I ended up with a couple of hours to myself on friday, so I went and saw the Dawn of the Dead remake. It seems that half of the movies coming out recently have some sort of Seventies connection, whether it be a film based on a wretched TV show or a remake of something riding in on a second wave of popularity. Last year's 28 Days Later just might have opened a can of worms as far as zombie movies are concerned. The new Dawn of the Dead owes just as much to it as it does to George Romero's original film - the zombies run instead of lurch, and the last fifteen minutes or so is filmed in that digital strobe style, which serves to quicken the pace and give the film the same "edgy" look that all of the previous trend-jumping films where the same technique was used have. I'm not sure where this style first surfaced. The first time I saw it was in Saving Private Ryan, where it was used to good effect. My complaints about lack of originality aside though, I enjoyed the film. I continue to be morbidly interested in cinematic representations of global disaster, with burning cities and litter strewn roads. It's also interesting to note that the remake is arguably more violent than the original, but got a softer MPAA rating. No doubt because they wanted to make sure that they made as much money as possible. Bring the kids.
I also saw Sokurov's Russian Ark, which was a little calmer, to say the least. It's a tour through 300 years of Russian history, via the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It's full of classical paintings, sculptures, and people in period costume. Our tour guide is an argumentative french marquis who provides the european point of view, which for the most part constrasts with that of the unseen narrator. The phenomenal thing about this film is that it was shot in one, unedited, continuous take. That's an hour and a half where everything has to work perfectly during filming. No lighting mistakes. No flubbed lines. Lots of preparation, made even more rushed by the fact that the crew was only allowed 36 hours in which to put up sets and film (one of the drawbacks to filming inside a museum that needs to have its doors open to the public). This makes the "making of" segment on the dvd quite interesting...

Okay, I'm going to go read now. Time is precious and there are too many unread books around the house.

cds I listened to while driving and driving and driving...: Paul Chain "Alkahest" and "Opera Decima - The World of the End", Nurse With Wound "Alice the Goon" and "An Awkward Pause", and Sixteen Horsepower "Folklore"