"

Two now-famous scenes are cited from Zombie. The first is a cleverly conceived but clumsily executed underwater fight between a shark and a zombie. Fair enough, and probably mind-blowing for audiences at the time. More gruesome is the lead-up to the death of Paola Menard, who, left at home one night, after a very thorough shower, attempts to fight off a zombie home invasion, only to have her eyeball impaled on a shard of wood.

"You insurance doesn't cover reanimation!"

Without a doubt, the most effective scenes in the film come in the third act, when the Matool zombies are out in full force and bashing down all the walls and eating everyone. Clearly, Fulci planned out many of these sequences, which are well-paced, interestingly shot, and with truly gruesome makeup effects and mindless performances by the lead zombies. Most effective is how the story calls for all dead to rise from the graves, including the bodies of those dead centuries before, whose degree of decomposition is truly remarkable. The lush beauty of the jungle contrasted with the rot of the dead is extremely striking. Peter and the gang put up a good fight as they attempt to get away with their asses unchewed -- although it takes them a little too long to figure out the effectiveness of the head shot.

Gross and exploitative, unevenly plotted, and suffering from dubbed dialogue, Zombie is nevertheless a fun movie. It's simple premise is best executed when the director is trying to shock and horrify you. If you don't ask much more from a movie than that, let the dead walk among you.

NOTE: This review is cross-posted at Mort-Vivant, my blog about zombies (and science fiction and comics). These cross-postings will continue until Halloween 2011, when Mort-Vivant finally walks alone!

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PN 162 - A Visit to Clarksdale

7/29/11

PN 161 - Oleg Frish - 'Bring Me Sunshine'

7/28/11

Seun Kuti & Egypt 80

PN Video Jukebox - Frank Sinatra

Singing and skits from the career of Frank Sinatra. It was harder to put together than you would think! Featuring performances with Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitgerald, and Dean Martin -- spanning the years 1946 to 1982, with a 1977 guest host appearance on the Tonight Show thrown in -- with extra Rickles.

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7/27/11

Reader's Notes - Sonny Rollins Interview

Here's an excellent interview of Sonny Rollins by Cornelius Myers for Jazz Times. At times, it's hard to believe that a musician as important as Rollins is still around -- he'll turn 81 this September -- and one can probably ake the argument that Rollins is the prime candidate for the title of Greatest Living Jazz Legend. With well over 50 albums recorded as a leader since 1954, Rollins is still best experienced in concert. Maybe some of you got to see him at this year's Jazz Fest in New Orleans -- and for the rest of you, here's his 2011 schedule of appearances.

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7/25/11

Gretchen Parlato - The Lost and Found

The soulful, piquant voice and gently swinging phrases of Gretchen Parlato have been drawing the attention of jazz listeners since her self-titled debut in 2005 and the confident follow up, 2009's In A Dream. Not that there was every much reason for doubt. An alumni of the Thelonious Monk Institute, Parlato's career has been gaining momentum ever since she won the 2004 Thelonious Monk Institute International Vocal Competition. She works incredibly hard across a range of styles, and sometimes seems to be everywhere. A ready collaborator, Parlato's unmistakable voice has been heard by this critic on at least two recordings in the last year – on David Binney's Greylen Epicenter and a track from up-and-coming trumpeter Suresh Singaratnam.

Her latest work. The Lost and Found (ObliqSound) finds Parlato continuing to grow, producing the album, writing much more of her own material, and once again working with many of the people from her 2009 release, including her core rhythm section of Derrick Hodge (bass) and Kendrick Scott (bass), as well as Robert Glasper, who is associate producer and shows up on Fender Rhodes here and there. The biggest surprise of the album is not its quality – one would expect it to be good. But it is remarkable to learn just how much of Parlato has involved herself in every aspect of music-making here.

