Movie Pairing - Food Shortage Creates Zombies

It's been about a month since the mainstream media has backed off a story that shocked the hell outta me. It was one of the first reports of a food shortage in the U.S. The big discount warehouse stores like Costco were limiting the amount of rice and cooking oil their customers could buy. While, the amount being limited was still huge, it's definitely a cause for alarm. People were beginning to horde some food staples, even if that group was still small the concern is still there.





More recently the food story has changed a bit. Biofuel production and research (because it uses corn) has been blamed for the shortages and, along with rising cost of fuel, food prices have gone up. The big story this Memorial Day weekend was... "It's going to cost you more to fire up the BBQ"

- "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" a.k.a. "Don't Open the Window" a.k.a. "The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue" (1974) -

This scenario reminded me of a movie I recently saw... "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie," or as it was called in the U.S. "Don't Open the Window." I was inspired to watch the movie after watching Edgar Wright's segment on Trailers from Hell.com (which surprisingly isn't there), about how this movie was sort of the inspiration for his "Grindhouse," "Don't" fake trailer. The movie is about two people who come across the living dead in a rural town in the U.K. Apparently the dead have been brought back to life because of a farming device that sends ultrasonic sound waves through the ground to work as a no-chemical pesticide. But the frequencies are waking up the dead and turning newborn babies into rage infested bundles of violence. While the dead may not walk again, this idea isn't so far fetched. With genetically modified crops and other advances in technology that messes with our food, is it so hard to believe that something could go wrong? I have a feeling the more desperate we become to find new food sources or enhance the amount of food crops produce... even new fuel sources, we will tend to overlook something that could possibly be detrimental to the human race. Maybe its not zombies, but it could be something less apparent that's waiting to eat our brains.

Go Speed Racer, Go!

-Speed Racer (2008)-

Speed Racer is seriously visual crack. It is one of the tightest movies I've seen in a while, despite all this nonsense about the movie being a dud. This movie is for fans of Speed Racer, people who love F-Zero, and kids. John Goodman is awesome as Pops Racer and Emile Hirsch is perfect as speed. It makes me want to go rent Alpha Dogs. I could do without Christina Ricci in the movie, she's just kind of there, although there's a scene where Speed and Trixie (Ricci) are talking all romantic like. The snappiness of the dialogue is awesome. It's like a clean Kevin Smith movie. The kid who plays Squirtle is perfect, and his interaction with Chim-Chim the monkey rocks. I sound like I'm rambling, but only because I saw this movie and was taken back to my childhood, although I only remember fragments of episodes. Speed Racer aired early weekday mornings as I was getting up to go to school, and I would just catch like maybe 15 minutes of it before I left.

And that's the problem with Speed Racer. Although the cartoon is amazing, nobody remembers it. Too much time has passed. And although the movie has been updated to introduce the series to a whole new set of viewers, the movie almost isn't gritty enough to make an impact. More little kids and comic/cartoon fans, have probably seen Iron Man already, and maybe made a return visit to the theaters. If Iron Man wasn't as good as people say it was, people would pack the theaters for this movie.

Marketing for this movie kind of fell flat too. The promos that I saw weren't nearly as badass as this film was. The art direction was amazing ... it was seriously like taking a hallucinogenic drug (assumption). I'm trying to be vague in this review, because I don't want to give anything away. Here's the quick summary.

Speed Racer is trying to win a race that killed his brother Rex in order to take down corporate powers that are corrupting the sport. He has a fancy car (the Mach 6) built by his family and equipped with special defensive tools to help protect him against the dirty and corrupt drivers that will stop at nothing to win.

On a scale from 1 - 5 I give this PG rated Family movie a ... 4

Movie Pairing - Maniac Cops

It's like pairing a fine wine to a delicious dinner, except today we're talking about police brutality.

Below is the video of Pennsylvania police officers beating the crap out of three shooting suspects after a car chase. Tensions were no doubt high, a fellow officer had been shot and killed several days before the beating. From what the police say, the suspects had the potential to be cold blooded killers. That's why they beat them for like 7 minutes straight right?




-Maniac Cop (1988)-

Now, this got me thinking of one of the great 80's B-Thriller movies, "Maniac Cop." The title pretty much speaks for itself. It's about a vigillante cop who is wronged by the system he was meant to serve and protect. So now instead of killing bad guys, he kills everyone! It stars the creepy looking Robert Z'Dar, "Evil Dead's" Bruce Campbell, and badass Tom Atkins. The creepiest thing about this DVD is the interview with Robert Z'Dar (who has a new hip by the way, so if you're casting...). Z'Dar says cops come up to him all the time and say they wish they could do what he does in this movie. All he does is kill the shit out of innocent people. Maybe Z'Dar was talking out his ass, but if that's true that's scary as hell.
The real officers in the video above were beating shooting SUSPECTS after a car chase. While, the SUSPECTS may have been a threat, aren't they still innocent until proven guilty? Personally, I think they deserved a little beating for the chase alone, but not the beating they were given. Kick 'em, Punch 'em, then handcuff 'em.

As for Maniac Cop ... You have the right to remain silent ... forever!

DVD Deal of the week

OMFG! I'm at Best Buy the James Bond collection volumes 1-4 are on sale for 25 bucks each. That's the entire collection for 100 bucks! (not counting casino royale) I just saved myself 130 dollars, cuz the entire collection box set is $230.
By the way I'm using my cellphone to type this entry. So if it's formatted weird, that's why

-Mario

Welcome!

Welcome to Movies con Pollo. It's like Arroz con Pollo except with movies because of the looming rice shortage. I hope to use this "blog" as a forum for me to get out some of the stupid and possibly insightful shit that gets stuck in my brain. I don't really have a goal with this thing ... It's just kinda self-serving. We'll see... Thanks for stopping by.

- The Haunting (1963)-

Here's what I plan to watch today... The original 1963 version of "The Haunting." It's one of my favorite horror movies, and probably the best "G" rated one at that. The story is great, atmosphere is spooky, the tension level is on point, and the film still translates into today's world. It's like a trip to the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, and that's what I love about this flick. It's innocent and scary at the same time.
Here's the trailer.