December 31, 2007
Now I could say that I was trying to find out if anyone was paying attention to explain why I wrote "Sinclair Lewis" for "Upton Sinclair" in that last posting, especially since the right name was staring me right in the face with the illustration from the book cover. But, no. It's yet another manifestation of a kind of name dyslexia that I, and, or so they tell me, no doubt to make me feel better, other people in this business suffer from. It is not the first time it has happened (you might recall that "Emma Watts" put in an understated but powerful performance in "Eastern Promises") nor, likely, the last. So my thanks to "Peter P." for calling this to my attention.
December 28, 2007
Say what you will, good or
bad , about Paul Thomas Anderson’s
“There Will Be Blood,” it at least has the positive effect of reawkening
interest in Sinclair Lewis’s [or Upton Sinclair's, as my non-addled mind now recognizes] largely forgotten 1927 novel, “Oil!” I don’t think many film critics,
though, have been drawn to read the 500+ page opus. Certainly I wasn’t; my only
previous exposure to Sinclair was the junior high compulsory summer reading of “The Jungle,” which, except for the part where
the guy falls into the meat vat, I found pretty dry and pedantic.
Inspired, however, by the example of my colleague, “Herald" critic
James Verniere, I dipped into the edition conveniently provided by Miramax Pictures and was hooked. It’s funny, sexy, exciting and surprisingly
unpolemical and even-handed. The hero, J. Arnold Ross, called Daniel Plainview
in the movie and depicted as a glorious grotesque and the epitome of ruthless,
malignant greed by Daniel Day-Lewis, is here an entirely sympathetic character, a
“brick” who just happens to end up on the wrong side of the labor/capital
dispute and the Teapot Dome scandal.
But the hero of the story is his son, the unfortunately monickered
“Bunny,” in the movie called H.W. and a relatively minor character. He’s an
early twentieth century Candide getting an increasingly unsentimental education
into the ways of power and responsibility. But what’s most intriguing, if not
demoralizing, about the story is that its chronicle of evil deeds and folly is
identical to the same litany in the present day — oil companies buying the
presidency, foreign misadventures in the interest of corporations, a
morally and artistically bankrupt Hollywood,
a pathetically toadying news media. Throw in some cell phones and the CIA and
it could have sprung from today’s headlines -- if the people writing them were
still interested in headlining such things.
December 24, 2007
A few years back a perhaps over-generous local film critic
used to bug the crap out of his colleagues, myself included, by padding his “Ten
Best” list with “ties.” It got so we used to joke, somewhat mean-spiritedly, “so
and so’s ten best list this year only has 14 movies. What happened?” Very
petty. Why should we care?
I pondered this question again this Sunday after reading the “New York Times” critics “Ten Best”
lists. They made so-and-so look like a piker. Only Stephen Holden of their trio
of regulars stuck to the traditional ten. The other two didn’t even bother with
the euphemism of “ties.” A.O. Scott in a story titled “Stopping at Ten Just
Seems Wrong” didn’t
stop until he reached 19 and then threw in nine more “Honorable Mentions.” Manohla
Dargis trumped him with 24 but
drew the line at the “Honorable Mentions.” It reminded me of summer camp where
everybody ends up with a trophy.
So why do I think it seems wrong not to stop at 10? It is, after all, an arbitrary number. But then
again, all rules and measures are arbitrary. The problem with extending the
number of “best films” indefinitely is that it allows the critics to hedge
their bets. Believe it or not, there is a big difference between “4 Months,
Three Weeks and Two Days,” between “Into the Wild” and “The Diving Bell and the
Butterfly.” Aesthetic differences, and sometimes ideological ones. I have no
doubt someone can be equally enthusiastic for them all, just as Mitt Romney can
be for and against abortion.
One of the chief values of a ten best list is that it puts a
critic on the line, forces him or her to define and assert his or her taste and
standards. It makes us judge, and so be open to the judgment of others.
And that’s my bah humbug of the day.
December 21, 2007
Big surprise: the Screen Actors Guild would give four
nominations
to a scenery chewing (and spewing) film about a safe political topic directed
by a pompously outspoken actor in an election year. Makes for good awards
ceremony drama and fine thespian self congratulation.
