markbernstein (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} markbernstein) wrote,@ 2009-11-07 17:07:00 |
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Movies, current
Sharon's out of town for a few days, visiting a friend, so I treated myself to a couple of movies that I knew wouldn't interest her.
Zombieland is incredibly gory, very violent, over the top, and one f*ck of a lot funnier and more emotionally satisfying than it has any right to be. The cast strikes a perfect balance, playing people who were quirky even before the zombie plague hit, but playing them absolutely straight, without a single wink to the audience. The fight scenarios are ridiculous and inventive, the script as a whole well constructed. The pseudo-science behind the zombies is complete garbage, of course (mutated mad cow), but other than that the logic of the world works just well enough to keep the movie going. The biggest flaw, I think, is that the character arcs were awfully predictable. In the end, though, I gave in to it and laughed a lot. (BTW, the filmmakers chose - wisely, I think - to front-load the gore. If you can get past the first fifteen minutes, the rest is fairly easy to take.) The biggest WTF of the evening was seeing a trailer for New Moon, the new Twilight movie. Where exactly is the audience overlap between gory zombie comedy and angsty vampire romance?
Astro Boy has gotten mixed reviews, so I was pleasantly surprised. There's a real script here, with a plot that's more than a series of incidents, setups that lead to payoffs I didn't always see coming, plausible character motivations, and some nice plot bits. The CGI animation may not be state of the art, but it's close. The main characters are visually faithful to Tezuka's originals. The voice work isn't spectacular, but it's all solid. Good stuff, overall.
Sharon's out of town for a few days, visiting a friend, so I treated myself to a couple of movies that I knew wouldn't interest her.
Zombieland is incredibly gory, very violent, over the top, and one f*ck of a lot funnier and more emotionally satisfying than it has any right to be. The cast strikes a perfect balance, playing people who were quirky even before the zombie plague hit, but playing them absolutely straight, without a single wink to the audience. The fight scenarios are ridiculous and inventive, the script as a whole well constructed. The pseudo-science behind the zombies is complete garbage, of course (mutated mad cow), but other than that the logic of the world works just well enough to keep the movie going. The biggest flaw, I think, is that the character arcs were awfully predictable. In the end, though, I gave in to it and laughed a lot. (BTW, the filmmakers chose - wisely, I think - to front-load the gore. If you can get past the first fifteen minutes, the rest is fairly easy to take.) The biggest WTF of the evening was seeing a trailer for New Moon, the new Twilight movie. Where exactly is the audience overlap between gory zombie comedy and angsty vampire romance?
Astro Boy has gotten mixed reviews, so I was pleasantly surprised. There's a real script here, with a plot that's more than a series of incidents, setups that lead to payoffs I didn't always see coming, plausible character motivations, and some nice plot bits. The CGI animation may not be state of the art, but it's close. The main characters are visually faithful to Tezuka's originals. The voice work isn't spectacular, but it's all solid. Good stuff, overall.
