Eaten by Zombies: 'Seyo's Guilty Pleasure Corner

I have a few guilty pleasures.

Soy Caramel Maquillados from Starbucks.
Lindt Dark Chocolate
Banana Chips
outrageous inappropriate shock humor
hitting the snooze button three or more times

and... four kinds of movie:
1. James Bond
2. Superhero/Comic Book Action
3. Hong Kong Kung-fu action - I'd even argue that this one isn't purely a guilty pleasure: see, it's amazing, what these dudes can do with their bodies: the athleticism and skill of choreographing and performing those things is a thing of wonder.
4. Zombie movies!!!!

Soundtrack: the Zombeatles: It's Been a Hard Day's Night Of The Living Dead. Hit play and read.

Yeah. I found this list of The best Zombie Movies ever made: a few lists. Askmen.com, some random guy, and so forth.

I downloaded a bunch, and I've been devouring them with glee: working on other stuff while doing this.

See, Zombie movies are awful. Dramatically, the premise of zombies is incredibly limited: they all follow the same line --

1. zombies break out,
2. spread inexorably, and then the last half of the movie always, ALWAYS ends with
3. humans hiding in various buildings with boarded up doors and windows, keeping zombies out, hoping zombies don't come in:
4. at best, the good guys escape from one shelter to another shelter...but wouldn't they just be followed there by zombies as well?
5. At worst, zombies breach the shelter and everybody, or almost everybody dies (though the sympathetic ones might yet make it to some other refuge...where they STILL have to just keep zombies out).

But within those awful constraints, there's so much fun to be had: the jump scenes when Zombies burst through doors or out of shadows, the "will they get in" suspense of that endless pounding on doors, the creativity of filmmakers trying to find new, even sillier ways to kill zombies, the go-to-town delightfulness of absolute mayhem in the costume and make-up department. The creepy deaky music... every zombie movie checks the same boxes, not unlike James Bond movies.

Meanwhile, many '80s Zombie movies (Return of the Living Dead Trilogy in particular) are just goofy.

So, here are the best/most enjoyable zombie movies I've seen so far.

Creepiest: Lucio Fulci's "Zombie 2/Zombi" (1979) - the zombies in this one were the creepiest, and the atmosphere was the most ominous - which is the best you can hope for in a good zombie movie. They were so slow, yet that made their catching the good guys seem even more inexorable. The last-stand in a makeshift hospital building was thrilling, the zombies had this cool way of taking a while to die and fall over, even after you shot them in the ahead, as if they were trying to decide whether to die or to just keep coming after you. There's even some alright dialogue and !gasp! character development... Plus, before they get to the really scary stuff, there's an AWESOME Zombie/Shark fight. The undead vs. nature's purest killer. Sweetness!

(Warning: zombie)

Yeh!

This video gives the soundtrack: one of the best creepy ones, and shows how scary a slow zombie can be. So deliberate: so inevitable! Warning; a lot of gross footage in this tribute.


Most unique/interesting:

Day of the Dead - George Romero made this one: after first popularizing the zombie genre with "Night of the Living Dead" (1968, one of the creepiest zombie movies so far), making "Dawn of the Dead" in 1978 (maybe the best classic zombie movie; remade louder and grosser and more cynical in 2004) this one was both best and worst of the zombie genre: the scientist experimenting on zombies was interesting, and a gross way of bringing in more variations on the zombie legend. The characters were either cool or really really awful: the soldiers were some of the worst ass-munching stereotypes out there, but some of the other characters were likeable. The right people got theirs at the end. Bub is the coolest zombie out there: he's actually domesticated by the end of the movie, and demonstrates something close to feeling. Interesting take on the genre: like no other zombie movie I've seen. In fact, the central dramatic point of the film is the conflict between the people trapped in the military compound, rather than just being "run away from zombies. hide. hiding place compromised. run to new hiding place. lose a few people. repeat" the way most zombie movies go. Just for that, it's worth seeing.



28 Days Later: a modern zombie film:


it seems modern audiences don't have the attention span to allow menace to develop: the slow pacing of a movie like the 1968 Night of the Living Dead allows a lot of anxiety to build up before the climactic scene, but I guess somebody decided that modern audiences want the release without the build-up, so they just jump straight into the fast-paced stuff...and then have trouble building up any sense of dread later. The zombies can run. Fast zombies are more immediately terrifying, and seriously, they ARE frightening: the scariest zombies I've seen, but they don't make an impact as lastingly creepy as Lucio Fulci's ghoulishly slow zombies (second scariest, stay with you longer). Sorry. The scary thing about zombies isn't that the first one you see might run you down and get you. It's that if you see one, there are probably more nearby, and more, and more, and yeah, you could avoid them, but they're persistent, patient, and they don't stop, and if one of them gets its hands on you, you're probably done, so you can't let your guard down for a minute, and you better be sure there aren't any waiting behind the door on your escape route, and next time you look out the boarded-up window, there will be more waiting outside than last time you looked. On the other hand, 28 Days Later does have legitimate thrills.

before I go on too long, here's a history of the zombie genre: I still have a lot to see, but I've had myself a good start. Cheesy, but fun as heck!

