I have been told that for a gal, I have boyish taste in films. My all-time favourite director is Paul Verhoeven, I believe Snake Plissken is probably the coolest character in the history of cinema and nothing makes more happy than an over-the-top Steven Seagal’s action flick. It is true that I am a bit of tom-boy in this aspect but there is one thing that prevents from being the ideal male geek partner: I cannot bear horror movies. Well, I can watch them but I avoid doing it as I know the consequence: months of insomnia. I won’t tell you what became of my life after seeing The Exorcist. You would conclude that I am a basketcase. I feel alright though sharing with you what happened when I saw the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004).

I recently devoted an entire weekend to a Lord of the Ring marathon. I revisited the long versions of the trilogy that gave me so much happiness when it first came out in 2001. I was fourteen when The Fellowship of the Ring was released and I went crazy about it like the majority of my schoolmates. I was even offered a limited edition of the ring. There was no doubt in my mind that these films were perfect. But that was then and this is now. Seeing them with the eyes of a twenty-four woman had been a radically different experience. I would not say that the magic was gone as it would somehow mean that when you grow up you are no longer sensitive to enchanted worlds; but it was certainly undermined by the writing and directing problems that I noticed. I came out of this night with a whole changed opinion about the trilogy: it is regrettably bad.