Fulci Movies Suck and Other Things I've Learned

Lucio Fulci directed 54 movies in his lifetime. I own four of them and I believe this qualifies me to state as fact that he wasn't very good at his chosen profession. Maybe he showed promise earlier in his career, when he was doing mostly comedies and westerns, but the day he stepped into the horror arena, he was shooting garbage from the word 'go.' That's not to say that I don't love all four Fulci films I own (Okay, three of them. Zombi III is indefensible.), because I do. They're just horrible, that's all. I knew Zombi II and The Beyond were bad movies, and as stated above, Zombie III is an absolute abortion, but it wasn't until I sat down this evening to finally watch my copy of City of the Living Dead that it all came together.


"Mama mia! I suck!"

The creators of the Saw franchise should actually be paying out mad royalties to the Fulci estate, because they essentially took the most important element of his films and built their own around it. What Fulci clearly does in all four of these movies I've seen is get an idea for a really graphic, horrible way for a character to meet their end, and then write an entire movie around that one thing. As awesome as a woman's eye being impaled on a shard of wood may be, it's not enough to hold up an entire movie. As gut-churning as a man having his head slowly run through with a giant drill is, you can't use that alone to prop up an otherwise flimsy premise. The Saw guys are actually really smart, because they realized what a bad idea that was, and just made their entire movies about the hideous, Rube Goldbergian mechanisms of death. All that said, Fulci will always have a place in my heart because he filmed this.



No caption necessary there, I don't think.

All right, so I got the Fulci rant out of my system. It's been slowly bubbling to the surface for a good four years. With that taken care of, who's ready for a little Office talk?

OBLIGATORY "THE OFFICE" REVIEW FOR SEASON 4, EPISODE 7: "SURVIVOR MAN"

The strike is still ongoing, meaning this week's episode, The Deposition, will be the final for a while.


You people are too god damn chipper about this.

Regardless, life goes on (for now). I would say that Thursday's episode was the weakest of the season, but it still had it's moments. The big problem was the main plot (I guess) just didn't work. Michael Scott losing his mind in the woods for a few hours just didn't do it for me. On the other hand, the subplot of Jim taking over the office for the day and coming to the quick realization that he's dangerously close to turning into Michael, was AWESOME. The best stuff in the entire episode was actually in the tag at the end, which I thought was an odd place to put it. Jim and Michael's conversation is spun gold. Steve Carell, in the two episodes he's written (the first being the fabulous season two finale Casino Night), has shown great capacity for writing these characters, and it was the personal moments rather than the big, broad Michael-in-the-woods stuff that kept my attention last week. Not much JAM material this week, so things seem steady in that area. Personally, I blame NBC's "Green Week" mandate for the wacker than usual main storyline. I expect a return to top form this week.

All right, got RAW coming up, with the eightieth Triple H/Umaga match of the past three months. Can't wait!

Oh! And remember, tomorrow brings Broin' Down 6: BROvember Rain! 7 pm, Ruby Tuesday. Just as a refresher, here are the ground rules.

RULES OF BROIN'

Rule Number One: NO GURLZ ALLOWED. This is broin' down, not hoin' down. You can do that on your own time.

Rule Number Two: Speaking of GURLZ, they are either a ONE or a TWO. No exceptions.

Rule Number Three: Six bros are company, ten bros are a sausage fest.

Rule Number Four: Thou shalt not use any modifier in reference to any BROIN event other than BRO.

I love broin' down nights.


Provided this strike ever ends, David Denman needs a series!