Dawn of the Dead (1978) - OUT OF PRINT

[DenOfEarth]

And what makes a film a classic? check out this video by one of my youtube friends on what makes a "classic" film as he's a film student who is also a youtube film critic who does movie reviews, news, video tributes, TV show reviews and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx64Nsd5CPc

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by DenOfEarth

[Show spoiler]And what makes a film a classic? check out this video by one of my youtube friends on what makes a "classic" film as he's a film student who is also a youtube film critic who does movie reviews, news, video tributes, TV show reviews and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx64Nsd5CPc

[Show spoiler]

[StingingVelvet]

Some exceptions on a hardcore enthusiast forum like this don't make him wrong really. I am sure in general it is pretty rare for people to dive deep into movies released 10 or 20 plus years before they were born. It does happen obviously, but I'm sure it's a small percentage of the population.

[Caseyscott]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Some exceptions on a hardcore enthusiast forum like this don't make him wrong really. I am sure in general it is pretty rare for people to dive deep into movies released 10 or 20 plus years before they were born. It does happen obviously, but I'm sure it's a small percentage of the population.

Nor is there any reason to expect them too. Each passing year only adds to the impossibly deep catalogue of available films.

[monwobbbo]

Originally Posted by Caseyscott

Nor is there any reason to expect them too. Each passing year only adds to the impossibly deep catalogue of available films.

on the other hand there is no reason to expect them not to either. a good movie is a good movie and to just exempt one just because it's old is pretty silly.

[rocknblues81]

Originally Posted by monwobbbo

there is a difference between something being classic and just "popular". popularity does peak at some point but the elements that made something "great" to begin with are still there and appreciated on a different level.

to keep in topic i'll use DOTD to illustrate the point. back when it came out the film was truly fresh and of course extremely shocking. these elements made it very "popular" with the younger crowd. it played at the midnight movies for years after release and still drew a crowd. once cable and VHS became the norm it found another audience. DOTD established the zombie genre and set the "rules" for said genre which still hold for the most part to this day. the film isn't as popular as it once was due to lack of availability and of course the glut of zombie films that followed. it is no longer as shocking or seemingly fresh as it once was. this is what happens with time and familiarity. many have seen the films that came later so view the original as quaint and can't see it the same way that i did in 1979.

I know what your saying.

I 'm just saying that i don't see Dawn celebrated like TCM, Halloween, Nightmare and even Friday.

It was a big influence to the early 2000's movies like 28 Days Later, the remake and even Shaun of the Dead. The movie seems to have fallen between the cracks since then.

I think the blue zombies and the more goofy aspects of the movie hurt it.

[monwobbbo]

Originally Posted by rocknblues81

I know what your saying.

I 'm just saying that i don't see Dawn celebrated like TCM, Halloween, Nightmare and even Friday.

It was a big influence to the early 2000's movies like 28 Days Later, the remake and even Shaun of the Dead. The movie seems to have fallen between the cracks since then.

I think the blue zombies and the more goofy aspects of the movie hurt it.

well don't forget the Italian zombie films of the 80s and a host of others that it influenced. i already mentioned the fact that the movie is out of circulation (at least in the US) which does hurt it. i'd also say that DOTD is certainly held in as high regard as the titles mentioned. it really spawned a whole genre that has made it's way into pop culture at this point. sure some iof it is dated but that happens to most movies at some point. not a reason to not watch it.

[Caseyscott]

Originally Posted by monwobbbo

on the other hand there is no reason to expect them not to either. a good movie is a good movie and to just exempt one just because it's old is pretty silly.

There are so many films available and an extraordinarily limited amount of time, to expect someone to rationalize their choices in the same way we do is certainly not silly at all, particularly over something as trivial as movies. I watch very little TV, and I’m positive there are shows that would entertain me, but I barely have time to watch movies, what’s silly about picking a specific type of entertainment to fill the small gaps in my life where I have time to sit in front of a television?

[GasmaskAvenger]

Originally Posted by rocknblues81

I know what your saying.

I 'm just saying that i don't see Dawn celebrated like TCM, Halloween, Nightmare and even Friday.

It was a big influence to the early 2000's movies like 28 Days Later, the remake and even Shaun of the Dead. The movie seems to have fallen between the cracks since then.

