About That INDEPENDENCE DAY Sequel Buzz...

Last weekend the world as we know it ended to thunderous applause as Roland Emmerich’s 2012 decimated the competition, proving once and for all that there are few sights movie-goers desire to witness more than the complete and utter annihilation of mankind’s proudest architectural achievements. (“Take that Sistine Chapel!” “Up yours Washington Monument!” “See you in Hell Eiffel Tower!!!”) And, for the most part, I shared their cackling, borderline-sadistic glee, as who doesn’t love a good fromage-scented Disaster Movie epic, replete with cartoonishly broad stereotypes, vividly rendered, huge-scale destruction, sudsy soap opera storytelling and ludicrous manufactured peril?

The answer appears to be precious few, considering that 2012 opened with a colossal bang, accumulating an impressive $65-million domestically and even more impressive $120 million in foreign ticket sales, practically paying off the flick’s considerable price-tag in a mere three days. Not too shabby, especially considering that it’s the latest work from a notoriously inconsistent director still valiantly attempting to fight his way back to the level of glory and power he held in his pre-Godzilla hey-day...

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Film Review - 2012

Does anyone else remember those petrifying Time-Life commercials that used to run in the late eighties? The ones attempting to hock expensive, oversize coffee-table books and videos about the Mayan civilization by using apocalyptic imagery of lava-spewing volcanoes and cracked land masses while an ominous booming narrator sternly warned, with alarming relish, that the world would come to an end on December 21st, 2012 *Insert deafening thunder-crack here*?

When I was about 9-years-old, myself and my younger sister Janine stumbled across one of those sanity-shaking ads one evening at my Grandparents while searching the dial for an episode of Dog House or Deke Wilson’s Mini-Mysteries. Needless to say, our initial transfixion, gazing wide-eyed at the unsettling cataclysmic visions and absorbing the bombastic chanting choir-from-Hell soundtrack, quickly turned to teary-eyed anxiety attacks, fretful nausea and more than a couple sleepless nights for the entire family.

Those life-long unpleasant memories lingered in the darkened air as I took my front-row seat for director Roland “Master of Disaster” Emmerich’s 2012 - a CG-slathered exploitative attempt to play upon the infomercial-fuelled Armageddon-apprehensions of saps like me – prepared to have my worst childhood fears realized for 158 long minutes (!). And indeed, the film’s early shots, scored to Harald Kloser and Thomas Wander’s low, seat-rumbling score and depicting our spherical, blue homeland lining up portentously with the surrounding planets, seemed to set the stage for a traumatic personal déjà vu experience to take place.

But as soon as Chiwetel Ejiofor’s determined scientist Adrian Helmsley strode confidently onto the screen, demanding answers for the global-warming epidemic from a sweaty colleague played by Jimi Mistry, I relaxed entirely. For, in wide-grinning, goofy spirit, 2012 is nothing if not a through and through spiritual cousin to Emmerich’s previous smash-the-Earth spectacles The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla and Independence Day; a super-sized cheese-ball epic where the wobbly dialogue and performances are infinitely more tragic than any amount of catastrophic carnage on screen.

With doomsday acting as a clothesline (our planet’s core is being micro-waved by an influx of neutrinos – not those elf-life aliens from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, but rather energy particles originating from the sun – which causes rapid crust heating and plate destabilization) we’re left with an intentionally diverse, broadly-sketched group of survivors who must undergo soap opera-style character arcs while racing to safety or, more often than not, their own grim demises. Each of these deaths can usually be telegraphed, in typical Disaster Movie style, by separating those who are pure-of-heart and have precocious young children and/or prospects for future importance from those who are just along for the ride.

Besides Ejiofor’s Helmsley, the rag-tag group consists of failed sci-fi writer Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), father to Noah (Liam James) and Lilly (Morgan Lily) and former husband to Kate (Amanda Peet, working in three modes: hysterical, nagging and adoring) – who’s now living with yuppie plastic surgeon Gordon (Tom McCarthy). There’s also a wing-nut conspiracy theorist (real-life wing-nut conspiracy theorist Woody Harrelson) as well as Jackson’s creepy, greasy Russian boss (Zlatko Buric, sounding like Jabba the Hutt after a week-long bender) and his cosmetically enhanced trophy girlfriend (Beatrice Rosen). Lastly, the American government is represented by Danny Glover’s gracious and noble Prez, Oliver Platt’s slimy, wrong-at-almost-every-turn Chief of Staff and Thandie Newton’s first daughter.

