I'd Definitely Pay To See "Pirates Vs. Zombies"

I'm convinced that whoever books the movies for my local theatre has placed surveillance equipment in my house. They monitor my conversations to determine which movies I'm actually willing to pay to see (and there aren't many), then make sure not to bring those ones in.

Since my nearest alternative for big-screen movies is over an hour's drive away, that generally means I'm out of luck and have to wait for the DVD. Well, that's what it would mean if I'd never heard of the Internet. For legal purposes, assume I've never heard of the Internet.

I've bitten the bullet and driven the long trip for Land Of The Dead, Shaun Of The Dead, 28 Days Later, and the 2004 remake of Dawn Of The Dead. If you've got a really good eye for detail, you may detect a pattern.

In each of these cases - and we're not talking obscure indie releases here - my local theatre either didn't get these movies, or got them only very late in their runs, and couldn't confirm that they would in fact be getting them (I contact the manager and ask before taking the road trip). I had to embark on the journey, or risk missing them on the big screen.

(As a sidebar, I've been informed that the local theatre operators, up to the owner and manager, have little-to-no say in what movies they get in. They pretty much have to take whatever the chain decides to send them. That only makes me adjust my surveillance theory to encompass my private movie-related conversations being transmitted to a distant corporate boardroom.)

The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything was a recent casualty. Sorry, Phil Vischer - because I said out loud that I'd be willing to plunk down the cash for at least three tickets, my local theatre didn't run your movie.

However, I now hear that the local management is hoping to get Pirates for the Easter long weekend. If so, they can still get my money, because my torrent download is taking forever it isn't out on DVD yet.

George A. Romero's Diary Of The Dead will, I expect, also not get played here, for two reasons.

First, it is a relatively small movie in terms of budget and promotion, and my local theatre tends not to get anything even slightly out of the mainstream. At any given moment they're still playing Adam Sandler's last three movies, but heaven forbid they get anything that doesn't actively seek to make its audience stupider.

Second, I have said out loud that I'd go see it.

Of course, I'd only be springing for two tickets on this one. No big-screen R-rated zombie flicks for my son until he turns five (in May).

I may lobby the local management to see if they can exert any meager pull they may have to bring Diary in over the Easter long weekend too. First of all, I think the two movies I've been talking about would make a spiffy double-bill. There's got to be huge audience crossover potential there.

Second, what more appropriate time to show a movie about corpses getting up and walking around than Easter?


(I could hear that "Ooh" you just said from here, and I didn't even need to borrow the theatre chain's surveillance equipment.)


Enough rambling. Here's my dog on a bed. As previously alluded to, she's dead now. The dog, not the bed. At least for now, I'm not getting into the metaphysics of whether a bed can be considered truly alive in the first place.