Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes! Oh, and some zombies, too.

There are a number of working parts that make the Antisocial Network happen. There are the grunt workers who toil daily to bring coffee, liquor, food, drugs, escorts, etc. to the writer, there are the “behind the scenes” people (the ones who spread the word) who are truly the wind beneath my wings, and then there are “the suits”, the executives that rule from on high. These Vulcan-esque illuminati provide the financial fuel that helps offset the staggering costs of blog production, but the “trade off” is that they get to meddle with the product. Sometimes this perspective is helpful; sometimes it produces decisions more disastrous than Paul Allen firing Kevin Pritchard. Today, I received a raven and it bore the news that this blog would be undergoing massive, sweeping changes, just a week into its life. So, okay, getting quasi-serious now, I just felt like movies/music/TV & pop culture, etc. fit one category, but shoe-horning sports in there with it didn’t seem like a natural fit. And feedback I received seemed to indicate that some people tuned out for the sports blog, so, I am splitting them into two separate blogs. This blog will run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and cover the “entertainment” side. Then, if you are so inclined, jump over on Tuesday and Thursday to my new blog, Sport Werks (sportswerks.blogspot.com) and look for new content there on those days. Sorry if this caused any confusion, but it seems to make more sense, not to mention having two blogs rather than one can be fiscally beneficial as well.  Now, let’s get something at least semi-interesting done today, shall we?

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I want to talk about a topic very near and dear to my heart…zombies.  Always a horror movie fan, I was pretty middle-of-the-road about the undead as movie subject matter early on. Give me a good monster or alien any day over the traditional vampire/werewolf/slasher/zombie fare. Films like A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Thing, The Fly, and the first two Aliens flicks were the kind of stuff that scared the bejesus out of me when I was younger, and I loved it. The 90’s and early 00’s had some great horror films, regardless of the genre. Y’know, stuff like Scream, The Silence of the Lambs, The Blair Witch Project, Jeepers Creepers, and The Ring (save your crap about your Ringus and Ju-Ons please, I know, I know), but it wasn’t until 2002 when my horror movie life was forever changed. That’s when Danny Boyle dropped 28 Days Later out of nowhere, and my mind was officially blown.  Resident Evil followed shortly thereafter, and even though it had some issues, I was already zombie crazed enough that I loved it. Then came 2004, and Shaun of the Dead and the Dawn of the Dead remake cemented the genre as not only my favorite type of horror movie, but probably my favorite genre overall. Things have quieted down quite a bit since then, although 28 Weeks Later (2007) and Zombieland (2009) were great, great additions the zombie movie family from the past few years.

 Today we have, other than Netflix-fare zombie movies of varying quality, only AMC’s television series The Walking Dead to satisfy our zombie cravings (and even that’s between seasons!). However, that is about to change. World War Z, a 2006 novel by Max Brooks, is expected to begin filming sometime this year, four years after Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment acquired the rights.

 Pitt will star in the film, giving the zombie genre its first A-Lister (sorry Woody), but the more important thing here is the story the film will have to pull from. And WWZ is a truly badass one, if a little bit atypical. It’s told from the perspective of several survivors of a recent decade-long zombie “war”, in short interview-style stories. While it will require a bit of a deft hand to cobble these disparate pieces into a coherent movie, there are a few key sections of the book (the U.S. military confronting the zombies in Yonkers, New York comes to mind) that could make for amazing set pieces leading to an amazing moviegoing experience. It will be directed by Marc Forster, the director of Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction, and Quantum of Solace. Having seen only Monster’s Ball and Quantum of Solace I am probably not the leading authority on the man’s directorial skills, but I know that I enjoyed both those films and that both were well made. And I’ve read that the screenplay follows a sort of Children of Men-style tone, which seems about perfect for the subject matter. I am really looking forward to this one, and I will pray every night to the Baby Jesus that Forster, Pitt, and co. can pull this off.

 Thanks for coming by, as always. Make sure to check out Sport Werks for some(hopefully) fun sports talk, and be back here on Wednesday, as we get on the new schedule and probably talk music and whatever else comes to mind. Be good!