Ok, I enjoyed Masters Of Horror, But Do You Think Non-Duer's Got It?

I enjoyed tonight' Masters Of Horror, but did so because I know so much from DU.

As I was watching it though I kept being somewhat disappointed that there wasn't a whole lot more to it, as I thought there would be from the other threads. I mean, there were great lines in it, and called out some awesome things, but I think most of them would be lost on the average Joe watching who didn't know all of it to begin with.

There was talk about how this 1 hour show could be the catalyst for impeachment, and will be the talk of the town next week. I hope it is, but now that it is over I didn't get the sense that anyone other then us at DU (and the freepers in freeperville bitchin about it) are going to be talking about it.

Was I just expecting too much and am overreacting? Do you think it will have an awesome ripple effect? I truly hope so.

Oh, and that line at the end was awesome.

Hubby and I watched. I think its purpose was to anger, and it did that. All I could think of was how dare they send our guys to die for a lie.

There are many bretheren among us who are so hungry for some righteous change that we will grasp at anything so long as we can dream about no more Bush.

I thought for a one hour show it did a wonderful job on discussing why soldiers fight for their country, election fraud, media manipulation, the honor of the ones that we lose in war.

I think it was so good it will be attacked by the rightwing pundits in order to refute it.

and without a digital box, I can't get anything above channel 125.

It had humor, pathos,sarcasm, horror and decent acting

The blond anne coulter clone in the show even sounded like her in the way she pauses when she talks and gestures. Even her voice was almost dead on.

It was thought provoking even for joe six pack, he might not get the things we know about that were referenced in the show, but it would leave a lasting impression. The visual news cues were the same ones he watches on fox and cnn so I know it would effect him subliminally. DIE FOR A LIE was really clear and the ending was ironic, sad and humorous.
Have a friend tape it this weekend if you can.

I suspect it will be available on one of the internets shortly.

I missed it! Is it going to be on at any other time?

* Annie sets the Tivo

and should be off and on this weekend. It was outstanding I thought.

They are not DUers- they are in their seventies
and they got it.
They loved it.
My dad said he was "stunned" that they
aired it and hoped the FBI didn't show up
at his door for knowing someone who worked on it...
(My husband)
Heh-heh.
I LOVE it and am so proud that
husband man was part of it!
BHN

I guess I just thought they were gonna call out a lot more things leading up to the war. Show a lot more of the lies, the planning, the spin, the DSM, etc... I also thought they were gonna spend more than 5 seconds on the Ohio debacle. I thought there would be a Kerry character and don't know why the 2nd most major character was ann coulter. I also didn't like Cindy's son killing rove (as much fun as it was) as I didn't think it sent the right message. I also thought that a lot of the one liners we all cheered for would've gone right over the heads of most people as they came and went so quickly. There was nothing in Iraq or about Iraq, no torture, no white phosphorous. There was no real touching upon all the lies the admin told to sell us the war, or even any details. Just two or three lines of "war sold on lies", but nothing substantial behind it.

I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, I just think most average americans would just shrug it off for the most part unfortunately.

I thought it was well done and thought provoking. Kudos to the crew who made it.

I will pass your compliment along-
He will appreciate it for sure!
BHN

There were a couple of very difficult moments, the diner and the phone call. My husband came in and saw me crying and then I told him what it was all about so we will be watching it again in a hour and a half. Tell that hubby of yours, "Well done." :applause:

ALWAYS makes me cry.
Can you imagine how it will affect those
who have lost loved ones to this illegal war?
DAMN the BFEE to hell!
BHN

Because he is like a GOD TO ME :)

THIS WAS GODDAMN GOOD.. Tell him that TAKEBACKTHEMEDIA.COM is Goddam PROUD OF THIS, Piece a la resistance!

Tour de force!

PM me your address, I want to send your hubby a copy of my "Rove's War" film, I think he'd enjoy it, as our way of saying THANKS!

Subtle as a Jackhammer - yet without that fishy taste.. :)

He's got MY VOTE, and I'm a Veteran, Vietnam Era 71-74

"he did a heck of a job" and I mean that in the honest way it used to be meant.
kudos to your family and husband. for being part of it.



:) :) :toast: :pals: :patriot:

if we cannot see the dead, if we will not see the dead, and what they say about us, then the dead will make themselves be seen and heard. Great stuff.

I did see one of the clips of it on the website, which showed the opening scene at the cemetary. I swear that was influenced by the opening scenes of Night of the Living Dead.

there's even a nod to him at the end of the show.

However, your statement "I hope it is, but now that it is over I didn't get the sense that anyone other then us at DU (and the freepers in freeperville bitchin about it) are going to be talking about it."

