Movie Review: Zombieland

Zombieland (2009) 

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

Written by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick

Starring Woody Harrelson Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, Bill Murray 

Release Date October 2nd, 2009 

Published October 1st, 2009

I don't like zombie movies. There is an inherent undercurrent of nihilism that runs through most zombie movies that I find unappealing. I may be a cynic but I could not live in a world without hope, the world of the zombie movie. I will admit that elements of Romero's use of subtext in his Living Dead movies are appealing. I will also admit to admiring Danny Boyle's skilled technique in 28 Days Later. But, zombie movies remain for me an ugly, unwelcome chore to sit through.

Thus, I was not looking forward to the new zombie horror comedy Zombieland. Starring Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg, Zombieland deftly flips its tone from horror to comedy and somehow loses nothing in the transition. As much as I hate zombie movies, I must admit, I liked this one.

Columbus (Eisenberg) was not the most likely survivor of the zombie apocalypse. He's scrawny and skittish and carries a shotgun so big you may have a hard time believing he could fire it and remain standing. He has survived because his years of isolation, he was a videogame loving shut in before the apocalypse, taught him to run from people even before they were trying to eat him.

He has a series of rules that have guided him as well. Rule 1: Cardio. He has trained like an olympic sprinter so that he can stay ahead of the horde. Rule 2: Double Tap. Never just shoot a zombie, shoot it twice. The other rules make cameos throughout the film as computer added interstitials. The comic effect is strong and reminds one of Max Brooks's very funny book "The Zombie Survival Guide".

Columbus has traveled alone for a while but for the first time has begun to crave a little company. He's lucky enough to meet up with Tallahassee (Harrelson) who happens to be one of the best zombie killers in the country. He doesn't just run and hide from the zombie hordes, he runs at them guns blazing, bat swinging, hedge clippers... clipping.

The two form an unlikely alliance that grows to four when they happen upon Wichita and Little Rock (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin). (The names correlate to the cities where everyone is from. You don't want to get to attached to someone you might have to shoot in the head). Wichita and Little Rock are headed to California where they are hoping rumors of a human enlave in an amusement park is for real.

Whether their hopes are well founded I will leave you to discover. Zombieland comes from first time feature director and show stunning skill. Fleischer's directorial experience is limited to shorts and episodes of Jimmy Kimmel's talk show, yet he shows remarkable skill and control for such a relative novice.

Most impressive is how he balances the tone. The laughs in Zombieland come in buckets and yet, so does the horror. Zombieland makes you fear the zombies but still has the energy and wit to make you laugh louder than you have at most any comedy this year. It's a balance that a number of veteran directors could not achieve.

Keep an eye out for what will no doubt be the years best cameo. The actor involved is so unexpected and yet so very, very game for it all you will not be able to control the gales of laughter from this inspired bit of casting.

I still don't like zombie movies. This time however, because of a game cast and some surprisingly skilled direction, I can look past my issues with the genre and recommend Zombieland.

Movie Review: The Social Network

The Social Network (2010)

Directed by David Fincher

Written by Aaron Sorkin

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, Justin Timberlake, Rooney Mara

Releease Date October 1st, 2010 

Published September 30t, 2010

For the past five years Facebook has been rising through our culture and becoming a phenomenon. It's a phenomenon that does not merely exist on its own but captures the rise to predominance of online culture vs. all other forms of discourse. Lives are lived online as much as they are in real life in many cases and much of those lives date back to one night when one 20-year-old college kid had a few beers and banged out the computer code that would cause a social networking revolution.

David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network" is the mostly true story of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), the purported founder of Facebook. There is some question as to whether Mark, now the world's youngest billionaire at 26 years old, actually came up with the idea or if he stole it, adapted it and reaped the rewards. The film takes its shape from depositions in two different lawsuits filed against Zuckerberg by friends and attempted colleagues.

Writer Ben Mezrich used the depositions as well as numerous interviews and investigative reporting as the basis for his sensational book "The Accidental Billionaires" which comes to thrilling and enthralling life onscreen as "The Social Network." Under the expert direction of David Fincher and the whip crack, witty dialogue of writer Aaron Sorkin, the founding of one website and the personalities behind it becomes a dialogue about the modern internet culture and a commentary on the direction of society.

Flashbacks begin and end in "The Social Network" with crash cuts to Mark Zuckerberg sitting in an entirely irritated state in a lawyer's office. Eduardo Severin (Andrew Garfield), Zuckerberg's former best friend and the man who put up the money to start Facebook and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Armie Hammer, in a remarkably non-showy, dual role) are suing Zuckerberg over Facebook but for very different reasons.