Movies of this genre have never been known for their rich characterizations, but the better ones – Independence Day included – intentionally chose larger-than-life charismatic actors to fill in the blanks and inspire an effective, if completely hollow, emotional connection. 2012 is noticeably deficient of these strong A-type personalities, with only Cusack, Platt, McCarthy and Ejiofor – a masterful actor capable of delivering even the most awful verbal swill with complete, authoritative conviction – managing to create any real impression amidst the computer-driven effects surplus.

Obviously the effects are the true star of the film and they are certainly sensational – for the first half of the film. Cusack and co.’s limo escape from the fissure cracked streets of L.A., where houses crumple like gingerbread and cars slide into the yawning abyss, is among the year’s greatest technical achievements. There’s an ugly magnificence to Emmerich’s devastation and one white-knuckle moment, in which a plane takes off from a collapsing runway and soars through a disintegrating office building – you can even see little people clinging to tables – is jaw-droppingly astounding. Unfortunately, the pandemonium grows a tad stale midway through, when the action leaves the U.S.A. and the environments become murkier and more indistinct and a tacked on Poseidon Adventure finale takes over, that is, considering what’s preceded it, a bit of a yawner.

2012 by no means qualifies as a “good film”; it’s too long, stuffed stupid with hoary speeches about humanity and the meaning of existence, and often disturbingly cynical (especially in portraying the unceremonious, cruel deaths of two heroic characters). Yet, as a messy big-screen, big sound experience, it’s strangely engaging. Few filmmakers are working on as gleefully gargantuan a scale as the German Auteur of Annihilation, and he proves once again that no one grasps the earnest ludicrousness and Rah-Rah! camp of the Irwin Allen 1970’s Disaster blockbusters quite like he does. It may be the end of the world as we know it but, with Emmerich in charge of conducting the chaos, I feel just fine.

3 out of 5

Film Review - A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Hard to believe, but it’s been almost a decade since Robert Zemeckis, the tech-whiz mastermind behind whimsical popcorn confections like Forrest Gump, Contact, Romancing the Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the Back to the Future series, has made a film with flesh-and-blood humans on-screen. No, rather, the Oscar-winning director has been toiling in his secret equipment-packed lair, like a classic Universal Horror mad scientist, concocting crazy experiments utilizing motion-capture technology. The process, wherein an actor’s recorded movements are translated into 1s and 0s and pasted onto a computer-generated character, has been hit or miss and inspired rigorous debate over whether the talented auteur’s determined vision is misguided and Quixotic or legitimately important and revolutionary.

Phase 1 of Zemeckis’ mo-cap trials led to the unpleasantly synthetic The Polar Express, an adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg’s beloved picture book, which mistook stomach-churning rollercoaster rides and creepy vacant-eyed children for fanciful holiday fun. However, despite its considerable narrative failings, the movie was a box-office smash, which, of course, led to Phase 2: Beowulf, a balls-to-the-wall take on the classic medieval poem. That hearty picture, while uneven and a mite unfocused in the mid-sections, was saved by the director’s aptitude for outlandish, demented violence and show-stopping images (Who can forget the ambitious dragon battle and even more epic naked CG Angelina Jolie?).

Now, to bring things full circle, the director has returned to the yuletide season for inspiration with the Jim Carrey-headlining A Christmas Carol, a visually striking tribute to Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella, which is surprisingly faithful in both look and vernacular to the original work’s chilly Victorian origins. Make no mistake, despite the Disney-approved family-friendly marketing push, this is a bleak and frightening film, destined to haunt the dreams of sensitive children for many, many winter nights to come.

The story feels almost as old as time itself, what with the already voluminous cornucopia of existing film translations – The Muppet Christmas Carol, Mickey’s Christmas Carol and the1951 Alistair Sim-starring version being my personal faves - absorbed into our collective consciousness, so we all know precisely what eerie events await wicked ol’ Ebenezer Scrooge (Carrey) on Christmas eve. Visited by the ghostly form of his deceased partner Jacob Marley (Gary Oldman), and three fateful spirits (all voiced by Carrey), the bitter grouch is taken on a journey into his own history and impending fate, as well as into the lives of his mistreated assistant Bob Cratchit (Oldman again) and jovial nephew Fred (Colin Firth). What happens from there, I leave for you to fill in the blanks. But you can take comfort in knowing that precocious Tiny Tim (Oldman yet once more) does, indeed, merrily declare “God bless us, everyone!”

