Back From the Dead and Hungry For More: Return of the Living Dead 3 Review

Conclusion

Zombies, lots of gore and buckets of blood. This is a terrible horror film, but I happen to like terrible horror movies, especially when they contain zombies, lots of gore and buckets of blood.

Plot

You mean you need a plot when you have zombies, lots of gore and buckets of blood? All you need is zealous observation of my ten commandments of horror.

Review

Naturally, an outbreak of zombies means we have to get the military to nuke them. In order to gather all the zombies at an appropriate place for their genocide, you need serious zombie-human diplomacy skills. It's not always as simple as letting them run mindlessly after fireworks or after a little girl in a red hood.

Being a conflict catalyst myself, I don't know much about resolving conflict. I googled a bit and found a helpful guide from mister Jim Murdoch, named the Five Finger Rule for Conflict.

• Rule 1: Take a hike


• Rule 2: Remember that when you point to accuse someone that 3 fingers are pointing back.


• Rule 3: Show no aggression.


• Rule 4: Remember the love bond.


• Rule 5: Don’t fight over little things.

The Five Finger Rules for Resolving Zombie Conflict

These rules are adapted and designed to gain a strategic advantage over zombies. These rules are not helpful when trying to resolve inner conflict, because

• you can't take a hike from yourself


• when you point one finger at yourself, three are pointing away


• you are already angry with yourself


• loving yourself results in hairy palms and god killing a kitten


• inner conflict often results from big things

Nevertheless, when a zombie holocaust is desired the five finger rules are suitable to resolve conflict. These rules sometimes work with metaphorical zombies like Pro-Life supporters and religious zealots too. No, you can't lead them to a genocide. Politicians need their votes.

Rule 1. The Thumb: Take a hike.

Our heroes Curt Reynolds (J. Trevor Edmond) and Julie Walker (Melinda Clark) break the first rule of zombie-human diplomacy and opt to take a bike instead. Curt's father works at a military facility where they experiment with 2-4-5 Trioxin gas. This gas brings people back from the dead. And it isn't even Easter!

Curiously, 2-4-5 Trioxin is originally designed to be a marijuana defoliant. The premise of 2-4-5 Trioxin is based on 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (Common name: Trioxone), which is also a defoliant. This would make the structure of 2,4,5 Trioxin more or less accurate and its name slightly better than complete thumb suck.

2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid is better known as Agent Orange. Agent Orange is unlikely to catch on as a recreational drug.

Rule 2. The Pointer: Remember that when you point to accuse someone that 3 fingers are pointing back.

Curt and Julie decide to break into the military facility to see if what Curt's dad does for a living merits his long hours away from home and his binge drinking. Curt and Julie are miraculously not spotted while breaking into a military complex with seriously tight security. The G-men must be adverse to conflict. They should have a long, hard talk with their guidance counsellors.

Rule 3. Middle Finger: Show no aggression.

Once inside the military complex, Curt and Julie witness how a corpse gets reanimated. The zombie shows lots of aggression, which is dealt with by means of a hi-tech badminton weapon. Except the gaurds shot like little girls and the zombie gets animate again. He gets up, boogies and mauls half of the girlie guards. Curt and Julie get aroused after seeing this corpse get up and boogie.



The first and worst looking zombie in this horror movie. The rest of the zombies look much better - especially Julie!

The sub-text here is that if you show aggression, your ass would be artillery food, whereas if you don't show aggression, you get to do the nasty awkwardly while still wearing your underwear. Yes, Curt and Julie think Jockey is luxurious birth control. Or maybe they intended to use 2-4-5 Trioxin as a sort of twisted birth control? Corpse boogie kink, I like it.

Rule 4. Ring Finger: Remember the love bond.

Despite Rule 3, Curt and Julie show aggression while riding Curt's bike. Julie gets killed in the following accident. Curt remembers the love bond and reanimates Julie's corpse with 2-4-5 Trioxin at the military base so they can do the nasty again, this time without constrictive underwear. Or her pulse. Necrophiliac kink, I like it.

Rule 5. Little Finger: Don’t fight over little things.

Don't pet the sweaty things, don't sweat the petty things. Petty things, like the fact that your girlfriend now resembles a zombie who desperately wants to maul people and eat their brains.

Petty things, like the fact that this newly cultivated hobby is not just a bad case of PMS, but your girlfriend actually is a zombie who needs to eat brains in order to stay alive.

Petty things, like the death of illegal immigrants, who die at the hands of your merciless girlfriend in her insatiable thirst for fresh brains and this makes it really hard for you to adhere to Rule 4 - Remember the love bond.