But back to the opinions that matter, part II in the Boston
Phoenix critics best, worst and most overrated lists:
Gary Susman's Top 10 Movies of 2007
1.Ratatouille
2.Once
3.Juno
4.Eastern Promises
5.Waitress
6.Gone Baby Gone
7.No End in Sight
8.3:10 to Yuma
9.The Lives of Others
10.No Country for Old Men
Honorable Mention:
Into the Wild
"Hotel Chevalier"
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Zodiac
Away From Her
Chris Wangler
1. Zodiac
2. Away From Her
3. This Is England
4. 12:08 East of Bucharest
5. The Wind That Shakes the Barley
6. The Hoax
7. Once
8. Rescue Dawn
9. The Bourne Ultimatum
10. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Most overrated:
1. Knocked Up. This film seemed to establish two
things: (a) the bar in comedy is being lowered to puerile, funnyordie-type
levels and (b) suddenly there's a massive disconnect between comedy and
reality.
2. Gone Baby Gone. Let's see, another film about Irish toughs and police
corruption in Boston?
Could we please identify another subject? Please!
3. Margot at the Wedding. Main story here: the director cast his wife.
Plus: (spoiler) no wedding!
4. Hotel Chevalier. An ingratiating downloadable short film, intended as
a "prequel" to to The Darjeeling Limited. Have DVD special
features migrated to the big screen?
5. Hot Fuzz. An SNL skit movie, supposedly funnier because it's British.
I'm not buying it.
Brett Michel
Year after year, I’m used to complaining how few good films
are released, so it was rather eye opening experience compiling this “Ten Best”
list; it was with some difficulty that I attempted to narrow the 2007 releases
to fit such an arbitrary target. This was a good year for the cinema! So, I
give you my picks for the 10 Best (and more of the rest):
1. Climates
2. Syndromes and a Century
3. Le scaphandre et
le papillon / The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
4. Once
5. There Will Be Blood
6. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
7. The Host
8. Linda Linda Linda
9. Michael Clayton
10. Superbad
Any of these next 10 choices could easily have fallen on the
list as well. The keen eye will notice three of these pictures come from that
newest cinematic hotbed, Romania.
Others will note that two of the films are 30 and 37 years, respectively, but
are only now finding American distribution for the first time. So, I give you
10 more, in alphabetical order:
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
The Killer of Sheep
No Country for Old Men
Persepolis
Kamigami no fukaki
yokubo / The Profound Desire of the Gods
Ratatouille
12:08 East of Bucharest
The Way I Spent the End of the World
Woman is the Future of Man
Why stop now? Special mention should also be made of the
following:
Blade Runner: The Final Cut, The Boss of It All, Brand Upon
the Brain, Eden, Gone Baby Gone, Hot Fuzz, I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, I’m Not
There, Into Great Silence, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Paprika, Red Road, Romance
& Cigarettes, Zodiac
Finally, with all the good, there must be some bad, right?
Oh my, yes. While there may have been worse films made this year, the following
films stand out because they each, in one way or another, contained the
participation of people who should have known better. (I’m talking to you,
Heather Matarazzo.) Some of the worst, in alphabetical order:
Angel-A, August Rush, Bee Movie, The Bucket List, Hostel:
Part II, I Know Who Killed Me, In the Valley of Elah, Juno, Lions for Lambs,
Perfect Stranger, Rendition, Shoot ‘Em Up, Shrek the Third, The Simpsons Movie,
Southland Tales, Spider-Man 3, Youth Without Youth.
Tom Meek’s second thoughts:
10 Honorable Mentions, that on any other day could replace
6-10 on my 10 Best List. Some were not initially considered as they were
technically not released in 2007, but got their Boston area release this year
(the excellent Asian films Linda
Linda Linda, The
Host and Woman is the Future of Man).
The Black Book
The Host
I’m Not There
Jindabyne
King of Kong
Linda Linda Linda
Margot at the Wedding
Once
Redacted
Woman is the Future of Man
Brooke Holgerson (showing a little bitterness perhaps
because all the movies I assigned to her were terrible. Nothing personal,
Brooke! My New Year’s resolution is to turn that around).
