31 Days of Horror Movies: Dead Alive

I'm at a bit of a loss to adequately describe today's film, so I'll just dive right in and hope for the best.

Dead Alive (aka Braindead)

It is the case that an artist's work before they become big-time Hollywood movers & shakers is often some of their best work (or at least their most unique). Such is the case with director Peter Jackson. A good decade before he became a household name with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson helmed one of the quirkiest and most bizarre horror movies I've ever seen.

Dead Alive centers around Lionel, a grown man living at home with his overbearing mom. Lionel falls for a nice young lady and, in one of the first of many strange occurrences, the mother is bit by a Sumatran rat-monkey. This causes her to fall ill and die, then come back as a zombie. Lionel is unable to prevent his undead mother from infecting a number of townsfolk. Soon, there is a hilarious (yes, hilarious) outbreak of zombies.

Much of Dead Alive's humor is derived from its blood and gore. Unlike the more recent, sadistic efforts of Saw and Hostel, this twenty-year-old gem manages somehow to make its bloodiness amusing. It's an extremely gross, and extremely funny movie. It was a blast to watch but, honestly, I'm not sure I'm ready to view it again, at least for awhile.

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Yesterday's Restaurants

The local newspaper has a feature from one of Champaign-Urbana's most legendary restaurateur's, John Katsinas, on what his favorite area restaurants were that have now since closed (or will soon be closing). It's a nice little read, and has made me stop and think about the restaurants that have come and gone that have left an indelible (and edible) impression on me throughout the years. Here we go....

To the beat of his own Drum

Tonight I learned that Kevin Drum has died. He passed away on Friday, March 7th, from Multiple Myeloma (the same illness that took my uncle Paul several years ago). Drum's diagnosis came in 2014, and he talked about it openly on his blog , up to and including just a few days before his death. I knew of Kevin Drum through his blogging. During the early aughts, when I started to become more politically aware and involved, I began reading certain online musings by folks -- Andrew Sullivan and, on a local level, IlliniPundit, to name a couple. Drum's blog at that time was Calpundit . Eventually, he began blogging at Mother Jones . When they parted ways, he started what would be his final online venture. So, yeah, I've been reading Kevin's musings for over twenty years.

Watching The Hours

A Twitter friend named Paula has asked for folks to submit ideas for a blog-a-thon about what we think will be the classic films of the future. In other words, what relatively recent movies (namely, from the 21st century), do we think will be considered classics in the decades to come, possibly airing on such venerable stations as Turner Classic Movies ? While a number of films come to mind for such a category, one in particular stood out from the rest, and thus is my entry for Paula's blog-a-thon.

Left to my own devices

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