Zombieland

J: Flying solo this time because my PIC does not share my “taste” for zombie films. Yes, hang on to your hats because the puns are a-comin’! “Zombieland” is drop dead funny – full of biting satire & all of the wonderful things that make zombie movie fans hungry for more. This movie is something you can really sink your teeth into.

Ok, I’ll stop now. But seriously, Zombieland has everything a good movie should; comedy, tragedy, a little romance, pathos & gore. That’s about all I need. The story is narrated by Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) who claims to have survived the zombie apocalypse not because he is macho or has great survival skills but because he has always been a loner & also because he has developed a set of rules to avoid being eaten. They include gems like the Double Tap – which is much like the knowledge that killing a zombie requires a shot to the head (a fact I keep reminding everyone will come in very handy someday) but expounds the need for a follow-up shot. Makes sense to me. In time, Columbus meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) & we discover that it’s he who has determined that people should be known only by their hometowns – fewer complications that way. Tallahassee has come into his own in the zombie post-apocalyptic world because he has a talent for killing zombies & he knows his mother would be proud of that. But his true calling is the driving need to find the last Twinkies left in the world. Hey, everyone needs goals!

One of the more touching scenes comes when Tallahassee & Columbus meet Wichita (Emma Stone) & her little sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin – why is this poor child in such creepy movies? Remember “Signs”? Man, I thought MY childhood was twisted!). They are facing a dire decision about the health of one of them, but – AH HA! A cleaver twist ensues & the boys realize they have come up against two very tricky chicks. A couple of stolen rides later, the group decides that, considering the options, working together is probably the best thing. And the goal for the girls? Wichita is bent on giving her sister one last shot at being a kid by heading to Pacific Playland in California. As the little troupe is heading through a zombie infested Hollywood, Tallahassee picks the perfect place for them to crash. With celebrity map in hand, they head for Bill Murray’s mansion. Yes, he does have a very cool little cameo- is that Bill Murray in drag or Bill Murray dragging body parts? Guess you’ll just have to see the movie. Pacific Playland turns out to be a really bad idea for the girls but gives Columbus a chance to break one of his own rules, be the hero & save the girl. Yes readers, this zombie movie actually has a happy ending! I told you it had everything.

My kudos to director Ruben Fleischer for making the funniest zombie movie since “Return of The Living Dead” – look it up, guys – “Sean of the Dead” is not the only zombie comedy – or, zomedy if you will. Now it’s official – if someone steals that, you can say you read it here first!

Pandorum

J: I hate to characterize movies like this but “Pandorum” is best described as “Alien” meets “Mad Max” and that’s all I need to know. I would make just one suggestion to anyone seeing this movie for the first time – just relax and enjoy the fun. I know I did. Anyone with an interest, as I have, will then need to see the movie for a second time in order to get all your questions answered and, yes, you will have questions but, heck, that’s part of the fun isn’t it? I mean, honestly, how many times have you watched Alien? Yeah, thought so.

It is said in literary circles that there are really only five plots in fiction. The same goes for sci-fi and those are pretty much monster/alien running loose, psychopathic killer running loose, zombies running loose, and hyperspace sickness and its effects. Pandorum deals with the later but in an interesting way. A space ship called Elysium (aptly named for both its meaning as a paradise and an abode of the dead) departs a fatally overcrowded future Earth carrying some 60,000 souls bound to colonize an Earthlike planet. We join the fun as a couple of crew members are awaking from deep hyper-sleep and watch as they navigate their temporary loss of memory. Gradually, the two men, Lt. Payton (Dennis Quaid) and Corporal Bower (Ben Foster), realize they have been awakened at the wrong time and also that they can’t leave their small capsule. The only way out is through the crowded air duct, naturally. Bower is the only one small enough to make it, so with Payton in radio contact and talking him through, he attempts to get to the flight deck so he can find out what the H-E double hockey sticks is going on!

