a long story about why my car is covered with bird poop

On Easter morning we did the traditional zombie-movie-with-the nephews thing to see the remake of Crazies.

For years now brother Daniel has been telling me that Crazies (1973) was Romero's finest non Living Dead movie. I told him he was, well, crazy, because the best non Living Dead movie was Martin (1977).

I was not only wrong, I was confused. I must have fallen asleep in front of the TV or something, because I had confused Crazies with an an Italian movie of about the same time and the same plot.

The new Crazies was so intelligently and carefully made, so scrupulous about little details and so genuinely scary that I had to go back to the original. It was pretty good and maybe Daniel was right. Of course in '73, the threat of our own government was more pointed and plausible than it is right now. I was surprised and touched to see a horror movie drift into a re-enactment of Kent State in the lovely Ohio spring.

The 2010 version is remarkably accurate about epidemiology as well as bioterrorism and emergency management principles (in real life I know about these things). There was one scene where the hero killed one of the zombies/infecteds in a way that exposed him to her blood and gave me shudders. Then I realized (and our hero remembered) that we had established that transmission was airborne. So the very bloody scene was disturbing but not lethal - a nice touch of realistic detail.

Oh, the poop on the car. Well, first it is parked under a massive oak tree inhabited by mockingbirds, doves, and at least one parrot. But I can't go to the carwash by myself since Crazies had a novel and frightening attack that took place in a car wash. Faces appearing in the soapy windows and hands reaching through the spongy strips...