Zombies. Go see one yourself. I recommend Fulci, or the original Night of the Living Dead.

'cause if you're gonna watch a crappy movie, watch a crappy zombie movies: crappy action, suspense, comedy, and drama films are just abominable: no fun to be had whatsoever, but with a crappy horror or zombie movie, you at least get the fun of some shameless attempts to frighten you, some fun make-up, and the joy of mocking the filmmakers if they fail to actually frighten you...and the fun of a good scare if they DO!

Oh by the way, one last thing:

Don't you love it when, at the end of the credits of a movie titled something like "Rock Zombie Elvis Impersonating Detective Agency From the Fifth Dimension and Their Loyal Zombie Space-Dog Poofnark... The Musical!", there's a little disclaimer: "Any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental"

Shinhan Engineering & Construction and the Korean Supreme Court Damages its Own Reputation by Pissing on Choi Jin-Shil's Grave

image from all Kpop

For the crime of being beaten by her husband, Choi Jin-Shil was sued by Shinhan Engineering & Construction Co.: she was hired to promote their company, but by appearing in public with burises on her face, she damaged the image of the company she endorsed. The Korean Supreme Court upheld their suit.
(image from the story about the original filing of the suit, 5 years ago.)

That's right: Choi got sued for being a victim of domestic violence. And found responsible for damages to the company. And the supreme court upheld it. And Korea wonders why they are 68th in the world on the Gender Empowerment Measure, despite being 25th on the Human Development Index: a disparity of 43 places. This is an embarrassment Korea, and a despicable action by the company. Here's the company's page. I can't find their e-mail, so you'll have to phone them and tell them how you feel. They should have pressed charges against her husband for damaging their "property". Cripes.

James Turnbull has more about Korean women getting royally screwed, in reputation or financially, for things that weren't their fault. (Happened to IVY, too.)

Mike Hurt on Korea's GEM

On a more sarcastic note: comedy site Yangpa reports on Korea's "Let's Keep Domestic Violence Domestic" campaign: hit your wife at home, not in front of the KFC!

Bwahahaha! Wondergirls and the Korean boys in Blue

The wondergirls made it onto Collegehumor.com

Watch Dancing Korean Police Officer on CollegeHumor

You want Random? I'll give you Random

1. one of the coolest compliments I ever received:
"Rob is the thinnest person I've ever met who likes food as much as he does."

2. when a narcissist like myself googles his own name, he might discover...

I have a namesake: another Rob Ouwehand, who is a prog-metal guitarist in the Netherlands. Here's what he sounds like.

Here's what he looks like.

And here's a funny song about another person who likes to google himself. (warning: mature content)

F-Visas vs. E-Visas...This again? A Correction in the Korea Times.

OK.

So back in October of last year, a Korea Times writer named Kang Shin-who wrote an article about Visa status for foreigners in Korea.

Here's that article.

This was in October of 2008 -- long before the Wagner report was filed with the NHRCK. Among other things, he wrote:

South Korea’s visa policy has been accused of favoring ``gyopo’’ or ethnic Korean English teachers over other foreign nationals, with this favoritism creating loopholes in the system making it easier for those with criminal and drug records to go undetected. However, the government has indicated it has no immediate plan to change visa rules....

He said he has witnessed some English instructors who were once expelled from Korea return to the country with other visas such as an F-2 or F-4, taking advantage of this system.

Under the Korean visa rules, native English speakers seeking E-2 visa are obliged to submit police background checks. However, foreigners who are ethnic Koreans or married to Korean nationals are exempt from the requirements as they are eligible for F-4 and F-2 visas, respectively.

Most other foreign English teachers call it ``discriminative.’’

Where he went to find his "most other foreign English teachers" is never explained, but that was his idea, that was the main thesis of the article. You can read it. Let the record show: this was last October.

In February, when Ben Wagner filed his report, somebody in the Korea Times office probably shouted across the press room, "Hey! Anybody here care to write up this story about discrimination against E-2 visas?"

Whether Kang Shin-who thought, "Hey! I already wrote about that before; I'll totally do it again: it's like my strong point" and volunteered, or his editor thought, "Kang wrote about this before; I'll ask him to do it again," once again, Kang was the man covering the Wagner report.