Parlato's choice of covers has always set her above many other singers. Though I would imagine she's not shy of the occasional tune from the Great American Songbook, you're probably not going to find her going into the studio with "Fly Me To The Moon" or "Stormy Weather." No, Parlato opens with an understated take on Simply Red's "Holding Back The Years," a song which takes some of us back to the ninth grade, which which the singer makes cool all over again. Lauryn Hill's tune (by way of Mary J. Blige) "All That I Can Say" gives Parlato the chance to make the most of the lines in the chorus: "Genuine, seraphim/Sweeter than cinnamon/Heaven-sent gentleman/Sent him here for loving him." Works for me. Singer/songwrtier Josh Mease contributes the bubbly, fanciful "Me And You,"featuring Parlato jamming with Glasper. And on the charming "Alo Alo," by Paulinho da Viola, the arrangement is all Parato in its multitracked vocals and percussion.

For those with more straight-ahead jazz tastes, Parlato leads her band through Wayne Shorter's "Juju" (showing the Shorter's Coltrane influence), and her rendering is dense, challenging, and highly original – no small feat for such a tune. Parlato is joined by tenor Dayna Stephens, and the singer and the horn blend tones for a unique texture. No less ambitious is a Parlato/Glasper arrangement of Bill Evans' "Blue in Green," which features Taylor Eigsti on a cover that is as straight ahead as the album gets, without ever abandoning Parlato's signature voice and phrasing.

Five of the fifteen tracks on this album are stand-alone Parlato compositions, most of them very strong. "Winter Wind" is a bossa nova with a fascinating series of shifts and breaks in tempo and mode, with a thrilling closing minute that shows the singer making the most of a simple phrase. The playful, flirting "How We Love" can't help but make you smile and feel more attractive, and the languid "Better Than" is a song that seems to deliver on the flirting. The loose, impressionistic "Henya," provides enough space to show Parlato's group – Hodge, Scott, and Eigsti – trading ideas throughout. Strongest of all is "Circling," which has a fine groove, interesting changes, a poetry to the lyrics – and it seems to a be song that only Parlato could write and perform with this ensemble.

The most ambitious tracks are those Parlato has written in collaboration with others. While a remix of 2009's "In A Dream" seems a bit unnecessary and the group's arrangement of "Henya" never seems to find a center of gravity the remaining three tunes offer many rewards. The title track, "The Lost and Found," written by Parlato and guest tenor Stephens, is complex, disquieting, and magically arrives in the same ambiguous place it began. "Without A Sound," by Eigsti and Parlato, bassist Hodge creates a hypnotic layering of three different bass parts, over which the singer's voice floats, cloudlike. And, call me a sucker for a guitar every time, but who can turn down the cheerful fingerpicking of Alan Hampton's "Still," which he co-wrote and sings in a wistful duet with Parlato? I've listened to the song about 50 times in the past month, and I still love it.

Simply said, there's so much music on The Lost and Found – some of it straightforward, smart, radio-friendly, and some of it rich, manifold, formidable – that it's a challenge to take it all in. But what Gretchen Parlato does again and again on this release – more so now as a writer and producer -- is to keep the texture of the music and the sound of the band unified. She does this, first at foremost, of course, with her remarkable voice. But with The Lost and Found, one can hear Parlato's musical intelligence and imagination fully in residence. This is a jazz musician who has found herself.

Gertchen Parlato – voice, percussion

Taylor Eigsti – piano

Derrick Hodge – bass

Kendrick Scott – drummer

Taylor Eigsti - keyboards

Robert Glasper – Fender Rhodes

Alan Hampton – guitar, voice

7/24/11

PN Video Jukebox - Wes Montgomery

Undead Notes - Dawn of the Dead (1978)

After directing Night of the Living Dead for release in 1968, George Romero spent the better part of the next decade in and around Pittsburgh making independent films that dead with quirky horror plots. In the mid 70s, Romero started work on his next zombie movie after being given a behind the scenes tour of the state-of-the-art Monroeville Mall. Not a bad place to survive a zombie apocalypse, he must have thought. With financing (about $2.2 million in current dollars) secured from Italian filmmaker Dario Argento, production began on Dawn of the Dead -- largely on weekends, when the same Monroeville Mall could be closed for shooting.

Much of the storytelling strength of Dawn of the Dead lies in the sure-handed development of its core question: What's the most likely way to survive if there are thousands of flesh-eating undead walking the earth. The short answer: Get yourself a great big fortified storehouse, hunker down, and keep quiet. If only things were so simple. . .

