Month: May 2008

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Diary of the Dead’

Forty years after the revolution in low-budget nightmare splatter that was Night of the Living Dead, it’s worth remembering that that film’s garish power, apart from the sheer, outrageous, who will be the next to get chomped? insanity of its violence, arose out of the scary elusiveness of what it said about America. There was no exact correlation between the attack of flesh-hungry zombies—and the attack on them (”Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul!”)—and the horrors of Vietnam or the general late-60s breakdown. The metaphor was there, but it was ominously free-floating.

Contrast that with Diary of the Dead, in which Romero has the dead rising up for the umpteenth time, this time chowing down on a new generation of human meat. The opening sequence, in which a local news report gets turned into an eyewitness slaughterhouse on the street, is vintage Romero: explosive, funny, bristling with dementia. But the half-dozen college kids who scurry, by van, from one location to the next (abandoned hospital, Amish farm, rich kid’s mansion), fleeing the zombies at every turn, aren’t too much different from the Abercrombie & Fitch ciphers of Cloverfield. Here, as well, we track the characters through one kid’s shaky camcorder, a trendy device that has never worked as effortlessly as it did in The Blair Witch Project. There’s a great deal of babble about how images of the zombies are being taped, all over the world, on personal cameras and shown on the Internet. The film keeps telling us that we’ve become a society of passive voyeurs, hiding behind our technology. (We’re the real zombies, get it?) But the message is far from fresh, and you didn’t have to pretend Cloverfield was making a statement. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Diary of the Dead’

Ask Dr. Snee: A pregnant pause

What lurks below?Dear Dr. Snee,

I have a 12-year-old son who has recently started spending a lot of time in the bathroom. A lot of time. When I ask him what he’s doing, he refuses to look me in the eye and says that he “was just, you know, going to the bathroom.” As a mother, I’d like to believe him, but what kind of kid goes to the bathroom three times in one hour?! What should I do?

–Potty-pooper

12-years-old, eh? Inordinate amount of time in the bathroom, you say? No complete sentences in this medical advice column yet? Continue reading Ask Dr. Snee: A pregnant pause

You Missed It: We’ll all float on edition

Welcome to the end of May. Coincidentally, it also happens to be yours truly’s birthday. Please, hold your applause. If you were busy landing on another planet this week, odds are you missed it.

Balloon designed to float really high does so
French skydiver Michael Fournier was probably a little frustrated when he watched his balloon float away with his hopes of breaking a record on Tuesday. He had planned to break the world record for highest skydive, but then the balloon came untethered and floated away accidentally before Fournier could even get in, much less jump. France promptly surrendered.

Pressed secretary
Former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan released a book this week that raised some eyebrows in Washington. McClellan said national security advisers in the Bush administration served the president very poorly leading up to and going into the war in Iraq. He charges the administration of spinning important intelligence and intentionally leaking classified information. These and other revelations can be found in McClellan’s book, Things I Probably Should Have Told You Five Years Ago.

‘Nsync creator now ‘Njail
Ron Perlman, former manager of 90s boy bands ‘Nsync and the Backstreet Boys, was sentenced to 25 years in a federal prison, after being convicted of conspiracy, money laundering and other charges. Prosecutors said he swindled more than $200 million from investors through his business, which began in the 80s. Noticeably missing from the list of charges: crimes against humanity for getting those stupid songs stuck in our heads for years.

Undiscovered tribe found in Brazil
An “uncontacted tribe” was found and photographed by helicopter in a remote part of the Amazon rain forest. The Indians are pictured looking in confusion at the aircraft and even pointing bows and arrows at it. A nonprofit group said there are around 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide. The photographers celebrated the find by dropping iPhones, teen magazines and smallpox down to the natives.

