The Box 022310

Cameron Diaz and James Matheson are a married couple with an eleven year-old son. Matheson is a NASA scientist who just found out that his request to be an astronaut has been denied. Diaz is a school teacher who just found out she’s getting a pay cut. The same day, Frank Langella arrives and gives them a box with a button. He tells them that if they press it someone, somewhere that they don’t know will die and they’ll be given a million dollars for pushing the button. They decide that the whole thing is a joke and press the button, but when they’re given the million dollars they become paranoid and guilt ridden. Now they try and figure out who this man is and what they did.

This is the third film by Richard Kelly of Donnie Darko fame and I was really looking forward to it. His films, while very strange, are extremely atmospheric and you find tension building for no reason immediately after the film starts. The idea of him making a thriller is still very appealing but this wasn’t one. That’s not to say that it wasn’t good. All of Kelly’s films are strange because he uses them to explore philosophy and religion, and he does the same thing here. The parallel to original sin was very intriguing (Diaz presses the button but Matheson did nothing to stop her). The couple’s attempt to discover what was going on are incredibly tense because they stumble onto something that appears to be part zombie cult and part invasion of the body snatchers, making it very creepy.

Like Kelly’s second film, Southland Tales, the weak point is the ending. Part of Donnie Darko’s brilliance was the movie makes absolutely no sense at all. For the entire movie you are completely lost until the very end. In the last three minutes of the movie one plot twist arrives that makes the entire movie make sense. This didn’t do something that drastic, but the ending lacked a definite conclusion. The main plotline was wrapped up but there were at least three or four minor plots that were left hanging. Plus the scenes following the ending seemed to set up a sequel and you want one because one sub plot seemed to involve the coming end of the world I’d like that to be explained a little more.

The Box is good, but it gets too caught up in its own complexity. Fans of Kelly and the strange will enjoy but it’s certainly not for everyone. C - .

The Damned United 022310

Michael Sheen plays Brian Clough, a British football (soccer) coach with a gift. He can take a nobody team and in a very short time make them the dominate team in the country. This leads to pride and being a jerk and the movie explores his character growth.

This is a movie that normally I wouldn’t give a second look. I’m not a fan of soccer by any stretch of the imagination and I really don’t like bio movies because they’re frequently boring. The reason is, a movie should not be about a person. It should be about something. Benjamin Button was boring because it had no plot, it was just his life. Contrariwise, Amazing Grace was a great movie because while it was about William Wilberforce, it was more about William Wilberforce trying to end slavery in the UK. Now, that being said, I looked at this movie because I like the lead actor. I was happy to find out though, that while it is about Clough, it’s more about Clough’s obsession with fellow coach Don Revie. Beating him at every turn becomes his white whale and the extent to which he tries to go to accomplish this goal is both sad and engaging.

Damned United does have its weak points. Pacing is a little slow but you’re okay with that because the scenes in the slow spots are still entertaining. There’s also a few unexplained things. At one point, Clough’s wife and daughter disappear and he’s with his sons alone. Whether they got a divorce or what is unexplained. Adding that drama would’ve brought the movie down but they still could’ve mentioned what happened.

Really, a great drama starring one of Britain’s rising actors. B all the way.

The Informant 022310

Matt Damon plays Mark Whitacre, a young executive with a company called ADM that deals in agricultural products, particularly corn by-products. He becomes aware of corporate crime and goes to the FBI about it. They ask him to be a spy for them and help take down the company; a job he’s really not qualified for.

This movie exhibits one thing that we are all very aware of: Matt Damon is a really good actor. He’s gone through the roles of a hard raised genius, a borderline psychotic angel of death, a reluctant super agent who doesn’t want to be, a young, excited thief desperate to prove himself to the big dogs, and now a character that can only be described as a dork. The way he dresses, the way he walks, the way he talks are all so not Jason Bourne or even Matt Damon that it’s easy to forget who it is. Mark’s ineptitude at being a spy is really great to watch, and it’s great that this movie never goes anti-corporate America on you. Right now, that’s refreshing.