Yet, despite the reputation and influence of its forebears, this 2009 film version stands confidently on its own two spindly legs, bravely driving its narrative into refreshingly gloomy places. This Scrooge isn’t quite as comically exaggerated as those we’ve seen before; a sinister stooped-over wraith-like man, who, as the film opens, greedily snatches the coins from the eyes of Marley’s rigid corpse. As imposingly embodied by Carrey, this Ebenezer is a true personification of ugliness, all insect-like sharp angles, who fully deserves every moment of torment he undergoes.

Thankfully, his suffering is made bearable for the audience by the rich, magnificent artistry of the film’s animation team, who have exhaustively recreated the crumbling cobblestones and pointed spires of early nineteenth century London. As well, they’ve given each supernatural encounter its own distinctive horrific mood. The appearance of Marley’s apparition is an anxiety-tingling exercise in cold, sweaty dread, full of heavy, clanking chains and decaying body parts, while Scrooge’s flights over the gloomy cityscape with the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present are exhilarating feasts for the eyes. Only the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come underwhelms, with Scrooge’s wrenching descent into hell delayed in favour of a silly and unnecessarily long chase scene.

In fact, the director is so intent on revelling in the mournful and macabre that he tends to short-change the emotion of his protagonist’s gradually unearthed humanity. Flashbacks to Scrooge’s youth are merely touched upon, with treasured figures like Fezziwig (Bob Hoskins) and his former beloved Belle (Robin Wright Penn) merely touched upon. Only the muted hopefulness of the Cratchit household really connects, mostly due to Gary Oldman’s sensitive and compassionate performance work.

Although there is still considerable ground to cover in regards to mo-cap filmmaking – aside from Scrooge, most of the characters’ eyes are a tad blank – A Christmas Carol is the first of Zemeckis’ computer-animated features to show distinct traces of a soul. Whether it has the staying power to remain a seasonal staple remains to be seen but it’s a darkly beautiful Gothic bedtime tale that is the ideal cinematic Christmas present to sneak an early peek at. Just remember to ask for some 3D glasses with it.

3.5 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Nov. 15th, 2009.

About That SPIDER-MAN 4 Villain...

Few news items are more entertaining to track than the burgeoning web of rumors which surround any given Spider-Man film prior to production. While some carry a nugget of truth at their sensationalized center, the more entertaining ones are the flat-out gonzo speculations that emanate from more questionable sources (i.e.: “Thomas Hayden Church AND Topher Grace playing Chameleon!” … “John Jameson set to be the Hobgoblin in Spidey 3!” … “Aunt May IS Carnage!”).

This week, Mania.com printed an article that stated Canadian sweetheart Rachel McAdams was the top contender for the role of Felicia Hardy, better known as the saucy, buxom thief Black Cat, in the ever-evolving Spider-Man 4 project. Without any real confirmation, this story holds all the weight of Tim Story’s artistic reputation. Sharp minds will recall that even back around 2005, Felicia Hardy was making headlines across the internet, with Chloe Sevigny rumored to be donning the sorta-villainess’ fur-lined bodysuit. While I’m of the camp that feels that using the character is a bad idea — a cat-themed female baddie? Familiar, much? — I’m more intrigued by the revelation later in the piece declaring that the creative team was scouting actors to play a new male villain...

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About That ROGER RABBIT Sequel...

Last week, I wrote a piece concerning some recently released clips from the approaching Jim Carrey-starring update of A Christmas Carol in which I made some pretty snarky, dismissive comments regarding Robert Zemeckis’ decade-long dedication to the all-motion-capture cinematic process, and the films which have resulted from it (i.e.: The Polar Express and Beowulf).

While I remain firmly in the corner of the camp who believes that the director’s obsession with subjecting movie-goers to an on-going series of impersonal-feeling technological trial runs has become something of a tiresome fool’s errand, I suspect that my withering criticisms were ultimately only a snap-defense to mask my real feelings regarding the issue...
For the rest of this article, visit:http://itsjustmovies.com/about-that-roger-rabbit-sequel/

About That GREEN HORNET Movie...

Being a near-obsessive movie buff, I’m a major sucker for superhero pictures. I love watching respected character actors being plunked into form-fitting rubber suits and engaging in CG-enhanced fisticuffs with absurdly-nicknamed megalomaniacs.
It’s exciting to watch how each newly launched property establishes its own unique rules and mythology, a vaguely recognizable world that envelopes us and allows us free reign to let our 12-year-old geek inhibitions run rampant...