Here they are: the worst movies I saw this year. All thanks
to you.
1. Bratz: The Movie
Nothing could prepare me for this painful, painful display
of "girl power" - and shopping.
2. Good Luck Chuck
I don't know if I blame Dane Cook, or the thousands of
people out there who think he's funny for inflicting his movies on us. I think
I'll go ahead and blame everyone.
3. Alvin
and the Chipmunks
Remember when Jason Lee used to be cool? Yeah, me too.
4. The Bucket List
No, it's not as bad as Bratz: The Movie, but given the level
of talent involved, and the blatant Oscar pandering they indulge in, it's just
as disgusting.
5.Daddy Day Camp
Speaking of Oscars.... Cuba - what the hell? Eddie
Murphy's sloppy seconds? You're better than that. I want to believe you're
better than that.
Mark Bazer
Man, I don't know if I've seen enough in-theater movies this
year to compile a full top 10 list worth looking at.
How about this:
Mark Bazer, Parent of a Two-Year-Old
Top 5
1.Michael Clayton
2.Knocked Up
3.The Lives of Others
4.No Country for Old Men
5.I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
Bottom 5:
Dora the Explorer Saves the Mermaids
Dora the Explorer Saves the Mermaids
Dora the Explorer Saves the Mermaids
Dora the Explorer Saves the Mermaids
Dora the Explorer Saves the Mermaids
Happy holidays, all.
December 20, 2007
“Time” magazine’s Richard Corliss’s item “Do Film
Critics Know Anything?” is
the latest in whines from critics about how critics don’t know anything about
what people really like (ie: movies with promotion budgets above $50 million
opening in 5,000 theaters). One might well wonder if “Time” knows anything,
having named Vladimir Putin their “Man of the Year” for restoring “stability,”
presumably by removing such rowdy elements as the right to dissent and a free
press. Be that as it may, I think every respectable film critic should at least
know what he or she likes, doesn’t like and the reasons why and should be able
to communicate that knowledge to a reader. As such we at the Phoenix have some of the knowingest critics
around, and since we don’t have space in the paper to print their ten best (and
some worst) lists here are some:
Michael Atkinson
1. Syndromes and a Century
Thailand’s
great, mysterious, life-affirming, diptych-entranced, meta-meta-man Apichatpong
Weerasethakul does it again, twice, or maybe more, while seeming to do nearly
nothing at all. A dream had by us all, and just as maddening and gorgeous.
2. Once
Who knows how long the heart-kneaded buzz from this beloved
greatest-musical-since-Demy may last, but in my seat it was an all-viscera
epiphany, and it’s made moviegoing since a little bloodless.
3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
The greatest of the Romanians so far, Christian Mungiu’s
patient knuckle-biter is at least 50% off-screen space and trauma; the
mercilessly suspense birthday dinner scene alone is more concisely conceived
and effective than any ten American films this year.
4. Half Moon
Northern Iran has supplanted the American West and the
Australian Outback as the globe’s most expressive road-movie topos, and Bahman
Ghobadi’s mythic Kurdish bus trip is simultaneously hilarious, magical-realist
and tragic.
5. There Will Be Blood
Didn’t see it coming – P.T. Anderson sheds his pretentious
snark-generation-ism for Upton Sinclair’s period saga of catapulting
capitalism, scene for prickly, crazy scene the most fascinating new American
film of the year.
6. Regular Lovers
May ‘68 awaited its definitive film portrait until the
arrival of Philippe Garrel’s impressionistic personal meditation, which
manifests the cataclysmic, liberating, and finally tragically disillusioned
emotional thrust of *resistance*, coupled with the electric sense of being 19,
sexually alive, responsibility-free, and ready to dope up and drop out, all of
it seeping out of this neglected three-hour epic like fragrance from a valley
of lilacs.
7. Killer of Sheep
Charles Burnett’s legended, much-hailed, rarely seen 1977
classic about being black and poor and spiritually unmoored in ‘70s L.A.
finally saw theaters, a full 17 years after it’d been an early choice for
national Film Registry canonization. It’s a ghost movie, returned to haunt us.