He made a mistake. See, he had a deadline, so he took this idea from his article back in October, and used it again when he wrote up the Wagner report:

In response, many E-2 visa holders have complained that the government should apply the same visa screening rules to foreign English teachers holding other visas. They are urging the government to use the same restrictions on teachers holding E-1 (professorship), F-2 (spouse of a Korean) or F-4 (ethnic Korean) visas.

He even pulled a quote from Wagner out of its original context, and put it right after his own idea, to make it sound like Wagner supported his thesis.

``The visa rules for E-2 visa holders should be revised as they clearly discriminate on the basis of national origin,'' said Benjamin Wanger, a professor of Kyung Hee University. He filed the complaint with the human right agency.

ATEK made it clear that they don't oppose background checks per se.

Well, he's at it again. See, a group of Korean lawyers are filing a petition with the Constitutional Court protesting the discriminatory visa rules. (As for why they're discriminatory, go read up here.) Once again, Kang got tapped for the KT write-up, and once again, Kang has dropped his own total misunderstanding of the Wagner Report, based on a preconception of visa discrimination he'd formed the October before the Wagner Report was filed, into his write-up.

E-2 visa holders have contended that the government should apply the same visa screening rules to foreign English teachers holding other visas, urging the government to use the same restrictions on teachers holding E-1 (professorship), F-2 (spouse of a Korean) or F-4 (ethnic Korean) visas. They made it clear that they don't oppose background checks as a rule.

If you look at the texts side-by-side, I wouldn't be surprised if he simply cut-and-pasted his own article. They're almost word-for-word.

Now, everybody who has a lot invested in this: look at the three texts written by the same Korea Times writer. The guy got it wrong. Really wrong. His previous article contributed to a nasty, nasty rift in the expat community which has just finally started to be repaired on either side, and it would be a real shame if this guy's misunderstanding of Wagner's report caused a re-fracturing where we were so close to getting ourselves back on the same page (take Ben up on this offer, f-series friends! It'd be a really great gesture of solidarity in the face of what's threatening to pull us apart).

I just got off the phone with Ben, and Ben just got off the phone with Kang, and Kang finally gets it, that his sloppy journalism is causing huge misunderstandings and division in the expat community. Ben reports that Kang actually feels awful about it, and is in touch with his editor to get his flub corrected in the online edition. I'm going to write a letter to the editor asking for a retraction, even though I'd previously promised myself never to write to the Korea Times again, after that horrible, horrible two weeks of printing any old junk.

So hey everybody.
1. let's not crucify Kang: journalists writing under deadlines get sloppy, and he didn't realize the effect his carelessness was having on the community, and actually feels bad about it: Ben's been on the phone with him a few times tonight.

2. Let's not let this guy's gaffe screw up the positive movement toward a truce and a clearer understanding of each other that had been slowly coming around, thanks to gestures of openness and good faith on both sides.

On the bright side: Korean lawyers are coming to their own constitutional court, calling their own laws discriminatory, and calling out the use of prejudice in the process of lawmaking:

Chang Suh-yeon, an attorney with the Korean Public Interest Lawyers Group ``Gong-Gam,'' told The Korea Times Tuesday that her group will take the issue to the court this week or next.

``The visa law violated the Constitution that guarantees a basic right to freedom, equal treatment, the pursuit of happiness and the protection of privacy,'' Chang said.

``The visa law is based on vague prejudice and bias that foreign English teachers have disordered sex lives and use drugs,'' she added.

For anybody who's invested in living in Korea for a long time, and who has gotten tired of defending ourselves from unfounded, lazy stereotyping and scapegoating, an open public discussion about media scapegoating, led by Koreans talking to Koreans on our behalf, is about as good news as I can imagine.

I'm hitting publish now, and once I've written up the call for a formal retraction and sent it to The Korea Times, I'll publish it here, too. Screenshot of the offending article, with the paragraph under question highlighted (10:30pm).



(also covered at Brian in JND)

Update: Wow! That was a really fast correction. Here is a screenshot of the corrected article online (11:46pm), with a more accurate description of the nature of the complaint. The paragraph was removed, and the first sentence was also changed to more accurately reflect the content of Wagner's report, and the nature of the Korean lawyers' petition.

As the error has been corrected, a call for a retraction and a nasty letter to the editor is no longer necessary...so I won't write one. Thanks, Kang Shin-who, and The Korea Times editor, for doing what's necessary to get it right this time.

Once again, readers: let's make sure that if the expat community disagrees about stuff, it's only once we all have our facts straight.

Update: this article explains things the way I've heard Ben Wagner explain them.