For the rest of this article, visit: http://itsjustmovies.com/about-that-green-hornet-movie/

About That New STAR WARS Rumor...

On Oct. 21, a number of legitimate filmsites ran a tip regarding the strong possibility of a third Star Wars trilogy — an all-3D venture which would see George Lucas ceremoniously perched in the Emperor’s swiveling producer throne, overseeing the directorial efforts of such artistic luminaries as Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola.

Despite being leaked from a notoriously dubious source, it took precious little time — probably less than 12 par secs — for movie message boards and Twitter to be bombarded with fervent fanboy-driven hoopla...

For the rest of this article, visit: http://itsjustmovies.com/about-that-new-star-wars-rumor/

Epi-Cast: Episode 19 - "A Wild And Serious Podcast"

You dig it. You know it. You be lovin' and respectin' by downloadin' and collectin'. It is tha glorious-o! Epi-Cast...o! And it's back, in black, ridin' down the track, kickin' in your earphones while you drinkin' from a sack! Those "Wild Things", they be MASSIVE, and the Coen Bro's new movie, is about a dude who's passive! But anyway, I better split, cuz these rhymes are gettin' silly, and I best be gettin' to it! HOO-AW!

Epi-Cast: Episode 19 - "A Wild and Serious Podcast"

Wherein Tom and Cam run joyfully with Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are and ponder the meanings of a chaotic universe, thanks to the Coen Brother's latest opus A Serious Man. They also discuss the cheapie shocker Paranormal Activity, the Jamie Foxx/Gerard Butler high-octane-rollercoaster-slam-bang-wham-bam-guts-and-attitude-thrillride Law Abiding Citizen and the spook-tacular Halloween horror anthology Trick 'r Treat. As well, in a typically rambling "Trailer Park Encounters" segment, the two nitwits nitpick the latest promo clips for Toy Story 3, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and the Nic Cage period-piece horror flick Season of the Witch. It's all so much fun that'll you'll be consulting a therapist by morning!

To download, simply right-click and save on the green episode title above. Then you are free to indulge in one of the interweb's finest wonders.

P.S. We are also available on tha iTunes! No guff! Simply do a store search for "Epi-Cast" and, BIZARRO-METALLO!, you can subscribe to our feed and receive insta-dl's (Net speak for downloads). Oh, and we are the "Epi-Cast", not the "Epicast". Avoid those pretentious fools like the swine flu.

Film Review - PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

Conventional wisdom dictates that timing is everything, and certainly such is the case for Paranormal Activity. Arriving smack-dab in the midst of the bizarre ghost-hunting craze, this bargain budget supernatural startler has managed, through ultra-enthusiastic word of mouth and clever marketing, to become what the illustrious star of stage and screen LL Cool J once referred to as “something like a phenomenon”. Yet, although the film undeniably meets the necessary scare quotient, there’s a gimmickry artifice about the well-intentioned venture that sometimes cheapens what is intended as an experience in raw, intimate terror.

Shot in Blair Witch Project-style handheld-o-vision, Paranormal Activity is also, like that film, sold on being authentic footage of an ill-fated encounter with otherworldly forces. However, as opposed to twigs and people standing in corners, this film brings an invisible demonic force to the party, which violently disrupts the lives of a semi-flaky “engaged-to-be-engaged” couple occupying a palatial suburban San Francisco residence. Predictably, this unwelcome intruder draws differing reactions from its two hosts, with the tormented Katie (Katie Featherston) forced to confront her shadowy past while cynical day-trader Micah (Micah Sloat) keenly attempts to capture the spooky goings-ons on video.

As the two lovers document the mundanity of their daily lives, and divulge the reasoning behind their surveillance-heavy experiment, early attempts at grabbing uncanny episodes on tape prove fruitless, with an icemaker acting as the initial main source of eerie clatter. Still, concerns are raised considerably upon the discovery of night-time footage of a self-swinging door. Calling in a psychic (the disarmingly paternal Mark Fredrichs), the sleep-deprived duo is informed that an angry demon is at work, one which will only be satisfied by...

...and that’s where I’ll stop, as giving away anything more would risk devaluing the film of its seat-jumping shock tactics. For, like Blair Witch, there is little reason to watch Paranormal Activity once its ghoulish hand has been revealed. The film, unfortunately, clings to its attention-grabbing stunts like a life preserver, forsaking any sense of narrative drive or logic (Why don’t Micah and Katie ever turn on a light or try leaving the house early on? And how do they have the presence of mind to always grab the camera, much less frame their shots, when things get real bloodcurdling?) in favour of episodic chills. Writer/director Oren Peli knows how to keep the audience clutching uncomfortably at the armrest, but seems unsure of how to tell a story.