8. 12:08 East of Bucharest
Another Romanian, Corneliu Porumboiu’s deadpan comedy picks
at the scab of the 1989 revolution, revolviong around what must be the eloquent
and entertaining three-shot in recent cinema.
9. Los Muertos
Lisandro Alonso’s lovely, remarkably eloquent naturalist
odyssey tracks an aging convict as he is released in rural Argentina, and
heads upriver to find his daughter and grandson. Exposition is all but absent;
the focus is on the moment, the soothing re-establishment of intimacy with
nature, performed and captured in astonishing single takes.
10. Michael Clayton
Semi-hack screenwriter Tony Gilroy steps definitively into
the men’s club with this ethical torture device, thought-through and written
and acted with a startling concern for the sickening quotidian of power
culture.
Runners-Up, in order: The Host, No Country for Old Men, Lars
and the Real Girl, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Brand Upon the Brain!,
Czech Dream, 3:10 to Yuma, The Boss of It All, Zodiac, Lust, Caution, I Don’t
Want to Sleep Alone, Into Great Silence, The Lives of Others, Tears of the
Black Tiger, We Own the Night, Dans Paris, Broken English
Candidates for Bests and Runners-Up, Had They Been Released
Theatrically Instead of Going to DVD, which Should Qualify Them for Full
Consideration in Any Case, by This Point: Vibrator (Ryuichi Hiroki, 2003),
Pitfall (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1962), Five (Abbas Kiarostami, 2003), Green Chair
(Park Cheol-su, 2005), The Way I Spent the End of the World (Catalin Miltescu,
2006), The Castle (Michael Haneke, 1997), Quiet Flows the Don (Sergei
Gerasimov, 1957), Moscow Elegy (Alexander Sokurov, 1987), Black Test Car (Yasuo
Masumura, 1962), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (David Lee Fisher, 2005), Able
Edwards (Graham Robertson, 2004), The Call of Cthulhu (Andrew Leman, 2005),
Isolation (Billy O’Brien, 2005), Horrors of Malformed Men (Teruo Ishii, 1969),
Casshern (Kasuaki Kiriya, 2004), The District (Aron Gauder, 2004), I Am a S+M
Writer (Ryuichi Hiroki, 2000)
Tom Meek
Best
10. There Will Be Blood
9. Sweeney Todd
8. Zodiac
7. Atonement
6. 28 Weeks Later
5. Assassination of Jessie James
4. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
3. Away From Her
2. Diving Bell and the Butterfly
1. No Country for Old Men
Worst
5. Good Luck Chuck
4. P2
3. Revolver
2. Blood and Chocolate
1. Kickin’ It Old School
Chris Braiotta
Nearly mentioned: Ratatouille
If computer animation wasn't unavoidably ugly this could
have made the cut somewhere.
10: Superbad
9: The Host
8: Woman is the Future of Man
7: Grbavica
6: Blame it on Fidel
5: Hotel Harabati
4: Wristcutters
3: King of Kong
Two way tie for 1st
Iron
Island, and Monkey Warfare
Rob Nelson
1. Killer of Sheep
2. There Will Be Blood
3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
4. Bamako
5. Zodiac
6. Southland Tales
7. Paprika
8. Exterminating Angels
9. Beowulf (IMAX 3-D)
10. Away From Her
Peg Aloi
1. The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach's most
ambitious and stunning film to date)
2. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (A sensual, disturbing, epic story, based
on the acclaimed German novel, in grand style by Tom Tykwer)
3. Atonement (First rate performances and jaw-dropping cinematography bring to
life Ian McEwan's smoldering love story torn by the surreal horrors of war)
4. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel uses half-formed
visionscapes of color and light to tell the story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique
Bauby's stroke and loss of language)
5. Lady Chatterley (A French adaptation with refreshingly erotic love scenes
and appropriately rustic sensibility)
6. La Vie en Rose (Marion Cotillard is astonishing as the hard-living singing
sensation Edith Piaf)
7. I'm Not There (Todd Haynes' five-doored fantasy is huge, lush and eminently
watchable: my favorite Dylan is the Richard Gere Dylan)
8. Glastonbury
(Thirty years in the life of a constantly-changing music festival in the
English countryside)
9. Factory Girl (Siena Miller is luminous as Edie Sedgwick in this cock-eyed
biopic, but the real standout is Guy Pearce as the best Andy Warhol ever)
10. Hot Fuzz (Every corny cop movie ever made is referenced in Edgar
Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost's hilarious, brilliant action-horror
flick)
Honorable Mentions: The Case of the Grinning Cat, After the Wedding, Lynch(one)
more to come…
December 19, 2007
The “Juno backlash” notwithstanding, the film’s screenwriter (what happened to director Jason
Reitman, who was so cool last year with his smug and reactionary “Thank You For
Smoking?”), self-promotional wunderkind Diablo Cody has been institutionalized
as cinema cool by such cutting edge journals as "Entertainment Weekly,"
where she now has a blog, and
Criterion, at whose website she has decreed her ten
best selections from that august DVD distributor’s portfolio. Inevitably she has been referred to as “the
new Tarantino,”
a title the renowned foot fetishist and one-time filmmaker has himself yet to
earn. Finally, her film has made it cool again for other 16-year-olds like Britney Spears's
kid sister to get pregnant and have babies.