The biggest setback for the movie is it’s based on a true story. The problem with true stories is they rarely just end and once we get to the end of this one it blends into another story. This would be fine, but the movie also switches gears on you. It goes from being and enjoyable comedy (not hilarious but enjoyable) to being some kind of psychological drama. You essentially end up watching two different, but good, movies. However, you don’t want to do that and the flip is kind of jarring.

Spot on acting throughout from all involved make this movie worth watching but it can’t save it from its story problems. C.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths 022310

A super-powered Lex Luthor arrives in metropolis and tells the Justice League that he’s from an alternate earth (standard comic procedure) where his justice league has been killed by a supervillain crime syndicate. He asks the Justice League to return to his dimension with him to help save his world from the dark versions of themselves.

DC has really come up with a clever idea in recent years. Open their own animation department and release straight to video versions of their comic book stories for fans. Not only that, but most of them (exception: Batman/Superman: Public Enemies) have been very entertaining. This one is no exception. The story is clever and I was strangely interested in finding out the antithesis of each character. Consequently I felt bad when I couldn’t figure it out. If anyone knows who the president was supposed to be please tell me. I will tell you one thing that most critics would complain about, but not me; I found it amusing. There’s a bizarre racist and sexist undertone through the story. The deciding split into the different worlds seems to be that Super WOMAN rather than Super Man crashed to earth. This apparently led to other ethnicities gaining powers. All the dark versions either have a darker skin tone or an obvious accent. Some might be offended but I found it funny and ballsy.

The negative starts with one of my constant complaints involving the DC world. Superman’s an enormous wuss and we all know it. Another small thing is I’ve been watching Batman, Superman and Justice League shows since I was four and the same voice actors have always done the same characters. In this one they didn’t and while that’s not exactly bad it was strangely disheartening. Another problem was comic book logic. For example, initially Batman refuses to help so he doesn’t help until later. It’s a known fact that after the formation of the Justice League Batman figured out how to kill each member in the off chance that they turned evil and this intel wasn’t applied after he joined. There was also a romance that I found odd and out of place. I feel this actually would have been better if it was longer.

I’d say this deserves a C+. Nothing’s too overtly wrong with it but it doesn’t do anything new or great. However, it is easily accessible for both die hard and casual comic fans.

Vampire's Assistant 022310

A boy with a minor spider obsession and his best friend with a minor vampire obsession go to a freak show where John C Reilly performs an act with a huge, deadly spider. Our lead character develops some kind of obsession and sneaks into the dressing room to steal it. In the process he finds out that John C Reilly is a vampire. After stealing the spider the best friend is bitten and winds up in the hospital. In exchange for an antidote the lead agrees to become a vampire and help John C Reilly with his act. After faking his death and joining the freak show, the boy becomes aware of the world of the supernatural and the forces at war around him.

This is a kid movie but I was interested because it looked funny. It was actually a very enjoyable movie. It never went too far into the Harry Potter plagiarism. There was the whole magic world people aren’t aware of aspect but let’s be honest, MIB did that before HP. John C Reilly does an excellent job of playing someone with a dark than rather silly sense of humor and actually plays the part really well. The best friend (the kid from Journey to the Center of the Earth) is on my list of young actors to keep an eye on. He’s not great or a prodigy or anything but he is steadily improving with each new role and could very well become very good.

This is a kid movie so it was very predictable and occasionally cliche. There was the whole theme of don’t judge others until you get to know them. The expected romance with the monkey girl (yeah you heard me). And the humor was frequently cheesy. Typical stuff you’d expect. Although the language was to a Goonies level.

It is a kid movie but it’s one you can have fun watching when you’re bored. It seems made for a sequel and I hope it gets one because the characters are fun and I’d like to see them again. C +

Law Abiding CItizen 021610

Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is at home when two men bust into his home, immobilize him and murder his wife and daughter. Before the trial, prosecuting attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) makes a deal with the man who actually murdered them. He testifies against his partner in exchange for a lighter sentence. Clyde is devastated by this and is convinced the justice system isn’t just at all. Cut to ten years later. The convicted intruder is given his lethal injection but Clyde has switched one of the chemicals, which makes what is normally a painless death an excruciating one. On the same day, the more guilty accomplice is kidnapped, immobilized, and slowly cut into pieces by Clyde. He’s put in jail and manages to continue killing all involved in what happened.