Forget the merits of either suit, it's clear Severin had a real beef while the Winklevoss's and their partner Divya Narenda were grasping at straws having simply a generic idea that they asked Zuckerberg to code for them and failed to administer on their own, the lawsuits are merely the ordering device. The meat of "The Social Network" is in the extraordinary casting, acting and writing as well as David Fincher's remarkable talent for setting a scene. 

Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg as a social illiterate who sees other people as a means to an end. We see at the start of the film a fictional account of Mark on a date with a girl played by Rooney Mara. It's evident to us, if not immediately to her, that Mark has no real interest in her beyond the physical need to be a normal 20 something male being seen in public with an attractive woman. Mara's character is a device but a terrific one; the date establishes who Mark is, his motivations and desires and the scene is filled with smart, fast paced, witty dialogue that gets the movie off to a running start.

Eisenberg owns the screen in this opening scene; his words fly like Edward Norton's fists in "Fight Club" and are occasionally as devastating. David Fincher's "Fight Club" was an indictment of consumer and pop culture disposability and "The Social Network" picks up where "Fight Club" left off by cutting the computer chord that binds the audience to Facebook and showing us the true face of social media, the good the bad and the ugly.

Opposite Eisenberg is Andrew Garfield as the much maligned and abused Facebook co-founder and CFO Eduardo Saverin. Eduardo is the genius and sap who made several hundred thousand dollars as a very young man, pledged some of that money to Mark Zuckerberg and watched his supposed friend attempt to jettison him from the company they founded together. Through Garfield's fierce yet sensitive performance we see how Saverin was seduced, betrayed and bewildered by Zuckerberg and the fast paced, wired world of Facebook.

Justin Timberlake is a lightning bolt of humor and charisma as Sean Parker, the former Napster founder who dazzled Zuckerberg by being the social butterfly Zuckerberg could never be but envied deeply. Parker is the high side of Internet culture, the freewheeling good times, the connections that work out and the potential for trouble that can arise from making connections with people you don't know. He is the polar opposite to Andrew Garfield's Saverin, whose story is another more truthful metaphor for the online experience of attempting to connect with friends and strangers in an online wasteland of forgettable status updates.

Facebook and the culture of social networking are by nature, not important. It brings little to nothing of value to the world. It is the intangible equivalent to candy. It's sweet and tasty or it can be souring, even disgusting. It can brighten your day or make you sick but in the end, Facebook, MySpace and the rest have no value beyond the metaphorical sugar high of faux connectedness.

The strength of "The Social Network" as crafted by David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin lies in recognizing the emptiness of the Facebook world and using the real life creators and their stories as a means of exposing the emptiness. Vapid status updates, perfunctory friend requests and questionable relationship statuses are the heart of Facebook and through the characters of "The Social Network" the stark reality of social networking becomes resonant, jarring messages for audiences merely expecting the sex, drugs and computer coding behind the pop phenomena of Facebook.

In "Fight Club" Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter watched the world fall apart around them as they held hands and connected truly for the first time. Facebook and the world of social networking comes crashing down in "The Social Network" and the witnesses are us, the audience, many of whom have spent far too much time taking Facebook far too seriously.

Movie Review Rio

Rio (2011) 

Directed by Carlos Saldanha 

Written by Don Rhymer, Jennifer Ventimilia, Sam Harper

Starring Jesse Esenberg, Anne Hathaway, Jamie Foxx, Jemaine Clement

Release Date April 15th, 2011 

Published April 15th, 2011

With a cast bursting with award winners and the winning team behind the "Ice Age" movies at the helm it can come as no surprise that "Rio" is a delight. Sweet, funny and heartfelt, this coming of age story about a bird learning to fly and falling in love for the first time is a wonderful bit of 3D animated fluff.

"Rio" features the voice of Jesse Eisenberg, "The Social Network's" socially awkward Mark Zuckerberg, as a socially awkward Blue Macaw named, aptly enough, Blu who lives in, of all places, Minnesota. Blu was poached at a very early age from his tree top home in Brazil. He fell off a truck in Minnesota and has since been raised by Linda (voice of "Knocked Up's" Leslie Mann).

