Review: Zombieland

For all their problems, (unquenchable thirst for brains, bad skin, etc.) audiences have always had a soft spot for zombies. The only thing better than the undead is taking them out with a shotgun and fortunately Zombieland has plenty of both. While a number of familiar elements will lend themselves to comparing it to Shaun of the Dead, Ruben Fleischer’s directorial debut manages to stand on its on as a silly but fun Zom-Rom-Com (Zombie Romance Comedy) reminder to enjoy the little things.

We are introduced to our hero Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg channeling Michael Cera) a skinny, nebbish college kid trekking his way through a United States that is now almost entirely taken over by zombies. We aren’t given any backstory or explanation why there is a zombie infestation, and frankly we don’t need one. Far from the social commentary that has taken over the zombie genre, Columbus is just a kid trying to stay alive using his rules for surviving Zombieland, and the movie just wants to have a good time.

Retro Review: Predator

With the big news regarding Robert Rodriguez’s Predators coming out on Wednesday, we figured it was a good a time as any to go back and see how the original film, John McTiernan’s Predator from 1987, stood up against time and its sequels.

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If the genre of science-fiction has an enemy, its name is technology. While some of the greatest movies of the genre were filmed during the 1970s and 1980s, watching them today is almost laughable. Computers have advanced so far in the past twenty years that movies like The Lawnmower Man or The Abyss look almost cartoonish in retrospect.

Today’s films are no different. As more and more CGI is used, no matter how lifelike it looks today, a few years down the line it will look rudimentary and hacky. Someday, Transformers will look like Clash of the Titans. The only way to combat the inevitable is to be subtle and not let special effects take over the film. It is for this exact reason that John McTiernan’s Predator remains a solid action film to this day.

Weekend Review: The Informant!

When you get past the smaller details, there are two reasons people lie – to protect someone’s feelings and for personal gain. The former, also known as white lies, are told when grandma gives you a pair of tube socks for Christmas or you tell your wife that you would rather go clothes shopping than play golf with your friends. The latter can come in a range of sizes, be it telling your boss you are sick to get out of work or defrauding a major corporation for millions of dollars. Mark Whitacre, Matt Damon’s character in Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant!, certainly falls in to the second category.

Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

The most interesting character in the X-Men lineup, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine was the runaway star of Bryan Singer’s (and sadly Brett Ratner’s) series and as one of the most popular characters in comic book history, there was a substantial amount of good will for a solo story. X-Men Origins: Wolverine unfortunately throws it all away, along with any pretense of story, failing as both an action film and an X-Men story.

Yes, this movie was even worse than X-Men 3: The Last Stand, a good reason Gavin Hood is currently not involved to the planned sequel, as any time Brett Ratner outdoes you, you don’t deserve to keep your job.

Greatest Review Of Our Time?

There comes a time in every genre when something so special is crafted it exceeds everything that has come before it. Today I bring you The Godfather of reviews via Netflix user Torrzilla and Funnyjunk.com. Rest assured, we will not be satisfied until we reach and exceed these heights of greatness as well. Check out the review of Enemy of The State after the break as well as a special bonus video.

Weekend Review: Extract

To put it simply, Extract is a movie about dumb people. This is not an attempt to insult the film or even its characters. It is simply what Mike Judge knows. Beavis and Butthead was about two dumb teenagers who watch entirely too much television. King of the Hill is about a neighborhood of dumb Texans just trying to live a working life. Office Space is about dumb computer programmers who are bored. Idiocracy is about future dumb people. And in that same vain, Extract is a movie about dumb people who work at a company that produces flavor extracts.

Retro Review: No Country For Old Men

Because we didn’t have a weekend review for you on Monday and the stars have aligned with news about the Coen Brothers and Cormac McCarthy in the same day, I have  dug through my archives and retrieved my review for No Country For Old Men, starring Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and Oscar winner Javier Bardem.

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Since their arrival in cinemas in 1984 with Blood Simple, Joel and Ethan Coen have continued to make films about bad people doing bad things to, generally, other bad people. After the arrival of the Oscar winning Fargo in 1996, however, the Coen Brothers strayed from their bloody, dramatic roots in favor of comedies. While the films ranged from incredible (The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) to embarrassing (The Ladykillers), the Coen Brothers returned to their roots in full force with No Country for Old Men.

Weekend Review: Inglourious Basterds

Say what you will about Quentin Tarantino, but the man knows how to put his mark on a movie. Be it his obsessive foot fetish, Mexican stand-offs, obsessively long shots, or lineage-connecting characters, it isn’t hard to pick one of his films out of a line-up.

With a mix of all of the above plus some larger-than-life characters with crackling dialogue, Inglourious Basterds is no different.

Weekend Review: District 9

There are four progressions through which every genre must go.

First, there is building stage. This is where something new is introduced to the audience that they have never seen before. There are still some issues and kinks that need to be worked out, but a base audience is created that is hungry for more.

The second stage is the classics stage. Directors and writers take on material from the building stage and, using original stories and deep characters, morph it to their own vision. It is during this stage that most of the best material is made.

The third stage is a depression stage. Attempting to capture the same successes that were done during the classics period, there becomes a lack of creativity that stunts the genre and prevents it from moving forward. Be it through exhausted series, overuse of underdeveloped technologies or simply a lack of creativity, the material cannot surpass that which was made before it and audiences begin to feel exhausted by the genre and demand begins to fade.

But then there is the fourth stage: resurrection. A director or writer steps forward with a new idea as to how to treat material that people grew tired of and make it new again. New stories to tell are discovered and ideas begin to be mined, allowing the cycle to begin again.

Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 is the resurrection of the science fiction genre.

Retro Review: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

In celebration of the premiere of Terry Gilliam’s trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, I’ve dug through my archives for my review of one of my favorite former-Gilliam works: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro.

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Before his death in 2005, Hunter S. Thompson, famous as the self-described “gonzo” journalist of the 1960s and 1970s, made a very strange request regarding how he wanted to be cremated. Thompson, a fan of large explosions, asked that his ashes be mixed with fireworks and launched into the sky from a 150-foot tower erected at his home in Woody Creek. After his death, the man who orchestrated the final sendoff was Johnny Depp, the actor who portrayed Thompson in the 1998 film adaptation of what many consider to be Thompson’s finest literary work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.