The Uncritic

Zombies!

Welcome to Zombieland. Population: Fun! (And about 15 billion zombies).  If you like zombies, comedy, and violence, then Zombieland is for you.  If you don’t like zombies, comedy, and violence, then nobody likes you anyway.

Jesse Eisenberg plays Columbus, an awkward guy living in a crazy world, trying to find love in an amusement park.  You might remember him from Adventureland, where he played an awkward guy living in a crazy world, trying to find love in an amusement park.

Woody Harrelson plays Tallahassee, Columbus’ cliched polar opposite. But somehow, nothing in the movie feels cliche.  Every time you think you know what’s coming, the movie throws a twist at you.  Usually covered in blood or bullets. Harrelson doesn’t play the lead role, but he completely steals the movie. Without him, the movie would have been much, much worse.

It’s the little details and the one liners in the movie that made me really enjoy the movie. From the ridiculous slow motion scenes to the continuous “rules” that both characters have, there’s very rarely a moment that won’t have you laughing.

The movie isn’t meant to be scary, or taken seriously in the least. There’s the occasional sentimental moment, but these are immediately dispelled with comedy.  The movie is character, rather than plot based. Any mention of the other characters and their roles would spoil the movie, so I won’t mention anything.

And watch out for the greatest cameo in zombie movie history!

I’ve been bored with Hollywood lately.  Every recent movie has been something related to fantasy or science fiction, which aren’t my favourite genres. Don’t get me wrong, I love giant mechanical ______ blowing up other mechanical _______ with bullets/explosives/cows/lasers as much as the next guy, but it gets old.  Real old.

So on the recommendation of a friend, I decided to watch two movies from across the (Atlantic) pond.  The first movie was Martyrs, and the second was Bronson. The first one destroyed my life, the second one made me laugh a lot.

Before I talk about Martyrs, I have a confession; I can’t watch movies with gore.  I’m not talking about cheesy action movie gore, but detailed, created for the purpose of disgusting you gore in the style of Hostel and Saw.  I barely made it through about 3 of the Saw movies before deciding it just wasn’t worth it anymore.  Martyrs is an odd movie.  To call it a movie created solely to gross people out would be a mistake, but it does contain a lot of graphic violence. The first half of the movie contains a lot of suspense, dark insinuations, and blurred memories.  The second half is pounding, gore pornography.  It eventually ends with some vague philosophical, moral lesson, but not enough to justify the graphic content of the movie to me.

Bronson was a fun ride most of the way through.  A fictionalized account of Britain’s most violent prisoner, the movie follows the life of Charles Bronson, the man who loves prison so much, that he’ll do anything to stay in it.  Much like Martyrs, the movie is disturbing, but at a more fundamental level.  Bronson is a man who’s violent for the sake of violence. Tom Hardy plays the role of a lifetime, as he kicks, punches, dances, and even…paints his way across the screen. The sharp savagery is interspersed with monologues by Bronson in exaggerated stage makeup, speaking to an imaginary audience. Somehow Hardy manages to make these scenes even more disturbing than graphic violence.

The movie explores how flawed the justice system can be, and what happens when you introduce someone into jail who actually wants to be there. The movie is also really, really funny, especially when they put Bronson in situations where he has to act like a normal human being. His attempted courtship of someone who really has no wish of being courted is especially humorous.

My only gripe with the movie is the sometimes unnecessarily slow scenes.

One scene in particular stands out; Bronson dancing at a lunatic asylum, while the camera zooms slowly… very, very slowly.  This is repeated with other scenes, like Bronson sitting in a chair. I don’t have to be a film student to say that scenes like these were out of place, and very boring in a movie that was definitely not meant to be a slow drama.

I know Bronson is going to be released soon in North America (or has it been released already?), but I would say the trailers misrepresent the movie somewhat.  It’s worth more a rental than a theatre visit.

This past year, movies have been awful, TV has been great.  I’ve been watching way too much TV lately. Mad Men is the best show on the air right now, hands down.  Entertainment lately seems to be focused solely on being as “out there” as possible.  There’s a huge burst of comic book based movies (Wolverine, Iron Man), supernatural shows (FlashForward, Defying Gravity), and just general wackiness, so it’s nice to watch something firmly grounded in reality.  The reality of 1960’s corporate America that is.

