The Third Presidential Debate: Off-Topic

As I sat watching the debate on Monday I wondered what was going to happen. The past two debates have had President Obama and Mr. Romney at each other’s necks. The last debate however seemed to be a bit more relaxed. However, as I sat watching I thought that they seemed to get a bit off topic.

The debate on Monday was supposed to be about foreigh affairs, and the two did talk about these issues, but it seemed as though Mr. Romney agreed with President Obama. I would say about a half hour in is when things started to get a bit off topic. They began to talk about education and the teachers and class size, which  seemed to be a hot topic since they both had different opinions on the matter. I am not saying that this is not an important issue, but we were here to talk about foreign affairs. They've both already had enough time to talk about these issues. For them to bring it up during this topic showed that foreign policies aren't that important to either of them. When they would talk about foreign policies, it seemed as though they both had the same ideas. Maybe they should have picked a different topic to cover for the final debate. 

            
Getting off topic again, the President and Governor Romney moved on to the economy and jobs. Now this is a very big topic for them. A lot of people want to know what will be different if President Obama is reelected or Governor Romney is elected as the President. The thing that bothered me the most about this was they (once again) already had time for this. The debate became very boring because they would bring up ideas and issues that we've already heard them discuss in other debates. What I wanted to know is their viewpoints on foreign affairs. I did learn some good things from both candidates, but it seemed as if they both stood for the same things.

A bad lip reading of the Third Presidential Debate:

 -Nathan Bond

A Comedic Side of the Third Presidential Debate

The Third Presidential Debate made into a song:

A rap battle between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney:

A classic showdown inspired by our Founding Fathers:

-Grant Ausbury

Electoral Votes Projection Post-Third Presidential Debate

-Nathan Bond

The Final Presidential Debate - A Twitter Timeline

This following tweets were selected from the #debates section of Twitter during the final Presidential Debate that took place on 10/22/12 at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. The timeline is formatted so that the beginning of the debate is at the top, and the end of the debate is at the bottom.

-Grant Ausbury

Electoral Votes Projection Pre-Third Presidential Debate

-Grant Ausbury

Zombieland's Rotten Tomatoes Results

Rotten Tomatoes, a website dedicated to giving ratings on movies, has many interesting ways of analyzing whether the movie is worth watching. They use a system of grading movies by using the phrases "fresh" (means the movie was very good) or rotten (meaning the movie was terrible). They have a collection of movie analysts and participants who give their opinions about specific movies.

Zombieland was a great success of a movie according to Rotten Tomatoes. It recieved a 90% (192 Fresh and 22 Rotten) on the tomatometer, which is that total percentage of Tomatometer Critics that enjoyed the movie or approved it as "fresh". They described the movie as the following: "Wickedly funny and featuring plenty of gore, Zombieland is proof that the zombie subgenre is far from dead." The percentage of audience members that enjoyed it was 87%, which is considerably high for a movie compared to others on the website.

Some of those who approved of the movie said things such as the following:

"Now this isn't the most violent film I've ever seen, but it is certainly one of the only films in which the infliction of violence (gut-churning violence) brings people together. And to that I say ... finally!"

-Simon Miraudo, Quickflix

 "Scattershot but sharp, this postapocalyptic road comedy gives Shaun of the Dead a run for its money."

-Cliff Doerksen, Chicago Reader

"This is proof that horror movies can really be funny. It wasn't just the violent humor, but the little sidetrips for twinkies and Bill Murray's zombie makeup that sent this film into zombie heaven."

-Paul Chambers, CNN

Those who disapproved of Zombie said the following:

"Yes, it's got zombies. Yes, it's got jokes. But it's soulless - dead behind the eyes."

-Robbie Collin, News of the World

"Has a few flashes of genre-bending inspiration ... but the rest is a little too low-key and obvious to really set this zombie comedy apart."

-Mark Dujsik, Mark Reviews Movies

"Watching a 12-year-old Abigail Breslin killing zombies with semi-automatic weapons doesn't do much for me, but I'm sure there are many audiences that will remark, "cool." Gratuitous violence never seemed so cheap."

-Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

Because of such a high approval rating, I would say that those who did not like Zombieland are not fans of the "zombie killing good time" aspect. Maybe they are saying that only the audience is supposed to have fun watching the zombies get killed, rather than the people in the actual movie having a good time killing the zombies. I totally agreed with most of the positive reviews of this film. I believe the idea of the movie and for having a first time director, they did a great job making the movie appeal to horror movie fans as well as those who like comedy all in one movie experience. Overall, Zombieland was a definite success in my book and many others.

To the Rotten Tomatoes review page:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/zombieland/

Zombieland VS The Walking Dead - Nathan Bond

Zombieland and The Walking Dead have some similarities and some differences. To start with they both are both about zombies. They have people that try to survive the zombie apocalypse. We find that both have people that want to survive. The people join together to create a family/team to survive. This is always crucial in zombie movies. There are also some major differences with these two.

One Zombieland is a movie. They do not have as many characters in the movie as The Walking Dead does. Since The Walking Dead is a show they can have a lot more characters. They can make their show last a lot longer. The Walking Dead can add and take away as many characters as they want. Zombieland can do this, however they are limited since there are only four main characters. 