Petty things, like the fact that you upset a few industrial size containers of 2-4-5 Trioxin at your dad's work and you are likely to be grounded for a very, very long time if giving in to your raging teenage hormones doesn't render the entire country into zombies. In fact, your dad is likely to beat you so hard you won't remember anything for a couple of days thanks to mild traumatic brain injury.

But don't worry, a concussion is daddy's way of telling you he is remembering Rule 4 - Remember the love bond.

Zombies, lots of gore from the goremeister Brian Yuzna (who also did Faust: Love of the Damned and who also produced fellow goremeister Stuart Gordon's Dagon) and buckets of blood!

Director

Brian Yuzna

Cast

Jill Andre, Melinda Clark, J. Trevor Edmond, Kent McCord, Basil Wallace.

Rating

Oops, I developed a 2-4-5 Trioxin habit. My bad...

Completely Inappropriate Synopses of Selected Steven Spielberg Films

Steven Spielberg, one of the most celebrated directors of our time.

This evolved out of a forum game. The purpose of the game is to provide a completely inappropriate synopsis for movies. This inappropriate synopsis should either

• spoil the plot


• offend the reader


• offend the writer


• offend the reader, offend the writer and spoil the plot


• be otherwise inappropriate

If you sugar-coated a synopsis with quiet diplomacy and politically correct terms and it still had a foul politically incorrect stench, you are on the right track.

Reminds me of a similar game president Robert Mugabe and president Thabo Mbeki like to play with people's lives, namely give a completely inappropriate synopsis of the current state of your country.

My version of completely inappropriate movie synopses will not endanger human lives (other than my own, perhaps) and is less hurtful. But not much.

I did not try to be as politically incorrect as I could, but I did try to step on a few toes. To aid me in my quest, I looked at a list of isms political correctness tries to sweep under the carpet:

• ageism – I somehow missed this one


• racism – check


• religious intolerance - check


• sexism – check


• xenophobia – check

If your toes are hurting after reading these, I achieved my purpose.

The politically incorrect and completely inappropriate guide to selected Steven Spielberg films

Film poster for Jews. I mean, Jaws.

Jaws
This Darwinian view on the potential outcome of global warming where the whiteys get mauled by a gigantic great white shark for their colonialist ways doesn't have a single brother who gets killed. Everyone knows black people can't swim. That's what you get for going against nature and putting your white ass where Jesus didn't put it. This movie does have a great white, but it's not you. Ha ha, honky! Ha ha!

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
A man and his faeces cake get abducted by aliens who like Jean Michel Jarre way too much. Xenu tricks him with fancy lights, fancy aeronautics and the smell of patchouli to sacrifice his rectum willingly to their advanced science, elongated appendages and culinary skills they clearly abducted from the French. The search for one intergalactic faeces cake to bind them all.

E.T - The Extra-Terrestrial
An illegal alien who actually wants to leave America, the land of opportunity. He skips the tardy queues at the immigration office by calling his parents to pick him up and take him back to Mexico. That's somewhere in Africa, right?

Poltergeist
Dabblers in the occult get what they deserve. Amen, Jesus. Amen.

Gremlins
The heart warming tale of a man and his gerbils. Features a few good reasons why men shouldn't cook. Contains scenes of suggested felching.

The Color Purple
In this tale about the ordeal one Muslim woman had to endure during the crusades, Whoopi Goldberg proves that as a black person, she only got that Affirmative Action Oscar because she has a Jewish surname. Welcome to Hollywood.

Hook
Freud gets his day when a grown man prefers to live a life of frolicking with prepubescent boys instead of living with a woman of his own age who is willing to smell his farts, cook his food and clean his house. Maybe she reminds him of his mother and living with little boys is easier than living with his guilt. I pray that Jesus delivers this man from his homosexual abominations before he is old enough to wear nappies again. Amen, Jesus. Amen.

Schindler's List
A near black and white comedy based on life in Nazi Germany, which is transformed into a tragedy when a German soldier dies.

Amistad
Amistad proves that making films about Jewish suffrage is more profitable than making films about black people being exploited. It is fashionable to hate Nazis, but it's not fashionable to hate slave drivers when they are so close to home. The movie features black people from the 1800s. They couldn't swim back then and they can't swim now.

A.I: Artificial Intelligence
One of Hollywood's best directors delivers one of his best projects. Pity Spielberg had to get involved to turn Kubrick's final project into another boy and his alienation (alien nation?) film. Not even the advanced robotics portrayed in the film could make the gay white android dance. Black people can't swim, white people can't dance. Not even as gay androids. Amen, Charles Darwin. Amen.

Minority Report
This is a futuristic documentary about the kind of dystopian life Tom Cruise and Scientology want for us all. For our own good. Amen, L Ron Hubbard. Amen.

Another completely inappropriate synopsis

Yes, the three little pigs is offensive and completely inappropriate. I wonder how inappropriate it is since Green Jelly mixed it with secular rock music?