The plot begins with two pairs of characters. There's Stephen (David Emge) and Francine (Gaylen Ross); he's a chopper pilot for the local television station, and she's a news producer. Romero's opening scenes focus mostly on Fran as she attempts to maintain journalistic standards amid the growing social chaos of the zombie crisis. It's clear from the way the reporters and production staff are arguing with each other that, in the end, the media may be the last place to turn in a real crisis. Stephen finds Fran -- they're a couple, apparently -- amid all the hubbub and suggests they chopper it out of town as soon as possible.

The other pair of characters is more interesting, two friends on the police force -- the confident, intelligent, and strong Peter (Ken Foree), and the nervous, somewhat shrimpy Roger (Scott Reiniger). We meet them in the middle of a zombie-sweep at a low-income apartment building, where Peter does what needs to be done, Roger hesitates, and a few of the other fascists on the force are more than happy to kill anything that moves. In the end, as well, law enforcement may be one of the last places to turn. Roger, who knows Stephen, suggests that he and Peter say fuck the police and skip town. Sounds good.

The four make their escape at night, refuel with a little zombie harassment, and eventually land on the roof of a relatively rural shopping mall. Breaking in through a skylight, the find the service complex behind the scenes in the mall to be zombie free. They lock and barricade the doors, engage in some gruesome zombie housekeeping, and disguise their hideaway just in case someone comes looking. Roger is bitten during this process, which makes for a sad moment later when Peter has to decommission his zombified friend, but survival comes at a cost.

Everything in the mall, of course, comes at no cost. As the months pass, Peter, Stephen, and Fran eat the finest (preserved) food, booze it up, wear mink coats, sleep on satin sheets, listen to classical music on a top-of-the-line stereo system, and make the most of the hundreds of retail outlets providing their every need and want. As you might imagine, it's not all it's cracked up to be. Peter, a leader and a man of action, ends up trapped and bored because of the success of his survival plan. Francine gets tired of being treated like a girly-girl, even though she's pregnant. Stephen, who's really kind of a putz, agrees to teach Fran to fly the chopper, but one still doesn't manage to like him much. A fine, quiet scene comes about two-thirds of the way through the film when, after another delicious meal amid the luxuries, Fran asks, sadly, "What have we done?"

What they've done, of course, is survive. Survival in a true crisis often requires a real and antisocial selfishness, a cold ruthless approach to addressing immediately threats, and, in the long term, a radically proscribed existence to keep the dangers at bay. It's an almost inhuman way to live -- an insight granted by The Last Man On Earth and I Am Legend. But the problem, usually, is people. They get bored, they get lazy, they get reckless, or they just get mean. Remember those helicopter lessons Stephen was giving to Fran? Well, that reckless act attracts the attention of a roving gang of meanies in the form of bikers. Harleys, not Schwinns.

And here's where Romero shows that he understands how to make an entertaining film. In Act One, set up your premise and get the plot ball rolling with a good dose of action and a generous glimpse of the monsters. In Act Two, slow it down a bit and let the characters deepen the narrative in a thoughtful manner. In Act Three, close with a rip-roaring finish that messes with the heart and the head.

The bikers break in to the mall, suspecting there's someone hiding in there, but really just to do some good-natured looting. Of course, in all the ruckus, they bring a fair number of zombies behind them. And Peter and Stephen can help but sneak out of their hideout to check out the scene, leading Stephen to deliver my favorite line in the film: "Hey, that's our stuff!" Then Stephen (the putz) starts firing his gun at the bikers. Now it's Stephen and Peter against the biker gang against the zombies. Stephen is overwhelmed by zombies, Peter makes it back to safety, temporarily, and the bikers retreat with their armloads of summer sausages and aromatic soaps. In the end, Peter and Fran attempt to flee in the helicopter, but let's not give away the ending, shall we?

Aside from the fine, fundamental storytelling in Dawn of the Dead, special recognition should go to Tom Savini for his makeup work. Savini, a Vietnam vet who strove for a gruesome realism in his work, developed the blueish hue for the zombies in Dawn of the Dead, as well as a whole range of mangling, dangling, and gnawed fleshy parts. One of the great visual contrasts in the film is the outright pretty artificiality of the mall and the ugly, deformed presence of all those zombies. The effect is somehow subtle at first, almost unnoticed, which probably says much about how even normal people can shamble through the mall at times.