Burmese embassy just like 60s Mick Jagger

What? It's, like, totally the same thing. Panty, panty. In one of the strangest protest ideas ever seen, a group in Quebec is asking women all over the world to send their panties to Burma to pressure the government towards democratic reforms—which will be effective since apparently Burma’s military leaders are superstitious enough to believe that “contact with women’s underwear will sap them of their power.” This is actually like the opposite of a kooky fetish.

Human rights activists say the leaders believe that contact with women’s underwear will sap them of their power.

Let me repeat that again:

Human rights activists say the leaders believe that contact with women’s underwear will sap them of their power.

This is a strange, strange world we live in.

Police celebrate woman’s coming out party with trespassing charges

There is in the closet and then there is in the closet.

One Japanese woman was charged with trespassing after she was found in the closet of a man’s home. The only thing is, she wasn’t just passing through and wanted to see how much storage the house had, allegedly she had been living in the man’s closet for over a year. The man began to get suspicious after food kept disappearing from his kitchen.

This led the man to buy a home security system, which detected movement inside the house, but when police arrived, they found all the doors and windows were locked. The woman was found when they searched the whole house.

How To: Beat addiction

So, if you followed last week’s How To, you got your band back together. How’s it going? Oh, you say your big reunion tour’s over already? That’s OK, because every band goes through a couple of false starts before the big reunion (see: every Van Halen attempt to reunite with Diamond Dave).

But before that happens, it’s time to evaluate what went wrong. Just like any breakup, we’ll bet dollars to donuts that it failed for the same reason that led to your first breakup: addiction. Also, you should probably change your socks.

The Guys love you very much, but we hate to see you hurting yourself. That’s why we’ve written this intervention: how to beat addiction. Continue reading How To: Beat addiction

That’s not water in his gun …

Now that's just going to stain. But boy, is he ever happy to see you!

Many times in life, there are some people who are simply so crazy that they’re legends in their own rights; however, the Kikkoman Gunman, has gone above and beyond in the war against unsuspecting school girls.

Kenichi Ogawa, 22 years of age, was arrested on assault charges. Our new vigilante hero filled water-guns with soy sauce, and then got his squirt on to “blow off steam.” Creeeeepy.

Several high school girls in Maebashi had been attacked in similar incidents this month, so they’re looking into a possible connection (because clearly, there are so many regular incidents involving soy sauce being shot onto women in Japan-actually, on second thought … ). Authorities are accusing Ogawa of getting on his motorcycle and shooting a 17-year-old schoolgirl in the back with his sauce gun. The report says that the back of her uniform was left covered in soy sauce.

A hit and run involving soy sauce and water-guns. Never in my life would I have ever expected to live to see that. I think I’m touched by the story, and not in the “bad Uncle George” kind of way.

Prepare yourself … for morning terror!

Look, we’re sure you’re having a nice, run-of-the-mill morning, so we feel the need to warn you before just launching into this story. The last thing we want is to be responsible for countless asthma and heart attacks — and possibly some emergency pants-changes — around the world.

So, let’s take a deep breath … hold it … OK, and release.

One more time: deeeeeeeep breath … hold it … think of a warm spring meadow … and release.

Are you in your happy place? Good.

MONKEYS HAVE LEARNED TO CONTROL ROBOTS WITH THEIR MINDS! THE END IS NIGH! REPENT! REEEEEEEEEPEEEEEEEEEEEENT!

The Catholic Church locked in battle with zombies

Anyone who has ever been to Toledo, Spain knows that the city is littered with zombies, or as the locals call them “el zombieos.”

But after all this time, only now has the Catholic Church caught up on this danger to humanity. A parade featuring zombies, ghosts and other scary creatures has been deemed a blaspheme. The world media would have you believe that it was just some local actors parading down the street to mock the local celebration of Corpus Christi, a Catholic holiday, but we know better.

Sure, Reuters. Sure, it was just some actors dressed up and bent on offending the Church. That makes far more sense than the fact that it was a bold statement of power on the zombies’ part and only the pulpit sees fit to fight it, as it has so many other evils. Open your eyes!