Learning to Fly

Being domesticated left Blu with little need or want to learn how to fly. He's perfectly happy walking and leaping about Linda's house sipping hot chocolate and reading. Of course, Blu is in for a major life change and it comes in the form of Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro), a Zoologist from Brazil who implores Linda to bring Blu to Brazil in order to mate with another Blue Macaw named Jewel (voice of Ann Hathaway).

Once in Rio Blu meets Jewel and finds her less than friendly. Jewel is eager to escape, no matter what happens to the species or Blu but when both she and Blu are captured by poachers, including an evil Cockatoo named Nigel (Flight of the Conchords Jemaine Clement), she finds that she will be stuck with Blu for a while and his lack of flight will make their new unfortunate and unplanned adventure a bit more difficult.

Singing in Support

Rounding out the exceptional voice cast of "Rio" is Jamie Foxx as a soulful voiced Canary named Nico, Black Eyed Peas member Will I. Am as a Samba loving Cardinal named Pedro and George Lopez as Raphael a Toco Toucan who was once the bird king of Carnaval but is now a stay at home dad to 18 kids. Raphael becomes Blu's flying guru and with Nico and Pedro, the cheering section as Blu makes his awkward moves on the stubborn but sweet Jewel.

"Rio" is a gloriously fun, sweet and samba infused adventure that even the darkness of the 3D cannot manage to ruin. Though I imagine that the colors of Rio pop more in 2D and look much better, the 3D print I watched was lively and colorful enough to help me get past most of my reservations about 3D. The creative team behind "Rio," led by director Carlos Saldanha, doesn't overuse the stuff flying toward the screen in 3D effect and instead employ the best of 3D in the scenes soaring over the stunning animated cityscape of "Rio."

Feel that Samba Beat

The music of "Rio '' is like another character in the story with the Samba acting as the film's beating heart. Legendary Brazilian artist Sergio Mendes acted as the film's Executive Music Producer and with Carlinhos Brown crafted a score that is irresistibly danceable. Jamie Foxx and Will I. Am make a sensational musical team on the song "Hot Wings (Wanna Party) but it's Foxx who gets the movie's best musical moment singing the "Rio '' love theme.

"Rio" is a real treat. Bright, colorful, tuneful and funny, kids are going to flip for these terrific bird characters and mom and dad will enjoy the terrific music and the strong message of friendship, love and coming of age. The team behind the "Ice Age" movies, Blue Sky Studios, has another hit on their hands with "Rio."

Movie Review: Cursed

Cursed (2005)

Directed by Wes Craven 

Written by Kevin Williamson

Starring Christina Ricci, Josh Jackson, Jesse Eisenberg, Scott Baio, Judy Greer, Shannon Elizabeth

Release Date February 25th, 2005 

Published February 24th, 2005

As far as career low points go I would have thought Director Wes Craven could not go any lower than his sad and long forgotten Eddie Murphy vampire flick Vampire In Brooklyn. However after seeing Mr. Craven's new werewolf picture Cursed I find that even if you have previously dug to the bottom of the barrel you can always lift the barrel to go a little lower.

Cursed is a shameful example of a once great Director in his most faded glory. In attempting to recreate the past success of the Scream series Craven has crafted a woefully inept spectacle of bad special effects and reteamed with writer Kevin Williamson, a return to the kind of in-the-know humor that made Scream hip.... in '96.

Christina Ricci stars as Elly, a TV producer raising her little brother Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) after the death of their parents. When the kids are involved in a car accident, they are attacked by some kind of beast that annihilates another woman (Shannon Elizabeth, in a cameo nod to Drew Barrymore in Scream). Jimmy claims the beast was a werewolf and the cops and his sister are unsurprisingly skeptical.

Jimmy becomes obsessed with werewolf lore, because someone in werewolf movies has to provide exposition, spending hours researching the side effects of a non-fatal werewolf attack. Naturally there is the moonlight thing, an aversion to silver and a heightened sense of smell especially when it comes to blood. Soon both brother and sister are showing some supernatural side effects and only killing the wolf that attacked them can save them from a lifetime of moonlight killing.

Josh Jackson plays Elly's boyfriend who has a dark secret of his own and Judy Greer (The Village) plays a bitchy rival to Elly in her job as a producer on the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. The cast also boasts cameos by Kilborn, Lance Bass of N'Sync, pop star Mya and Scott Baio (Yes, Scott Baio).

Memo to Kevin Williamson, simply putting Scott Baio in your movie is not funny. Give him something funny to do or say or don't do it at all. Mr. Baio's cameo is a throwaway, amongst many throwaway jokes that fall flat throughout Cursed.

