Shelf Life »

While we'll pretty much make up any reason to watch a zombie any time day or night, much less one written and directed by the de facto creator of the genre, George Romero, the release of Zombieland gave our appetite for undead entertainment some legitimacy this week. And while Zack Snyder's 2004 reimagining of Dawn of the Dead might be the more obvious candidate for a "Shelf Life" column given Snyder's status as an emerging auteur himself, not to mention the fact it's the best American zombie movie in the last decade, we elected to go back to Romero's 1979 original and see if its classic status is still deserved.

The Facts: Also known as Zombi, George Romero's follow-up to the 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead was released May 24, 1979 after premiering in Italy almost a year before. With an estimated budget of $650,000, Romero's film grossed $55 million to date worldwide (equal to $181 million in 2009 dollars), and is widely acknowledged as the best zombie movie of all time – even if its predecessor likely remains the most influential.

Last week's "Shelf Life" looked back at Carrie, the iconic Brian De Palma movie that introduced the world to movies about terrifying teenage girls, the latest iteration of which is Diablo Cody's follow-up to Juno, Jennifer's Body. In anticipation of the upcoming movie Surrogates, which opens this Friday, we decided to revisit Bruce Willis' last great hit, The Sixth Sense, admittedly less because it has anything other than its star in common with Jonathan Mostow's technothriller than the fact that there are few movies in the last decade as acclaimed and commercially successful as M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 breakthrough. As such, we figured it was time to take a look at the movie that made "I see dead people" a pop culture catchphrase and examine whether it should truly live on as the classic it was originally considered.

The Facts: M. Night Shyamalan and his diminutive star, Haley Joel Osment, became overnight icons with this 1999 film about a doctor named Malcolm (played by Willis) desperately trying to reach a little boy named Cole who claims to see ghosts. Though it allegedly cost only $55 million to make, the film became the sleeper hit of that summer, earning some $670 million worldwide as well as six Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture, Actress, Supporting Actor, Director, Editor, and Original Screenplay. Meanwhile, the film drew almost unanimous praise from the critical community, and currently enjoys a 85 percent Tomatometer rating. Not to mention its greatest legacy – namely, making twist endings the hallmark (and eventually, Achilles' heel) of its director, most of whose subsequent movies featured some sort of third-act surprise.

In the previous two installments of "Shelf Life," we took a look at a couple of prominent Oscar winners that have been both canonized and churned up by the annals of history. Interestingly, both of them held up a lot better than we originally expected, primarily because of our own hazy memories of Titanic and American Beauty, but also because of the wealth of films their successes inspired in terms of characters, stories, styles and even spectacles. As such it seemed appropriate to go back and check out a movie that in no small way served as the foundation for literally countless imitators and rip-offs, potentially one of which, Jennifer's Body, opens this week. The film we're referring to, of course, is Brian De Palma's Carrie, and we recently rewatched this venerated horror classic to see if it's still as worthy of its classic status as it was when everyone and their insane, God-fearing mother decided to do their version of it.

After Cinematical's new "Movies I Will Never See" series elicited a strong variety of reactions – both positive and negative - from readers, it occurred to us that there's a huge, untapped reservoir of existing films that we have actually seen, and it would probably be at least as interesting, if not more so, to go back and see how well they held up in the years since their release. These may be acclaimed classics that audiences simply haven't revisited on a regular basis, or condemned failures that might deserve a second look; but setting a statute of limitations of five years or more old (meaning before '04), we're going back to see how good are the bad movies, and how bad are the good ones - in other words testing their shelf life.

After last week's look at Titanic, it seemed somewhat appropriate to revisit other noteworthy Oscar winners. But while there were certainly a wealth of questionably worthy titles celebrated in the Academy's history, one in particular seemed especially ripe for consideration: American Beauty, Sam Mendes' directorial debut. Perhaps it's because so many movies followed its lead in deconstructing suburbia, or perhaps it's just because it's been ten years, but Mendes' film doesn't seem as relevant, important, or even as good as it once was – which is why we recently popped it in the DVD player for another look.

After Cinematical's new "Movies I Will Never See" series elicited a strong variety of reactions – both positive and negative - from readers, it occurred to us that there's a huge, untapped reservoir of existing films that we have actually seen, and it would probably be at least as interesting, if not more so, to go back and see how well they held up in the years since their release. These may be acclaimed classics that audiences simply haven't revisited on a regular basis, or condemned failures that might deserve a second look; but setting a statute of limitations of five years or more old (meaning before '04), we're going back to see how good are the bad movies, and how bad are the good ones - in other words testing their shelf life.

With James Cameron's Avatar looming large on the horizon, and the "event movie" filmmaker lauding his latest as no less than a worthy successor to the Highest-Grossing Movie of All Time, it seemed appropriate to see if Titanic was not only worth the hype that surrounded its original release, but to indicate whether it promised enough true and lasting greatness to entice fanboys and casual filmgoers alike to trust in the director as he debuts his next effort.