The Rosebud Principle

 

"Maybe it was something he lost"

Gawker founder Nick Denton recently learned the Zuckerbergian teachings of THE SOCIAL NETWORK the hard way: don't go changing formats in midstream, i.e. you can't expect people to endure slow confusing menus on their lunch break. Denton's recently lost tons of readers in a bid to redesign Gawker for the future. Redesigning is never smart until you have a billion friends, which is why Mark Zuckerberg is so uptight about the server being down even for a day in David Fincher's movie. You can't have doubt, or distraction or difficulty - the competition is too great. Was it self-sabotage, a fear of getting too big too fast that sent Denton on the wrong trail? And if one is, like Zuckerberg, free of such self-doubt, is it because of confidence, or just that the self-doubt already has a home, in bad relationships?

NETWORK's semi-fictionalized (?) Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is not as pompous--yet--as Charles Foster Kane in decreeing people will think "what I tell them to think!" and he's smart enough to never go down with the ship, because he sells everybody else out first. Yet in the Big Jim Gettes segment of CITIZEN KANE (the only movie SOCIAL NETWORK, other than THERE WILL BE BLOOD, TSN can really be compared with), Welles' clueless billionaire lets go of his common sense and decides to not bow out of New York's gubernatorial race, even if means exposing his love nest with "singer." Zuckerberg knows far more about the death knell of bad press than Welles, but of course now the press itself is far different: instead of yellow journalism smear campaigns between rival papers, scandal can be brought out by even the most drunk and marginalized of nerds.  

But I mention Rosebud because of the overarching theme of Fincher's film, which begins with Zuckerberg on a date with Erica (Rooney Mara, shortly to be seen as Lisabeth S. in the DRAGON TATTOO remake) and hints Facebook was the result of a drunken bit of coder geek vengeance against her after she broke up with him just because he was more concerned about getting into snooty Harvard clubs than he was about her and her stupid issues. Once all Mark's problems are solved, and he's got 24 bazillion dollars, he remembers he invented Facebook just to stalk her, and lives obsessively ever after. If Kane had been around in the age of Facebook, maybe there wouldn't have been so much confusion over who or what Rosebud was: he'd have a picture of it in his albums! He'd have a sledding game on there, and a 'design your own vintage sled' app. The ornate picnics and famous guest-collecting could be canceled, because he wouldn't need to see his friends to prove they existed. He could make Xanadu online via one of those online worlds with the Sims.

In short, for all his fancy talk, Kane failed to crush the social sphere down to a small enough crumpled ball that he could find his obscure object of desire, that Rosebud. Zuckerberg on the other hand destroys the last vestiges of the gasping public sphere, and lives in eternal orbit around his beloved lost sled/girl because, in the process of amassing his fortune, he dissolved the meaning of wealth. The need to flaunt has been replaced by the need to haunt. Mansions mean nothing if all you need is a wireless connection to keep your million friends always in reach.

In each case (Rosebud, Erica) we're caught in the same dramaturgical principle - the 'suspension of functional maturity.' The subject 'freezes' in time when the opportunity arises to escape the confines of his current life - and it resumes when he's climbed so far up there's no one in sight to conquer. As a boy Kane dropped his sled when it was time to go to New York and learn to manage his inherited fortune. He remembers it only later, but "singer" Susan Foster comes into his line of flight right as he's about to go uncrate it. Finally preparing to project his objet petit a, Kane's receptivity finds an accidental screen in Susan. His purpose changes from resuming his childhood progress to trying to enforce the success of an unwilling opera star on an unwilling public. When his whole life crumbles to shit and he's on his death bed, only then he finally remembers the sled. It's as if the 'story' of the rope ladder to success at the price of your soul hinges on this surrender of linear personal evolution. THE SOCIAL NETWORK is similarly constructed as the long personal grudge/obsession of a genius computer nerd over a girl who forces him to confront his own immaturity.

As David Fincher is so able a candidate for the role of '21st century Welles' let's examine the nature of genius auteurs in depicting genius millionaires, with the fact borne in mind that movies are an intensely expensive endeavor. Even the smallest indie picture can cost millions and one can only assume that there's more skulduggery involved getting a film made than we will ever know. Compare for example Welles'--perhaps unconscious but nonetheless inexcusable--sabotaging of RKO via his boondoggling in Brazil in 1942 whilst attempting to edit both JOURNEY INTO FEAR and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS via long distance phone calls and telegrams while he slept with local models, waxed poetically over the suffering poor, and danced through Carnivale. (1) Compare that kind of infantile entitlement to Zuckerberg's in SOCIAL NETWORK and all the dots suddenly connect. You don't make a billion friends without making a few enemies, and sometimes a billion friends are your own worst enemy.