Here’s where the fun begins. On the way to the flight deck, Bower is attacked by a human looking and quite cannibalistic creature that he manages to fight off. He also meets a few people from the crew, one that should be wearing that infamous “red shirt” of Star Trek fame, one who is fierce but doesn’t speak English and a French woman. They convince Bower he won’t like what he finds on the flight deck so they head for the reactor instead – yes, Super Bower can jump start that puppy too, what a guy! Along the way, Bower finds out the French woman, Nadia (Antje Traue), is the keeper of all the plants and animals this modern Noah’s ark is carrying and that she’s a pretty mean survivalist, unfortunately she doesn’t have much info and has no idea how long this has all been going on. As they continue on to the reactor, they bump into the requisite crazy guy who does. Leland (Eddie Rouse) is his name and he narrates his carvings on the ship wall in order to tell them about the message received by the crew after they had been underway for some time. That message said the Earth was in imminent danger of being destroyed and so the ship now carries the last remnants of human kind. One of those crew members, Gallo (Cam Gigandet) then flips out suffering from a deep space sickness known as Pandorum – very much feared and brought on by severe stress in space. Gallo kills everyone on the flight deck and then begins playing God with the rest of the crew and either causes their deaths or allows them to mutate into the flesh eating creatures the rest of this little band is trying to avoid. Finally Bower convinces all their best chance of survival is to help him get to the reactor – which is great because Leland is sizing them up for a Happy Meal.

And here I will stop because I am not going to be a spoiler – see, I told you there would be questions! This truly is first rate sci-fi and director Christian Alvart takes us on a wild and thoroughly entertaining ride that ultimately involves some pretty neat plot twists and a major bit of mistaken identity – just in case you were wondering what happened to Lt. Payton. Part of the fun is trying to figure out who actually has Pandorum and who is ok. Also, it isn’t as visually dark as a lot of these movies so you are spared a lot of eye strain! However, sigh, I have one minor complaint. The important info that we get along the way comes by way of someone with a really weird accent and strange flashbacks which can be slightly annoying and cause the viewer to miss important details, so as I said, enjoy the ride the first time through then go back for seconds! I’ll be right behind you!

K: Ah yes, my PIC did indeed have a question about a key plot point, and when I pointed out the scene where we got that information she grumbled something about having someone else give us the information instead of the guy who's hard to understand. I couldn't really argue with that.

I liked this movie. Good action / sci-fi flick with a little bit of a twist at the end - God knows I love those! My one complaint is that at the end of every scene someone had to say "We've got to get out of here." It was obvious by everything that was going on in the plot that it was crucial for them to keep moving. I don't think they had to remind us quite so often. But hey, if you can roll with that and focus your listening on the mumbly guy's big scene, you're sure to enjoy this thriller.

The Informant

J: When was the last time you sat in a darkened theater laughing at someone who is so psychologically impaired that it borders on pathological? Well, get ready to have your funny bone tweaked by Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) in “The Informant” because he truly puts the fun in dysfunctional.

Steven Soderbergh directed this romp through the biggest whistleblower case in Justice Department history. It is a dark comedy that uses the main character’s non-sequiturs as the illustration of his decent into madness as a result of the pressures of being a mole for the FBI. The trick is extremely effective – you find yourself scratching your head and wondering how anyone could possibly be thinking about the size of their hands as they walk into a price fixing meeting wired to the teeth. You can’t help but laugh.

The Informant is based on the book of the same name by Attorney James Lieber that tells the story of Whitacre’s decision to blow the whistle on Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and their efforts to fix the global price of lysine. Unfortunately, he also happens to be engaging in a little corporate hanky-panky himself. As the pressures of the three years of being a mole within the organization begin to build, Whitacre slips further into bipolar mania until he can’t tell his facts from his fantasies. The FBI agents, Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Dean Paisley (Joel McHale) stand helplessly by while Whitacre first flirts with giving away the whole investigation with his wide-eyed wonderment at how the FBI has rigged their surveillance (he stares at the lamp in the hotel room where the bug is hidden with childlike wonder) and then as their case slips away because of Whitacre’s ever changing account of what is happening. Whitacre, meanwhile, is convinced that he will be hailed as an everyman hero and given the position of CEO of ADM pretty much because he will be the last man standing after the Justice Department gets through with ADM – even as the Justice lawyers point out to him that the “corporate landscape may change a bit” for him. But he cluelessly forges ahead with his equally clueless wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey) at his side. As a stay at home mother, she is comfortable with their surroundings even as she questions why her husband needs six cars in the garage – many of them top end sports cars. It is, however, at her urging that he goes to the FBI and offers his service.