The screenplay by Kevin Williamson attempts to mine comedy from Elly's gig as a producer on the Kilborn show but with Kilborn having left since the film wrapped more than a year ago, the comedy is embarassingly stale. Williamson also attempts to revive the running gags from the Scream series with Shannon Elizabeth's brief cameo and quick death and of course that knowing ironic horror movie humor that was his forte more than 10 years ago but has failed to mature much in the same way Mr. Williamson's career has failed to mature toward the success so many expected for him after the twin hits Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.

It's not just the humor that falls flat in Cursed but also the career of the once very promising Christina Ricci. After her Prozac Nation was shelved before being dumped to cable and forgotten, it seems Ms. Ricci is longing for the kind of paycheck an actor can only get when they compromise their talent. Cursed however is not merely a compromise.  It's a total sellout. Never before has Ricci been so lifeless and banal on screen.

Ms. Ricci is not alone in the sellout department. It seems everyone from former Dawson's Creek star Johua Jackson to pop star Mya to the lovely Judi Greer were all willing to throw actorly credibility to the wind to gather a paycheck. Only Greer's performance could be called memorable, but not memorable for the right reasons. Ms. Greer's performance is so embarrassing she may want to leave it off her resume in the future.

The CGI effects employed in Cursed to bring the various werewolves to life are seemingly what Ed Wood might have created had he the chance to use the technology. All of the films werewolves are bad cartoons and because of the restrictive PG-13 Rating the film cannot distract the audience from the terrible effects with blood and gore. PG-13 simply does not suit the man who arguably has spilled more cinematic blood in history than any other director. The film's rating and lack of old school blood and guts is clearly a box office related compromise between Craven and the studio Dimension Films.

Not that an R-Rating could have done much for what is the worst outing of Wes Craven's long career. The master of horror delivers a movie with a thuddingly uninteresting script, little to no real scares and CGI effects, never his strong suit, that are some of the worst I have seen in a long while. Cursed plays not like a Wes Craven movie but rather like one of those early 2000's movies that he simply slapped his name on like They or Dracula 2000: bad, low-budget horror that capitalizes off the name of the man once called the Master of Horror. That name has lost a great deal of its cache with Cursed, one of the worst films of the 2004.

Movie Review: Adventureland

Adventureland (2009) 

Directed by Greg Mottola 

Written by Greg Mottola 

Starring Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, Matt Bush, Kristen Wiig, 

Release Date April 3rd, 2009 

Published April 2nd, 2009 

When one thinks of Superbad, the hit 2007 comedy from director Greg Mottola, the first word that comes to mind is not thoughtful. That word however, provides a strong description of Greg Mottola's two other directorial efforts. The Daytrippers, the film that brought Mottola to the attention of Hollywood decision makers, was a thoughtful and gentle comic road trip. Now comes Adventureland which, like Daytrippers, is thoughtful as well as gentle nostalgic, sentimental and romantic in its offbeat way.

Jesse Eisenberg stars in Adventureland as Brennen a soon to be New York college student who was  planning for a trip to Europe for the entire the summer before college. That was before his dad lost his job and Brennen lost his funding. Now, even college in New York is in question unless Brennan can start raising money on his own.

Being more of a thinker than a laborer, Brennen finds there is not much out there in the unskilled labor market. Thankfully, an old friend, Frigo (Matt Bush), is able to land him a gig at a local amusement park, Adventureland. Brennen will be in the games section where every contest is rigged and no one, NO ONE is allowed to win a big ass panda. These are the rules laid down by the park manager Bobby (Bill Hader) and his wife Paulette (Kristen Wiig).

With only the goal of making money on his mind, Brennen is shocked when he meets Em (Kristen Stewart) a thoughtful outcast not unlike himself. The two spark some romantic chemistry quickly but there are any number of complications that will keep them apart, not the least of which is Brennen's virgin status and Em's shall we say 'experience'. This isn't so much a boundary as a truth. You will find throughout this wonderful movie that truth is a default setting for these characters no matter how complicated that truth is.