Welles in Rio with his million friends

Mark Z, anywhere, with his millions friends

The ultimate tragedy in both AMBERSONS and FEAR is they could have been great, if Welles had been there to see them through the studio machine to distribution. He wasn't, and ran so far over budget in Brazil he basically bankrupted the studio, then got sore when they re-edited and trimmed AMBERSONS without his consent. The nerve! Fincher seems more reliable, but don't forget ALIEN 3, which wasted money and talent and sucked. And frankly, I don't like SEVEN, which seems the most claustrophobic and misanthropic of the post-SILENCE OF THE LAMBS genius serial killer movies deluge, and features one of Brad Pitt's most annoying performances, yeah?

Fincher digs coding

But all is forgiven with FIGHT CLUB, which almost started a revolution in the theater on E. 86th Street where I saw it, and of course ZODIAC. I still can't listen to any Donovan, let alone "Hurdy Gurdy Man" without getting nightmares. And yet, it's telling that there exists a sense of which came first, Fincher's inability to create human warmth onscreen, or his themes of alienation and the collapse of the social sphere? Like many emotionally-challenged auteurs, Fincher finds warmth at the office -- the autumnal 70s mod beauty of the newspaper bullpen in ZODIAC; the chummy office spaces of Facebook, but overall his worlds are dark and cold and always on the  brink of savagery. THE SOCIAL NETWORK then, is perfectly suited to his talents, or is it the other way around?

The world is my bedroom, I shall not log.

The night Zuckerberg creates the first FB prototype-- a 'who's hot / not" program-- Fincher cuts back and forth between him in his dorm and a sterile yet self-consciously 'decadent' exclusive Harvard club party, with bimbos bussed in from all around, for what is basically a long night of strippers and douchebag boys in club ties and backwards white baseball caps. Perhaps it's because my experiences on these lines were clouded in cigarette and pot smoke, full of drunk shouting and noisy bands, but this exclusive party seemed tragically sad and hollow but it's truly unusual in film and it sets the tone for all subsequent SOCIAL gatherings. The women are all drug-addled groupies or wise, centered ladies who look down at the less together mortals--and the boys are either the aforementioned douchebags or rich nerds hiding behind CRTS, funnels, shots, and six-foot Graphix bongs. No one is 'connecting' --even superstar Napster-creatin' Justin Timberlake is just boastin' and toastin' in a void where he knows everyone's name but only to show off his memory. A Jewish fraternity's Caribbean night party, for example, is dead in the water since there 'could' be a better party elsewhere. No one can enjoy a party if a better one might be going on somewhere, and by the laws of Groucho Marx, the best party is the one they're not invited to. During the day, lectures and classes are merely backdrops for late arrivals, note passing, and early, dramatic departures. In a way this version of Harvard represents the beginning of the end of the social sphere even before the arrival of Facebook. But again which came first? The nanny state censoring nearly all our public acts (sexual harassment, smoking, basically everything done by Don Draper in MAD MEN) or the rise of online communities?

Jack Daniels makes a brilliant 1.75 cameo

And is Fincher a misogynist or is the SN mise-en-scene meant to conjure misogyny, and gender stratification? By the end of THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Zuckerberg is blissfully alone, to stalk... and stalk... without getting rained on, or noticed, or paying for his crimes. The only ones who suffer in this new deal are the women who would prefer their men not hide, sneer, or shout obscenities from the safety of their limousine windows. But as Tricky said, it's cool, that's what money's for. It's to make tall waitresses with attitude smile at you, getting that 20% tip that's big enough for your own private jet ski all by itself.

I remember I used to suffer from great social anxiety before the arrival of Friendster. What helped me were my precious testimonials: "Erich is so cool" etc. I had like 300 testies! Being able to read that list of validations any time, like at 4 AM after a bad date, reminded me I had friends who liked me -- it was instant and it worked! My need to socialize in real time dropped off by half. By the time I'd migrated to Myspace and Livejournal I was depressed again (neither had testimonials) but I now had my insatiable urge fulfilled and my socializing dropped off to nothing. Now, on iMeds, and Facebook, and not being allowed to smoke in bars or restaurants, I never go anywhere. Bars look weird with all that clear air. Now you can see the sad drunk all the way in the back of the room. And he's on his laptop, and the cute girl has her iPhone at the ready, repelling any and all would be hitter-onners with the inarguable pre-emptive presence of THE SOCIAL NETWORK.  Might as well stay home then, and hide, and wait for the collapse to complete, or until girls who aren't coke-addicted groupies finally find a way to see keyboard clacking as something sexy, maybe via the flesh of the crushed black centipede?

