In case you didn't notice, what's happening in the coke-sick corridors of Filmic Affairs in the recent times, is that two bandwagons are trundling along, one banging into the other now and again in highly entertaining scenes reminiscent of Ben Hur or maybe Days Of Thunder. At first glance, a fella could be hoodwinked into assuming both these bandwagons to be one and the same. Maybe one of them's just a reflection in a mirror or some such.
(In case you were wondering, mirrors are what folks used to use for to make folks disappear and reappear as if by "magic" in the feature flicks, before CGI was invented and nobody ever needed use a mirror ever again.)
Anyhow, Bandwagon 1 involves the remaking of the feature flicks. The folks in this bandwagon, the band perhaps, they like to yack day and night about you know what would be the coolest, if we could maybe make a film exactly the fuck the same as From Beyond, with the same characters and situations, except it's nowadays, and therefore all the more amazing.
The other bandwagon, which, to avoid confusion, we'll call Bandwagon 3, it deals with the remakes of the classic feature flicks too, except the folks inside, in-between sippin the moonshine and playing the banjo, they like to yack about what the fuck you mean Dawn Of The Dead 2004 is better than Dawn Of The Dead 1978? Are you insane in the guts, they'll ask? Are you out of your face on the crack-browns? Also, these folks don't like you to mention John Carpenter's The Thing or David Cronenberg's The Fly. They'd rather you didn't mention that sorta shit around them, if it's all the same to you.
As far as The Duke goes, I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle of these two dueling parties. For sure, I'm gonna be gettin' sanctimonious as all roaring Moses when somebody wants to tell me The Ring is preferable to Ringu, but at the same time, ain't no big deal if Sam Raimi thinks what the world needs is a version of Ju-On with more Caucasians.
Lest we forget, Sam Raimi is responsible for one of Kirsten Dunst's most breath-taking cinematic outings, and so he's entitled to do whatever the fuck he wants, pretty much.
So, with this in mind, let The Duke be the first to step up on top of some smaller, less masculine Dukes of some kind, and holler across the motherfucking globe that cheer the hell up, man, it's ok to like Dawn Of The Dead 2004. Ain't a damn thing wrong with that. I kinda liked it myself. No, it wasn't as good as Dawn Of The Dead 1978, but it was better than, say, Navy Seals 1990. Our favorite flicks ain't gonna disappear just cause some new version gets flung out there. It's not like George Lucas had anything to do with Ringu. Just chill out, man.
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