So what do I know? Didn’t the “Women’s Film Circle” declare
“Juno” the "Best Film About Women" and Cody the "Best Woman Storyteller" (they also
put "Gone Baby Gone" in their “Hall of Shame,” presumably because they missed the subtle moral complexity of Amy Ryan’s performance).
But for me one of the saddest aspects of the phenomenon is
that it detracts from the genuine accomplishments of other women filmmakers
this year. Like Sarah Polley and “Away From Her,” which has more authenticity
in a single close-up of Julie Christie than can be found in Cody’s entire
repertoire. Or Julie Delpy, who not only wrote, directed and starred in the
ruefully hilarious “2 Days in Paris,”
but composedthe music, did costumes and put her parents and cat in the cast. And
what about Adrienne Shelley for “Waitress?” She was murdered, for crying out loud. But I guess that’s not
as cool as working as a phone sex operator..
December 14, 2007
I was lead to believe that the growingsuccess of “Juno” might
be curtailed by its failure to take any awards from the first handful of
critics groups meetings, including Boston, Los Angeles and New
York. Fat chance. The tide turned when groups such as
the Broadcast Film Critics Association gave
it three nominations and the Hollywood Foreign Press (you know -- The Golden
Globes) did likewise and in the same categories: Best Film (in the latter
case, Comedy or Musical), Best Screenplay and Best Actress. So chances are it’s
going to fulfill its goal of being this year’s “Little Miss Sunshine,” the
bogus Indie that could.
Yes, the studios have learned to package that once proud rubric
“Indie” into their own winning formula (didn’t I already unload a long-winded
rant on this subject?). Maybe I’m a 
little harsh on a movie that is an
occasionally amusing, overwritten bit of disingenuous, manufactured sophmoric
twaddle. But I find myself for once agreeing wirth red-blooded “New York Post" critic Kyle Smith on calling the
Emperor’s New Clothes on this one. Film critics, that ever cool contingent of
mostly 40 plus socially inept fashion challenged Caucasian males (to which I
proudly belong) have bought into a carefully honed and marketed phony
hipsterism. Gee, so this is what it means to be young and on the cutting edge!
Well, not really. As Smith notes:
“…the hipster jive that dances across every page of this
script (that word is more applicable than story)–about a supercool teen
(Ellen Page) who discovers she’s pregnant and decides to have the baby but
give it up for adoption–stumbles a lot too. Would a 16-year-old girl really
drop references to ‘The Goonies’ and ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’? I
don’t know many 16-year-olds but I’m willing to bet Soupy Sales is not one
of their cultural reference points. Screenwriter Diablo Cody is billed as 28
but her references–‘boss,’ ‘rad’–sound suspiciously 38-ish; her Juno is also
curiously bereft of hip-hop and Web-based slang.
“That would matter less if the talk weren’t
the movie; the thin characters around Juno essentially exist
to either cluelessly absorb her barbs or fire back one-liners
that sound exactly like hers.”
Or rather, like the above mentioned screenwriter Cody Diablo, the
former Brook Busey-Hunt, whose dialogue is as overheated and false as the
stage name she took when she flirted with being a stripteaser. And
what a promotional goldmine that move turned out to be! What movie geek isn’t
having fantasies about her pole dancing?