I won't be the first to write it, but Dawn of the Dead is an excellent zombie film, horror film, just plain film, that holds up well after all these years. With a great concept that is well-executed and outstanding effects, George Romero's return to the land of zombies sets the standard in terms of balanced tone, entertainment value, and social satire that most other zombie movies should strive for.

NOTE: This review is cross-posted at Mort-Vivant, my blog about zombies (and science fiction and comics). These cross-postings will continue until Halloween 2011, when Mort-Vivant finally walks alone!

7/23/11

Undead Notes - The Omega Man (1971)

"Eat lead, you undead commie bastards!"

I really wanted to like this movie. I know there are some high-profile fans of The Omega Man (Tim Burton) and that it's often seen as a prime example of camp or satire or some species of so-bad-it's-good. I love a rousing apocalyptic romp. My family has owned a copy of Planet of the Apes since 1982, and I think Charlton Heston is awesome. But, brothers and sisters, I can't say I liked much about The Omega Man.

The Omega Man isn't good camp because it's not artificial or ostentatious enough, nor does it put almost everything in quotation marks, as I remember reading somewhere about camp. Good camp is the old Batman television series, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Moulin Rouge, and the Presidency of George W. Bush. The Omega Man can't be bad camp because there is not bad camp – there's just bad.

The Omega Man has some satirical elements, of course, poking fun at materialism, gun culture, the media, revolution, and how all old animosities can fade away once the world ends. But these objections are too easy, and pulled off in such a graceless way that even the Heston's wry growliness amid the rubble overreaches. And the film isn't in the so-bad-it's-good neighborhood because there are too many glimpses of competence amid the stupidity.

"We shall kill you with our flair for ferocious rhetorical nuance!"

The plot is loosely based on Richard Mathisen's novel I Am Legend, focuses on an Army scientist (Heston) who, as the world is being destroyed by biological warfare, desperately injects himself with an experimental vaccine. It works, but Heston's character is the only normal man left on Earth – or at least in the city of Los Angeles, which will have to do. He spends his solo time driving fast through the streets, armed to the teeth, killing off members of The Family when he can find them. The Family are what's become of the bioweapon survivors: light-fearing, sore-festering, black-robe-and-mirrored-sunglasses-wearing creeps, led by the former news anchor and current postapocalyptic windbag/madman Mathias (Anthony Zerbe). The members of The Family are just plain goofy looking, and I was awfully pleased when Heston got to kill a few here and there, though it didn't seem a fair fight. In his spare time in the evenings, Heston's character enjoys wiping sweat from his naked man-torso and drinking scotch, maybe breaking up the monotony to eat some beans and fire a few rounds at the Family from his fortified fourth floor balcony. Wipe, glug, pow, pow.

In Act Two, Heston meets a fine young woman, Lisa, played by Rosalind Cash, who has not yet been infected, and he takes her back to his place. Turns out, of course, there's a small group of survivors living outside the city. Maybe Heston could come and visit? Maybe he could help them find a cure? Maybe, baby, but how does that song go? “If you were the only girl in the world, and I were the only boy. . .” It doesn't matter that Heston's a old white Army dude and Lisa's a foxy girl with an Afro. It's the end of the world, people. Bow-chicka-bow-bow.

Anyway, the sex might be good, but the movie really goes downhill from there. A cure is found, and the Family almost get Heston, but then they don't, then all that good lovin' makes Heston vulnerable, and he gets caught, wounded, and dies in a fountain, laid out dead in his best Christ-pose. Jesus, it's bad. He died so that others may live, see? Yawn. At no point are the baddies scary. At no point are you disturbed or even grossed out. There's a couple of chuckles here and there, but mostly the whole rigmarole is annoying. If you like Heston, you'll enjoy bits here and there. If you like zombie movies, you'll dislike The Omega Man. That's my final word.

7/22/11

PN 160 - John Swenson - 'New Atlantis'

The longtime music journalist talks about musicians fighting for the survival of New Orleans in his book, 'New Atlantis.'

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