The movie moves with a brisk pace, jumping right into the story: the first scene is Clyde’s family getting murdered. A fortunate directorial choice is to hint at the graphic violence rather than show it. Even crime scene photos are fortunately vague. This script was clearly written by someone with some kind of chip on their shoulder about the justice system. Rather than being about fat cats and mob bosses that seem to get away everything like so many of these movies are, it’s instead about some of the more ridiculous statutes that let people walk free. Rather than just saying the system is corrupt and expecting the audience to go along with it like most movies of this sort, it almost presents an essay about why they’re right. And it’s convincing. One weak point that you would assume this film would carry is that, given the plot, you’re rooting for the villain and don’t want him to be caught but the build-up of “justice” is finely handled. In the beginning, you’re totally on board with Clyde’s actions. They seem right, but as he moves further and further down the list of people he feels deserve to die, you sympathize less and less until you want him caught.

In case you couldn’t tell, I enjoyed this movie immensely and don’t have a whole lot of negative things to say. The main one is the ending. It felt the same as the ending to Huckleberry Finn, like the author just kind of decided to wrap it up. The big mystery through the movie is how Clyde is doing what he’s doing and the answer falls flat of what I felt was promised. I also didn’t like the method used to mark when Clyde has gone too far. It was necessary to the plot and I can’t argue with the fact that they did it. I just didn’t want them to do it.

Law Abiding Citizen is a finely acted, well written, and excellently paced throughout. You won’t watch it a lot but you’ll still want to own it because the urge to see will probably randomly strike you. B +.

XIII 020910

The first female president is assassinated and the country is thrown into a frenzy as agencies run ragged trying to find the assassin. Several weeks later, an elderly couple find an injured man attached to a parachute, hanging from a tree. He awakens in their house with no memory. To make this abysmal situation worse, people are trying to kill him and he’s caught up in a slew of political intrigue.

I was wary of this movie initially because straight to video thrillers are very rarely good and Val Kilmer has made a painful number of bombs in recent years but I was pleasantly surprised to find this story very engaging and watchable. The plot sucks you in and the characters are well played and likeable (the ones you’re supposed to anyway). It bares strong resemblance to the Bourne Identity, even stronger resemblance to the book, but it still doesn’t tell the same story so it works.

The bad. It’s a political thriller that seems to have been written by someone with no understanding of politics. The politicians spout right-wing rhetoric while enacting left-wing policies. This may’ve been intentional to keep from picking on a specific side but it makes it difficult to grasp. A lot of things are unclear throughout the entire story as well. We know that the bad guys want to make a certain person president but we don’t know why. Because of that, we only want him to not be president because that’s what the bad guys want. This puts us in the position of not wanting the villain’s terrorist plots to succeed simply because of the loss of life and not because of the grand picture. That’s not bad but it does keep the story from sucking you in. Another annoyance factor was the film’s constant and, in the beginning, distracting attempts to be cool. It puts in quick, random cuts, flashy exposure changes, color effects, etc. None of these do anything to enhance the movie viewing experience. They’re just thrown in there because everyone else is doing it. There’s also this wooshing sound that is used in every fight scene to try and make the heroes actions seem cooler than they actually are.

All in all, a good late-night, popcorn movie. You’ll have fun watching it but you won’t want to see it again. And be sure to turn your brain off for maximum enjoyment. C -.

Couple's Retreat 020910

Jason and Cynthia (Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell) have been married for six years and after their recent disappointment of not being able to have a kid, they start to question their entire relationship. Their solution? They go to a couple’s resort called Eden that specializes in fixing broken relationships. Problem is, they can’t afford it, but they can afford the group rate, so they ask their friends to come along. Dave and Ronnie (Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman/the girl from Watchmen), a happily married couple who has fallen into the boredom of routine, Joey and Lucy (Jon Favreau and Kristin Davis) a couple who were married right out of high school because she got pregnant and are counting down the days til their daughter goes to school and they can divorce each other, and Shane (Faizon Love) a recently divorced man who takes his twenty year old girlfriend.