And how many reviews and interviews have focused on that single item in her
resumé? Here’s a little experiment: type “Diablo Cody stripper” and “Diablo
Cody writer” into Google and see which gets the most entries (I got 59,000 for
“stripper;” 47,000 for “writer”).
No wonder Lou Lumenick, also of the “New York Post,” lamented when the
screenwriter of the moment failed to capture the New York Film Critics Circle
Award. “I do regret,” he writes in his blog,
“that erstwhile stripper Diablo Cody will not be joining us for the
awards on January 6. She sure had my vote.”
Well, Lou, maybe the actual winners Joel and Ethan Coen will accommodate you.
But wait, doesn’t “Juno” present a feminist alternative to the
traditionalist values about abortion implied in “Knocked Up?” Isn’t that hip? Maybe
people are confusing it with the Romanian film “Four Months, Three Weeks, and
Two Days,” or the comparatively edgy 1959
family melodrama “Blue Denim.”
Not so Cody. In an interview with "Variety," she says, "But wouldn't it be wonderful if
the pro-life crowd embraces this movie? It could be the new 'Passion of the
Christ,' and I'd really love to make that kind of money. ... Let's get all the
church groups and bus 'em in. Ten bucks a head."
Maybe she was being ironic. But with these hipsters, how can you
tell?
December 09, 2007
I've just finished cleaning up the coffee cups and discarded ballots from the
BSFC meeting and can share the results of the voting:
Best Picture: "No Country for Old Men"
Best Foreign Language Picture: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Best Documentary: "Crazy Love"
Best Director: Julian Schnabel ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly")
Best Actor: Frank Langella ("Starting out in the Evening").
Best Actress: Marion Cotillard ("La vie en rose")
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem ("No Country for Old Men")
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan ("Gone Baby Gone")
Best Ensemble: "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
Best Screenplay: Brad Bird ("Ratatouille")
Besty Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly")
Best New Filmmaker: Ben Affleck ("Gone Baby Gone")
Some observations
1. After "Gone Baby Gone" won Best Newcomer and Best Supporting Actress I could sense people getting nervous that we'd be seen as boosting the hometown team, especially after last year's "The Departed" showing. But I think it still deserved at least Best Ensemble.
2. No wins for the supposedly
hot contenders "Juno," "Into the Wild" or "The Kite Runner." Not that I'm complaining.
3. The meeting ended in time for the 4:15 p.m. kickoff of the Patriots-Steelers game.
December 07, 2007
The past week I’ve been “researching” a feature story I’m writing
on the “I Am Legend” mini-genre of Last Man on Earth flicks by watching
DVDs featuring plagues, cosmic
catastrophes, climactic disasters, devastating technological snafus, nuclear
warfare and, of course, rampaging zombies. I watched “Omega Man” again, with a
hip Charlton Heston, now senile NRA spokesman, blasting away at black-robed ghouls
with a tommy gun. What fun, and what a great guy to have around in a pinch.
Next I watched the remake of Robert Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” in
which heavily armed survivors hole up in a mall blasting away at the
undead out for their blood. I noted what a fetishistic filmmaker Zak Snyder is
(what’s with all these slow-motion, close-up shots of discharged cartridge
casings hitting the floor?) and how much the reptitious head shots look like a
video game. So I turned on CNN only to tune into a press conference with
authorities in Omaha, Nebraska
answering questions about the
19-year-old who went on a shooting rampage with an AK-47 in a local shopping
mall, killing eight innocent strangers before turning the gun on himself.
What an interesting coincidence, I thought. Then two things
occurred to me:
1. It won’t be long before blowhard pundits and opportunistic political
candidates dismiss liberal weenie arguments that the perp was a victim of a
dehumanizing child care system and
put the blame squarely where it belongs, on violent video games and movies like
“Dawn of the Dead.”
2. True, access to assault rifles and other lethal weaponry might
result in the occasional whack-job laying waste to a shopping mall or
university campus. But when the ravenous zombie hordes start coming your way,
you’ll thank God and Charlton Heston for your right to bear arms.