It seems promising that the freepers in freeperville will bitch about it. It means it did make an impact. I will post my opinion when I see it.

impact a whole lot of people. It was hardly subtle.

It was kind of campy I think deliberately, like the old zombie movies of the fifties. I don't know if it will open closed minds though.

http://www.goldengryphon.com/resurrect-d&s.html

It's been around in that form for three years. Maybe we'll see where it goes.

media has not slammed the producer who made it. It hit home in a lot of ways. Fantastic.

I thought about the 14 families today, TODAY that had to get the news about their loved one. I thought about how the disabled vets have to hold on the lies of honor to keep their sanity. I thought that possibly only the dead would be honest about what they saw in the stupid war. I thought about how we anti-war people care about military member stationed so far away from home and so scared, no matter what they project.

I think you dismissed it and I doubt any viewer didn't feel the gut punch that I felt. It made this veteran feel heartbroken that this lying war began in the first place. The best line from the story, life is precious.

Not only unborn life, military lives too.

It absolutely hit me. But I didn't need the show to do that to me, as it already has hit me repeatedly, every single day.

But I was all hyped up to watch it, as if it was gonna be full of all the stuff we've been trying to expose, and be done in a really hard hitting in your face manner. I'm just saying I didn't feel it come off that way. I know for certain almost all at DU who watched it felt it, and thought it was great. But I think regular joe's watching it might've not even realized half of the points we were cheering. For example, the no cmaeras are allowed in here line. I bet 70% or more of regular people watching it didn't pay mind to it for a second as to what it meant.

Well it would be up to you to answer it, but are you a Veteran?

Might sound silly to you but as a Veteran and watching all the old solders have to rise out of Arlington to back up their dying brothers in Iraq touched me. It might sound abstract but I would wonder if any other veteran felt this way.

of Arlington as well, and again at the end.

That message got across. It got across powerfully. Anyone who voted for this war better start speaking up soon, that was the message.

What I mean by that is they didn't give any supporting evidence to the point whatsoever. Not one that I could think of. Not even the DSM (which the lack of reference to was shocking to me).

I dunno, I enjoyed it, but I just don't see it causing a huge ruckus where thousands of non-DU households across america right now are stewing and plotting how to take the government back, inspired by this special. When I first turned it on, I had my hopes up that it would be like that afterwards.

This program is not a research paper; it is not supposed to convince people with facts but be hard hitting satire to people generally in the know.

Like I'm saying I expected it to be like a research paper. :eyes:

I'm saying it was hard hitting to me, cause I'm already so aware of everything because of DU.

My thread, is to ask about whether those who haven't spent a day on DU in their lives would get nearly as much out of it as was hyped up in the other threads. I really have yet to see any posts making me feel better that I am being overly critical and it will have that affect for reasons a b and c.

We all like it, granted. But is joe shmoe down the street in his house right now thinking "holy shit, this is bullshit, we have to stop this war now! Thank god I caught this tonight, I am totally pissed now!"?

They were watching him on TV. The guy says he makes stupid people feel as smart as he is.

Yeh, something like this, gutwrenching anger, might reach it would not reach otherwise.

You are being too analytical of a horror movie, methinks. Let it rest. It got the point across....they were sent to die for a lie.

OhGiveMeABreak, I think the average person would understand the concept of the movie. If there are some out there that didn't, then no movie would turn on the mental light of understanding. IMO
Peace

Look at what Romero did in "Dawn of the Dead". That film was loaded with marxist commentary. If you were in the know, you got it. But even if you weren't, you found something...unsettling about it...something unsettling about the idea of you just being a zombie compelled to consume.

As long as this hit people in a visceral way, which, I think, it probably did, then it was an effective satire.

I mean that. I want so bad for more and more to motivate the masses.

for exposing the hypocrisy of the RW noise machine. A pastor and coulter-type who applaud zombie vets until they find out they're voting liberal. Priceless and accurate.

It came across. They got the message across.

We sent them to die for a damn lie. And the ones responsible better start doing something about it.

HEAR HEAR!!!!!!!! Now That I Whole Heartedly Agree With!!

:toast:

I think I missed 6 mins of it but I can make another tape if you want me to mail it.

Might want someone who has the full hour program. If you need it, just let me know.

character's car reads "BSH BABE" which kind of set the level of subtlety for the show (i.e., virtually none).

they even got the stolen election angle in there. the rove and hughes characters were awesome. its great to see anyone getting this stuff out there. only way to wake up the masses.

And I normally hate zombie movies. Got BitTorrent just for this, since I'm in college and don't get Showtime.

this one is particularly good. Show it to your friends, see what happens.

They mostly seem to be gratuitous gore and violence to me-add that to the fact that the whole "host of hard-to-drop cannibals" deal spooks the crap out of me and, well... I'll make an exception here since I like the concept, but the blanket rule still holds true.

