Daily Archives: August 25, 2012

iPhoneography: Zombie Walk

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Really, who doesn’t love a good zombie parade?

Today’s Zombie Walk in Muncie – sponsored by local groups to benefit Second Harvest Food Bank and Animal Rescue Fund (ARF) – was held around the Ball State University campus.

Several dozen people turned out for what was rather a brisk Zombie Walk. It was a lot of fun and made for good iPhone pictures.

There was a medical theme to some of the zombies. I saw at least one in surgical garb and this patient, complete with IV.

Zombie Jesus or Zombie Russell Brand? You decide.

Zombie Bandana Guy was properly freaky.

Some charming zombies ladies in dresses. I’m a fashion know-nothing. Are these supposed to be out-of-date old lady zombies?

You think you have problems, all you zombies out there. This zombie had two heads. TWO HEADS! Yet she seemed relatively upbeat.

This photo doesn’t properly show it off, but this zombie had a drooping eyeball. Great makeup.

If you’ve got zombies, you need some paramilitary human presence. Goes without saying.

You can tell the zombie kid to the left is thinking, “What’s the deal with the guy in the red bodysuit? I thought this was a zombie walk.”

The organizers put a green screen near the end and asked zombies to pass in front of it. Made for some great closeup pics.

This kid was totally into it.

Zombie Blues Brothers. They’re on a mission from God.

TV: What I’m watching, given up on and looking forward to

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When I was a kid, besides going back to school and the run-up to Halloween, this time of year was a big deal for me because of the new fall TV season.

Yes, I was a TV geek.

I eagerly anticipated the fall season, which usually had at least one or two shows that I wanted to see. Besides, who could guess just how great “The Night Stalker” or “Planet of the Apes” (the TV series) might make the fall of 1974?

There’s less anticipation about the fall TV season nowadays because the TV year is so fractured – worthwhile series debut throughout the calendar year – and, speaking only for myself, I watch less TV.

Because I watch less TV, I try to make every random hour and half-hour count.

So here’s what I’m watching right now as well as what I’m anticipating, what I’ve given up on and what I’m worried about.

“Copper” is a BBC America series – the channel’s first original production – that just debuted last Sunday. It’s about cops in New York City in 1864. The city was a lawless place, full of casual cruelty to children and others who couldn’t defend themselves, and the police department wasn’t much better. Into the mix comes Kevin Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones), an Irish-American veteran of the Civil War who has come back to the city to find his wife missing and his child dead. The series, which has a nice gritty tone, follows Corcoran as he investigates crimes – the murder of a child prostitute in the first episodes, for example – and patrols the grimy streets and brothels of the city.

“Justified” is returning for a fourth season sometime in early 2013 and it’s likely that our favorite Kentucky-born-and-bred U.S. marshal, Raylan Givens, and his longtime friend and sometimes antagonist, Boyd Crowder, will find themselves up against some new lowlife. Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins lead a great cast.

We don’t have to wait until next year to see “The Walking Dead.” The AMC series returns on Oct. 14 for its third season. The series will be split between the prison the survivors were near in the final episode of last season and the town of Woodbury, presided over by the Governor. The first eight episodes air this year, with eight more beginning in February.

I’m not sure when “Mad Men” and “Falling Skies” will be back – hopefully early in 2013 – but I’ll be watching the two very different series. Both came off solid seasons this year.

Few series have been as enjoyable in the past three years as NBC’s “Community,” an odd and offbeat show about a group of misfits who become friends in a study group at a second-rate community college. But I’m worried about “Community” this year after the departure of creator Dan Harmon. By most accounts a genius with people skills issues, Harmon got fired at the end of last season. The cast is great and the stories – complete with blanket forts, paintball apocalypses and genuinely nice character moments – are wonderful. But can the show survive without Harmon? Or will it become another kooky sitcom like “Scrubs?”

I’m not sure I’ll be around for a second season of “Longmire,” the A&E series based on Craig Johnson’s enjoyable series of mystery novels about a Wyoming sheriff. The show looked pretty good and the cast was fine, but the mysteries were mediocre. When the show did take a page from one of Johnson’s stories, as it did in the season finale, it didn’t bring the author’s charms.

I’m not sure I’m looking forward to anything on TV quite as much as a live-action Marvel Comics series set in the “Avengers” movie universe. Luke Cage? Daredevil? S.H.I.E.L.D? Where will creative genius and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” mastermind Joss Whedon take this series? Wherever it is, I’m following.

The best part about TV is that, in any given season, some really terrific show can suddenly appear and make you glad you gave it a try. I’ve felt that way about every show on this list at one time or another.

The essential geek library: ‘Cult Movies’ by Danny Peary

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Back in the old days, everything you wanted to know about movies and TV shows and comic books – their makers, their history, their detractors, their weird variations – wasn’t available for perusal at the click of a mouse.

No, children, we had books back then, and they were wonderful resources.

For a few decades, I amassed a collection of books about movies and TV and comics. They were my encyclopedias, my Bibles. I read and re-read them, memorizing facts and committing the photographs to memory.

So I thought I would occasionally mention some of these books here for you. Maybe you’ve got your own copies. Maybe you can find them in used bookstores or on Amazon. Maybe some will still be in print.

Danny Peary’s “Cult Movies” is a good place to start. Published in 1981 and subtitled “The Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird and the Wonderful,” Peary’s book lives up to its name. The dozens of movies he writes about in the first book (three volumes total were published) range from beloved classics like “The Wizard of Oz” to still-at-the-time controversial films like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” to “2001” to “Vertigo.”

Peary devotes three or four pages to each movie. He lists the cast and key creative positions and gives a synopsis. He then goes into detail about what made the movies cult films.

Peary tells how director George Romero made “Night of the Living Dead,” from its hardscrabble production to its difficult distribution to its reception by audiences and critics.

He has real insight into the movies he covers.

“Pessimistic and unsentimental, ‘Living Dead’ is so effective because it is totally without pretension,” he notes. “It works on basic fears: unrelenting terror, monsters, darkness, claustrophobia. ‘Aliens’ attack us on American soil; protectors, even blood relations, turn on one another.” He notes how the black and white photography, a side effect of its low budget, made it more effective in some ways (anyone see the recent black-and-white presentation of the pilot for “The Walking Dead?”) but worked against it (Columbia Pictures wouldn’t distribute the film because it wasn’t in color) in others.

Peary, who is still actively writing, although not books about movies, brings the right amounts of reverence and criticism to these great but oddball movies. He and his books are what every modern-day movie and pop culture blogger aspires to be.