Cinema Outcasts » Original

Dawn of the Dead

joseph — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:49:17 +0000

There’s a reason George Romero is the only director of zombie films that has name recognition, aside from the fact that he invented the genre. He takes the fun of zombies seriously, while simultaneously having some fun with serious philosophical questions that arise in a zombie apocalypse. When one of the protagonists says of the undead “they are us,” one is forced to ask “what is the difference between hoards of zombies storming into a shopping mall, and the living human beings who do the same thing?” The answer, represented in the movie in the form of helicopter ascending beyond a strange horizon, is this: potentiality.

Battle Royale

lefrenchie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:53:24 +0000

Welcome to the dark world of tomorrow, where the Japanese government proclaimed the Battle Royale Act, which is a Life lesson taught to high school seniors; every year a class is taken on a deserted island, and each student needs to survive by killing his classmates, and staying alive. This premise is probably the most sadistic yet brilliant fable of what the world has in store for us… If being in high school was bad enough, this tops it all: it’s time to see the true nature of relationships between classmates, and to settle old rivalries. Brilliantly executed film, with an exquisite Takeshi “Beat” Kitano as the class professor; this movie is really a delectable gore fest, with a cynical sense of humor that not anyone can enjoy.

Planet of the Apes

lefrenchie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:34:27 +0000

Movies that stand the test of times are a rarity, it’s even truer with science‐fiction movie, but the Charlton Heston timeless masterpiece is a different breed of a movie; despite spawning a slur of sequels, and spin off tv shows; the original Planet of the Apes, got stuck in popular culture thanks to a brilliant final plot twist photographed with brilliance, with imagery that is printed in the collective consciousness.
Under the simple premise of an astronaut crash landing on a planet where man is the animal and the ape is the dominant specie, lays a philosophical fable about human society, from the futility of war to racism, with a hint about the debate over evolution. The movie is filled with themes and ideas, that forty years later still resonate, and are still as valid now as they were then.