I have read quotes from Romero's stuff on IMDB, since I've heard he intended them in part as social commentary, and in that regard they come over well, and the black humor got a few chuckles out of me. Still not going to watch 'em though, and I don't care how good they are.

P.S. One of my roomies is in the ROTC-his reaction to this will be...interesting to say the least.

As a 14 year old, it was my introduction to marxist thought. There are definitely shitty zombie movies out there, but the best have a well defined social commentary (i.e. "28 days later"). Keep us updated on your rotsie roommate's reaction.

FUCK THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION!!! BUSH FUCK YOU!

anything I would normally watch. Or would watch again. It was like a science fiction movie, night of the walking dead stuff. You would have to be a member of the choir to know what that song was.

But 911 before it sure stirred me enough again to almost throw my tv outside as long as I could imagine I was having the pleasure of throwing Bush out of my house with it.

to a larger world. Do you think a person not as politically aware as a DU-er would get it?

references. Art is all we have left.

We have to take everything we can get. But you sure wouldn't have to explain Farenheit 911.

ultimately F9/11 is propaganda, which puts people on guard. The beauty of Art and fiction is that it catches people off guard.

so watch this movie, Master of Horrors. I didnt even know what it was until I started watching it. I guess I was out of the loop on this one.

Zombie Freepers? :D

Yes, Dante is back in horror-satire mode, and this time he and screenwriter Sam Hamm (adapting the short story “Death and Suffrage” by Dale Bailey) are directly taking on a target that the rest of TV-drama-land and mainstream Hollywood has heretofore largely danced around. The result is as pointed, clever and blackly amusing as anything the genre has seen in ages, a perfect example of horror’s ability to address subjects too touchy to deal with in other genres. It also takes the political subtext of George A. Romero’s DEAD series and puts it right up in the forefront, without becoming preachy with its message. Dante and Hamm manage the tricky balancing act of shining a harsh light on current events without losing sight of the fact that they’re telling a horror story first and foremost.

Hamm’s script takes place in the near future, specifically 2008, when a certain Republican president is running for re-election and a war he duped the nation into fighting still rages on. The central characters are campaign consultant David Murch (Jon Tenney) and right-wing author Jane Cleaver (Thea Gill), who has written a popular book attacking the “radical left”—any resemblance to Ann Coulter is, uh, purely coincidental. After meeting on a dead-on parody of a issues-oriented talk show (Terry David Mulligan is perfect as the host), the two find themselves politically and romantically attracted—but their world is shaken up when the dead begin returning to life. Not all the deceased, mind you—just those who were killed in that particular overseas combat, and they’ve got a particular—pardon the pun—ax to grind. It’s an extrapolation of the Vietnam-era ghoul film DEATHDREAM to the nth degree—the image of the first revived corpse pushing his way out from under the Stars and Stripes that cover his casket is the most pointed and arresting image the genre has recently offered.

No more should be said about the plot particulars of HOMECOMING, which is packed with wonderful details and images—given a document to read, a zombie missing an eye puts on a pair of glasses with a shot-out lens. The way in which Dante and Hamm keep the story twists coming, never losing steam or running in place thematically or dramatically, is kind of breathtaking; every scene has a revelation or line of dialogue that adds new dimension to either the story or the satire. The actors (also including Dante regular Robert Picardo as a government scientist with a secret of his own) adopt just the right tone of straight-faced earnestness, selling every line and never winking at the camera. The behind-the-scenes craftspeople do a good job of substituting Vancouver locations for the D.C. area (this is also the most expansive-looking MASTERS yet), and Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger contribute undead makeups that get the points across (like that eyeless ghoul) without being showy.

As the film goes on and we learn more about the characters (particularly Murch), HOMECOMING’s antiwar message gains new levels of resonance, and it comes to a stirring and completely apt conclusion that perfectly ties up the assorted story threads. And even though horror fans are the species of television viewer least likely to be conservative, you don’t get a sense of preaching to the converted here; the writing and filmmaking are so sharp, even some red-staters might respond to the material. For the second year in a row, a satirical zombie project stacks up as the year’s best horror production; here’s hoping someone in Hollywood notices, and gives Dante a shot at a feature which will show off the skills that, on this evidence, are only becoming sharper with time.

http://www.fangoria.com/ghastly_review.php?id=5157


Zombie soldiers demand impeachment!

Call me a liberal pinko commie, but Homecoming, Joe Dante's installment of Showtime's Masters of Horror anthology, sounds amazing. Check the premise, courtesy of the Village Voice's Dennis Lim: "In an election year, dead veterans of the current conflict crawl out of their graves and stagger single-mindedly to voting booths so they can eject the president who sent them to fight a war sold on "horseshit and elbow grease.""