The Informant gives one the chance to just sit and be entertained. You don’t have to divine the motives or guess who the real villain is or when the twist will come. It is an extremely straightforward and uncomplicatedly funny movie. With a dash of sixties era “gee-gosh-willy”, even though it happens in the mid-1990’s, provided by Whitacre and his wife this is just an all around enjoyable movie. Please do not feel guilty about laughing – I’m pretty sure that’s the point!

K: Insanely funny! What a comedy of errors - unfortunately it's true! *whispers* "I see stupid people. They're everywhere!"

Inglorious Basterds

J: What would happen if you crossed “The Dirty Dozen” with “Kill Bill Parts 1 & 2”? Obviously, you would get “Inglorious Basterds”, a thoroughly entertaining, albeit very archetypal, Quentin Tarantino film.

I wasn’t a bit surprised to see the reviews for this film prior to opening – as with most of his work, you either love Tarantino or hate him. There simply isn’t a middle ground. You pretty much won’t ever see a Tarantino movie that gets two stars – as a reviewer you are either in or you’re out. I’m definitely an innie. Even if you didn’t know this was a Tarantino film when you walked in the theater you would know it for certain after the first ten minutes.

Inglorious Basterds is a pretty straight forward film with no particular twists, in keeping with traditional World War II movies – but with A LOT more violence which is most assuredly a QT trait. Particularly in the ways the Basterds come to be known by the Nazis – yes, what you heard is true so be prepared for the scalping scenes. I’ve never heard so many groans in a theater and believe me, I see a good many groan inducing movies. I have to say, my favorite scene in the whole movie is the opening scene that introduces Shoshanna, the Nazi Nemesis. What? You thought that was the leader of the Basterds, Lt. Aldo Raine (played by Brad Pitt)? Well, yes, he is the most obvious but Shoshanna (played by Melanie Laurent) is the most interesting as well as the most successful. But this opening scene is cleverly crafted and extremely heart wrenching in its drama. In fact, you might almost see the footprint of a Martin Scorsese film instead, proving that Tarantino is capable of as much pathos as anyone in the industry when he puts his mind to it. It is at the same time beautiful and horrible.

The film mainly concerns itself with the premier of a Nazi propaganda film about a young German war hero who slaughters several hundred Allied soldiers. When the hero, Frederick Zoller (played by Daniel Bruhl) becomes smitten (love that word and never get to use it enough) with Shoshanna, who is hiding in Paris under an assumed name and running a small theater, he presses propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) to bestow the “honor” of holding the premier in her theater. After she endures the surreal meeting with Goebbels, she realizes the opportunity of a lifetime has dropped in her lap and she begins her plot to bring down the Third Reich.

Enter the Basterds with the same goal. They will be working with a British agent who has been recruited by a classic Brit military officer played beautifully by Mike Myers in one of the two surprising cameos. What’s the other one, you ask? Well kids, prepare for your cinema lesson for today. During this meeting it is obvious Winston Churchill is sitting in but who is that actor playing him? A veteran actor, and one of my favorites, named Rod Taylor. Who is he? Want to see a really good movie? Watch the original “Time Machine” from 1960, not that horror that came out recently. Thanks to QT for the lovely homage! But I digress. The Basterds meet German actress and Allied sympathizer, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kurger – ho hum) and Operation Kino is born. And the Nazis oblige both would-be saboteurs by loading the cinema with every luminary, including Der Fuhrer himself.

The fly in this exquisite ointment is German Colonel Hans Landa, played entertainingly by Christoph Waltz, who walked away with a well deserved Cannes Film Festival award. He is undoubtedly the most interesting character in the bunch and pulls the one small twist at the end of the movie. Be prepared for a little bit of revisionist history but go with it anyway. What is my one little complaint? Basterds drags just a tiny bit in some places but not so much that anyone would be tempted to howl about how it could have been much shorter. Bottom line, I enjoyed it immensely and will definitely put it in my Netflix queue when it gets released on video. Kudos Mr. Tarantino and please don’t make us wait so long until the next one!