Look at me, I'm mad.

Disappointingly the show doesn’t focus on a lunatic asylum, but rather on a mid sized advertising agency on Madison Avenue.  The cast is rather large, but the show knows to keep the focus on its nucleus, the nuclear family of Don Draper.  Everyone else is very well fleshed out, but there’s no sense of aimless meandering.  Major events in the shows time period are woven into the character’s story lines (sometimes a little too conveniently), and issues like sexism are tackled in almost every episode.  Watch this show.

Today’s premiere of House was fantastic.  It’s obvious they’re trying to re-invent the show.  Five seasons of disease-theory-medication-new theory-it’s not lupus-revelation-cure has been getting really boring, even with the addition of suicides, hallucinations, and strippers.  Strippers were a great idea though.  Season six needs more of those.  Interestingly, Hugh Laurie was the only regular from the show in the two hour premiere (with a brief phone cameo by Robert Sean Leonard’s Wilson).  In another interesting note, I had to briefly check wiki to figure out Robert Sean Leonard’s name, and thirty minutes later i’m reading some article about skinheads.  Damn.

I'm also mad. Because i'm in an asylum.

I also caught around ten minutes of Heroes. Some dude was slashing the hot Ali Larter around with a knife, but she turned into ice or something.  Then Nate was Sylar, and Sylar was Nate, and Parkman cried a lot.  Then I changed the channel to something better, like blurry static.

Static. Now better than Heroes.

Curb Your Enthusiasm was in it’s usual form.  ”Seinfeld on Crack” is the best description for that show I’ve heard. Larry David can make the most mundane social rituals seem hilarious, like etiquette on taking things out of someone else’s refrigerator, or asking about the guest list for a dinner party.  There was also a special pre-season episode talking about re-building the Seinfeld sets for the upcoming FULL CAST SEINFELD REUNION.  AWESOME.  FULL CAPS LOCK AWESOME.  Hmm, that’s almost an expletive.  FULL CAPS LOCK.  FCLOCK? FCOCKING AWESOME?

Bored to Death is a show i’m going to be keeping an eye on in the near future.  An HBO mystery series, it’s got the usual quirky indie humour that seems to be all the rage nowadays.  Jason Schwartzman plays a slightly depressed novelist who turns to unlicensed detective work to spice up his life.  It’s got Ted Danson, and that fat dude from The Hangover (I should really find out what his real name is.) It’s not a conventional mystery show, and a fun watch.

Look at me, i'm an unlicenced detective.

The musical comedy that’s funny for now, but is about to become boring soon… Glee. It’s funny, but there’s just something missing from this show.  It’s entertaining, but not worth going out of the way to catch every week.  An episode here and there is good enough.  I’ll probably be done in another episode or so.

Unfortunately, I’ve dropped Californication and Dexter. I’m around a season behind on both shows, something I need to correct soon.   There’s no reason behind the stoppage.  They’re both great, I have just been lazy.

I know i’m late on the boat (What a stupid expression.  I think I just made that up. How can you be late on a boat.  Do I hire another boat to reach the boat i’m late for?  Do I get airlifted?), but I just finished watching the whole of True Blood. The long string of shitty vampire movies and shows inspired by .. you know what.. stopped me from watching it initially, but then I finally caved after hearing nothing but good about it.  It’s addictive, and fun.  Anna Paquin is talented, but let’s be straight; she’s no looker.  She looks better in the second season, but the first season had some cringe worthy moments. Either way, even Anna Paquin can’t make this show bad.  It’s great.  It’s the vampire show that got it right, mixing the gothic with reality successfully. Oh, and they all have funny Louisiana accents.

SOOKEH IS MAHN.

And talking of guilty pleasures, Gossip Girl recovered from a horrible season premiere.  The second episode was much better than the horrible first.  Yes, I watch Gossip Girl.  No, that’s not weird.  Or creepy. I’m in the company of outstanding citizens like this man, who dressed up as a firefighter to carry out arson and rape.

…

FML.