Now that's completely inappropriate for a niche blog dedicated to heavy metal albums and horror films. Racism, xenophobia, sexism, ageism and religious intolerance is one thing. Actually, they are five things, but secular rock music is another thing all together. I think I crossed the line this time. Don't despair, there will be more heavy metal and horror films as soon as I burnt all my Fleetwood Mac LPs.

Completely Inappropriate Links

• Baa, baa black sheep. Yes, it is ageism at its worst. Or was that religious intolerance? Whatever.


• Suffolk Center of the Holocaust, Diversity & Human Understanding . I shit you not.


• The three little pigs story offends nappy-headed hos and thus the UK refuses to transmit this harmful meme in its schools. Well, as a vegetarian I'm offended by phrases such as: "Behead those who insult salami!". Or was that: "Behead those who insult Islam?". I can never remember.


• Top 10 politically incorrect phrases of 2007. Good for a laugh. In Australia, you can't say:"Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!". You have to say: "Ha, ha, ha!". Well, I just did.


• Roald Dahl's The Three Little Pigs. Now THAT is offensive. Xenophobia in rhyme, no less.

DNA proves the existence of God

This is a bold claim by Perry Marshall, whose definitions of code and pattern I have used here. Note that Marshall is not a biologist, but an information specialist.

For this post, I will outline the argument Marshall makes for the existence of God. After that I will prove him wrong. At the time of going to press, God could not be reached for her comment.

The difference between a code and a pattern

A pattern is a random sequence that does not need the aid of a designer. Marshall claims snowflakes and tornadoes are examples of patterns.

Codes are defined as patterns that carry information. Codes we know the origin of are designed by an intelligent designer. Patterns do not have embedded information, whereas codes do carry information. Marshall lists music, computer programs and DNA as examples of codes.


Is this mama? Did aliens design DNA? If they did, why didn't they keep the good DNA for themselves?

Marshall's proof that DNA was designed by a mind

Marshall claims the following for DNA:

• DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern, but an information storage mechanism. Since it is a pattern which carries information, DNA is a code


• codes we know the origin of were created by an intelligence. Codes are created by conscious minds


• therefore, DNA was created by a conscious mind

Marshall then proposes five possible origins of DNA:

1. Humans designed DNA.


2. Aliens designed DNA.


3. DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously.


4. An undiscovered physical law creates information, and by extension DNA.


5. A superintelligence, who Marshall calls God, designed DNA.

Some DNA. Somewhat puzzling. Especially to Perry Marshall.

Consideration Marshall gives each proposal:

1. For humans to design DNA, we would require time travel or infinite generations of humans. Since we have no time travel and according to Marshall, finite generations of humans, this proposal is refuted.


2. Aliens may have designed DNA, but this explanation "only pushes the question back in time".


3. That DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously is a possibility, but it is not a process that could be repeated.


4. An undiscovered natural law could have created DNA, but it would only be proved once someone observes a naturally occurring code.


5. A superintelligence, who Marshall calls God, designed DNA.

Marshall claims scientific reasoning can prove anything, and DNA is proof of its own intelligent designer.

Proof that Marshall is misleading, and by misleading I mean wrong

The syllogism
Marshall's proof that DNA was designed by an intelligent designer rests on a syllogism.

A syllogism is a logical argument that is used to infer a conclusion. The syllogism is comprised of three parts:

• a major premise: "DNA is a code."


• a minor premise: "Codes are created by conscious minds."


• a proposition, in other words a conclusion: "Therefore, DNA was created by a conscious mind."

Fun fact: Aristotle is generally credited with the invention of the syllogism.

There are fundamental flaws in Marshall's syllogism:

• "DNA is a code." That depends on which level you are looking at DNA. From the level of conscious minds, it would appear as if DNA is a code read by cells to produce a magnificent organism.
  
  However, at a molecular level, DNA is a nucleic acid. Genes store a particular sequence of DNA, and this sequence determines how the genes interact with each other and its environment. The DNA sequence is never read or interpreted as information at this level. Physical, chemical properties of DNA determine which traits are conserved, expelled or just there.
  
  An allele is an instance of one of multiple viable possible instances of a gene. To clarify, a gene exists for creating eyes. An allele determines whether your eyes could be blue. The nature of this allele is determined by interaction of the gene with other genes and its environment.
  
  For the sake of Marshall's argument, let us assert that DNA is a code carrying information as he envisages it. The jury is still out on that one, but let's give Marshall the benefit of the doubt.


• The minor premise: "Codes are created by conscious minds." Marshall is not so lucky with this premise. Marshall specifically states that "all codes we know the origin of are created by a conscious mind" (bold text mine). We do not know the origin of DNA.
  Since we do not know the origins of DNA, we can not assume that DNA is a code that was created by a conscious mind.
  