This movie was really funny. The difference in relationship statuses, while a tad stereotypical, all work well together for exploring the nature of relationships. They all have to work on different things but they’re all trying to get to the same place. It was nice that all of the problems weren’t the men’s fault only. Example, Joey and Lucy are both so looking forward to being apart that they, they being the plural, are constantly looking at other people. Ronnie and Dave’s relational exodus is particularly fun to watch. They’re both unaware they have a problem so you get to spend the entire movie watching the disagreement develop, start, and resolve. And, as un-PC as this thought is (like I care), it was really good to have a movie like this that didn’t have a gay couple.

The negative is nitpickyish. One thing that gets really annoying toward the end is consistency. During conversation cuts the actors are not even close to the position they were in when the camera jumped. It also wasn’t quite funny enough if that makes any sense. It wasn’t a bad movie and it was definitely a comedy, and a good one at that, but there were some missed joke opportunities. Offhand I can’t come up with examples but they were there. Also, a fight between Ronnie and Dave seems to only occur because the producers felt they needed to have a fight.

I give this movie a B. It’s a great date movie. Guys will actually enjoy it, you might get some insight about your relationship if you identify with any of the couples, and it’s nice to see a rom/com that actually takes place after happily ever after.

Dante's Inferno 020910

Dante, a knight, returns from the crusades gripped by fear because of a sense of foreboding that overtakes him in a forest. He rushes home to find his servants and father slaughtered and his betrothed, Beatrice, dying. She asks him if he remained faithful to her. He says yes and she dies. Her spirit then departs for heaven. Halfway there, demons rise out of the ground and block her before Satan grabs her. He informs Dante that Beatrice promised Satan her soul if he returned safely but didn’t stay true to her. Dante swears he did nothing wrong. Satan laughs and drags Beatrice to hell where he plans to make her his queen and make him more powerful by making a union with a pure soul. To save her Dante must navigate the nine circles of hell and come to terms with his own sin.

This movie is very clever. It takes the story of Dante’s Inferno and transforms it from a passive allegorical poem to an engaging allegorical epic. The entire movie is the story of salvation. Dante begins the story in complete denial of his transgressions but as he traverses each level of hell he is reminded of a new sin that corresponds with those damned to that circle. It’s very violent and bloody but it works with the story and it’s nice to see a Christian story that’s exciting and violent.

The weakest point is also one of the things that makes it cool: the animation. Like the Gotham Knight of 2007 this was made by a couple of different directors so the animation changes every two or three circles, and in some extreme ways; like adding a full foot to Dante’s hair length. I think the nationality of the art changes as well because while the first set of dialogue seemed fine the last set seemed to have the lip-synching completely off. Not unexpectedly some humanism slipped into the story and while it’s expected it’s still a little disappointing all the same.

The movie achieves a B-. I enjoyed it but it’s not for everyone and while I liked it, I don’t really care if I see it again.

End Game 020910

In 1985, South Africa was the most racially split country outside of the Middle East. Both Africans and Afrikaans (descendents of British settlers) lived in fear and distrust of each other and the government’s Apartheid policy didn’t help. Both sides know the policy is the problem but both sides are scared of what will happen if it’s abolished. Enter Michael Young; a British man who does something for a company that has some kind of monetary interest in what happens in South Africa. He longs for the fighting and the terrorism to end. He hatches a plan; get together regular people on both sides who, while involved in politics, are not politicians to talk to each other about the situation in an attempt to get both sides to understand the other. William Hurt comes in as a professor known for some kind of political viewpoint who, during the course of the talks, becomes friends with Chiwetel Ejiofor (the assassin in Serenity) a man who does something for South Africa’s black political movement. The film lets us in on these secret negotiations as well as shows the political turmoil exploding outside of them.

