Saw a wonderful movie yesterday:

Zombieland

Director: Ruben Fleischer
Producer: Gavin Polone
Writers: Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese
Music by: David Sardy
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

Main  Protagonist and Narrator "Columbus": Jesse Eisenberg
"Tallahassee", secondary Protagonist: Woody Harrelson
"Wichita", secondary Protagonist: Emma Stone
"Little Rock", secondary Protagonist: Abigail Breslin
Bill Murray as himself

By the numbers:
Time: 1 Hour and 21 minutes
Budget: $23,600,000

Zombieland is at times absolutely hilarious, but somehow underneath there is significant drama that rings true.

The swearing ranges just above average, I feel, but it isn't so commonplace as to become annoyingly distractive, and helps to ring in the comedic moments. A nice difference between Zombieland and most films of a zombie nature is it's overall optimistic tones. Although the main characters have moments of understandably severe emotional trauma, they never completely succumb to despair.

Be warned, the film is significantly graphic, and contains a significant amount of swearing and blood. However, none of these things feel overdone and seem only to provide the film with the "right stuff".

This movie is in many ways different from most other zombie movies. The rather optimistic tone, the simplicity of the "science" of who the zombies are and where they come from, the emotional stability of the four protagonists (three of them young adults, two of them female), all reign supreme . None of the content feels cheesy or false, the emotions of the movie feel completely feasible.

To tell the truth, a year or so ago, the idea of zombies in the current mediums made me sick. It seemed to have been overdone. However, the great Resident Evil movies, Dawn of the Dead, and finally this very movie have changed some of my ideas about zombies, and made me quite a fan.

This movie wonderfully explores many themes and breaks many stereotypes. Two of the four protagonists are young women, who despite their age and gender (which some might hold against them), and they stand up to the emotional trauma of the events of the movie extremely well. They never lose their heads, figuratively or literally. Although at times they seem close to becoming "cruel and unusual", we come to realise that no amount of trauma stunts these girls' compassion and level-headedness. In the end, the girls' compassionate nature comes to the forefront, seeming to block out a large part what could have been a partly selfish desire for survival that completely disposed of other human beings.

I give this movie a B- minus overall (this comes from my overall "gut" feeling of the movie, not a sum of all its parts). However I highly recommend this movie to most viewing audiences. This movie, which I feel can't totally be directly compared to and with the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead, nevertheless seems to me to be just as great as that movie.

The movie contains a significant amount of swearing. However, the cursing serves only to add to the comedic value of the film, and the realism (three of the are young adults, and the fourth is a rather uncouth adult). It doesn't occur so many times as to become annoying or particularly offensive.

The film has a delightfull score/music, from the hard rocking moments of Metallica and Van Halen (and a wonderfull reference to Eddie Van Halen), to a marvelous rendition of the star-spangled banner, and a hilarious moment where Woody Harrelson plays a banjo (which he later uses to beat a zombie with).

The ending is great. The overall optimistic and hopefull nature of the movie is a breath of fresh air to a potentially stale genre, where survival seems to have become a running gag.

A multitude of weapons, inventive and creative, are used to dispose of the zombies. Wooden carnival mallets, car doors (and pretty much the rest of the cars), and many blunt and sharp objects.

I'm very happy to report that Roger Ebert gave this film 3 out of 4 stars, saying in his review that "..not many zombie comedies can make me think simultaneously about 'Psycho' and 'Garfield'." and "...who would have guessed such a funny movie as "Zombieland" could be made around zombies?" Also, the film received an approval rating of 88% on the website Rotten Tomatoes, from 136 reviews.

The film's R rating is rather well-deserved, but I hope that young adults whose parents feel are mature enough will be able to watch this movie.  Go see this movie, as soon as you can, if you can (shall I say, "If you dare"? Mu hu ha ha ha!).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombieland
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090930/REVIEWS/909309991
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1156398/soundtrack

And the great movies of 2009 keep rolling on. Honestly, I'd have to say 2009 has probably already been the best year in American films of the new millenium.

the coiled line from my ear is a smoky wiggle stretching to infinity, a great gulf fixed between me and thee (I pray thee, reset thy modem), all hours stretched to tension, eyes all replaced by bare gray walls, my soul is cold liver on a plate ma'am, take, eat, this is my body. And the Lord God of your fathers is a god of war; you may now plead for your life, and live here forever.