I think the blue zombies and the more goofy aspects of the movie hurt it.

I blame Rubinstein's awful quest to put it in 3D, raising the price tag for licensing it at ridiculous levels and all then-current releases going out for print for it's sudden fallen star status. Once it goes back in print, it's profile will once again rise.

I'm sure the same will happen to Martin too. Rubinstein really harmed their fame with his 3D stunt.

[monwobbbo]

Originally Posted by Caseyscott

There are so many films available and an extraordinarily limited amount of time, to expect someone to rationalize their choices in the same way we do is certainly not silly at all, particularly over something as trivial as movies. I watch very little TV, and I’m positive there are shows that would entertain me, but I barely have time to watch movies, what’s silly about picking a specific type of entertainment to fill the small gaps in my life where I have time to sit in front of a television?

while there are tons of movies available how many of them are actually any good? far fewer than you might think. no reason to not step back and say "hey i heard this was good " and watch something older. i don't watch much tv either but will make an effort here and there is something gets good press. i can always find time to watch a movie if i really want see it.

[Caseyscott]

Originally Posted by monwobbbo

while there are tons of movies available how many of them are actually any good? far fewer than you might think. no reason to not step back and say "hey i heard this was good " and watch something older. i don't watch much tv either but will make an effort here and there is something gets good press. i can always find time to watch a movie if i really want see it.

Well that depends on your standards. Our presence here might suggest we have elevated standards compared to the viewers we were originally discussing. There are enough movies released every year that given sufficiently low expectations you would never have to view one older than the current year.

This topic stemmed from a comment suggesting young people not enjoying older movies is a problem.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Caseyscott

There are so many films available and an extraordinarily limited amount of time, to expect someone to rationalize their choices in the same way we do is certainly not silly at all, particularly over something as trivial as movies. I watch very little TV, and I’m positive there are shows that would entertain me, but I barely have time to watch movies, what’s silly about picking a specific type of entertainment to fill the small gaps in my life where I have time to sit in front of a television?

Yeah. I go back to start of talkies for classics in certain genres, but overall I get where you're coming from. We all have limited time (and money) and I think we all prioritize. For some people that means focusing on newer stuff or stuff from when they were young, and I don't judge those people.

[balthazar_bee]

Originally Posted by Caseyscott

This topic stemmed from a comment suggesting young people not enjoying older movies is a problem.

Hell, if we're talking about folks in their early to mid teens, many of them don't watch films at all. I did a "breaking the ice" activity with a group of 14-year-olds last year, and one of the questions was, "What is your favourite movie?"

I'm sure most of the people reading this would've loved sinking their teeth into a question like this at that age. Do I put my actual favourite, or do I show the depth of my cinematic wisdom by putting something old or arthouse? Do I put something from a franchise, or something standalone?

Well for, oh, a third to a half of the group, this quickly degenerated into, "Can you name a movie you've seen?" Like, ever. Most could, but it didn't come naturally.

The instant gratification of games and social media at their finger tips at every waking moment (not to mention the relative bite-size of youtube content) has rendered an investment of time like 90 minutes almost unthinkable for a sizable chunk of the population. Soon we'll be working alongside them, if we're not already.

[ditcin]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

Contractual obligations to the investors in the previous restoration.

Well I was with Anchor Bay and they had to pay for the restoration. It was completed and done. It's over. He got in the way of that as well promising certain thing he changed his mind on. No. Nothing is owed to him as far what I've been told. He's not being very bright about this. The film will fade from the minds of people and when his children get it there will be less interest - in the end he will have lost.
The new generation well care less, the one after that less again. There will be less of a demand for it. At this point he's being stupid.
I dealt with others like this who held out on various works they have done. As thing got on they would change their minds realizing it comes down to being remembered or forgotten.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by ditcin

Well I was with Anchor Bay and they had to pay for the restoration. It was completed and done. It's over. He got in the way of that as well promising certain thing he changed his mind on. No. Nothing is owed to him as far what I've been told. He's not being very bright about this. The film will fade from the minds of people and when his children get it there will be less interest - in the end he will have lost.
The new generation well care less, the one after that less again. There will be less of a demand for it. At this point he's being stupid.
I dealt with others like this who held out on various works they have done. As thing got on they would change their minds realizing it comes down to being remembered or forgotten.