  There are many plausible explanations, mostly pointing to Marshall's third conclusion, namely that DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously. In any event random is not that random upon closer investigation, since as we have seen genes rely on interaction with each other and interaction with their environment to determine exactly how alleles form.
  
  Furthermore, planetary orbit around the sun is not random at all. It is a pattern, but it is still a code, since from our perspective on the third rock from the sun, this movement transfers information we interpret as the passage of time.
  
  We do not know the origins of this pattern, but we do know the origins of this code of time. It is indeed a conscious intelligence.


• The proposition: "Therefore, DNA was created by a conscious mind." The problem with this proposition is that an amoeba has DNA. An amoeba does not have a conscious mind. Amoeba were not created with the intervention of the only conscious minds we know, namely human beings.
  
  Marshall also proposes the idea that aliens created DNA. It should be noted that we have made contact with aliens, but they were cellular organisms. We have not discovered intelligent consciousness besides ours on earth, but we have discovered aliens that came into being without the intervention of intelligent consciousness as we like to define it. Could it be that the process of randomly occurring DNA is repeated, in space no less?

This syllogism suffers from the classic mistake of an illicit minor. This mistake has the following form:

• All A are B ("all DNA is a code")


• All Z are C ("all codes we know the origins of were designed by a conscious mind". If it were "all codes were designed by a conscious mind", the minor would have the correct form All B are C.
  
  At face value, it seems that Mr Marshall proposes the correct form, however his minor is still illicit, because this claim is false. At first, Mr Marshall incorrectly claims that all codes we know the origins of were designed by conscious minds. Then, when it comes to constructing his key argument, he conveniently forgets that his requirement is that we have to know the origins of the code, which we don't for DNA. Either way the words are minced, the minor is an illicit one.)


• Therefore, all A are C ("therefore, DNA was designed by a conscious mind")

In closing, the larger argument here is a classic example of the god of the gaps, as described in layman's terms in the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Since we can not disprove that god designed DNA, it has to be true. To mister Marshall: Epic fail. Thank you for playing.

To the rest of us: since we can not disprove that Cthulhu will swallow your soul, it has to be true. Cthulhu Ftaghn!

Related links

• Can you prove that god exists? Convince Jim Randi and get a groovy million benjamins for your efforts in proving a supernatural phenomenon. Thanks to mampara Jacob Zuma, that's worth about eight million "bokke en blare", and it is bound to get more.


• If you can read this, I can prove that God exists. Perry Marshall's reasons for joining the fellowship and tithing. Tithing is the fellowship's reason for accepting you.


• Inmagine stock images, where I got the royalty free stock images.


• The Genetic Genealogist, highly recommended.


• The Wikipedia page on DNA.


• The Wikipedia page on genes.


• The Wikipedia page on illicit treatment of the minor term.


• The Wikipedia page on junk DNA.


• The Wikipedia page on syllogism.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

Director
Wes Anderson

Cast
Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Angelica Huston, Bill Murray.

Plot
Steve Zissou (Murray) is an oceanographer and documentary film maker. To say he is eccentric is to describe fascists as angry people. When his partner, Estaban (Seymour Cassell), dies due to a shark attack, Zissou sets off to avenge his partner's death. Known only as the "jaguar shark", Zissou and his gang face illegitimate children, not so legitimate illegitimate children, former wives, pirates and each other's eccentricities in their quest to kill the creature.

Review
This larger than life comedy proves how little mankind knows about aquatic life. In particular, it proves how little a man named Steve Zissou knows about aquatic life. Follow mister Zissou on a journey of debauchery, piracy, pregnancy and even bankruptcy.

This film is critically misunderstood, commercially unsuccessful and highly underrated. Anderson studied philosophy at the University of Texas. His plays on meaning are similar to those of David Lynch, except Lynch plays with signifiers and the signified from a horror/thriller perspective. Anderson takes the lighthearted approach by dealing with questions about truth and meaning with a healthy dose of dry wit.

For entertainment value, the film has ups and downs at a very appropriate pace and the delivery is right on the money. Cate Blanchett is her usual glamorous self, even donning khaki clothes and a pregnant belly. Luke and Owen Wilson are entertaining enough, but the star of the show is undeniably Bill Murray. He looks so convincing in his role as Steve Zissou that one wonders whether this isn't actually a documentary film.

You will need to watch this film a few times to catch all the fake aquatic species, the more subtle jests and just to enjoy the dry humour again.

Conclusion
If you enjoyed Anderson's previous film, The Royal Tenenbaums, prepare yourself for something completely different. You do not need a red cap and a speedo to enjoy this film, but it helps.

Rating