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What?!! This Column!?? 4.07.08: Issue #103
I saw George A. Romero’s “Diary of the Dead” and it rocked!
What?!! This Column!?? Issue #103: I saw George A. Romero’s “Diary of the Dead” and it rocked!
As regular readers of this column no doubt remember, two issues ago I expressed outrage over the scant two day, four showing release of George A. Romero’s latest zombie flick “Diary of the Dead” in my hometown. As I said then, this was no way to treat the zombie horror master’s newest effort. Hadn’t Romero earned at least a week long engagement not just where I live but all around the country, a wider release than just the big cities?
Well, one week later, my hometown was given another, bigger chance to see “Diary.” My hometown was given a full week, with two showings a day, one a matinee. I’m going to assume this happened because the showings the first weekend were packed and Regal Cinemas, my local theatre monopoly, figured they could make even more money with more showings. Not that many more (it’s not like “Diary of the Dead” is a remake of a Japanese horror movie. The Weinsteins would have had “Diary” on 4,000 screens), but at least more people would have a chance to see it.
So, I finally got to see “Diary of the Dead.” And like the title of this issue says, it rocked. It’s certainly not a perfect movie, nor is it Romero’s best movie, but it’s way better than any of the other recent zombie movies that have come out. And like all of Romero’s movies, even the bad ones like “Brusier,” it’s just too interesting to ignore. I really would have preferred to see a straight up sequel to “Land of the Dead” (I just want to see where Riley Bumpo and the gang of the Dead Reckoning went after Union Town), but Romero doesn’t seem to want to get bigger with his movies (he’s always saying he’d rather “bet at the two dollar window” than make a $100 million studio movie) and I’d imagine that the proposed “Road of the Dead” or “World of the Dead” or whatever the heck he was going to call it would be a gigantic movie. But, hey, as long as he’s still out there making stuff, even if it’s cheap as heck stuff, it’s okay with me.

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