K: Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! Tarantino is a genius and only he can get away with making a movie like this. It's such an original film about Nazis. And the revisionist history was highly entertaining. If you don't see it in the theater put it in your movie queue.

District 9

J: Only someone with the vision and creativity of Peter Jackson could conceive a science fiction film that brings together all of the qualities in “District 9”. This movie has all of the things one hopes for in a great sci-fi flick; action, an unsettling creature and body parts flying all over the place. But this movie goes a step farther; this one actually makes you think.

District 9 is the name of the slum in which a huge group of aliens, stranded when their ship inexplicably stalls over Johannesburg, South Africa, are placed in a lame attempt at a humanitarian effort. When it becomes clear the Prawns, a derogatory name given the aliens based on their lobster-like appearance, aren’t going away anytime soon, a large conglomerate named MNU (any resemblance to Halliburton is probably very much intended) undertakes the task of “evicting” the aliens so as to move them to a shiny new future slum a very long way away from the city. You see, the good folks of Johannesburg, a group with a long history of “tolerance”, are fed up to here with all the crime and gang activity surrounding District 9 and want them gone. Providing the proof-point that even people with a long history of being discriminated against are more than happy to discriminate against someone lesser than themselves – ah, Human Nature at its finest. The “documentary” that is this movie follows the low-level manager, who has been given this plum assignment by his creepy father-in-law, Wikus Van De Merwe (played by Sharlto Copley) as he works to first get the Prawns to sign a paper saying they understand their eviction so the next step – the actual eviction – can lawfully take place. Quite a trick considering the alien language is difficult to understand and they haven’t got a clue what an eviction is. But he enthusiastically pushes ahead, until he gets a face-full of some strange alien brew in one of the shacks. This changes Wikus from a pocket protector and vest wearing nerd into, well into something even worse, hard though that might be to imagine.

And so enters MNU and their real dilemma – you see, the aliens have all manner of very dangerous looking weapons and MNU would just LOVE to reverse engineer those bad boys but have a slight problem. The weapons only work for someone with the alien DNA – gee, maybe old Wikus could help them out with that. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the cruise Wikus signed up for and he expresses his dismay with MNU’s idea about that even as their scientists continue to cattle prod him into going along with their zany idea. When it looks like Wikus is going to resemble the cat food the aliens have a drug like craving for, he decides he has had enough and affects a pretty cool escape. Once he blows out of the subterranean lab, he has nowhere to go except back to the Prawns he has just spent the entire day harassing. Bad luck, Chum!

The documentary filming style is just this side of jumping the shark these days but in this case it serves the film very well. Director South African Neill Blomkamp does a good job of making sure it’s not as jarring as some of the first attempts at a hand-held look, such as “Cloverfield”, have been and the background supplied by the “interviews” interspersed throughout the movie do a great job of moving the story along. The violence is shocking in its appearance and necessity, with a terrific convergence of CGI and real camera work. The largely unknown in the US cast gives the film an even deeper documentary feel – because you don’t recognize anyone it feels more like it’s happening in real-time. For that reason, it’s very easy to get absorbed in this film, but not so much that you miss the very evident underlying meaning. It is no accident this film takes place in Johannesburg. Intolerance and extreme social injustice are themes that loom very large in this film – particularly intolerance and human inability to relate to anyone or anything outside of a narrow frame of reference. The changes, both physically and psychically, that Wikus goes through turn on these points. In a very crucial moment Wikus has to come to terms with his position of having only the alien who helped brew the fluid he gets sprayed with to help him out. Luckily for the hapless Wikus, the Prawn he befriends is determined to get his ship back on its wheels and get him and his cute, bright, shrimpy little boy the heck out of this solar system from hell. And that’s where this movie gets its humor – from the irony of the situation Wikus and the Prawns find themselves in. There is nothing in this film that I have a particular problem with, except (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?) the lack of answers to many of the questions, but in true Hollywood fashion, we are witness to a franchise in the making. I’m sure all these questions will be answered in District 10 and the additional questions posed in District 10 will be answered…oh, you know the drill. Anyway, RUN, do not walk, to see District 9 – I guarantee you will enjoy it!