The history lover in me found this movie fascinating. It lets you see the negotiations that had to happen before negotiations could actually happen. It also tells the world know about the unsung hero of Michael Young a man who put everything together, working as the silent author of the end of one the 20^th century’s most infamous political policies. The friendship based on respect between the scholar and the idealist was really engaging to watch as well. The movie’s music theme was also really cool.

As interesting as the history was, the film had two major flaws, the first being a lack of clarity. In the description I was very vague on the details. This is because, so is End Game. I have a very basic understanding of apartheid due to only being six when it ended and I just discovered that right before the credits. I know what was happening but that’s about it. Thanks to this movie, I know about the background stuff, but not the larger picture. That is what it set out to show but anyone not familiar with the actual history will be completely lost. There’s a side story involving political prisoner Nelson Mandela but I only know who he is because of the trailers for Clint Eastwood’s Invictus. This movie did not aid in my knowledge whatsoever. The filmmakers seem to have set out to make a movie strictly for people interested in South Africa’s history and alienates the ignorant newcomers like me.

The second big problem is this is an independent film that is obsessed with its independency. The entire movie seems to be screaming “Look at me. I was filmed on a low budget and I’m deliberately breaking free from the chains of free thinking squelching conventional film rules and tossing aside unnecessary expensive equipment that gets rid of the rawness of film.” Equipment such as the exposure, which causes all of the scenes to appear washed out and grainy or black and grainy. Other equipment not used: tripods and boom mics. I appreciate the steady cam. And I appreciate unconventional filming techniques. But they’re only good if they serve a purpose. This one the purpose of the camera constantly following the actors and being behind objects like bushes, corners, and cars was probably to help give the sense that they were being watched but making the viewer the one watching them only alienates them from the characters on screen. Some films become so much about special effects that they forget what makes a good film is character. This one is so much about lack of effects that it’s forgotten about character. Most of the cuts are jarring and remind you of something you’d see on a home movie which actually helps remind you that you’re only watching a movie; something no director wants.

C-. This movie is great if you’re a teacher and you just covered apartheid in your class, but it’s certainly not an introduction. Rather than bare bones, this film is bare muscle. It’s excess stuff that surrounds the skeleton, so it just sits there, limply on the ground.

A Serious Man 020910

A Jewish physicist watches his life fall apart in the month leading up to his son’s Bar Mitzvah. His wife decides to divorce him for his best friend, his brother is arrested, his neighbor wants an affair with him, and no one respects him.

The movie has recently been nominated for best picture and has the distinct Coen brother’s touch of feeling extremely real while offering characters so absurd that they have to be based on someone. You feel very sorry for Larry and bemoan the situation in his life that is completely beyond his power to control.

Like Fargo, I just didn’t get most of this movie. This was another not a comedy. I laughed a couple of times but it was nothing like Oh Brother Where Art Thou or Raising Arizona. It was actually pretty depressing to watch this guy’s life sink lower and lower as he desperately claws at the mud to try and get out. You become completely emotionally invested it what’s going on and for that the movie spits in your eye. There is no conclusion. There seems to be some kind deus ex machina that makes everything better but you don’t get to see it. Things just become better. Not only that, but the ending doesn’t make any sense. At all. I’m just a lay man in the world of film symbolism but it was just stupid. For that matter, so was the very beginning. It takes place back in either Poland or Russia and, to the best of my knowledge, had nothing to do with the rest of the story.

D. I definitely count this movie as an incredible waste of time and money, both on our end of the screen and there’s. I might be on the opposite end of most film critics but I’m fine with that.

Serious Moonlighting 020910

Meg Ryan plays Louise, a New York power woman who arrives at her country home in time to interrupt her husband, Ian (Timothy Hutton), writing the letter telling her he’s leaving her. He tells her he’s in love with Sara (Kristen Bell), and that they’re running away to Paris together. Louise gets mad (duh) and throws a potted planted at Ian that hits him just right and knocks him senseless. He awakens to find himself duct-taped to a chair and Louise tells him she won’t let him loose until he loves her again.