In a zombie movie the zombies are a huge factor. You can see that the zombies are kind of different in the two. In The Walking Dead the zombies are a little bit slower. They walk instead of running. This to me does not build up as much suspense. In Zombieland the zombies are fast and will run after you. This can make scenes a little intense. You never really know if the person is fast enough to get away. However, in The Walking Dead the zombies seem a bit smarter. They are able to pick up on human’s scents. They can also pick up on lights and movement very easily. In Zombieland the zombies cannot tell the difference between human scents and zombies. So in a way both can build up suspense by using different factors.

Another huge difference to me is character development. In shows you can see character development come on slowly. However, for movies they need to move a bit faster. You can see in The Walking Dead characters wont change until a little later in some of the episodes. In Zombieland the characters will change pretty rapidly. About an hour in you can see a certain character to change his attitude. I think this is why some people like shows better than movies. You can fit more things in for a show.

The Zombieland Trailer:

 

The Walking Dead Trailer:

A Zombieland Review - Brittany Aho

Within the first few minutes you find a very thin line between humor and classical gore in Zombieland. The movie sets up this post-apocalyptical time and a quick gruesome zombie-flesh-eating  scene quickly masked by a layer of comedic satire. The reason that this worked well together was because director Ruben Fleischer focused not mainly on the undead, but the living.

I also believe the choice of actors and actresses had a huge role in making a film like this work. Harreleson and Eisenberg are an unbeatable team when it comes to wit and humor, they owned the movie. Harreleson proves to be a typical badass, while Eisenberg has this emo, anti-social personality and with them combined you’re in for a few laughs.

Stone and Breslin (sisters) have a different agenda of their own. You soon find out they steal Harreleson and Eisenberg’s car and guns (but eventually meet back up). Emma Stone has the sexy-sass that makes an audience wish they could either be her, or be with her. And Abigail Breslin has the younger but tough outer shell down pat and authentic.

I believe that without the cast, the film would have been a flop. The humor, gore and sometimes too clichéd storylines made Zombieland exactly what it was supposed to be. A violent but humorous zombie-killing good time.

Brittany Aho

Zombie Quality - Grant Ausbury

A Comparison of Zombie (Makeup) Quality

Above is a comparison between the zombies of Zombieland (top photo) and that of The Walking Dead (bottom photo) television show on AMC, which is currently about to begin its' third season. I believe that the make-up artistry in The Walking Dead is a little more advanced and detailed because it is a horror/drama television show rather than a comedy/horror film. I am very impressed by the makeup done in Zombieland, but it was not as high quality as the television show that came out just a year later.

 Above is a comparison between the zombies of Zombieland (top photo) and Dawn of the Dead (bottom photo). The zombies in Zombieland were much higher quality then that of the 2004 film Dawn of the Dead. I believe the reason for this is that the advancement in the quality and experience of makeup artists between 2004 and when Zombieland came out in 2009. As I mentioned above, Zombieland was a comedy/horror film while Dawn of the Dead is solely a horror film, which makes Zombieland's makeup very impressive.

Zombieland Summary and Review - Nathan Bond

After watching the Zombieland, I was very impressed. The movie has a very good beginning  by starting with the main character reading off his rules for survival. This shows that the main character, “Columbus”, is smart about surviving. The movie throughout is very interesting though. As a zombie movie I thought that it would be a kind of scary movie. However, you find out very fast that it will be funny. Jessie Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson are the main characters. This right away can show that it will be a comedy. Not to mention that they putt Bill Murray in the mix later in the film!

Jesse Eisenberg’s character’s name is Columbus. He goes by this because he wants to get to Ohio to see if his parents are still alive. As he is traveling down the highway, he meets up with a character by the name of “Tallahassee”, who is played by Woody Harrelson. Tallahassee is very interesting because he is the total opposite of Columbus. He likes to kill zombies and really does not have rules. As they travel together, they get to know each other and eventually come to a grocery store. They do this because Tallahassee wants to get one of his beloved Twinkies. When they are in the grocery store, they kill zombies and find two girls. The girl’s names are Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). At first the girls seem harmless, but then steal Columbus and Tallahassee’s car and weapons. 

After this great setback, Tallahassee and Columbus get another car and head down the highway. Tallahassee and Columbus eventually meet up with Wichita and Little Rock again. However, this time they ride together. Wichita and Little Rock tell them where they want to go. They tell them about a place in Los Angeles, which is a theme park that is supposedly zombie free. As they head to LA, they stop in a mansion. In this mansion they find another person. This person that they find is no other than Bill Murray. After spending some time there Wichita leaves and Columbus goes after her. Tallahassee feels obligated to go with him. As they chase after them they eventually get to the theme park. At this theme park there are zombies that are chasing Wichita and Little Rock. At the end of the movie the four of them feel like they have all become great friends. They all join each other and drive away with each other.

The movie to me was very good. It gave a different approach on zombies. It made running from zombies seem not as scary. As in other shows and movies zombies seem a little smarter. However, in this movie they only seemed faster. The whole movie keeps you entertained with laughter. To me I really liked this since it was something new to me. I would definitely recommend this to people who want to have a good laugh. This is not your ordinary zombie movie, and it proves that comedy can be in a zombie movie!

  

Nathan Bond