K: District 9 is an intelligent and fresh take on what would happen if aliens came to earth. I like that it happens in Johannesburg, South Africa (very symbolic, btw) as opposed to some typical US city. I also liked that they used all unknown actors, which played well with the documentary-style of storytelling. The only thing I didn't like is that almost all of it was filmed on hand-held cameras making for a lot of jittery shots. My eyes were getting sore after awhile so I kept looking down to focus on my stable and unmoving knee for a few moments. Excellent movie. I highly recommend it.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

J: To borrow from Harry and his friends, this movie is absolutely brilliant! Half Blood Prince is a very mature movie, much like the book that was my favorite of the series. It is evident from the very beginning this is a much darker and more serious movie than the rest. And sometimes not being a rabid Potter fan has its advantages, like when one gets to enjoy a terrific movie while not being bothered by the baggage of being pissed off about everything that has been left out. I would have liked a bit more of Voldemort’s back story, like the origins of the ring that becomes one of the Horcrux’s in the movie, but I understand the need for paring out so many of these details.

David Yates returns as director and does an exceptional job with a film that relies more on character than it does on magic and special effects. However, the FX that are used are well done and not at all overwhelming. The core cast returns too, with a wonderful addition of James Broadbent as daffy Prof. Horace Slughorn, who has a secret that Harry and Prof. Dumbledore need to solve the puzzle of Lord Voldemort.

Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to Hogwarts vindicated because the wizarding world now knows that Lord Voldemort (no Ralph Fiennes this go because we see him as the child, Tom Riddle, that is his origin) has returned and is killing wizards and Muggles alike. Prof. Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) enlists Harry’s help in gathering memories to piece together Voldemort’s past and discover his secrets so as to find a way to destroy him, with tragic consequences. This is the second movie in the series to end in a death and hints at what is ahead with the next installment, The Deathly Hallows, which is wisely being filmed in two parts.

In all, this movie is far more than a good Harry Potter movie, it is a great movie on its on merits. If this is any hint of what’s ahead, I have to admit I’m pretty excited. I just hope the movie gets made before these wonderful student wizards are ready to retire to the old wizards home!

K: I agree with my partner in crime that this was the best Harry Potter movie yet. I think much of it has to do with being able to dispense with the "ooh, look at that cool new spell Hermione can do" and the "oh no, a cave a troll in the girl's bathroom" type gimmicks and get down to the nitty gritty story that's been brewing for six books.

Even if you've never read the books and have only seen the movies, you know that a war is coming. It's always been leading to a showdown between Harry and Voldemort. Half Blood Prince is a great set-up for the ending of the series. I understand the need to cut out as much from the books as possible to get the movie down to a good running time, but the movie-only people (I feel) have been cheated out of the entire back story of Tom Riddle/Voldemort. While not entirely necessary, it seems like something everyone should know going into the Deathly Hallows. It only seems fair since we've been exposed to most of Harry's back story and this series ostensibly centers around those two and how and why they're bound together through Trelawney's prophecy (though we discover at the end of the last book that the series is really about two other characters, but I won't spoil that for those of you who haven't read the books).

And now I'm going to whine about other scenes missing from the movie because I'm a huge Potter dork. The most satisfying scene in the book, and possibly the whole series, was when Dumbledore came to pick up Harry from the Dursley's and gave them all the big old what for, Dumbledore-style of course. Those horrible people have had that coming for a long time and I would have loved to see them get what's coming to them on screen. I also would have liked to see the opening chapter, The Other Minister, where the Prime Minister (unwillingly) meets the Minister of Magic who has to explain that all the disasters occurring in England are actually caused by bad wizards. They even could have gotten Michael Sheen to play the Prime Minister (he plays Tony Blair in just about half the movies he's in). It's a funny chapter in the book and it would have brought a moment of levity to a dark movie. As would the scenes at the Weasley's in the beginning with Fleur Delacour, who the rest of the kids nickname Phlegm due to her overbearing personality. But at 2 1/2 hours I understand why these scenes were cut.

