If you listen carefully, sometimes you can hear the zeitgeist talking. It whispers its secret confidences through media synchronicity, that strange phenomenon whereby every channel will simultaneously begin transmitting the same message, as though coordinated by an unseen guiding hand, even though they give every outward appearance of operating independently of one another. You turn around and suddenly everyone up on the screen is talking about shrimps, or plates, or plates of shrimp. No explanation, and no reason to explain it. Who can forget the one-season breakdancing-movie renaissance of 1984? Or the movies-with-asteroids-hitting-the-earth fad of 1998? Future historians will no doubt spend countless hours debating the significance of these fleeting pop-culture moments, and what if any illumination they can shine on the temper of their respective times.
So what is the zeitgeist saying in 2005, the first year of Bush as an elected president, the year of Terri Schiavo and Pope Ratzinger and the "culture of life", the year when Britney Spears made her inevitable reality-show debut? Shhh.. listen closely. Do you hear that? Can you hear that chorus of harsh, choked monotones mindlessly repeating one syllable over and over?:
"Brains...brains.... brains...."
For connoisseurs of the zombie film, this year will go down in history as a golden age. A golden age, my friends! The Year of the Zombie!
According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("For the post-intelligent!"), this summer is bringing an embarassment of riches in the zombie movie department. There are some of you out there, and you know who you are, who should be delighted to hear of the bumper crop of undead-tacular, decompos-o-riffic entertainment shambling into multiplexes and consuming the willing brains of eager moviegoers this summer:
George Romero's "Land of the Dead" opens June 24.
"Undead," an Australian offering, opens July 1.
"Night Watch," a Russian zombie movie opens July 29.
Zombies of the good old-fashioned voodoo variety menace cute-as-a-button Kate Hudson in "the Skeleton Key", also on August 12.
On August 26 "The Cave" opens, which supposedly features blood-thirsty, underwater "zombie-like creatures." (I remain suspicious of this one. "Zombie-like?" What's that supposed to mean? I mean, who isn't "zombie-like" every now and then? What I wanna know is, are they undead or just caffeine-deprived?)
And finally, on August 12 cookie-monster singer turned gross-out horror movie director Rob Zombie brings out his movie "The Devil's Rejects".
Zombies!!
plate of shrimp! you made me smile.
the television show "joan of arcadia" had an episode called "queen of the zombies" in january (featuring "I'll be yours forever if you let me eat your brain"). so CBS is on it; your zeitgeist voices are telling you the truth.
Posted by: anne at May 10, 2005 12:24 AMI occasionally see something similar happening in the local theatre scene, where suddenly three different companies will schedule the same play into their season -- and generally, it's not one of the "hot", "new" shows, but some old war horse like, "West Side Story" or some such.
As for the film phenom, however, I don't think that falls so much into the realm of zeitgeist, but is more likely predicated on the fact that movie studios keep a close watch on what the competition is doing, and scripts get shopped around and pre-developed to death before most actually get made. So, the breakdance movie/asteroid movie pitches were probably seen by dozens of execs at several different studios by the time one of them decided to greenlight them, at which point all the other execs who passed on said idea suddenly started screaming, "Get me one of those!"
The plates of shrimp thing, though is pretty weird...
Posted by: KING COMTE I at May 10, 2005 11:58 AMI think it's definitely a zeitgeist thing. And I can easily think of reasons why zombies are the flavor of the month.
As a literary manager in theater, I remember not-so-fondly the period of travelling freak show plays with barkers and fortune tellers and the ones where heaven and hell was played out in business scenarios--usually the movie business in LA. Always a white suit on "God." Always boring.
Posted by: appalachia at May 10, 2005 01:49 PMIs the year of the pirate over yet?
Yarrrgh! Ye may find yerself "over" before any Pirate, matey!
Posted by: Ye Greene Manne at May 12, 2005 08:38 PM