On top of that, the physical media market is obviously dwindling. If he waits another 5 years he might have a much smaller audience to sell to, hence the home video license will be worth even less.


The AB release is nice but I never bought it because it seemed very barebones and incomplete compared to the deluxe DVD set I had. In retrospect, I should have bought it. Not like its any big deal to plop down $50 for a copy from eBay, but the AB blu actually is pretty nice with much better PQ than the DVD set and I don't think I really needed all those extra cuts in the DVD set anyway.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by balthazar_bee

The instant gratification of games and social media at their finger tips at every waking moment (not to mention the relative bite-size of youtube content) has rendered an investment of time like 90 minutes almost unthinkable for a sizable chunk of the population. Soon we'll be working alongside them, if we're not already.

See, this complaint about the youth is operating from a standpoint that movies are inherently superior to games/social media. I don't see any objective reason they are. They are to me personally, but to stand back and look at it, social media especially is probably a healthier form of isolating yourself and staring at a screen since at least you're interacting with people on some level And 90 minutes is less of instant gratification than games, which often have plots that are more like 20 hours long?

Just accept that the youths aren't the big problem with society right now and shouldn't always be yammered about, and that it just makes you sound old. There are much, much bigger problems right now that had nothing to do with their generation!

RE: Dawn of the Dead, I think its profile is almost as high as TCM, but yes, lower than Psycho/Halloween. I think it's in the pantheon for sure. Even with it unable to be easily seen. I see it namedropped a ton on non-horror geek sites. My VERY slapdash list of most-alluded-to horror movies in the mainstream eye (disregarding recent releases) would be something like (in no particular order):

Halloween
Psycho
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Night of the Living Dead/Dawn of the Dead/Return of the Living Dead (for "BRAINS!!!" which no one knows comes from it but everyone thinks zombies say)
The Exorcist
The Shining
Nightmare on Elm Street
Jaws
Friday the 13th (the series - everyone knows Jason and has seen something with him)
Silence of the Lambs
Evil Dead 2/Army of Darkness
Frankenstein/Dracula 1931 (though no one actually watches them)

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Just accept that the youths aren't the big problem with society right now and shouldn't always be yammered about, and that it just makes you sound old.

Art is seen as expendable and near worthless, not just with the young but with most these days. Art has been discarded in favor of the almighty dollar.

Pro photography sessions replaced by crappy amateur iphone pics. Why pay a photographer when you can do it yourself free?

Original prints/paintings replaced by mass produced reproductions at Bed Bath and Beyond. Why spend all that money on an original when this cheap repro looks the part?

High quality recordings replaced by cheap brickwalled MP3 singles and free youtube streaming, or cheap spotify subs. Why buy an album when you can listen to it for free or the one song you want for $1?

High quality movies replaced by a limited selection streaming. Why pay $20 to own something when you can get it on youtube for free, you know even though its in a box that takes up 60% of the screen with the sound sped up, with some weird filter over the video and dolphins in the background. But yeah its free...

...Or one could go the virtuous route and spend $10/mo for Netflix and get whatever they choose you can see for that price, and be completely happy with it, because you know, its cheap and stuff.

All that money can be saved for really important stuff, like getting the latest iPhone every year with unlimited data plan - even if the upgrade from your current iPhone is minimal, its the cool thing to do and *thats* worth spending money on... Or maybe something else if you aren't into that, but art? Not so popular to spend cash on anymore as its perceived as a waste of money.

Movie industry is doomed Very obvious why (IMO) Hollywood keeps churning out crap lately, because people don't value art and thus won't pay for good art anymore. Why would Hollywood spend the money to make good films when they might not get it back in the theaters, and then have this current dumpster fire of home media going on?

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Art is seen as expendable and near worthless, not just with the young but with most these days. Art has been discarded in favor of the almighty dollar.

Pro photography sessions replaced by crappy amateur iphone pics. Why pay a photographer when you can do it yourself free?

Original prints/paintings replaced by mass produced reproductions at Bed Bath and Beyond. Why spend all that money on an original when this cheap repro looks the part?