One thing's for sure, the gap between the 'real' of physical nuts-and-bolts-and-eye-contact reality and the safe anonymity of the web is widening to the point not even a javelin will get you across it. A Rosebud by any other name would smell as sweet, until one finally uncrated it. The real sled smells of musty, warped wood, traces of snow having long since gone to glowing liquid rust along the blades, the oxidation tempered by the crate's suffocating darkness. Better to keep it crated, then, forever, and just dream of it--all perfectly, preciously sad and abandoned--while you race down white sloping hills on that online winter sports game, pressing 'play again' over and over... until suddenly it's morning and there's no one left online to crack your dingy snow globe balls.

1) See Simon Callow's Orson Welles Volumer 2: Hello Americans

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The Guns of Ceraberg: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Expendables

 It is perhaps no accident that this weekend finds two potential big box office hits going head to head for the same tweaky gambeboy audience, one is full of old muscle head icons of the 1980s-90s, one has an anemic white kid who looks like he can barely hold a bass, let alone play one in a band but who beats an array of tough ex-lovers of a would-be girlfriend via video game-ish duels.

That's just one problem for me with SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD, another is that dumb poster art, as per below:

As a former rock star bassist, I can point out at least three things wrong with this picture. One, he's playing it like a guitar - and certainly the pose is meant to inspire this thought if you're walking past it and don't immediately know the difference. (four instead of six tuning pegs atop the neck are the giveaway), second, all 'real' bass players use their top two fingers to pluck and and a thumb to slap, never do they use a pick to strum. (Of course many fine bass players including Bill Wyman might disagree). Third, this Johnny B. Goode pose he's in is just all wrong for a bass player, for his or her job in a band is to hold down the rhythm, keep the drums anchored so the guitars can circle above, or vice versa. The proper stance would be legs wide apart and leaned back - even a girl in a skirt can do it, ala Tamara Thomas (below).

Now that's a bassist stance.

If you're already not a 'great' bass player you're much better off not trying to bust rock guitar duck walks, Scott Pilgrim! Methinks he does it to hide his face cuz he's shy. But just because I have to see this poster ad nauseum every day on the subway to work, that's not what's got my goat about Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg, it's what they've come to represent in the collective archetypal unconscious, it's 'the Ceraberg Principle.'

It's for me a heavy sadness that if there's any film to come out with a sensitive comedic white kid lead it has to star Michael Cera, or if he is unavailable, his slightly less anemic and curlier twin, Jesse Eisenberg. Nothing personal to either of them in real life, or as actors (they probably have much bigger ranges but are now pigeonholed), but isn't it sending a wrong message to the pale hipster dudes coming of age today? That they can be shaking in their ironically rhinestone-studded boots with longing for a hot chick, do nothing about it but stammer and then--when she gets bored of waiting for him to cowboy up, and tries to seduce him herself--skittishly refuse her advances, since she's "ahem" drunk or has 'issues'? (As Cera did in the and here I use quotation marks, "SUPERBAD.") In real life, kids that age are terrified enough -- they turn to movies to see how to act in real life and the movies just tell them "forget it, go be heroes in the metaverse, that's much more 'cooler' than real life."

Often, a good boost of courage for these fellas can be found in alcohol! It would be nice to see Eisenberg or Cera actually grow a pair of balls after having a few drinks, but it's seldom that they seem to get much courage from the bottle. Another courage booster is to actually get them into a 'real' fight... but not even a legion of zombies can rouse Ceraberg from his--and here I use quotation marks--"adorable" paralysis.

And (SPOILER!) - don't even get me started on Eisenberg and his cheap townie move of deciding to show up like a stray kitten drenched with rain on Kristen Stewart's Manhattan doorstep at the end of ADVENTURELAND (2009). As I've said before, this sends the wrong message to the small town dweebs that hip Kristens of the world leave behind when they go off to art school in the big city. Said dweebs believe that--even if the Kristen doesn't return their calls or e-mails--all they have to do is pack a duffle and buy a bus ticket, and the girl will let them stay at her studio apartment rent free until the end of time. If they were real hipsters they would know the story of the Velvet Underground's "The Gift" almost by heart, and would know that if they mailed themselves to her, they'd end up with their skull split slightly by Marsha's hammer and issuing fountains of red that pulsate gently in the morning sun.