This is a fabulous must-see movie. The seasoned actors are great as you would expect (Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane). But this movie also highlights how good the kids have become. They've all done a little bit of work outside of the Potterverse and it's improved their acting in these movies. Emma Watson has always been the best actor of the main trio, but Daniel Radcliff's stage work on Equus has brought him up to the level of the adult actors in the movie. I think he now has the ability to believably pull off all the horrible and wonderful things that happen in Deathly Hallows. If only I had one of those darn time-turners I could speed myself ahead to watch the last two installments right now!

Terminator Salvation

J: Writing reviews has apparently created a terrible personality defect. I now go to movies and expect quality in addition to being entertained. While this may well work with most indie and Oscar worthy films, it does not work with films like “Terminator Salvation”. Now, don’t get me wrong, T-S is a perfectly entertaining film but as I sat through the first fifteen or so minutes waiting for the scintillating dialog and fine acting to kick in – and as I was getting ready to be disappointed – my PIC gently reminded me “this ain’t Slumdog, Dudette!” Ah yes, truer words were never spoken! So yes, I put aside the pretentious me and let the Slam Bang Action Flick me just sit back and enjoy! And enjoy we did.

T-S puts us squarely in the fight between the machines who initiated Judgment Day (the picture takes place soon after) and the humans left over, but there are a few new plot twists, like the addition of the Death Row inmate Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington. Marcus is convinced by Dr. Serena Kogan, played brilliantly albeit quickly by Helena Bonham Carter, of Cyberdyne Systems to donate his body to science. She dangles the hope of humanity in front of him and he takes the bait, possibly to get the skeletal looking Bonham Carter out of his cell. It seems they both had death sentences, his for killing a couple people and hers for cancer. He unknowingly becomes the Terminator prototype but that doesn’t work out exactly as Cyberdyne had planned. Then, whoosh, we are dropped into the center of hell after Judgment Day with John Connor, played by Christian Bale, doing the anti-Terminator stuff we have all grown up with, which is very cool indeed. Because the rest of the movie is the fleshing out of all the loose ends and heretofore unexplained T1 and T2 stuff (don’t know about you but I simply can’t count T3, particularly because it was largely unwatchable) I won’t do any spoiling but get to the really good stuff.

McG is the director. Now before your head explodes like mine almost did, let me share the 411. Joseph “McG” McGinty Nichol (I guess when you have three or four names, you have to shorten it down to something workable) got his start in the music business and, yes he did music videos, which does not always bode well for moving into full-length films. In fact, theaters are littered with those misguided attempts. But happily McG has done a fine job with T-S and clearly has a taste for Terminators in general because he takes great pains to include several homage’s to the earlier pix, including allowing Mr. Bale to speak the legendary “I’ll be back” line and in his own way. There are other assorted and very obvious links to the original two movies but the true stand-out comes at the end with some exceptionally nifty CGI work to take the Terminator full circle – VERY nicely done. But that’s as much as I will tell you because I want you to whoop it up like we did when it gets to that part. Also, BONUS, McG is a Michiganian (no, I never use the goosey sounding term), he was born in Kalamazoo. Now what’s not to like about that? All of the other action variety explosions and such are plentiful and jump-cutty enough to keep your interest. No problems there at all.

But there’s always one, isn’t there? If this is the project Mr. Bale was working on during his infamous meltdown then I would have to say to the meltdownee – get over it! Mr. Bale has a range of two emotions; incredulousness and really pissed off! Obviously, the one that gets the most exercise in this film is the pissed off emo and boy, you just can’t walk off the set and leave that kind of thing behind. Was he a decent John Connor? Certainly. Is he one of the fine actors of our time? Ah, no. With his range of emotions, the obvious choice for his next costar would have to be Naomi Watts, what a dynamic pair THAT would be! Please God, before that happens, please take me!

K: I disagree with J about Mr. Bale's acting. I think he's a very good actor, but his character in this movie only had the two emotions of incredulousness and pissed off. I do agree with J about Naomi Watts, and would also like to add Drew Barrymore to that list. I recently saw her in a movie where her acting was akin to some teenager plucked off his high school stage. However, I am on Team Christian, so rock on Mr. Bale!