• 26Nov 09

  Zombieland - Film Review

  

  Set during a zombie raging apocalypse that has taken over America, a dopey teenage boy (Jesse Eisenberg) who wields a shotgun, describes the various rules to us that he has set out to survive the infestation. With such concrete guidelines for survival his meeting with a gun slinging psychopath (Woody Harrelson) with an appetite for Twinkies, is initially a hostile one. Refusing to exchange names they call each other by their destination. The kid is Columbus and the gunslinger is Tallahassee. They band together on the road and also find a pair of girls who are sisters. The oldest is Wichita (Emma Stone), who Columbus develops a crush on, and the other is named Little Rock (Abigail Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine).

  Zombieland, directed by Ruben Fleischer, is not unlike Shaun of the Dead in that it parodies the clichés of the zombie genre to the point where it could be called and all out comedy rather than a horror movie. With a running time of barely ninety minutes the plot is not dissimilar to a series of sketches. The film immediately dumps the audience into the zombie apocalypse without any explanation for its occurrence and never seeks to develop any exposition for the outbreak. Similarly, much of the back-story for Eisenberg's character is told fairly lazily through his voice-over and a flashback detailing to us about how he used to be a video game addict and how he has always held a desire to have a girlfriend. This is not a film you would expect to have a great deal of character development beyond the most basic archetypal patterns and it correctly uploads these assumptions. All four of the main characters exist merely for the purpose of the gore and the laughs. To this extent, Zombieland is a reasonable success.

  Somewhat surprisingly though, the film works better as a comedy than it does as an exercise in gore and zombie slaughter. There are a number of disgusting, grotesque and gruesome deaths but thankfully the film resides in its humour more than the action. The action sequences are not particularly exciting or intense and there are almost no scares to speak of. Their infrequency and brevity is thankful. How those who just want to see pure ultra violence and zombie dismemberment will respond to this is questionable. Though a lot of the humour is extremely silly, bordering on idiotic, there is no doubt that it is funny, even if it is for its own sense of oddity. A lot of the humour is provided through the contrast between the extremely geeky Columbus – a very different part to what he played in The Squid and the Whale - and the ultra serious Tallahassee who parodies his own tough persona and in one scene his appreciation for smoking pot. These actors seem to be having a lot of fun in their parts.

  These self-references are not just limited to the actors themselves though but the entirety of American culture itself. One of the first rules Columbus tells us is about cardio and how the fatties were the first to perish in the zombie attacks and we see one of them run down and devoured by a flesh eating zombie in the opening stages. Likewise, when Tallahassee finds a car loaded with guns he screams, "Thank God for rednecks" and starts firing shots up in the air. Certainly the film's funniest scene though, which really ignites the second half of the picture with a number of other film references, is a cameo from a famous Hollywood actor as himself dressed as a zombie. It is a moment you want to see for yourself without it being spoilt. Despite these pop culture references and the certainty of the laughs, you may feel as though your IQ has dropped significantly after watching this film. It is funny but the humour couldn't really be regarded as deep satire. Certainly it does not have the same satirical strength as the first half of Shaun of the Dead, which was particularly fresh and original in the way that it juxtaposed the lethargy and laziness of British life with a zombie apocalypse.

  Although this very silly, sometimes violent mixture of horror and comedy is largely forgettable, there is still fun to be had through the frequent laughs and the actors who seem to be greatly enjoying themselves. It may not add anything particularly new to a well-worn genre, but at least it is aware of its own silliness and does not take itself the least bit seriously, which is more than can be said for the last few George Romero zombie films.

  • Posted Nov 26, 2009 7:28 pm PT
  • Category: Movies
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• 24Nov 09

  During Twilight, Modern Warfare Is Serious Man!!

  A quick update on the reviews for some new stuff I've posted

  I went to see Twilight: New Moon last Thursday evening. You can check out the review here for that if you're interested (not)

  Then there's the Modern Warfare 2 for the PC Version. Be sure to leave a thumbs up or a thumbs down if you like! Very good game, a great package all up.

  Finally, there's the new film by the Cohen Brothers (No Country For Old Men), A Serious Man. Really funny, dark comedy that people should go and see if they haven't yet

  I've posted this update not long after the last one just because there has been a lot of hype around these three texts and people might be interested to get an opinion on it.