This handicap is most evident in the daytime scenes, depicted in random cuts of film which feel slightly too arbitrary to be believable – It’s doubtful that an eager-beaver shooter like Micah would keep turning the camera off mid-conversation just to restart it from a different angle – and occasionally kind of dull. A common stumbling block in quasi-documentary horror flicks is that, while true-life conversations are tedious when viewed on film, falsified attempts at true-life conversations are even worse. Look no further for this rule in action than in the awkward psychic scene in which clumsy expository dialogue brings the film’s realistic flow to an awkward standstill.

Leads Featherston and Sloat do bring a nice naturalistic energy to their work though, helping to smooth out Peli’s occasional directorial bumps and blunders. We more or less believe them as a couple, and as their relationship devolves into hysterical bickering we’re in there with them. It can’t be over-stated how refreshing it is to see two genuinely normal-looking individuals on screen, with Sloat’s clean-cut, yet slightly goofy, demeanour nicely complementing the smart-and-sexy girl-next-door appeal of Featherston who, as the film makes a somewhat cheeky effort to show, fills out her endless supply of tank-tops and boxers admirably. These two novices sell each and every on-screen fright with emotional honesty and relatable panic, and Paranormal Activity benefits hugely from it.

Make no mistake, you will undergo moments of intense dread during this film, with Peli dragging each and every moment of teeth-grinding suspense to the max. Rather than rely on gore or CG, the director successfully takes you back to those dark childhood nights where just a shadow or creak would send your heart rocketing into your throat. Applying a suffocating ambient soundtrack of boiler room sounds, and employing the most basic practical effects, the fiendish nocturnal visitor’s presence looms forbiddingly over ever dimly-lit scene. Even the most cynical of movie-goers will likely find themselves having to remember to breathe in the nerve-obliterating latter sections.

The value of Paranormal Activity depends almost solely on the conditions you experience it in, with the preference being either a theatre or suitably darkened TV room. It isn’t a great film by any stretch, or even a consistently good one, but it’s an effective exercise in audience manipulation that plays like an amusement park ride, with all the requisite thrills, spills and surprises you desire. Just try not to be the last person in line.

3 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Oct 26th, 2009.

Film Review - WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

No doubt about it, Where the Wild Things Are is a product of magical madness, the result of a gutsy studio (Warner Brothers) handing an ultra-pricy property to a maverick auteur in the hopes that some sort of movie-making alchemy would take place. With Spike Jonze, the punk-rock wunderkind responsible for the surrealistic head-trip epics Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, vividly reimaging Maurice Sendak’s uniquely illustrated beloved children’s literary staple, the final product was destined to be peculiar and challenging - a reality which incited numerous behind-the-scenes creative fisticuffs. Fortunately, from the turmoil has emerged an oft-flawed beauty of a film whose emotional and visual triumphs outweigh its pesky narrative shortcomings.

From the outset, with its graffiti-covered opening titles – which are curiously reminiscent of the studio’s The Dark Knight viral marketing campaign – and dynamic handheld opening featuring the movie’s little hero Max (Max Records) aggressively wrestling with the family dog, Where the Wild Things Are wears it’s down-and-dirty indie aesthetic on its scruffy, frayed sleeve. Jonze has hardwired the look of the film to the rambunctious psyche of his diminutive protagonist, a thin-skinned, hyperactively imaginative young boy trapped in the gulf between childhood and adolescence, desperate for the attentions of his popular older sister and busy single mom (the invaluable Catherine Keener). After a nasty domestic fight, spurred by the presence of a male suitor (Mark Ruffalo, in a brief part), little Max runs anxiously from the house and into the nearby woods. Or does he?

Max’s distressed entrance into the dim forest transforms into an epic journey across turbulent seas and craggy precipices, drawing him into the ominous island woodlands which the wild things call home. Initially threatened by the gargantuan creatures, the young boy is saved from certain devouring by the hot-blooded Carol (James Gandolfini), the volatile outsider of the group who convinces his monstrous family unit to crown Max as their king. Proving to be an eager ruler, the juvenile monarch initially engages the towering beasts in numerous games and fort-building ventures, before more complicated issues begin to rear their head. While Carol pines for the attentions of the distant KW (Lauren Ambrose), and the smaller, sensitive Alexander (voiced by Paul Dano, and resembling the bipedal cousin of The NeverEnding Story’s luckdragon Falkor) yearns to have his voice heard, Max finds himself having to empathize with and ease the complex painful feelings of his hulking subjects before summoning up the courage to return to his earthly home.

