The Public Domain Undead : George Romero and the Halperin Brothers vs. ze World

With the apocalypse year 2012 only a handful of days away I thought I'd prepare you with this post about zombies and creative copyright - you'll need to know about both to survive what congress and cosmic radioactivity have in store!   The post-apocalyptic undead 'shoot 'em in the head' cannibal zombie film/TV show is now so ubiquitous that anyone with a camera feels entitled to make one --yet the way the bandwagon jumpers carry on you'd think...

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2011 Round-Up - Erich's Best

Dads of Great Adventure: A Guide to Cinema's Post-Apocalyptic Hyper-Parent Bright Lights Film Journal #71 - FebruaryWhether or not 2012 will really be the end of life as we know it, the myth of the post-apocalyptic dad is emerging in today's cinema, and man, he's a bad father. Forced by cataclysmic events to cowboy up while his kids roll their eyes and talk shit about him, whether in bleak existential treatises like The Road or big-scale popcorn...

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Best Films of 2011 (and 5 Worst)

Was 2011 the year 'movies' broke... in half? And hydra-like those halves doubled back to wormy life? More and more media downloading and portable small screens means more variety and reasons to 'wait for the video' and--with their bedbugs, twelve dollar ticket prices, contagion-level coughing, popcorn that leaves you nauseous for days, uneven heating and cooling systems, out-of-focus projection, flashing peripheral blue texting lights, and uncouth...

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"These Bad Boys Mean Business" - TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN Vs. FACING EVIL with Candice DeLong

 The real life Clarice Starling, Candice DeLong (above) was a high profile FBI profiler for 20 years. Seeing her on Investigative Discovery's Deadly Women and Facing Evil (Friday nights!) is to see a still button-cute but steely-eyed brunette whose brittle but compassionate demeanor is tried and tested in the forge of evil, poring over testimony and evidence and motives of specifically (for the shows) homicidal women. Interviewing them on Facing...

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A Girl must have her Ghost: AMERICAN HORROR STORY: "Smoldering Children" & Lana Del Rey: "Video Games"

 "Me...love 'dead'." -- Monster (Bride of Frankenstein, 1933)If the rest of the media universe is playing it safe and cuddly there's at least two chunks of media that strike a deep unnerving chord of the 'real' in the last few weeks of 2011: Fx's American Horor Story and that found-Americana video for Lana Del Rey's one song, "Video Games." Passing the 10 million hit mark, inspiring the usual countless remixes, the song+video+singer taps into...

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