Bosses in big city companies, for example, expect you to ask for a raise in person--not in an e-mail-- and to be strong and confident, they want to see you be try to be professional and aggressive, rather than meek and mealy-mouthed. What kind of good influence is it to win a girl by betraying the confidences of your friend--her boyfriend--by leading her to the primal scene of his infidelity? (ADVENTURELAND, again).

In short, the Cera/Eisenberg movies encourage wimps to stay wimps, to be passive-aggressive and expect everyone to do the dirty work of putting themselves on the line, so that they can hang back and judge from afar--safe in the lap of their laptops--anyone who would dare actually try to physically change things in the scary world of immediate reality. An analogy would be that old comic book ad for Charles Atlas:

Now, that's all fine and good -- you get a weight set, you start exercising, drinking vodka before homeroom, suddenly you have chutzpah to spare. But the Cera-berg version would change all that. Instead of bulking up and working your way towards a slot in THE EXPENDABLES, the comic book being read in the fourth panel (above) would change to an internet gaming site, the kicking over a chair and bulking would be virtual, via his elvin avatar on World of Warcraft, where he blows away the bullies with a magic bass. Hurray for Scott Pilgrim!

When he returns to the 'real,' his girl is waiting for him, presuming he's done all this to get in her pants, mistakenly believing his stutter and stammer is due to his burgeoning libido... but nope, he then stops to let her know that this sex stuff doesn't fly because, she's, um, drunk, or something...or else you get her pregnant via your two pump chumpery and never change out of your gross track team shorts... better go call "pop-pop" in prison you little Arrested Development yitz! You Max Pisher!

 
Actually I don't mean to imply by calling him Max Pisher that Max FISHER, from RUSHMORE (1998), fits the Ceraberg mold, for he surely does not. In fact he's a great role model... and if no more rugged than Cera he can still at least exude confidence, Jesus Christ! And he even ends up both getting even with--and befriending his main bully opponent--a gruff Scotsman who calls him "Fisha!"And Max does so through resilience, genius and sass rather than mewly-mouthed avoidance and video game wizard-sublimation. Let's see some others, wanna?

BRICK (2006)

"Along with the amazing, clever dialogue and the great use of geometric composition to establish a sense of suburban desolation at every turn, this is easily the best neo-noir since The Last Seduction, and an important step forward in showing young male viewers a protagonist other than the simple minded hunk bore who gets the girl or the coded gay best friend hysteric in the chick flick, and the sneering pretty boy, the geeky obese avenger, and so on. Enacted by Gordon-Levitt, Brandon is an inspiring character who should motivate a generation of shy teens to stand up and take their punches like a man, then throw back with everything they have, all in the name of love... baby. Lukas Haas also scores as the drug kingpin. They have some great Sergio Leone-style staring contests." (One of my very first acidemic blog posts! 11/06)

Tanner (BAD NEWS BEARS, 1976)

What Tanner (above, right) lacks in size he makes up for in foul-mouthed courage. Shown here drinking a Budweiser (which has hopefully yet to be replaced via CGI with a coke in the DVD), tanner steals the show with great lines like "You can take that trophy and shove it up your ass!" and "All we got on this team are a buncha Jews, sp*cs, ni***rs, pansies, and a booger-eatin' moron!"

Well, hey, it was the goddamned 70s! We didn't have political correctness yet, so as someone who was Tanner's age when he saw this film in the theater, I'd like to cap it off by saying: "F**k you, if you're gonna stick up for that bunch of shaky nerves on a white boy stalk, Scott Pilgrim instead of rockin' with your cock deep in THE EXPENDABLES!" While the battles Cera engages in are clearly 'not of this world,' more like challenging opponents to game of Mortal Kombat 7, or Guitar Hero: Bass Edition, Bad News Bear's Tanner unhesitatingly picks a real life fight with two kids twice his size after they humiliate his even smaller teammate. He winds up in a trash can, somehow still victorious! So once again, F**k you!

