At the movies

Zombieland (2009)- Three things to know about this movie:

• It is incredibly disgusting with bodily fluids flying in all directions
• It is rather profane.  Lotsa bad language
• It is VERY funny.

Those probably don't seem like they go together but they do.  The gore only has a couple really stomach wrenching moments and they're real fast.  And the obscenity is as appropriate as obscenity can be.  At least there's a reason for swearing when they swear.  You see a sudden virus has swept the world turning pretty much everyone into drooling, shambling zombies.  The movie follows a geek (Jesse Eisenberg), a red neck zombie killer (Woody Harrelson), a teenage girl (Emma Stone) and her little sister(Abigail Breslin who was in "Little Miss Sunshine").  Oh and Bill Murray appears as himself.  Then you're off and running with a very funny and even touching story of zombie killing and community and even family.

No, seriously.

I don't do zombie flicks normally but I enjoyed every minute of this one.  It's a send up of the genre and pulls it off beautifully.  Highly recommend (assuming you can deal with points 1 and 2).

About a Boy (2002) - Hugh Grant plays Will, another of his self centered, try not to think real hard about my life characters, who is gliding through life on the proceeds of his father's one hit song.  Which Will hates by the way.  Marcus is a 12 year old boy with a perpetually depressed mom and is the target of constant bullying at school because he's different.  The two will find salvation in one another in this sweet, funny movie.  Will's actually a bit of a pig and Marcus is a total dork.  But Will knows how to get along with anyone and Marcus knows how to care and that's what they teach one another.  Yes, fairly predictable stuff but Grant is fabulous in this kind of role and he even gets to grow the character.  It's funny and sweet without getting treacly.  Nicholas Hoult plays Marcus and is perfectly believable and appealing.  The movie was adapted from Nick Hornby's book of the same name.  Hornby also wrote the original novel for one of my all time favorite movies "High Fidelity"  I've been told his books are even better than the movies so I may have to go check that out.  This movie is well worth the time.

The Adjustment Bureau (2010)Think Men in Black meets The Matrix.  Man, I liked this movie.  But something kept nagging at me about it.  The acting is quite good.  Matt Damon and Emily Blunt's characters have excellent chemistry.  The story is good, based a Philip K. Dick story from the early '50's.  Visually very well done, the action moved right along, good suspense to the end.  But something was just off.  In the end I think it was the work of the first time director George Nolfi.   Nolfi is also producer and screenwriter.  My bet is that he's a big fan of the original Dick story.  Unfortunately he never elevated the slightly dated concept (men in hats.  Lots of men, mostly in fedoras wandering around NYC.  In trench coats.  They look just a little silly).  A movie like this needs to either give itself some room for fun like MIB or go epic like The Matrix (or BladeRunner another Dick adaptation).  Instead they try to wander a middle road with a strong romantic thread.  And it comes up just short.  Too bad because most of this movie is really good.

Silent Running (1972) - A movie that I loved when I was younger but looks rather dated now.  The environmental message is sledge hammered in, the music is over wrought and the dialogue is pretty bad.  On the redeeming side are the ancestors of R2D2, the drones Huey, Dewey and Louie.   In fact those three (actually just Huey and Dewey are in most of the film.  Louie dies early on) are the stars of the show.  The scene where they are cheating at cards and where one nudges the other when Bruce Dern's character Lowell enters the room are just classic.  Plus Bruce Dern turns in one of his classic nutso characterizations.


This was one of a series of low budget films that Universal did in the early '70's.  The idea was take a new director, give them a small budget ($1 million or less), stay out of the way and give the director final cut.  This movie and American Graffiti were the best of the bunch (by far)

Fascinating look at product placement for all the major corporations whose names are plastered all over the place.  Wonder if they realized that in sci-fi terms that almost always means it's a dystopian view of the future?

As science fiction the movie leaves a LOT to be desired.  Lowell wanders around outside the ship in just coveralls and a helmet with no sign of air supply.  There's an amazing amount of gravity out there too.  The usual issues with sounds travelling through the near vacuum of space.  Also how is that Lowell, the man in charge of the forest somehow overlooks the fact that PLANTS NEED SUNSHINE?

For its time the look of the film was quite impressive.  Some of the shots were re-used several times by TV shows including Battlestar Galatica.

A fun way to spend a free couple hours but not a great movie.

Peace