  Cheers,

  - BL

  • Posted Nov 24, 2009 3:32 am PT
  • Category: Humor
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• 24Nov 09

  A Serious Man - Film Review

  

  During the 1960s in Minnesota a Jewish man named Larry (Michael Stuhlbarg) is going through a rough patch. As a school mathematics teacher he is being pursued, and possibly bribed, by a Korean student to have his failing grade changed. At home, his own children, including his pot smoking son and self-absorbed daughter, have little regard for anyone but themselves. His brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is also causing problems by living off the families couch. Worst of all Larry's wife Judith (Sari Lennick) wants a divorce as she has openly admitted that she would like to marry their extremely condescending neighbour Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). Larry seems unable to come to terms with any of this chaos even after consulting a number of rabbis about his dwindling faith.

  Directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen, A Serious Man has one of the strangest openings to a film you are likely to see this year. It begins with a prologue set in a nineteenth century village where the characters including, a husband, his wife and a neighbour who was thought to be dead but could be a ghost, speak entirely in Yiddish. Although this seems extremely odd, what occurs in this episode can be interpreted as like a curse for the continuous amount of bad luck faced by Larry in the present. To further reinforce this notion, Larry is told during the film that traditions are passed down through generations. It is an opening that will certainly generate a great deal of debate amongst viewers. After this episode though, A Serious Man, using biographical elements from the Cohen brothers themselves (they are both Jewish, born in Minnesota), is not unlike Burn After Reading. This is another comedy hilariously depicting a group of extremely shallow, oddball characters whose everyday lives are turned upside down through increasingly bizarre and exaggerated situations.

  The Cohen's derive a lot of humour from the sheer oddity of scenes and their ability to hold our attention through long silences or random stories, before reaching a punch line that echoes the themes of the film. At one point in the film Larry visits a much talked about rabbi. The rabbi's secretary stares at Larry without saying anything. She walks into the rabbi's long, drawn room, exchanges some inaudible words and then walks out to tell Larry in a raspy voice: "he's busy". It is revealed afterwards that the rabbi was listening to Jefferson Airplane instead of letting Larry see him, reiterating his lack of control in the way people treat him and ignore his needs. In another scene, a lengthy anecdote is told about an ancient inscription that was found by a dentist, while inspecting someone's teeth. The story itself is of course pointless and inconclusive but it upholds the essence of the film that Larry, outside of the cIassroom, is a man without any answers. Nothing is really meant to make sense to him or be conclusive. It is rather fitting that he scribes the mathematical formula of uncertainty on a blackboard. Even if the film does not have a thorough arc of character development through its uncertainty of life and a dark and somewhat abrupt ending, this is still a very clever, witty and original film that should be at least nominated for the Best Screenplay Oscar.

  Many laughs in this film are also captured purely from the gazes of the minor characters with their bizarre expressions and mannerisms. The Cohen brothers either have an exceptional choice in small time actors or more likely they have precision control over the way that the actors are to perform a scene. All of the actors in this film have been really sharply directed to consistently provide excellent comic timing. Interestingly, unlike Burn After Reading, A Serious Man is more subjectively focused towards a single character in Larry, whose life becomes so dysfunctional and chaotic that it is difficult not to feel something for him. He is extremely spineless in being unable to stand-up to anyone but because everything falls apart he warrants our sympathy and perhaps even our pity. Looking eerily like Joaquin Phoenix at times, Michael Stuhlbarg is wonderfully expressive as Larry, with his face shifting from gloom to sheer disbelief as his life falls apart. Fred Melamed also stands out as the extremely calm but wholly condescending Sy Ableman. It is testimony to the excellence of the Cohen brother's script that all of the performances collectively embody so much humour.

  Although without any major actors and a brief running time this may seem like a small Cohen brothers film, there is certainly no shortage of skill or effort in both the screenplay and the performances of the talented cast. A Serious Man may even warrant several viewing to thoroughly understand the complexities of some of the religious undertones. This is a hilarious, refreshing but perhaps also damning look at life in the suburbs of America, not to be missed.

  • Posted Nov 24, 2009 12:16 am PT
  • Category: Movies
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