Every last kid--including the girls--

(aside from the narc)--

in OVER THE EDGE (1979)

Michael Cera is probably at least five or six years older than even Matt Dillon in this film, and yet any one of the kids in OVER THE EDGE could kick his ass, except at Mortal Kombat or Guitar Hero, which is apparently where all fights are settled these days. But don't worry, they didn't have cell phones back then, so your humiliating defeat at the hands of a kid half your age and weight wouldn't get uploaded to youtube.

So, yeah, doesn't it bother the Eisenberg/Ceras that younger, smaller kids with a lot less muscle mass and access to alcohol can beat the crap out of them, all just because not everyone is a wussy hipster with weak wrists from too much gaming who masks his fear of pretty girls via esoteric pop culture quips? 

In the real fighting world of blood, sweat, time, and endless punches to the gut and face, the 70's kids above would maybe get bloodied up if they were fighting older bigger kids (as happens to Carl the lead in OVER THE EDGE) but the next day, the guy they had the fight with would probably show them some respect, for taking their lumps like a man. Of course nowadays courage is not easily tested outside of the digital arena, or the military, or kick boxing class, as in NEVER BACK DOWN (see my Bright Lights Blog entry, "Why We Still Fight," here). 

Naturally, my anger over this issue stems from unresolved feelings of teenage cowardice on my own part--all those tender moves I was afraid to bust because my heart leapt into my throat and I thought I'd pass out as she leaned in to be kissed (or did she?)--or backed down from bullies' provocations only to kick myself for not standing up to them later--I was as terrified as Michael Cera, but one thing's for sure, if the girl did actually bust a move herself, or gave me any sort of clear sign, I didn't leave her hanging with a lot of lame excuses. And if I got in a fight, I didn't run, I just went for 'the sweet spots' like a dirty fighter, like the son in HISTORY OF VIOLENCE.

So Michael Cera, Jesse Eisenberg, isn't it time you stopped being girly men, and learned to bow down to the muscle! Bow down to the manly muscle men of the 1980s, who happen this very week to be exhumed en masse in a final box office blow-out of becrunched limbs and rapid fire Contra-killing fury, here to beat your puny girl arms to shaky pulps ("You crushed my guitar hero finger!") in this weekend's no prisoners war for total box office victory, THE EXPENDABLES!

(Yeah, I know.. they don't have a chance. 
Damn you Scott Pilgrim! Damn yoooou!)

See also: Fight Club: Maturity, Initiation, and the Fantasy of Self-Annhiliation

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Orphans of Jessieland

I like a movie that makes no bones about it's philosophical geekiness, even if that means we must endure the anal-retentive Michael Cera-clone, Jesse Eisenbeg as he nervously runs around rattling off do's and dont's in the post-apocalyptic American survival, noting: "You have to enjoy the little things," as if even we didn't know that from ED WOOD's rose-sniffing scene, and explaining why his Han Solo older brother asskicker guardian (Woody Harrelson) is hell-bent on finding twinkies in the post-apocalyptic Zombieland. They kind of represent to Woody what "home" is, i.e. civilization before the collapse, before America became Zombieland (that would have to be around 1982 or so), but of course this film could be aimed at folks younger than me, and if it steers them towards a better appreciation for the little things, and helps them gain deconstructive analytical skillz, then I guess I shouldn't curmudge. At least Jesse's voiceover spares us dot connecting as far as consumerism, slack-jawed troglydyciousness as seen in reality shows like the Kardashians, and computer game addiction. Or maybe, just maybe, no one remembers that those things are bad, and that they make Europe worry about our mental health.

For after all, the apocalypse has been floating over our heads since the days of Jesus "C" - a kind of mass suicidal ideation The apocalypse film appeals in general to the malcontents of all classes and creeds, cuz it makes us feel less caged to know there might come a time when our credit card debts are erased and we're free to loot and pillage and fight for survival like our DNA has programmed us to. In the meantime we sit around and do the best we can. We plot, and wait, and game.

Even back in the vulnerable pre-cellular/internet 1980s, we fantasized about the impending apocalypse. Back then however, zombies were confined to a few sequels and spinoffs from the Romero original.  For the real apocalypse fantasy we worried more about bikers, mutants and dwindling oil reserves, ala THE ROAD WARRIOR (aka MAD MAX 2, 1982). And we didn't much have to deal with babes like Kristen Stewart or Taliban Shire or whatever name is, in our Zombielands. If the girls showed up at all they were usually robots (CHERRY 2000, Pris in BLADERUNNER) or scouts for their underground breeding programs (A BOY AND HIS DOG). Alas, we find that in the zombieland of tomorrow, the feminists have stolen all our shit with the finesse of mutant biker older sisters.