The world created by Jonze and his art department is both wondrously pristine and domesticated, and when we step into it, leaving behind the authentic middle-class suburban reality of Max’s universe, we are entering a new kind of place entirely; a fantastical land which stirs within us a sense of marvel and inquisitiveness. Inhabited by the immense monsters - stunning achievements of CG and practical effects - which bear grubby, matted fur and unclean claws, the island is a setting where the dreams of cinematic enthusiasts come true. Watching Max and his newfound friends standing on a cliff, perilously close to the treacherous surf, howling at the golden horizon, waves of astonished chills flowed down my spine. There are numerous moments in Wild Things that will leave you breathless with appreciation.

Truly, the film’s success hinges on young Max Records, a real find, who plays a refreshingly naturalistic kid; playful and intelligent, but also irrational and difficult. We believe the unfolding extraordinary events because we believe he does, and his relationship with Gandolfini’s lovingly textured Carol is superbly developed. They have a heart-to-heart while journeying across a sandy plain that is intensely moving and a visit to the monster’s secret model room produces one of the film’s most gorgeously memorable scenes.

Yet one has to question who the film was made for. The script, by Jonze and Dave Eggers, is exceptional at conveying the deeper meanings behind the monsters’ personal parallels to Max’s own life, but too formless and oblique to be an easily accessible story. Frankly, it’s often something of a downer, with an omnipresent air of melancholy and an intentionally uncertain ending. As much as kids love ambiguity and rich subtext, Wild Things feels like the work of an eccentric filmmaker completely baffled by the wants or needs of his target audience, more interested in playing to the parents who are capable of performing the necessary heavy-lifting.

Although the movie ultimately falls short of its lofty aims, there is a beguiling purity in its dark, wounded soul that captures a greater truth – one which some may feel slightly uncomfortable acknowledging. Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are is an entirely new breed of animal altogether, a grown-up children’s fable with passion and bite. There are wonders to be found within its gloomy frames, but what you discover there may not be quite what you were prepared for.

4 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Oct. 19th, 2009.

Film Review - ZOMBIELAND

Shouldn’t we all be feeling zombied out by now? Forty-one years since George A. Romero messily birthed the modern shuffling zombie spectacle with the creep-classic, Night Of The Living Dead, and we’re still watching drooling stiffs mindlessly meandering from Day to Dawn. This has inspired cheeky British parodies, sub-moronic Milla Jovovich vehicles, and weirdo Jane Austen literary crossovers. I mean, after the refined Mr. Darcy has started stomping undead ass, where else is there left to go?

The answer, of course, is the devastated, corpsepacked playground Zombieland, home to a truly memorable mixed bag of misfits and director Ruben Fleischer’s colourful send-up of all things flesh-eating and decayed. In the spirit of the film’s survival-rule-obsessed lead character nicknamed Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg — starring in his second great amusement park comedy of the year following April’s Adventureland), it seems fitting that Zombieland be evaluated by the same six crucial criteria that all of its reanimated ilk should be:

Rule #1: The lead characters need not be zombies, too!

Perhaps due to the syrupy-slow saunter of your average human-hungry assailant, it often seems like filmmakers are trying to even the odds by stockpiling entire casts of personality-deficient lobotomy victims. After the infuriatingly hysterical mass media critics of Diary of the Dead and the hordes of generic carcass fodder in the Resident Evil debacles, what a joy to encounter the lovable quartet of weapon wielding eccentrics of Zombieland. We genuinely like Eisenberg’s stammering, fretful teen; Woody Harrelson’s redneck dynamo Tallahassee; and cute con-artist sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). It’s their playful interactions and bickering, not the voracious villains, which drives the film and provides it with its unexpectedly big heart. Their chemistry is so palpable that we laugh just as much at the big gags as the smaller beats, such as when Breslin patiently educates an intrigued Harrelson on the finer points of Hannah Montana.

Rule #2: With zombies, it’s all about location, location, location!

Look, there’s nothing more boring than watching the living-impaired stumble around underground bunkers and caverns. It’s been done to . . . er . . . death. The same goes for stuffy, darkened buildings and subterranean tunnels: when it comes to cannibalistic cadavers, the more recognizable and imaginative the environment, the better. Remember Dawn of the Dead’s mall complex or 28 Weeks Later’s English countryside? They were bright and wide open, making the possibility of capture all the more horrifying and frustrating. Zombieland plays around with some fun cramped settings, such as a restroom toilet, a college student’s apartment, and a tacky souvenir store, before graduating onto a superlative after dark amusement park shoot-‘em-up finale which, in crowd-stirring style, takes full advantage of every possible prop, obstacle, and attraction in sight.