I actually enjoyed this movie. The whole thing works like a play really. Small cast, singular set and all of the humor comes from the situation and dialogue. After trying to escape under the ruse of having to use the bathroom, Ian wakes up duct-taped to a toilet. Ian insisting that after seeing this crazy side of Louise that he’s gone from lack of love to hate is pretty consistently funny. It was also refreshing to see one of the usually unexplored reasons that men leave their wives. Besides cowardice, selfishness, narcissism, and general lack of feeling. When Louise insists that Sara couldn’t possibly love him as much as she does, Ian responds with, “There’s more to it than that. She needs me. She genuinely needs me. You’re super woman. You haven’t needed me for years.” That’s a soapbox for elsewhere but it was nice to see.

The biggest negative is that halfway through, the movie switches genres on you. Ian attempts to get the attention of the lawn care guy (Justin Long) who decides to rob the house after seeing the situation. This turns into a hostage situation. The problem is, you have the ridiculous situation of wife duct-taping malfeasant husband to a toilet until he loves her again, and a guy shows up to rob the house and leaves them both in the bathroom, duct-taped. This is a really funny situation but it’s done like a deleted scene from Ransom. The funny is tossed aside for drama. When Sara arrives and is consequently duct taped in the bathroom (again, really funny situation), a few more laughs occur but they’re like the jokes thrown in to ease thriller tension. The acting is all superb (I really like Kristen Bell and Justin Long) and writing is good but it seems to have been written and directed by two different sets of people.

All in all, a C+. It’s a fun, quirky movie that you can pick up for a date night (it’s rated R solely for language) but I doubt it’ll become anyone’s favorite anything.

Cold Souls 020210

Paul Giamatti stars as Paul Giamatti but he’s the only person playing himself. His wife isn’t played by, or even have the same name as, his wife. Anyway, Paul is in a play, some Russian thing about an uncle, and because of his involvement with the character and the standard dreariness of all things Russian due to the fact that it’s possible for them to reach their fifth birthday before seeing the sun, his soul is heavy. Enter a company that specializes in removing people’s souls. Paul tries this but, because of his new lack of emotion, his performance suffers. Rather than have to bear the weight of his own soul, he rents the soul of a Russian poet. His performance is now spot on but he’s just not himself. He then decides to get his soul back only to find that it’s been stolen by a Russian soul dealer because his wife wanted the soul of an American actor so she’d be better in her role in a Russian soap opera. Paul then travels to Russia with the female soul mule, who stole his soul in the first place, to get it back.

This whole thing is a cleverly unique concept. The world is completely believable, and made more real by all the characters’ complete disregard for how strange all of this is. Upon discovering the company exists Paul never laughs at the concept, he never asks David Strathairn, the company head, how this could be possible and instead treats the whole thing almost like a plastic surgery inquiry. Paul’s wife, the incredibly underrated Emily Watson (not Emma), doesn’t respond to the situation with disbelief or “You expect me to believe that?” instead she wonders why he would do that.

The movie’s weaknesses are by no means in the setting but instead in the execution of the idea and setting. The entire concept is a completely ridiculous farce, but however the movie is what I like to call modern comedies or barely comedies. Movies like Adventureland, Observe and Report, and Taking Woodstock. Movies that are comedies because they have one humorous line too many to be a drama (though I laughed harder at the Fugitive than any of those movies), the idea only works as a comedy, or the producers just decided to classify it as a comedy because. This movie’s entire set up is a comedy, the story is a comedy, the setting is a comedy, but it’s played as a drama. Sometimes that can work for a comedy but in this movie it doesn’t. To make things worse it really doesn’t work as a drama either. This could be a very creative way to explore the nature of the soul but it doesn’t even raise questions or discussion. Every time a question is raised about the soul, the immediate response is “we don’t know.” I would rather be told something I disagree with because then I at least think about why I disagree.

This movie gets a generous D+. It didn’t suck outright but it’s a great example of sub mediocrity. After finishing it you won’t count it as time stolen from your life because you won’t actually remember it going by and in your life scheduling you’ll lump it in with time spent sleeping.

New York, I Love You 020210

This movie is about. Umm... it um. Hmmm... It’s about love. I guess. It’s several short films about love in New York woven together into a film tapestry.