the bitter muse at my ear (o whisper in my dreams, be I never alone) finds it unacceptable (you are lush with sex when you pout so) that the lines in the walls -she can hear them crossing crucified and she wants a credit- are fucked. And the LORD our god is a jealous god; all sacrifices must enter single file.

the shimmering grey waxy everything is the weight of a mountain, crushing all beneath it. the left of my head is the voices of Hell, confusion afraid and crying; the right is a void, a thousand paper dragons blown away in a mist (youth is a precious gem, and the mountain crushes all before it), for the lord of the gods is an old and foolish god, and nothing can stand before the man in shadow.

the grass withers, the flower fades, the strength of man is swept away by nothing at all and forgotten (like some idiot thing that says i cannot die I CANNOT die). Dark spans where had been everything (ambition pride lust envy) remain, and gibbering beasts see and do not remember. and the lord our god is a consuming fire, hang your head and cry for what is lost lost lost

The wire in my ear speaks again, and prayers rise to heaven like incense (Uzziah was struck with leprosy for his presumption). Smoke stings my eyes, and there is only clarity; for all eternity, this is all that ever was, and this is A-O-K. For our god is a god of love, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Thank you for calling, how can we bleed for you today?

I had some business in Atlanta, and headed in to take care of it. Part of Atlanta I was goin' to is near where they built all that Olympics carryin' on, and all the streets are one-way. Scares the dickens out of you the first time y' turn into four lanes of speeding traffic, but it becomes a simple annoyance after a while.

Sure enough, there were some fellers makin' a movie, and the Atlanta PD had the roads partially blocked off so all the cranes and fellers with microphones on sticks can poke em in. They took the little Chinese feller who sells beer and cigarettes on the corner and made it look like he sells vegetables. Took their vegetables with em after and all.

So I walk past two fellers having a cigarette with more "CREW" badges around their neck on strings than a Kenny Chesney roadie, and say:

"Ya crash the cars yet?>
"Huh?" he asks.
"Have. You. Crashed. The. Cars. Yet. Did I miss it?"
"What cars?"
"The cars y'r fixin' to crash. Raced the cars yet?"
"Huh?"
"Where are you all doin' the ravine jumpin' scenes?"
"What are you talkin about, mister?"
"Oh come on son, you're makin' a movie in the South and there's no cars crashin? Bet you next thing there's gonna be no chimpanzee in this movie, neither."
"Chimpanzee?"
"Or orangutan. Come on, son. Clint Eastwood feller always had him a chimpanzee. Blowin' raspberries, givin' cops the finger and carryin' on."

Now, this young feller was confused and very very earnest. Looked like one of them fellers from the Blair Witch thing. But the other guy he was smokin' with had clearly seen Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit and all them Southern films from the late 70s and early 80s and was crackin' up somethin' fierce. I suggested a few titles to watch to get the chimp reference and he chimed in a Tony Danza picture I'd never heard of.

Young feller tries to get back into the conversation: "It's a teevee show, not a movie, mister."

"Well that rightly explains everything" I says, tip my cowboy hat, and start walkin' back to the truck.

So Saint Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize. Care to expand on the why, anyone?

I mean, what's he done, seriously, that's concretely made the world a more peaceful place? What wars or oppression has he actually brought to an end? Solved the conflict in Palestine, has he? Ended the genocide in Darfur, has he? Put the boot into China until they leave Tibet alone, has he? Ended the military dictatorship and associated ethnic cleansing in Burma, has he? I mean, I don't see him exactly racing to pull the troops out of Afghanistan or Iraq, for that matter.

I await a list of appropriate deeds by return of node. Sources are required. "Giving hope" does not count. Seriously. To get a Nobel Prize for anything else you have to actually make the world a better place or discover something really significant. You can't get a Nobel Prize for Chemistry for inspiring people to become chemists, you have to go and discover magic acid or something. You can't get a Nobel Prize for Literature for writing a bestseller, you have to write something that brings something new to the table. Why, then, can you get a Nobel Peace Prize simply for being charismatic and popular? SENSE IS NOT MADE BY THIS. It's almost as bad as how Al Gore got the prize in 2007 for making a shitty film that plays fast and loose with the facts.

On the other hand, though, I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans are rubbing their hands with glee, as come 2012 it'll give them more ammunition to play the "get rid of the overrated sodbox" card so they can get their man in.