While I enjoyed the crap out of the original Night of the Living Dead, I do have to admit that horror is probably not my #1 film genre.  Even so, I just finished the first season of Walking Dead from AMC, and I am pretty blown away.

Gore, story, acting, quality; all parts of the show are so well done.  Yes, it is a bit spooky, though it is much more about the story and the characters.  It has been adapted from a comic book series, and is created by Frank Darabont, who was behind the Green Mile and the Shawshank Redemption.  As mentioned in the extras, the point of the show was basically to do a short movie for each episode; and it shows.

At only six episodes for the first season, it goes by rather quickly.  I’m looking forward to future seasons, and to see where it all is headed.  It hasn’t given me the motivation to dive into the comic, yet I can imagine it would do so for some.

I had this movie sitting in my queue for a while, mostly avoiding it because of the image on the box art.  It’s too bad, too, because now that I bit into it, I really can’t tell where that still came from, and why they decided that it was their best choice.  Indeed, the movie was about a rather intense and dirty political situation, though there were hardly any moments of the candidates screaming as I had initially imagined.

At the end of it, I’m really impressed by Booker, the main character in the film who is in the process of taking on the incumbent Mayor of Newark, New Jersey.  Clearly the movie was made from his perspective, though it’s easy to figure out why after so short a period of time.  There’s a lot of lying, corruption, and dirty fighting that comes into view.

As a side note, it’s also impressive to see how much money goes into these political machines.  Millions of dollars went into each campaign, and while that’s the cost of getting into the game, it’s interesting to think what all that money could have been used to do instead.

Creepy?  Check.  Mysterious? Check.  Suspenseful?  Check.  Incredible?  Indeed.

What first hits me about this movie is how incredibly smooth it is, despite the adverse psychological landscapes and complex, cut-up methods of story-telling.  The sound design and music are top-shelf, too, moving from beauty to horror in masterful ways.

As it is a mystery, I’m going to keep this short; but it’s safe to say it doesn’t disappoint in any way, and Cillian Murphy does such an excellent job that it’s probably worth watching more than once.  Seriously, check it out.  I was intensely impressed.

What a good movie.  I had rented this but I sent it back without watching it as it sat on the table too long.  Thanks to Netflix, it came up again in the instant watch section and I watched it this afternoon.  The movie was definitely upsetting and moving at parts, though it also had a story to tell and a somewhat positive or hopeful carry-through.

Sudan doesn’t get much of any coverage in the US, and considering the numbers involved it’s certainly a mystery as to why.  2 million killed from the wars going on in the country is, well, unbelievable.  This movie tracks people who are called the “Lost Boys,” those who survived the conflict only by walking first to Ethiopia, then to Kenya; a thousand mile journey in all.  Then essentially trapped in a refuge camp, most of these people have suffered horribly and cannot return to their home, and in many cases, family.

With such a grave situation, there is a certain amount of upsetting footage, mostly of the starving children who had a rough time with the nearly endless trek.  Moreover, the stories are certainly not of the Disney variety, yet the main characters have made it to America and are dealing with their history in various ways.  Some had never interacted with electricity, experienced a shower, or slept in a bed.

What’s also interesting about this movie is the way in which these transplanted people look at Americans.  Community and brotherhood are, to them, absent in the US.  Troubles with integration and loneliness are the big themes, aside from working constantly in order to help relatives or friends back in their home country.

I’ve dropped enough about the movie at this point and I’m stopping there.  It’s well worth seeing, and it does an amazing job at opening our eyes into the stories of these people.