Rule #3: Zombies like brains! So do we!

Given the proliferation of dimly assembled cheapie efforts, it’s often forgotten that zombie-fests are usually the most intelligent horror sub-genre, allowing a safe venue for incisive political and social commentaries exploring controversial subjects such as race, capitalism, post-9/11 anxiety, and the injustices of the Bush era. Although Zombieland is more interested in drawing laughs, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick work overtime to ensure that every pop-culture reference, witty jibe, and sincere moment says something about the character spouting it. Even Eisenberg’s goofy narration, which occasionally feels a little too on-the-nose in regards to the film’s emotional messages, shrewdly comments not only on the grisly events in progress, but also the aspects of zombielore being referenced and subverted.

Rule #4: The only good zombie is a gloriously demolished one!

Ever since Romero used a helicopter blade to chop the top off of a decomposing aggressor, directors have made it their goal to discover new blackly tongue-in-cheek methods of destroying their monsters and to make said methods as splatteringly bizarre as possible. Zombieland, despite lacking the usual volcanoes of viscera, more than compensates with an escalating series of over-the-top-and-downthe- other-side zombie slaughters: the poor, lurching saps are pulverized with pianos, funhouse hammers, car-doors, pruning shears, and even with a banjo which has just finished playing Deliverance’s “Duelling Banjos” tune.

Rule #5: Zombies like famous people! . . . to eat!

A masterful cameo performance can be the difference between a good film and a great one. While the sidesplitting Shaun of the Dead played it subtle with blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em turns by Cate Blanchett and Peter Jackson, Zombieland goes the Planet Terror, Quentin Tarantino route, with a destined-for-classic-status extended guest spot (which shall remain unspoiled here) that is so unforgettably wry — and strangely plausible — that it provides the film with a blazing jolt of comic oomph.

Rule #6: Zombies always live to munch another day.

Even though this movie ends optimistically, eschewing a conventional bleak conclusion, it still leaves us hanging on the perfect note: satisfied and beaming, yet curious to know where our heroes will journey next. Despite being overrun with rotten, ravaging man-eaters, you can’t help but want to revisit Zombieland. Dead or alive.

3.5 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Oct. 12th, 2009.

Epi-Cast: Episode 18 - "Attack Of The Nebbishy Undead"

The hiatus is over, and the Epi-Cast has risen up from the apparent dead, like a salivating soul-sucker creeping out of a freshly dug grave. However, rather than drain your body of lifeforce, the Epi-Cast only yearns to siphon your frontal lobes of smart-juice, through an ever-reliable mixture of rambing film discussion and general rambunctiousness! Hail we, who podcast from a basement!

Epi-Cast: Episode 18 - "Attack of the Nebbishy Undead"

In this most spanking of episodes, Cam and Tom grab their trusty chainsaws and shotguns and go to work on both the Woody Harrelson splatstick hit Zombieland and the Diablo Cody ghoul-girls-gone-wild dud Jennifer's Body. They also catch up to speed with reviews of Shane Acker's animated film 9, Clive Owen's The Boys Are Back, Matt Damon and Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! (A no-prize awaits whoever can guess which host fell asleep!) and the Paul Gross-starring/directed Canadian war epic Passchendale. It's also a juicy Trailer Park Encounters segment, with coverage of the no-doubt future Oscar nominee Up In The Air, the no-doubt future Scream Award nominee A Nightmare On Elm Street, the no-doubt future Razzie Award nominee The Blind Side and, um, From Paris With Love. Goddamn, this is one tasty episode!

To download, simply right-click and save on the green episode title above. Then you are free to indulge in one of the interweb's finest wonders.

P.S. We are also available on iTunes! We kid you not! Simply do a store search for "Epi-Cast" and, ELECTRO-MYSTERIO!, you can subscribe to our feed and receive insta-dl's (Net speak for downloads). Oh, and we are the "Epi-Cast", not the "Epicast". Avoid those pretentious fools like the flesh-eating plague.

