Quick Picks - Sept 4, 2011 Edition

Peep World [2010]

A bunch of adult kids have taken divergent – yet miserable - paths in life after they left the nest – and it’s all their asshole daddy’s fault.

I didn’t like this movie. All the characters were fairly weak caricatures and that made them boring. One son is aloof (Rainn Wilson) – the other is struggling architect (Michael C. Hall) – the daughter is a bitch (Sarah Silverman) – and the youngest son is profiting off their misery in his thinly veiled novel about the family (Ben Schwartz) – and they all hate their father with good reason. I felt the writer of this movie has some daddy issues – and made a movie – not that there’s not potential in it but you got to do better than this. I wanted to shake each and every one of them and tell them to grow up and make your own decisions – live your own life – grow up!

I hated the penis joke – so fucking dumb – I almost turned off the movie at that point – make a dark comedy and have fun – but a penis joke? Why not make some poop and fart jokes? I didn’t hate the movie – I really hated parts of it – I kind of liked other parts – but it’s not funny in a way that I would recommend.

Rango [2011]

A pet lizard finds himself lost in the desert and wanders into a town of desert creatures – where he saves the day and takes over as the town sheriff.

I really enjoyed this fun little spaghetti western homage. I loved the two “cameos” in both a nod to Depp and a nod to the genre – and because I was pleasantly surprised the cameos will go nameless in my blurb. The animation was beautifully done – though it’s animated it’s not a film made for kids – kid friendly most certainly – but too much over the head dialogue. I liked how the town animals were modeled after Leone’s town folk characters – even the snake was a nice nod to Lee Van Cleef. Overall, there’s not much to say – it appealed to some of my likes – but it was a good enough movie – never really grabbing me and pulling me in – but also not disappointing me.

Z is for... [part 2]

If there's been a zombie apocalypse and you're road-tripping alone though the wasteland, you could do worse than run into Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a bourbon-swilling bad-boy butt-kicker with a really cool car. This is where the careful hero of Zombieland, a kid nicknamed Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), finds himself early in the film, and you can hardly blame him for hitching a ride with this swaggering Alpha Male. Still, they have their hands full not only with gibbering zombies but also with two sisters (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) who will stop at nothing to reach a Disneyland-like amusement park in L.A. Although Zombieland gets off to a rocky start with Columbus's overly-cute narration (he's got a list of rules for surviving in the zombie world), it settles into an amusing comedy, regularly interrupted by bouts of blood-letting. The road-trip stuff is enough fun that when the movie does arrive at its version of Disneyland, the air goes out of it a little; sure, there's a giant zombie blowout, with entrails flying, but it's not quite the same. Director Ruben Fleischer keeps the gags coming, although the movie is often funnier in its odd little asides (both Eisenberg and Harrelson are expert at this) than in its official jokes. Comic high point: an interlude at the home of a very famous movie star, who plays himself--and we'll leave the spoiler unspoiled, in case anybody hasn't heard about this funny extended cameo. (synopsis provided by Amazon.com)

released 2009

directed by Ruben Fleischer

Zombieland [2009]

I was hesitant to see Zombieland in the theater – as it looked like it’d either be really good – or dreadfully bad. Sometimes those stylized “hip at the time” kind of films – especially comedies - can lead you in with it’s sweet promises – only for you to walk out cursing that you were duped again.

The United States has been overrun by zombies. An overly cautious boy named Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) meets a violent Twinkie obsessed guy named Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson)– they join up to travel and to survive. They meet a girl named Wichita (Emma Stone) and her younger sister named Little Rock (Abigail Breslin)– and a cat and mouse chase develops.

This film tries to have some varying themes and zombie like messages – but that’s coated so very thin – that it’s almost not worth mentioning. The main theme would probably be the detachment of people from each other – given the fact that Columbus was basically a shut-in – and they all call themselves by the town they grew up in – in order not to get too attached to one another.

The film is pretty much all fun and zombie killing from there. It provides some VERY solid laughs – some good zombie kills – and a special cameo that was quite satisfying. The movie felt like a video game at times – which is fine – but it does lack substance for it.

Everybody was as good as can be expected in their respective parts – with a special nod to Woody Harrelson who hits a big home run in the role of Tallahassee. The performances – really don’t equate into the liking of the film – you just basically don’t want to follow around a bunch of unlikable characters – so as long as the parts are written right – there’s no problems.

As Columbus ticks off his “rules to survive” there’s graphics showing up on the screen – and demonstrations of what he’s talking about. The graphics don’t added or detracted from my personal enjoyment of the film – but in other films I know it’s really gotten to me. Don’t try and be too cute or try to bee too cool “look at us” – or else I’ll turn off right away.

There's plot holes the size of something very big and there’s a couple of really stupid decisions made my some of the characters – that you just want to shout at the screen and ask “why?” – but it’s no more dumb than giant robots who can transform into stuff in order to hide in plain site but not transforming when they need to because they want to play peek-a-boo around the corner of a fucking house while that stupid fucking kid is having some inane conversation with his dumber than rocks family in that one really fucking stupid film that makes me want to punch myself in the head over and over and over and over... Sorry.

Zombieland is fun – just plain fun – I won’t tell you to turn off your mind and enjoy it because life doesn’t work that way – but if you want to watch it I won’t tell you not to – if you are on the fence I would give you a nudge toward the ‘watch it’ side – if you have no interest I won’t tell you you’re missing a lot. In my book - Woody and the cameo make it worth it - I’m giving it a solid 4 out of 5.