Lim, who goes on to call Homecoming "easily one of the most important political films of the Bush II era", saw the hour-long film at the Turin Film Festival, where it was met with a five-minute ovation. Dante, who spoke at the festival, has no intention of playing coy about his aims. "If you're going to code the message, which is the way horror movies have always done it, that's fine, but it's not going to reach an audience like a movie that's overt, and this is not exactly subtle," the director says.

Apparently not - though no one utters a certain four-letter proper name starting with B, based on Lim's description, Homecoming tosses thinly-veiled versions of Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, and Cindy Sheehan into the mix. Not all of it was intentional. "It was only when we started shooting that Cindy Sheehan emerged," Dante told Lim. "It was weird, because everybody said , 'Oh, you based that on Cindy Sheehan!' It was just a coincidence, but I guess it was inevitable that somebody like that would show up."

http://www.cinematical.com/2005/11/30/zombie-soldiers-demand-impeachment/



A horror movie brings out the zombie vote to protest Bush's war

The dizzying high point of Showtime's new Masters of Horror series, the hour-long Homecoming (which premieres December 2) is easily one of the most important political films of the Bush II era. With its only slightly caricatured right-wingers, the film nails the casual fraudulence and contortionist rhetoric that are the signatures of the Bush-Cheney administration. Its dutiful hero, presidential consultant David Murch (Jon Tenney), reports to a Karl Rove–like guru named Kurt Rand (Robert Picardo) and engages in kinky power fucks with attack-bitch pundit Jane Cleaver (Thea Gill), a blonde, leggy Ann Coulter proxy with a "No Sex for All" tank top and "BSH BABE" license plates. Murch's glib, duplicitous condescension is apparently what triggers the zombie uprising: Confronting an angry mother of a dead soldier on a news talk show, he tells this Cindy Sheehan figure, "If I had one wish . . . I would wish for your son to come back," so he could assure the country of the importance of the war. The boy does return, along with legions of fallen combatants, and they all beg to differ.

How fitting that the most pungent artistic response to a regime famed for its crass fear-mongering would be a cheap horror movie. Jaw-dropping in its sheer directness, Homecoming is a righteous blast of liberal-left fury (it was greeted with a five-minute ovation in Turin, the most vocal appreciation seeming to come from the American filmmakers and writers in attendance).

At once galvanic and cathartic, Dante's film uncorks the rage that despondent progressives promptly suppressed after last year's election and that has only recently been allowed to color mainstream coverage of presidential untruths and debacles. For all its broad, bludgeoning satire, Homecoming is deadly accurate in skewering the callousness and hypocrisy of the Bush White House and the spin industry in its orbit.

...

Dante and writer Sam Hamm ( Batman) adapted Homecoming from Dale Bailey's "Death and Suffrage," a 2002 short story that puts a morbidly literal spin on the idea of the dead being used to pad the Chicago voting roll. (The film also owes something to the low-budget 'Nam-era Dead of Night, in which a "Monkey's Paw" wish brings an undead veteran back to his family home.) Though Bush is never named, Homecoming tailors its provocative scenario to accommodate a devastatingly specific checklist of accusations, from the underreporting of war casualties to last November's dubious Ohio count. As if in defiance of the Pentagon's policy to ban photographs of dead soldiers' coffins, Dante's film shows not just the flag-draped caskets at Dover Air Force Base but their irate occupants bursting out of them. "There's a lot of powerful imagery in this movie that has nothing to do with me," Dante says. "When you see those coffins, which is a sight that's generally been withheld from us, there's a gravity to it. Even though there's comedy in the movie, there's something basically so serious and depressing about the subject that it never gets overwhelmed by satire."

In any case, as Homecoming suggests, there are ways in which the current administration is essentially beyond satire. The nuttiest attitudes the film ascribes to its ruthless Republicans are scarcely more extreme than anything Dick Cheney or Karl Rove has been credited with. "Have you seen Network lately? Everything has happened," Dante says. "And Arthur Hiller's The Hospital, which was also Paddy Chayefsky. They wanted to make the picture as outrageous as possible, so they tried to think of the most impossible situations, like going into an emergency room and having somebody say, 'You can't get any care until you fill out these forms.' And it's all come true!"

Real events were indeed catching up with Homecoming before it was completed. "It was only when we started shooting that Cindy Sheehan emerged," Dante says. "It was weird, because everybody said , 'Oh, you based that on Cindy Sheehan!' It was just a coincidence, but I guess it was inevitable that somebody like that would show up."

http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0548,lim,70455,20.html

Though I enjoyed it, I had a feeling this wouldn't cause a peep anywhere. Oh Well.