High quality recordings replaced by cheap brickwalled MP3 singles and free youtube streaming, or cheap spotify subs. Why buy an album when you can listen to it for free or the one song you want for $1?

High quality movies replaced by a limited selection streaming. Why pay $20 to own something when you can get it on youtube for free, you know even though its in a box that takes up 60% of the screen with the sound sped up, with some weird filter over the video and dolphins in the background. But yeah its free...

...Or one could go the virtuous route and spend $10/mo for Netflix and get whatever they choose you can see for that price, and be completely happy with it, because you know, its cheap and stuff.

All that money can be saved for really important stuff, like getting the latest iPhone every year with unlimited data plan - even if the upgrade from your current iPhone is minimal, its the cool thing to do and *thats* worth spending money on... Or maybe something else if you aren't into that, but art? Not so popular to spend cash on anymore as its perceived as a waste of money.

Yep, nothing to do with Generation Z, it's EVERYONE.

Plus, all of those sound like valid questions to me if you look at it from the regular consumer side! Again, I buy tons of blu-rays and am on our side cause I'm on this forum, but my house is loaded with plastic and moving is a gigantic b**** and most of my friends are entirely digital, don't see/hear a difference in quality, and aren't looking to watch Code Red style movies anyway, so if I step back and look at it from their perspective, I'm the crazy one! It's really too bad for the artists (my brother is a musician and this infuriates me morally and cuts very deeply into his income and he makes about 1/5 as much as he would have 20-30 years ago according to all the vets he gigs with), but I get it!

The movie industry infuriates me right now. I mean, the indie scene is thriving, but I really wish we'd get a return to the good old days of the 90s and earlier where studios would produce a lot of mid-budget movies instead of just producing a handful of monster-budget movies. I'm sure this is much easier and makes more sense financially, though! Yay capitalism!

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Art is seen as expendable and near worthless, not just with the young but with most these days. Art has been discarded in favor of the almighty dollar.

Pro photography sessions replaced by crappy amateur iphone pics. Why pay a photographer when you can do it yourself free?

Original prints/paintings replaced by mass produced reproductions at Bed Bath and Beyond. Why spend all that money on an original when this cheap repro looks the part?

High quality recordings replaced by cheap brickwalled MP3 singles and free youtube streaming, or cheap spotify subs. Why buy an album when you can listen to it for free or the one song you want for $1?

High quality movies replaced by a limited selection streaming. Why pay $20 to own something when you can get it on youtube for free, you know even though its in a box that takes up 60% of the screen with the sound sped up, with some weird filter over the video and dolphins in the background. But yeah its free...

...Or one could go the virtuous route and spend $10/mo for Netflix and get whatever they choose you can see for that price, and be completely happy with it, because you know, its cheap and stuff.

All that money can be saved for really important stuff, like getting the latest iPhone every year with unlimited data plan - even if the upgrade from your current iPhone is minimal, its the cool thing to do and *thats* worth spending money on... Or maybe something else if you aren't into that, but art? Not so popular to spend cash on anymore as its perceived as a waste of money.

Movie industry is doomed Very obvious why (IMO) Hollywood keeps churning out crap lately, because people don't value art and thus won't pay for good art anymore. Why would Hollywood spend the money to make good films when they might not get it back in the theaters, and then have this current dumpster fire of home media going on?

Or, you know, mortgages, bills, vacations where you spend quality time with family members, saving for your kids educations and futures, etc.

[Egons Ghost]

Originally Posted by balthazar_bee

The instant gratification of games and social media at their finger tips at every waking moment (not to mention the relative bite-size of youtube content) has rendered an investment of time like 90 minutes almost unthinkable for a sizable chunk of the population. Soon we'll be working alongside them, if we're not already.

Exactly my observation with my own child and her schoolmates, and my niece and nephew. Outside of the latest whiz-bang superhero rubbish, forget it. I have "forced" my child since she was very little to sit and give attention to all kinds of movies, including, as she gets older, Marilyn Monroe, Hitchcock, 80s stuff (thanks to Stranger Things, her interest is piqued), etc. I would say that actual stories in general, with some meditation on the human condition, or stories that take a little time to build mood, character, etc., have lost cultural cachet.