This movie is very intriguing to a number of people. Foreign film fans will be drawn to it because it’s a revision of a French film, Paris, je’Taime. Casual viewers will be interested because of the monstrous cast list. The names I recognize are, Bradley Cooper, Rachel Bilson, Natalie Portman, Shia LeBeouf, Justin Bartha, Orlando Bloom, Hayden Christensen, Ethan Hawke, Anton Yelchin, John Hurt, Christina Ricci, Robin Wright Penn, James Caan, Chris Cooper, Andy Garcia, Maggie Q, and Julie Christie. Several of the stories are really engaging and/or fun. One about an elderly couple is very sweet to see them fighting like old couples do, only to get lost in reminiscence of years spent in love before being awakened to the present once again. One about the romance between a composer and his patron’s assistant will have most girls thinking aw.... And, though quick, one vignette about a boyfriend surprising his girlfriend is entertaining, sweet, funny, and thoughtful in around a minute. Kudos to them.

Now the bad. I admit my own shortcomings and many may not be in this state after watching this but I didn’t get most of these. Most were too brief and unclear. All of the snapshots were made by different directors and I feel that was good for offering each one a different touch, but it needed a head director to oversee everything. There is no reason to the story order. Some are even cut into separate parts without really building on each other. Frequently the change in directing is jarring and the transitions are barely. Some of the bad ones felt like they could’ve been good ones but there was no time for story development and it felt rushed. That may have been the idea. I don’t know. This isn’t my type of movie.

My grade for this is a C. I liked some of the stories, was okay with some, and really didn’t like others. If you’re like me you won’t enjoy the whole thing. If you think the American Pie movies are brilliant, you’ll hate this. If you like foreign, indy, or art films you’ll probably really like this and see me as a pathetic philistine but I’m okay with that you elitist, frog kisser.

Zombieland 020210

Zombieland follows Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus, a nerd with no friends, a few months after the zombie apocalypse. At first he’s alone but soon he’s joined by Woody Harrelson, codenamed: Tallahassee, a trigger happy guy who enjoys killing Zombies for the fun of it. Emma Stone, codenamed: Wichita, a punk girl who was forced to become a mother too early in life and developed some anger issues for it. And Abigail Breslin, codenamed: Little Rock, Wichita’s little sister who became an adult too soon because of the craziness. Wichita is trying to get them to a theme park just to give Little Rock a little taste of the childhood she’s missing out on. Along the way they have to try to learn about how to live with eachother as well as live period.

Okay. Negative reviews are more fun to read and write but I’ll be honest, I loved this movie. I saw it in theaters. Twice. In less than 24 hours. Someone else paid the first time. But he’s a marine and I pay taxes so I kind of paid for it. For those of you who don’t know, the zombie apocalypse has a cult behind it made of people who either want one to happen, or, in extreme cases, think it might. I’m half in the first category. There’s just something guyishly appealing to being surrounded by mindles, feelingless, soulless, but still bloodthirsty creatures that we get to messily kill in large quantities. Blood and gunk everywhere. Ha. Ha. Now, this movie is great because it is really not a horror movie. It’s a comedy. And an homage to the entire genre. The zombie killing is fun and the jokes are perfect. It’s very reminiscent of Ghostbusters in that while the tension does build the jokes stay constant but still don’t detract or distract from what’s going on. The characters are all believable but still funny and work well off of each other.

As I said, I loved this movie so it’ll be hard to find the weak points due to my rose tinted glasses. One main thing is the setting of the story. It takes place after the outbreak so you don’t have the usual overrun by zombie experience. I would like for this to have been a sequel to that setting. Also more frequent and more creative zombie killing would be a plus. A couple of the more serious scenes do drag a little bit but even then, it’s not noticeably bad and is really nitpicky. Considering this is the director’s first real movie it’s totally forgivable.

With all the great jokes, good acting, fun violence and, quite possibly, one of the greatest cameos EVER this movie, from me, gets a solid A. You’ll want to buy it and watch it pretty much every time a friend is dumb enough to let you know he hasn’t seen it.