In the 1980s--thanks to Pat Benatar--we knew love was a battlefield, but then came the 90s and it takes an army to raise a village and perhaps the second decade of the 21st century will be about how the army is overseas and the village has failed to raise itself, leaving boys with no way to turn 2 men other than leaving for the Middle East, or doing drugs and drinking... blood. And the beautiful Kristen Stewarts of the world will wither and die... or worse, go out with Jessie Eisenberg before he's passed his initiation tests, before he's actually stood the test of manhood, either by getting drunk and sleeping around and then hating himself, or tripping on acid and getting in a fight or riding the mechanical bull, or in the words of Craig Finn from The Hold Steady, "waking up in someone else's van with a backstage pass in your back pocket."

I guess I'm squeamish since I was just as insecure as Eisenberg until around 1985 when I started drinking. To use the iconography of ZOMBIELAND, I went from a Jessie to a Woody in one swift funnel. Thing with Eisenberg is -- the two movies I've seen him in are both a) one world titles ending in "land" b) about amusement parks - the first is the semi-fun comedy ADVENTURELAND, wherein he slavers after the delectable pout of (below) Kristen Stewart (I hope you can feel that every time I write that name there is about a 2 minute pause while I swoon to the floor like a 16-year old promise ring-wearing Goth).

If this was a WW2 metaphor Eisenberg (and me prior to discovering alcohol) would be tightass Montgomery and Woody Harrelson would be a mighty Patton. Picture if you will, a small boy. He is Russian, and acting as a scout behind German lines for the Soviet Army. This kid is so tough and adorable, he'll break your heart and inspire you to risk death in the name of victory, all in one Hawks-like swoop. The film, she is called IVAN'S CHILDHOOD (1962). If this kid can be that cool, surely our Ceras and our Jesses can get themselves some nice Mickey Rourke-style bruises and at least give heroin a try?! The Cera-Eisenberg principle instead operates on the kind of squeamish comic embarrassment Ricky Gervais smuggled over from the BBC. And of course, Judd Apatow, and the "growing up" element has more to do with letting a hot girl kiss you without running away, or going to bed with her without stuttering some excuse why "it wouldn't be right" before realizing that "hey, it's the little things that matter." Or as Bushwick Bill once said "Size ain't shit!"

I've got nothing against wimps and computer nerds,  now that I can stare like Clint and  have a deep voice... so I get mad when nerds betray their struggling nerd audience with a bad role model like Eisenberg, for whom everything is done the hard way, when meanwhile Xanax and booze are free for the taking at deserted pharmacies and supermarkets across the nation.

I'm sorry, ZOMBIELAND, you're okay. A good enough zom-com is good enough for me. If it was easy to make a good-enough zom-com, there would be lots more good ones, so take a bow. Let us fill up virtual racks at the rental store with these unfettered amalgams! And the best part is, one of us invented the whole unified zombie mythos, i.e. a 20th century indie film maverick (as opposed to a Victorian playwright), George Romero - yet no one has to pay him a ha'penny of royalties. I mean, I wish they did, so he could be rich and afford to make his own zombie films... better. I mean I couldn't even get more than 20 minutes into DIARY OF THE DEAD. Jesus Christ, it's worse than Argento's MOTHER OF TEARS!


What's generally missing in all these Romero homage/spin/rip-offs is Romero's original deeply embedded critique of consumerism. There's a scene for example in the original, long-ass DAWN OF THE DEAD (1979) where the heroine is getting herself all dolled up in the mirror, with beautiful gold lighting done in a commercial manner, and with the gun seamlessly integrated into her ensemble. ZOMBIELAND by contrast would have Eisenberg's narration go "It was like we were living in a critique of consumerism." and show a Phillip Seymour Hoffman cameo as a zombie Marxist liberal arts professor.

Z is for Zombie, that's good enough for me, and if the movie is really more of an amusement park ride than an actual horror film, and even if Bill Murray has to show up doing a frickin' Be Kind Rewind -remix of the library scene from GHOSTBUSTERS with his home's invaders, who'm I gonna call? So just remember that Zombieland is about appreciating the little things, and family, and fire arms, and all the stuff we take for granted that's going to go down in flames in a few short years. Hallelujah oh Dark Lord whom I choose to call Kristen!

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