Click here for my review

Movie Review The Hunting Party

The Hunting Party (2007) 

Directed by Richard Shepard 

Written by Richard Shepard 

Starring Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Kruger, James Brolin, Dylan Baker 

Release Date September 14th, 2007 

Published September 13th, 2007 

Do you remember the so-called "Scud Stud"? His real name was Arthur Kent and for the uninitiated Kent was the undisputed media star of the first Iraq war. Standing against a starry Baghdad sky with missile alarms in the background and explosions not far out of the frame, Kent's handsome, steely veneer and unshakable calm was the enduring media image of the war, even beyond the deified danger boys over at CNN, probably because Bernard Shaw just isn't as pleasant to look at. Desert Storm was the peak of Arthur Kent's career. He failed in his attempt to get a massive new deal with NBC, his arrogance pricing him out of a market that already had its share of pampered divas.

Kent has since carved out a respectable career in documentaries and hosting specials on the History Channel, but he will always be the Scud Stud. The new movie The Hunting Party is a movie about a journalist not unlike Mr. Kent. The roguishly handsome, globetrotter played by Richard Gere flames out more spectacularly than Kent did, after becoming the star of the forgotten 90's conflict in Bosnia. Now a shell of the journalist he once was, he stumbles on the opportunity to regain his fortune. With the help of his trusted cameraman, played by Terrence Howard, he's going to capture the world's most wanted terrorist. If only Arthur Kent had flipped this badly, imagine The Scud Stud trying to hunt down Saddam Hussein. 

Richard Gere is perfectly cast in The Hunting Party as Simon, a man who became a media darling for his daring coverage of the Bosnian conflict. With his trusty cameraman Duck (Terrence Howard), Simon wasn't afraid to go into the fire fight if it meant getting great visuals and a great story to tell. A diva on the air and off, Simon basked in worldwide fame and its trappings, mostly in Serbian bars with beautiful Serbian women on each arm and a drink in every hand. Then, as the conflict worsened and the genocide became clearer, Simon snapped. During a live network shot from an ethnically cleansed village where bodies still burned, Simon uttered words that no one can utter on television.

He was fired immediately and began a spiraling descent, shooting and selling his own reports to tiny nations' state TV networks. Meanwhile, Duck got promoted right out of Bosnia, into a cushy gig in New York. He didn't see Simon again for nearly a decade when networks returned to Bosnia to celebrate ten years of a peace accord. Simon hasn't been heard of, even on state TV, in a few years but he too has returned and he has a story that Duck cannot resist. Simon knows where an infamous Bosnian terror leader is hiding and that though the CIA and the United Nations are supposed to be chasing him, they are in fact helping to hide him away.

With Duck and a young producer, Benjamin (Jesse Eisenberg), in tow, Simon makes the journey into terrorist controlled territory for what Duck and Ben thinks will be the interview of a lifetime but is really Simon's last shot at glory. Simon intends to capture the terrorist and expose the hypocrisy of the system that protected him for a decade. Hiding this fact from Duck and Benjamin, the story turns on whether this is Simon's quest for redemption or merely an arrogant and dangerous ploy from an egomaniac grasping at straws. 

Written and directed by Richard Shepard, who crafted the modestly brilliant The Matador in 2006, The Hunting Party is based on the true story of several international journalists who did in fact seek out and find Bosnian war criminals who were being squirreled away by international politicians who would rather sweep the genocide under the rug than go to the trouble of an international trial. The main character is an American because The Hunting Party was made by Americans for Americans. That is a little insulting but nothing new from a Hollywood that has never trusted the audience to simply enjoy a well told story regardless of the nation of origin.

My cynicism about Hollywood aside, Richard Gere is the perfect actor to play Simon. Playing the crusading journalist or the pretty boy egotist, Gere wears this character like an old suit and his comfort is a comfort to us. Effortlessly charismatic, few actors hold the screen as well as Gere. The weak link here, surprisingly, is Terrence Howard who may be falling victim to Kevin Spacey syndrome. Ever since his breakthrough Oscar nomination for Hustle and Flow, Howard seems to be over-serious in every role. Whether it's the swim coach in Pride who seems constantly on the verge of tears or his the social worker of August Rush who also seems on the verge of tears, Howard is straining to bring a little extra drama to every role. In The Hunting Party, Howard is only slightly less weepy. 

The role of Duck calls for hard bitten manliness crossed with slightly over the hill cynicism. Howard tries to play that idea but then strains things to the point of once again seeming on the verge of tears. The same struggle has swallowed the career of Kevin Spacey who now plays every role with dewy eyes. It's a shame because the character of Duck is a vital cog in the machinery of The Hunting Party and without him the film goes from exciting to adequate and from thrilling to modestly compelling. This is a good story, well told by director Richard Shepard and terrific by Richard Gere but it only gets a partial recommendation because Howard fumbles his important role.