[Ashcomp]
Show me a new way to make people happy, or to encourage the growth of community, or to improve health care, or to get more people involved in creating joy in living -- those are things I could get behind.

How about: Elect a democratic president and solid majorities in the US House and Senate. Would (God, I hope!) go a long way toward all of those ambitions.

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Yes -- but those aren't new. We've known this for close to a decade now. And none of them are (except accidentally) something considered as entertainment.

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my friends and i are almost finished shooting a zombie movie where the girls are the ones who show up and are extremely competent and save the day.

behind the scenes and trailers and clips at http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=12193278988

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Did you just decide to ignore what I wrote above? In what way do zombies add to the joy of life? I'm glad your movie is going well -- but it's one I'm never going to watch.

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from my stand point it looked like you were upset by killing for no reason.

doug decided to write a zombie movie because three years ago our home town was under water and all the footage on CNN looked like something had attacked. we came home and there was nothing but ruin and destruction and i still can't go in to work without some tourist asking me how i made out during the storm. we decided to scrape up the money and make it because we could by way of proxy save our town. we tried to do it smart and funny and without refrigerating anyone.

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I am upset by the culture of death that has taken over in the past eight years. I don't know if you noticed, but for at least four years, from 9/11 through 2005 and sporadically since then as well, there was not one hour on cable that was free from a war movie on some channel, often on several channels at once. Whenever Bush wanted to push something about Iraq, they'd haul out all the WWII movies and Vietnam movies and Civil War movies again -- though not the ones that questioned the purpose of wars, like Coming Home or What Price Courage or Johnny Got His Gun.

I'm fucking furious that we're being told to be afraid of this and afraid of that, so that we'll feel helpless and want to rely on stupid powermongers to make decisions that benefit them and do nothing for the rest of us. And I'm sick of seeing "real-life" movies about actual events that are screwed up so they do no justice to the people who were really involved. This last is a huge hot spot for me; several made-for-tv movies were done concerning some of my family, and they make me ill.
< /rant >

I think in your case a zombie movie would definitely add to joy in life. And I take back what I said in the previous comment. But I'm still just not a fan of horror movies. Monster movies, yes. Horror movies, no.

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I'm often baffled by what is presented as entertainment on television. I recently stumbled past an episode of Law and Order: SVU that was a sadist's fully-equipped dream, but had me hugging my cat and crying -- and that was after 5 minutes of it (which I knew I shouldn't watch, but there you are). I worry about who watches a program like that and thinks it's entertaining.

My theory is that this "entertainment" is an attempt to colonize people's minds with fear so they will fall for whatever helplessness argument they're served. Of course, the over-the-top reality shows are the flipside of that, encouraging us to be so dumb and shallow as to not worry about an ever-present overlord.

</crazy rant>

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I accidentally wound up (at a friend's house, after dinner) watching an episode of a new series that purported to be a psychological forensic series -- the episode featured the torture of women in such graphic detail that I had a very hard time not losing dinner on their rug.

I have never watched *any* of the Law and Order series, or any other similar shows, or the supposedly "real" cop shows that specialize in brutalization. The only legal or medical show I watch regularly is Bones, in which the people act like the cops and medical people I used to know when I was a reporter, and they have lives and interests and a sense of humor. Bones does not stoop to fearmongering, even when dealing with serial killers. It also does not elevate cops to any sort of position superior to anyone else, or presume that they are so powerful that everyone must therefore be afraid of them.

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