Film Review - THE BOYS ARE BACK

Sometimes it only takes a dash or two of big-time movie star charisma and directorial verve to make the wheeziest of cinematic prospects crackle with authenticity and energy. Such is the case with The Boys Are Back: an amiable, Australia-set family drama involving a recently widowed sports writer’s unconventional journey towards responsible single-fatherhood, which should, theoretically, be almost unbearably gooey and corny, but is instead a genuinely audience-pleasing addition to the already considerable “reluctant parent” genre. Chalk it up to director Scott Hicks, who previously explored the complexities of father/ son relationships to great effect with 1996’s Oscar- scoring Shine, and an atypically warm Clive Owen — subduing his usual on-screen knack for brooding animal magnetism — for putting their collective talents together in the service of something simple, irony-free, and surprisingly endearing.

Owen’s Joe Warr is an undeniably flawed individual when we first come across him, a somewhat distant father and husband, whose jet-setting lifestyle depends heavily on the thankless efforts of his wife Katy (Laura Fraser), who acts as primary care-giver to their challenging six-yearold moppet, Artie (Nicolas McAnulty). However, after Katy succumbs to the ravages of terminal cancer, both of the surviving males find themselves at a grief-stricken loss, unable to truly communicate with each other, and emotionally isolated from those around them. In an effort to coax the boy out of his shell, Joe adopts a “Just Say Yes” policy, dubbing their house “Hog Heaven” and allowing for almost complete liberation from rules and responsibilities.

Although Joe’s novel new parenting strategy is met with apprehensive concern by his worried mother-in-law Barbara ( Julia Blake), who is both his closest confidante and most headstrong adversary, as well as a pretty young local woman named Laura (Emma Booth), who helps teach Artie’s elementary school class, it quickly creates a bond between the two Warr men. It also lures Joe’s London-based teenage son Harry (George Mackay), an oft-ignored product of an earlier marriage, back into his life — an added personality dynamic which threatens to topple the idyllic unruliness of “Hog Heaven” and forces him to become a stronger and more responsible role model and human being.

While this may all sounds like a drippy voyage into the nether-regions of Movie-Of-The-Week Hell, Hicks — a consummate professional finally back on the ball after a hard decade spent dragging musty Awards-bait fodder to the screen — battles the potential pitfalls of the material at every turn. Working with Alan Cubitt’s refreshing script, adapted from Simon Carr’s memoir, the director shows a sharp eye for avoiding the most irritating conventions: consider the relationship between Joe and the adorable Laura — a development that would seem to hint at hoary romantic melodrama — which is allowed to progress naturally and tenderly. These people have too much on their respective plates for a full-bore head-inthe- clouds love story, and the filmmakers respect their characters too much to crassly concoct one in order to sell tickets. They also show admirable restraint in the conversations between Joe and his deceased wife: these are moments which are portrayed in a recognizably grounded reality as opposed to being accompanied by soft lighting and histrionic strings.

Owen has rarely been better or freer, hiding his sorrows behind held-back tears and alcohol, while simultaneously radiating giddy excitement at each of Joe’s new breakthroughs. Upon discovering, early on, that his younger son has converted a hotel hot tub into an indoor water-park, the actor’s eyes run the gamut of emotions, from shock, to disbelief, apprehension, acceptance and, finally, unbridled joy, spelling out all we need to understand Joe’s transition into a champion of domestic disorder. He provides a perfect foundation for his energetic young co-stars to bounce off of, allowing for natural, affectationfree performances. Mackay in particular has one shattering blowout of a scene, stemming from a dispute over an un-emptied garbage bin, which is an emotionally devastating showstopper.

Dramatics aside, The Boys Are Back is also a flat-out wonderful looking feature, filled with sun-kissed Australian scenery captured in all of its awe-inspiring splendour by cinematographer Greig Fraser. In a voiceover, Owen reports that when mapping the human brain, an adult’s mind reveals symmetrical flat lines, while a child’s is all zigzags and unpredictability. This insight not only informs Joe’s yo-yo-like trip between adulthood and childlike abandon, but also the film’s many gorgeous visual motifs, with the stark, flat horizons contrasted against turbulent ocean waves and craggy rock formations. Fraser’s work is a radiant character unto itself and warrants notices in the impending Awards season.

If you’re willing to surrender to the movie’s leisurely pace, which, it must be said, unravels a tad during the continent-hopping third act before wrapping up in cheerily expected fashion, there is much to admire and, indeed, love about it. The Boys Are Back doesn’t aim for flashiness or innovation, but it is honest, heartfelt and, most importantly, it works. And sometimes that’s all that really counts.

3.5 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Oct. 5th, 2009.